Anticipatory measures of the type here pointed out are usually not

thought of by the inexperienced teacher as devices of class management.

Class discipline is usually assumed to be a matter of the moment. If

one will learn to look ahead, it is surprising how far most situations

can be anticipated. The first day a teacher meets a class it is

possible to foresee that it will be safer to require certain members

of the group to sit apart. It is better to arrange their seats at once

rather than to wait until an overt act precipitates a separation as a

punishment.

The fact is that unfavorable social situations usually grow out of

conditions that are remote and cannot be dealt with adequately at the

moment. The disorderly boy is often one whose physical condition is

unfit. The school is beginning to recognize the importance of proper

feeding and proper hours of sleep, and is taking steps to see that

pupils receive at home and at the luncheon hour the kind of hygienic

attention which will prepare them for the work of the class. The social

situation in the classroom is thus anticipated by a whole series of

preparatory moves which at first sight seem remote from the teacher’s

direct task of meeting a class.

The attitude which is encouraged by a study of anticipatory measures is

the same as that which is coming into the practice of medicine. There

was a time when the physician regarded it as his chief duty to deal

with disease after it had actually appeared. To-day the far-sighted

practitioner is an advocate of what he calls preventive medicine. He

aims to get the community interested in preparing in advance wholesome

conditions which will conduce to health. The teacher’s task ought

not to be that of constantly penalizing pupils who have done wrong;

it should be rather that of preparing conditions which will reduce

disorder to a minimum and promote to its highest degree orderly

procedure in the class.

ORGANIZATION OF ROUTINE

The anticipation of social needs passes insensibly into the

organization of regular forms of routine to be followed in the class

exercise itself. The class exercise is not different in its essentials

from any social gathering. It has been found necessary in meetings

of any type to require one who would speak to secure the floor. It

would lead to social chaos if everyone in an assembly spoke his mind

according to his own personal impulse.

The difficulty in applying this analogy to the classroom and the

difficulty in general about all fixed routine is that free discussion

is often defeated by formality. The teacher is anxious, if he

understands his task, to draw out the enthusiastic response of every

member of his class. How to do this and at the same time avoid

confusion which will disturb the whole group is a nice problem of

adjustment. Formal methods should be required and adhered to far enough

to insure the smooth operation of the social life of the class, but

spontaneity should be prized and conserved.

Another and perhaps more fortunate example of routine to avoid

confusion is to be found in an effective beginning of a class exercise.

When a recitation is about to begin, it is a matter of major importance

that the teacher be ready with something which will attract the

attention of the whole class. Some instructors accomplish this with

the first question; some resort to such a device as the announcement

of the next assignment; some begin with a summary of the last lesson;

some have the members of the class write for a few minutes. In sharp

contrast with these methods which indicate that the instructor is

ready and knows what he wants done are the aimless wanderings of some

instructors who look over their desks for a book which seems to be lost

in the débris, or the time-consuming roll call indulged in by others.

A third type of illustration of orderly procedure is the

systematization of methods of passing in material. If pupils arrange

their written work or their books or other material in a regular

fashion, there will be no disorder in handling them. The social group

will move as a unit, and this common movement will itself make for

social solidarity.

There is much sanction in social psychology for this emphasis on

routine. The customs of primitive peoples take on the character of

sacred rites, so essential are they to the common life of the social

group. Even in civilized society the demands of the group are

paramount. There is in the family a fixed time for eating meals, not

because hunger coincides in its reappearances with the movements of the

clock but because the joint activities of a social group proceed better

when they are systematized.

The routinizing of school work can go too far. The requirement has

been imposed within the memory of this adult generation that pupils

sit in their seats through long recitation periods with their hands

behind their backs. Marching in lockstep from class to class has

sometimes been required. The list could be lengthened indefinitely. The

trouble in most of these cases is that the teacher loses sight of the

educational motive of all discipline and begins to think of so-called

order as an end in itself.

PUNISHMENTS AND REWARDS

Even after a situation has been as carefully organized as is humanly

possible, there are sure to come social emergencies. These furnish

occasions for a type of discipline which is valuable not so much for

the effect which it produces on the present situation as for its effect

on the future. Furthermore, there is often very little expectation that

the future will bring an exact repetition of the particular situation

which has just passed. The discipline is therefore general in its type

rather than specifically applicable to the present.

Viewed as a general preparation for the future, the social condemnation

or approval of an act is often very important. For example, a boy

breaks something through sheer carelessness. Shall the teacher

pass the act without comment, or shall the act be made an occasion

for punishment? Some people are disposed to determine what kind of

treatment shall be given in terms of the value of the object broken.

This is evidently to make of the specific act a specific issue. It is

better, if it can be done, to detach attention from the specific act

and note the general consequences of carelessness. Educationally, the

accident furnishes an opportunity to warn, not against breaking that

particular object again, but against being careless. If the lesson is

well taught, it will tend to keep the boy from rushing about in the

future without regard for his surroundings, whatever those surroundings

may be.

Commendation, like blame, is useless except as it sets up in the

pupil’s mind true canons of judgment. To praise a child for a

particular act, merely concentrating attention on that act, is to

neglect the opportunity of cultivating a general virtue.

So complicated are the issues touched on in the last few paragraphs

that many teachers feel that the safest course is to avoid praise

and blame as far as possible and allow natural consequences to open

the eyes of children to the virtue or error of their ways. Social

approbation and social condemnation are thought of as something highly

artificial and to be avoided. Experience does not justify this view.

Social life has its rewards and its punishments, and the child will

miss a large part of his education if he does not come to understand

the importance to him of social values.

Let us consider a concrete case. A group of small boys in the fourth

grade hid the rubbers and umbrella of a little girl in their grade

one rainy noon, so that the girl was much delayed in starting home

for luncheon and was much distressed. What could be done? The range

of ordinary school punishments seems very limited. In earlier days

there was a form of punishment capable of the nicest gradations and of

universal application for every offense. But corporal punishment has

gone, and if, from among the remaining possibilities, properly adjusted

punishment is to be administered, it must be devised with ingenuity and

regulated in quantity. The teacher in the case referred to hit on the

plan of making the three little boys serve the girl for a week. They

brought her coat and hat to her after school. She sent them on errands

to the library. They learned more under the careful observation of the

class about how boys should treat others, especially girls, than they

could possibly have thought out in long months of freedom from the

bonds of service.

Legitimate praise is perhaps harder to administer with equity

than punishment. The teacher holds up a child’s drawing and calls

attention to its excellences. The danger is that the child will become

self-conscious and conceited. A boy is polite and the teacher remarks

on the fact. The other boys in the class who have not of late merited

such praise make a virtue of their freedom from the taint of the

teacher’s praise.

The difficulty of laying down any principles regulating punishment

and praise is that cases cannot be discussed intelligently without

reference to the general social situations in which they find their

setting. It may be said, indeed, that when an act is performed, it is

too late to deal with it adequately in any case. The only effective

form of classroom management is that which anticipates the act and

develops a social atmosphere in which condemnation or approbation is

naturally and spontaneously contributed by the whole group.

It is sometimes said that good school discipline is to be found only

where there is no discipline. This remark is true only when discipline

is thought of as synonymous with punishment administered; it assumes

that the administration of such punishment is the chief or only form of

discipline. In a larger view of the situation one should recognize that

the best school discipline is that which guides the social group at all

times and controls its attitudes toward all acts. The spirit of a class

is no accident of the moment. That teacher has the best discipline

who has planned and prepared the social situation so carefully that a

departure from the established order brings an instant and wholesome

response from the whole group.

LARGER SOCIAL ORGANIZATION

With this larger view of discipline in mind, one may legitimately

introduce into this discussion a reference to those forms of elaborate

organization of the school group which are sometimes attempted in the

school-city or the school-state. Under these plans the pupils of a

school are organized into an imitation city or state patterned after

the adult corporation. The purpose of such an experiment is twofold.

First, the conduct of a miniature organization prepares the pupils for

participation in later life in the duties of citizenship, and second,

there grows up a feeling of responsibility for the conditions in the

immediate social group. The officers of the school-city are more active

than they would otherwise be in restraining their fellows from possible

disorder and in promoting acts which redound to the advantage of all.

These elaborate organizations are educational devices which often

stimulate great interest and serve their twofold purpose admirably. In

general, it must be remembered that a sense of responsibility cannot be

cultivated in a day and is not the natural possession of an immature

mind. Unless there is constant supervision the school-city is likely to

go on the rocks even as a real municipality suffers from the tendency

of human nature to backslide. The teacher must bring to the school-city

those experiences and those social stimulations which will train and

keep alive the community spirit.

It is a mistake to assume that social organization exists only where

it finds expression in some such elaborate form as is discussed in

the foregoing paragraphs. Social attitudes of some kind are always

present. The teacher who leaves the matter to mere chance runs risks.

The teacher who overdoes organization suffers from the reaction which

commonly follows restraint. The teacher who deals with the situation

with plan and foresight may mold the social group into a helpful agency

contributing greatly to the work of the school.

ATTEMPTS TO CLASSIFY UNRULY MEMBERS OF THE SOCIAL GROUP

However carefully the social whole has been organized, there comes

a time when an unruly member appears. The teacher’s task is then to

defend the group and bring the eccentric member if possible under the

influence of the social order.

In a very interesting chapter in his volume on “School Discipline”

Professor Bagley has supplied the evidence that no classroom can be

regarded as free from the appearance of unruly types of students.

Even good teachers of long experience who in general are free from

difficulties with the discipline of their classes find it necessary

to give special attention to the troublesome types. These types are

described by Professor Bagley as including the following: the stubborn

pupil who makes difficulty because he is constantly refusing to fit

into the social order; the haughty pupil who is not merely conceited

but in his ordinary performances disturbs the regular social routine

by his overbearing attitude both toward his fellows and his teacher;

the self-complacent pupil who cannot be aroused to activity by any of

the ordinary inducements that are presented by the school. Other types

include the irresponsible pupil, the morose pupil, the hypersensitive

pupil, the deceitful pupil, and the vicious pupil.

This collection of unmanageables fortunately does not turn up in

any single class at one time, but, as Professor Bagley remarks, it

would be unwise for us to leave young teachers with the idea that

the appearance of any one of these types is due to the teacher’s

inefficiency. Many an efficient young teacher is baffled at the outset

by the difficulties of dealing with one or another of these types of

students. Professor Bagley made inquiry of some of the best teachers

whom he could locate, and found that it is inevitable that pupils

of these types are to be found sooner or later in every school. The

wise teacher does well to plan in advance for the reception of the

particular specimen that is sure to fall to his lot with every ten or

twelve pupils.

IMPERSONAL DISCIPLINE

The final comment which may be made in this connection is that the

teacher must recognize that school discipline is a professional and

educational problem, not a matter of purely personal relations between

pupil and teacher. The teacher is dealing with a problem of group

organization; he cannot allow the fractious pupil to pull him down to

the level of a personal controversy. It is difficult at times to keep

from the strong emotional reactions which blind the teacher to this

objective view of school order, but the efficient teacher will see to

it that the group idea and the needs of the social whole guide every

act of discipline and reward.

EXERCISES AND READINGS

Distinguish between pupils of different ages with reference to the form

of discipline appropriate. Does the first-grade child have any sense of

responsibility? How far can a class in a high school be trusted to take

care of its own order?

A commission in New York City, after studying the cases of disobedient

pupils, recommended a return to corporal punishment. What can be said

in favor of such a move? What are the evils of corporal punishment?

Society as a whole has taken an entirely new attitude in modern times

toward the matter of punishment. The prison policy of modern nations is

different from the older policy. What can be said with regard to prison

education? What is the relation of crime to physical conditions?

With regard to the matter of rewards and prizes, what can be said for

and against exemption from examinations as a reward for good work?

Should medals be given for high scholarship? What is the attitude

of society at large outside of the school in regard to rewards?

For example, what does society do for the painter, the author, the

successful plumber and carpenter? Is the example of society at large

capable of direct translation into school practice?

BAGLEY, W. C. School Discipline. The Macmillan Company.

MOREHOUSE, F. M. The Discipline of the School. D. C. Heath and Company.

PERRY, A. C. Discipline as a School Problem. Houghton Mifflin Company.

SPENCER, HERBERT. Education. Chapter III on Moral Education. D.

Appleton and Company.

CHAPTER XVIII

SELECTED ADMINISTRATIVE PROBLEMS

PROGRAMS AND MARKS

The regular and orderly movement of a social group depends on

the adoption of a program. The daily program of a school is an

indispensable formal device for maintaining that type of solidarity

which was discussed in the last chapter. A second formal device of

school control is the marking system, under which the pupil’s status

is determined and in accordance with which all his relations of an

official type are regulated. The marking system may be treated as a

conventional plan for distributing social rewards and punishments.

Together, the daily program and the marking system are so much more

significant than any other devices of social organization that they may

properly be selected for special treatment.

THE TOTAL SCHOOL DAY

The arrangement of the daily program involves, first of all, the

determination of the total amount of time available in the school day.

Reliable information on this matter is at hand for a large number of

the smaller cities of the United States, as indicated in the following

quotation:

The following statistics show present conditions regarding the length

of the school day. Of 1,270 cities reporting, 338 have a school day

of from four and a half to five hours; 521, from five to five and a

half hours; 411, from five and a half to six hours. Of 1,310 cities

reporting, 1,242 have two daily sessions, and 68 but one daily

session. The tendency is toward a longer school day, especially in the

grammar grades and in the high school. The opinion of most school men

is that a high school of two sessions is superior to a high school of

one session. With the one-session plan, but little time is available

for study periods. It is evident that four recitations, the number

generally required, demand more than one or two 45 or 50 minute

periods for study. The theory is that with the one-session plan pupils

will prepare their lessons at home in the afternoon. The experience of

the superintendents who have tried the one-session plan has generally

been similar to that of the superintendent of schools at Detroit,

Minn., who says:

The one-session plan which I found in vogue in this high school was

retained for the present year so that its workings might be studied.

It is fine in theory, but a failure in practice. Asking the pupils to

be ready for work at 8:30 caused much tardiness. It was impossible

for those who came by the bus or train to be on time. Then the fact

that the high school had one time schedule and the grades another,

while occupying the same building, caused endless confusion. During

the afternoon, when students came back only for shop and laboratory

work or to consult teachers, there was further annoyance from students

passing to and fro through the halls. There was too much idling

about the buildings for the good of the grades in session or of the

high-school students themselves. Of course, the fine theory was that

students would spend the afternoon studying in the quiet and freedom

of their homes, but they didn’t. Too many of them roamed the streets

and came to class unprepared the next day. The plan also kept the

industrial teachers waiting until afternoon before they could begin

their work. They were compelled to do it when pupils were tired and

nervous. This work ought to be interspersed through the day to relieve

the tension of the other work.

One argument advanced in favor of the one-session plan is that many

students work their way through school by using the afternoon. The

facts are otherwise. This year only three boys have worked afternoons,

and possibly the same number of girls.

Next year we shall return to the “long day” and lengthen the time

devoted to each subject, so as to give teachers a better chance to

teach it thoroughly. Each student will also have a longer time at

school to study under the supervision of the principal.[81]

At Gary the eight-hour school day with variations in the program to

secure play, shopwork, class work, and entertainment is the ideal

toward which the system is working. In some other quarters the

reduction of formal school work has been advocated on the assumption

that outdoor work and play can be supplied by the home or some other

agency enough to fill up the pupil’s waking hours. Whatever the form

taken by the discussion, one leading tendency appears everywhere:

the child’s work should be organized throughout the day. In most

communities this means that the school will be called on to extend its

control to most of the hours.

THE CLASS PERIOD

When the length of the school day has been determined, the problem

of subdividing the day presents itself. The subdivision must first

of all recognize the claims of various subjects. The type of problem

which arises at this point was discussed at length in the chapters on

the curriculum, and we need not here discuss further the claims of

subjects. We turn now to the general problem of class organization

which can be formulated in the question, How long can a student

profitably try to concentrate his attention on a single form of

activity?

PHYSIOLOGICAL FATIGUE

The pupil’s ability to work is determined by certain physiological

conditions which should be understood by every teacher. These

conditions can be described in a brief study of the physiology of

fatigue.

Any animal tissue, as, for example, a muscle, is a storehouse of

energy. Through nutrition the muscle tissue is kept in condition to

contract. Whenever the muscle contracts, it uses up its own substance;

it burns up its tissues to a limited degree. In the process of thus

consuming its material the muscle gradually becomes clogged with waste

products. It is the business of the circulatory system in a living

organism to carry away this waste material and thus free the muscle

from the effects of its contraction. The circulatory system also brings

new materials in the form of nutrition to restore the depleted tissues.

The restoration of the tissue through nutrition is not the demand

which is most urgent in the case of a muscle which is called on to

contract for a long period of time. Sooner or later the muscle must,

indeed, be brought back to its normal state of nutrition, but during

actual contraction the most immediate physiological problem is to keep

it clear of its own waste products. If these waste products are not

removed, they tend to interrupt further contraction by preventing the

nerve fiber which enters the muscle from discharging motor impulses

into the muscle. If stronger nervous impulses are sent through the

nerve fiber, the muscle, even though it is somewhat clogged, will

be found in a condition to contract with its original vigor; but if

the nervous impulses are not increased, the contractions gradually

diminish in intensity. This is a condition of muscular fatigue, and is

to be distinguished from exhaustion, which does not set in until the

substance of the muscle has been used up to a point which endangers the

tissue.

Fatigue is nature’s effort to protect tissues against any possibility

of excessive use. Fatigue sets in at a period long before danger to the

tissue is at hand. The overcoming of fatigue is dependent in all cases

on the power to dispose of waste products. The athlete, for example,

becomes a better runner chiefly through a training of his organism to

carry away waste products. The untrained individual grows stiff and

sore from exercise, not because his muscles are used up, but because

his muscles are clogged with waste substances.

This description of muscular fatigue lays the foundation for an

understanding of the problem of nervous fatigue. The nerve cells, like

the muscles, get clogged by the products of their own action. They then

fail to carry nervous impulses freely, and the individual can do his

mental or physical work only with excessive effort. Fatigue of nerve

cells means that nature has limits of work in these cells. Fortunately,

the limit is reached long before exhaustion or other real dangers set

in.

CONDITIONS LIKE FATIGUE

Matters are complicated by the fact that physical conditions other than

ordinary use produce fatigue-like effects in nerve cells. Excitement

of any kind rapidly changes the condition of nerve cells, and

sometimes foreign chemical substances get into the blood, as in fever

or infection, and produce a condition that is in effect the same as

fatigue.

Still further, as a fact of large importance in determining capacity

for work, the nerve cells pass each day through a kind of internal

cycle of conditions. At certain hours their condition is such that they

transmit nervous impulses freely, and work is easy; at other hours

work drags because the nerve cells are not prepared to be active;

their internal chemical condition is such as to obstruct transmission

of impulses. Thus, one is usually very energetic in the middle of

the forenoon, but is logy at noon and sleepy at a late hour in the

afternoon. Marked individual differences appear, making this statement

merely a general statement. Furthermore, personal habits can be changed

to some extent through the adoption of new habits of life.

Finally, there are all sorts of pathological conditions which

profoundly affect the life and action of nerve cells. Anæmia and

malnutrition may render nerve cells utterly incapable of continued

action.

PRACTICAL PRECEPTS BASED ON STUDY OF FATIGUE

Enough has been said to make it clear that no simple formula can be

applied to a group of pupils when one tries to determine for purposes

of the daily program how long their nerve cells can be kept at work

on a single task. The wisest course for the teacher to follow is to

be alert, and when a class reaches its limit of profitable work to

introduce a change. On the other hand, the teacher should be very

discriminating and should understand that fatigue is not a dangerous

symptom. For example, suppose that the athlete always stopped his

exercise just as soon as he began to feel the necessity of sending

stronger nervous impulses down to his muscles. He would lose the best

results of training, for these results consist in the acquisition of

the power to overcome fatigue. So also with the pupil. The acquisition

of the power to overcome fatigue is a most important part of the

pupil’s training.

Keeping the principles suggested in the foregoing discussion in mind,

it is relatively easy to arrive at certain practical rules of program

administration.

First, maturity ought to mean greater power of endurance. The older

classes should—and usually do—have longer periods of work.

Second, the period should be long enough to stretch the pupil’s

powers. Regulation of work within this period should be left to the

teacher, and teachers should train themselves to recognize the symptoms

of fatigue and to judge when training has gone as far as it can in

overcoming fatigue.

Third, there should be variety in the program. The nervous system

is made up of many different centers. The variation of occupations

brings different centers successively into play and gives to each the

opportunity of relaxation which is most wholesome. A long school day

with much variety is eminently more rational than a short session of

work of a single type concentrated into a few hours.

ADMINISTRATIVE CONSIDERATIONS CONTROLLING LENGTH OF THE CLASS PERIOD

When recommending variations in the program we collide with what may

seem at first to be an insuperable difficulty. It is impossible from

an administrative point of view to have class exercises of irregular

lengths. Imagine what would happen if the mathematics teacher should

dismiss his class after a recitation of twenty-seven minutes, and

the Latin teacher should hold his for fifty-three minutes. For

administrative reasons class periods must be measured by the clock.

This leads to certain absurdities in school organization. For example,

in order to regularize credits in high schools a unit of credit has

been defined as a certain number of hours of class work. A moment’s

consideration makes it perfectly clear that an English class consisting

of thirty freshmen will do less intensive work in a forty-minute period

than will an advanced senior class of four students in trigonometry.

The administrative fiction of uniformity when like credit is given for

these two classes is grotesque.

The assignment of a double period to laboratory classes is likewise

a concession to administrative convenience rather than a carefully

weighed arrangement. It is easier to make up periods in multiples of

the standard recitation time. But it is by no means clear that the

sciences can profitably use double periods. The internal adjustment of

laboratory work needs more careful study than it has received in the

past. The laboratory method, as shown in an earlier chapter, is one

which has excited great enthusiasm. Many a laboratory assignment which

does not fill the time allotted to it is tolerated because of the vague

general enthusiasm for the method and the formal arrangement of double

periods.

ADJUSTMENT OF WORK WITHIN THE PERIOD

Such examples as these show from a new angle the importance of the

movement for supervised study which was described in an earlier

chapter. The teacher in charge of the class must ultimately have

at hand various devices, some intended to give play to individual

differences, some intended to promote social coöperation. Then,

while administrative necessity dictates a uniform period for the

class exercise, the educational needs of the students can be met by

variations in the content and method of instruction.

ADJUSTMENT OF CREDITS

Such a formula as this dictates also the recognition in an

administrative way of the differences between the work performed by

different students. There has been of late an increasing recognition of

the justice of giving pupils different degrees of credit for work which

they do in one and the same course. The student who carries a course in

algebra with a high grade undoubtedly learns more than the student who

does low-grade work in the same class.

THE PROBLEM OF GRADING

The proper distribution of credits opens up the complex problem of

grading systems. The grading system is the basis of academic rewards

and penalties. Yet it is recognized by pupils and teachers alike to

be full of pitfalls. The ordinary system uses letters such as _E_ for

excellent, _P_ for poor; or percentage designations such as 100 for

perfect, 60 or 75 for just passing; or some other similar symbolism.

The ambiguities in the system arise in part out of the fact that

individual teachers have the most divergent notions as to the meaning

of each of the symbols.

Let us assume the case of a new teacher who has just come to a given

school trying to find out what the other teachers mean by their marks.

This teacher will be told that 100 per cent means perfection. But what

is perfection in a subject? Is the student perfect when he tells what

is in the textbook, or is there a demand for original thinking? Still

more doubtful is the meaning of 90 per cent. Does this signify nine

tenths of what a student might know, or is it a kind of vague statement

meaning that the student is in the upper part of the class?

The new teacher will be very likely at this point, if he is intelligent

about marking systems, to ask how many students in a class usually get

100 or 90. This question is based on a conception of the meaning of

marks entirely different from that which was referred to in the last

paragraph. Marks may refer, and often do refer, not to the degree of

perfection in knowledge but to the relative position of the student in

his class. Some teachers mark the best pupil 100 and then try to grade

the rest from this standard.

EXPERIMENTS WITH GRADING SYSTEMS

Examples could be multiplied indefinitely, showing that there is

great vagueness in regard to the meaning of marks. We are, however,

more interested in the efforts which are being made to overcome these

unsatisfactory conditions.

First, teachers are being informed by comparative diagrams what the

relation of their own marking system is to the general average of

their colleagues. A few years ago the president of Harvard sent to

each member of the faculty a chart showing the curve of distribution,

reproduced in Fig. 16, and, superimposed on this, the curve of the

individual instructor’s marks. The standard curve was derived by

averaging the marks from eight large courses.

[Illustration: FIG. 16. Distribution of grades in various Harvard

classes

The full-drawn line shows the average percentage of grades in eight

large elementary courses. The dotted line and the broken line represent

two departures from the average practice by instructors in two

different departments]

Second, the University of Missouri[82] has frankly given up trying to

determine whether students are 100 per cent perfect in a subject or

only 80 per cent. All students in all classes are arranged in the order

of their excellence in their classes. The marks, in other words, are

relative. When all the marks of the institution are compiled, there are

a few students who are relatively very high, many who are mediocre, and

a few who are low. The low ones are dropped, the high ones get honors,

and the mediocres get the reward due the average student. On the basis

of this kind of a classification the University gives to a student who

stands in the uppermost 5 per cent of his class 1.2 credits toward

graduation. The student in the next lower 20 per cent gets 1.1 credits.

The 50 per cent who are mediocre get the normal credit of 1.0, while

the lower ranks are penalized from 0.1 to all credit.

A third effort to improve the situation is being tried in the high

school of Kansas City, Kansas.[83] In each classroom is posted a

conspicuous chart telling students what they must do to get high

grades. One may pass with a _C_ if one does the required work taken

up in a sixty-minute combination recitation and study period. If

one is to receive _B_, it is required among other virtues that one

be sufficiently well prepared to recite without prompting from the

teacher. Furthermore, one must do outside work and report on it. The

_C_ pupil does his work in the class, but that is not enough for a _B_.

The _A_ pupil must fulfill even higher requirements. Each department

is allowed to post, in addition to the general statements made for the

whole school, special regulations which obtain for the work of that

particular department.

This system is a kind of public definition of the marks, and has the

great advantage of clearing up in the minds of the students what often

seems to them to be an unjust and mysterious scheme.

THE STUDY OF MARKS AS AN INTRODUCTION TO A STUDY OF THE SCHOOL SYSTEM

The study of grading systems has attracted much attention of late among

the students of the science of education. It is an excellent subject

with which to illustrate scientific methods, because the records being

in quantitative form lend themselves to easy and exact statistical

comparison.

There is no better body of material for a principal to employ in

arousing his teachers to a recognition of the fact that they are

factors in a system. Marks are a kind of technical language used in the

school system. Their successful use calls for some comprehension of the

meaning and problems of the system as a whole.

EXERCISES AND READINGS

Let members of the class make up a school program. Let there be in a

certain high school eight teachers, one well qualified in each of the

following subjects: English, mathematics, Latin, physics, biology,

modern languages, domestic science, and manual arts. There are seven

classrooms and a study room. There are 400 students, distributed as

follows: 140 freshmen, 110 sophomores, 90 juniors, and 60 seniors.

The school is in session from 8.45 A.M. to 12 noon and from 1.30 to

3.30 P.M. Make up a program of classes. Record all the questions that

are not answered in the above statement of conditions. Supply answers

yourself, recording explicitly the answer which you give in each case.

Let the members of the class then compare programs.

What is the difference between such a problem as above defined and the

problem of making out a program for an elementary school?

A very good exercise under this chapter is to give a written exercise

to the class and then ask the writers to mark each his own paper

after the question and its possible answers have been discussed by

the class. In like manner let each member of the class mark a certain

English composition or a recitation made by some member of the class.

Let the members of the class rate the various members of the class in

regard to their work. After each of these markings make a general table

showing the distribution of grades and note the differences between the

different markers.

There is very little written on detailed administrative problems. A

very good reading exercise at this point can be made up by referring

to Monroe’s “A Cyclopedia of Education” (Macmillan) and requiring

the student to find ten strictly administrative topics and ten which

have to do with methods. For most of the articles in the “Cyclopedia”

reading references are given.

FOOTNOTES:

[81] W. S. Deffenbaugh, “School Administration in the Smaller Cities.”

_Bulletin No. 44_, United States Bureau of Education, 1915, pp. 40-41.

[82] Max F. Meyer, “The Administration of College Grades.” _School and

Society_, Vol. II, No. 43 (October, 1915), pp. 577-589.

[83] See article by W. A. Bailey, _School Review_, Vol. XXV (May,

1917), pp. 305-321.

CHAPTER XIX

PLAY

MOTIVES FOR CULTIVATION OF PHYSICAL POWERS

Recent educational practice has laid great emphasis on the cultivation

of children’s physical natures as well as their mental powers. This

new emphasis on physical training is due in part to a recognition of

the wisdom of extending education so as to include all sides of the

individual. It is due in part also to the conviction that the only

way to deal successfully with the ordinary work of the classroom is

to provide the kind of change and relief which comes from physical

exercise. Regular opportunities for play are accordingly provided in

the schools of to-day, and an elaborate system of physical supervision

is being developed in all the leading school systems. Some review of

these movements will be appropriate by way of supplement to the general

survey in earlier chapters of the activities of the school system.

EARLIER ATTITUDE TOWARD PLAY

The school of a generation ago retained a good deal of the Puritan

attitude toward play. One has only to recall the pandemonium which

used to break loose at recess and at the time of dismissal to realize

that there was a sharp distinction between school and play. In

school one sat up straight and still; when one was free from school

one let out all the pent-up inner impulses. The kind of play that

was exhibited under these conditions was riotous, irregular, and

aimless. Furthermore, the kind of play which was cultivated under these

conditions did not carry over into later life. There was no system, no

progression, in that play, and no cultivation of the inventiveness so

necessary if the recreations of later life are to be intelligent.

PLAY AS NATURAL BEHAVIOR

The change in attitude from that of the old-fashioned school to that

of the modern school is traceable in part to practical experience and

in part to a general and fundamental change in the philosophy of life.

To-day there is the profoundest respect for all that is natural. The

theological attitude of medievalism and of the Puritans that the body

is the baser part of self has disappeared with the development of the

biological sciences. The social sciences, too, have contributed the

lesson that all human behavior is in accordance with certain natural

laws. The philosophy of naturalism thus accepted has profoundly

modified the views of parents and teachers with regard to the play

impulse in children.

PERIODS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF PLAY

Not only is play natural, but numerous scientific studies reveal the

fact that in the animal world and in man’s life play contributes in no

unimportant degree to the individual’s development. These scientific

studies have shown that play follows definite lines of development.

There is first the play of early infancy, which consists in the

rhythmical movement of the limbs and in the grasping after objects

which satisfy the senses. This is the period of the rattle. There is

at this stage no regard for others, no social interest. Then comes a

second stage, where play is made up of imitative acts. This is the

period of the girl’s doll and of the boy’s kit of tools. The child’s

attention is now centered on others and their doings, and this outward

attention furnishes the individual with his models of action. Then come

the plays of contest and competition, when the child, now of school

age, matches himself against his companions in speed or strength.

This is the period of running games. Imitation has ripened into the

kind of rivalry which helps the individual to realize his personal

powers. Following competition comes the period of team play, in which

social union with some of one’s companions is combined with contest

against others. The adolescent child is now becoming aware of the uses

of social sympathy and co-operation. At each of these stages some of

the earlier forms of play survive, and all ripen into the form of

play characteristic of adult life, where the competitions are against

intellectual obstacles more than against physical. Adult play demands

skill and intellectual mastery of complex problems.

When one has learned that there is a natural and orderly evolution

of the play impulse, one realizes that it is rational to follow this

natural order in promoting individual development. Play takes on a

dignity that it never had in the days when it was looked on as an

uncurbed attribute of infancy to be tolerated only because there seemed

no possible way of eradicating it.

PLAY AS NATURAL EDUCATION

Indeed, the scientific discussions have gone much further than merely

to trace the course of the development of play. They show why play is

to be recognized as a necessary phase of life. At first the immature

instincts of the child tend to express themselves in activities that

are irregular and ill-coordinated, but aimed unmistakably in the

direction of the later serious activities of adult life. The kitten

chases the ball in preparation for the later activities of the hunt.

The explanation of this form of early play is that in the young

animal’s nervous system there are inherited paths which are ripening

into action. The impulses of life tend to flow down these inherited

paths; it is nature’s method of helping the nervous system to mature to

the point of full action.

When nature’s processes have matured the nervous system, the lines of

behavior of which the individual is capable are diverse. Each serious

activity of life engages some of the individual’s energy and brings to

the point of fatigue a certain group of his possible activities. When

one part of the nervous system has been fatigued, there will always

be other parts which have not been used. For example, a man who reads

for four hours does not use his arms and legs. At the end of the four

hours his reading powers will be fatigued, but his arms and legs will

be overready for action. There must be some change in activity and some

relaxation from serious work. Play is nature’s answer to this demand.

SOCIAL NECESSITY OF RECREATION

In addition to the scientific studies of the nature and function

of play appears the sociological fact that the growth of leisure

has created a new demand for well-regulated play. Furthermore, the

conditions of urban life are unfavorable for some of the simple plays

which in an earlier stage of civilization furnished an outlet for the

natural impulses. If the environment is artificial, there must be a

deliberate and intelligent effort to supply what nature demands but

civilization has made inaccessible.

The danger in a congested city where natural play is not possible is

a moral danger. There are vicious agencies which are not slow to take

advantage of the strong natural demand for recreation. The result is

that for the sake of gain appeals are made to the baser impulses of

human nature. The success of these unsavory forms of amusement attests

the presence of a strong natural demand. The way to meet the danger is

to provide forms of recreation which are wholesome and elevating.

PLAY AS PHYSICAL EDUCATION

Finally, all the arguments in favor of play are reënforced by the

general demand that the physical condition of children in school be

made a matter of especial concern. Play is the form of exercise which

serves better than any other to keep the physical system in good tone.

Hence the conclusion that play is as indispensable as it is natural.

THE SCHOOL AND PLAY

In the light of these scientific and sociological studies it is evident

that the school has a task before it. Briefly stated, this task is as

follows: Nature intended that the child should play; play is a phase of

the child’s natural education. The conditions of life in cities have

deprived children of the opportunity for the free development of play.

The educational system must take the children in hand and train them

back into nature’s ways.

SURVEYS OF CHILDREN’S PLAY IN CITIES

Evidence that the situation needs attention is furnished by studies

which have recently been made. The following quotation supplies one

such body of evidence:

In the hour and a half following the close of school November 10 and

18 careful observations were made in all parts of the town at the same

time, by four adults selected for the purpose. They were instructed

to look carefully through the streets, vacant lots, yards, parks, and

playgrounds and make a notation of every child or young person up to

the age of 21, observed. The information sought was what each one was

actually doing, at play or otherwise, and where he was doing it. They

were also asked to estimate the ages of the children observed. On

November 6 a preliminary sounding was made by the investigator. Each

observer was assigned definite territory so as to avoid duplication

and all worked at exactly the same time. The results of these

“soundings” have been carefully tabulated and summarized.

Altogether 696 children, 447 boys and 249 girls, were observed. Of

the total number, 262 or almost 40 per cent of the children and young

people were doing nothing. Especially significant is the fact that

168 of the 262 idling boys and girls were idling in groups. Here is

where mischief usually starts. A majority of those walking (203) were

in reality idling. Fifty-six or eight per cent of the children were

playing football and baseball and 22 or a fraction over three per cent

were occupied with other games. A play life the two chief features

of which are idling and walking indicates that the community is not

discharging its plain duty with respect to the boys and girls.[84]

A like result is reported in the Cleveland survey.

A play census, taken June 23, 1913, under the direction of the Chief

Medical Inspector and Assistant Superintendent in charge of Physical

Education in Cleveland, seemed to show this same lack of relationship

between the school and the out-of-school activities of children. The

results of this study are shown in the following table. [Page 272]

CONCLUSIONS DRAWN FROM THIS CENSUS

1. That just at the age (under 15) when play and activity are the

fundamental requirements for proper growth and development 41 per

cent of the children seen were doing nothing. The boy without play is

father to the man without a job.

2. Fifty-one per cent of all the children seen were in the streets, in

the midst of all the traffic, dirt, and heat, and in an environment

conducive to just the wrong kind of play.

RECORD OF 14,683 CLEVELAND CHILDREN

===================================================================

| | BOYS | GIRLS | TOTAL

—————————-—————————+———————————————-——————-+——————-+——————-+——————-

Where they were |On streets | 5,241 | 2,558 | 7,799

seen |In yards | 1,583 | 1,998 | 3,581

|In vacant lots | 686 | 197 | 883

|In playgrounds | 997 | 872 | 1,869

|In alleys | 413 | 138 | 551

| | | |

What they were |Doing nothing | 3,737 | 2,234 | 5,971

doing |Playing | 4,601 | 2,757 | 7,358

|Working | 719 | 635 | 1,354

| | | |

What games they |Baseball | 1,448 | 190 | 1,638

were playing |Kites | 482 | 49 | 531

|Sand piles | 241 | 230 | 471

|Tag | 100 | 53 | 153

|Jackstones | 68 | 257 | 325

|Dolls | 89 | 193 | 282

|Sewing | 14 | 130 | 144

|Housekeeping | 53 | 191 | 244

|Horse and wagon | 89 | 24 | 113

|Bicycle riding | 79 | 13 | 92

|Minding baby | 19 | 41 | 60

|Reading | 17 | 35 | 52

|Roller-skating | 18 | 29 | 47

|Gardening | 13 | 14 | 27

|Caddy | 6 | 0 | 6

|Marbles | 2 | 0 | 2

|Playing in other ways, |}1,863 | 1,308 | 3,171

| mostly just fooling |} | |

====================================================================

3. That only six per cent of the children seen were on vacant lots

despite the fact that in most of the districts vacant lots were

available as play spaces. A place to play does not solve the problem:

there must be a play leader.

4. That even though 36 playgrounds were open and 16 of them with

apparatus up, only 1869, or 11 percent, of the children seen within

four blocks of a playground were playing on playgrounds. Last Friday

6488 children played on playgrounds.

5. That of the 7358 children reported to have been playing, 3171 were

reported to have been playing by doing some of the following things:

fighting, teasing, pitching pennies, shooting craps, stealing apples,

“roughing a peddler,” chasing chickens, tying can to dog, etc., but

most of them were reported to have been “just fooling”—not playing

anything in particular.

6. We need more and better playgrounds and a better trained

leadership.[85]

SYSTEMATIZING INSTRUCTION IN PLAY

What is to be done in dealing with this situation? Three answers have

been given. First, plays must be arranged in a sequence which will

follow the natural order of children’s development, and when this

play course is properly organized, children must be given training in

play. The training should be of the same kind as that given in any

line, namely, such as to stimulate self-activity and full utilization

of the teacher’s suggestions. Specialists in the field have found it

advantageous to revive folk games and to call attention to the interest

which children exhibit in festivals and dramatic representations.

In other words, the discovery of plays suitable for children is

nothing but the extension into the field of recreation of the type of

educational resourcefulness which has enlarged the curriculum in every

division of the school. The enriched course of training in play should

be used for the improvement of adults as well as children, thus making

education for play a part of the movement of educational extension.

SURVEY OF RECREATIONAL FACILITIES

Second, the available resources of the community for play must be

canvassed and must be intelligently utilized. In the quotation from

the Cleveland survey given above it was pointed out that there are

vacant lots which are not used. A study of the play facilities of

the community will also show the necessity of curbing those forms of

recreation which are undesirable. A survey of this kind should deal not

only with the community’s equipment for play among children but also

with the play of adults. Such a survey has been made for the city of

Madison, Wisconsin, and there is now going on in the city of Cleveland

an extensive examination of all forms of recreation and amusement

together with an investigation of their effects on the people.

A few extracts from the Madison survey will show the kind of findings

which are turned up by such an inquiry:

A study of the various sections of this survey shows that play or

recreation occupies a great place in the life of the city. The time,

effort and money put into it is enormous. Practically every social

organization, as well as the individual and home, is involved in

it. A very large percentage of the business section of the city and

many outlying business places are directly or indirectly, wholly

or partially, devoted to it, as is a large area of the whole city

territory. Its influence is far reaching....

The study of children’s activities in connection with the map survey

shows that there is an enormous amount of play forced into the

streets, even in well-to-do sections of the city, and in other cases

into the worst of environmental conditions. There is no leadership or

supervision of this play and there are no public playgrounds except

Burr Jones Field and two park playgrounds and inadequate, unsupervised

school playgrounds, where there is no attractive organization or play

to draw the children from the streets to more wholesome activities

and influences on the playgrounds. This is physically dangerous and a

menace to morals.

The study of commercial recreation shows that the large number of

children are involved in passive amusements indoors during the few

hours free for outdoor, health-giving activities or when they should

be in bed. This is bad from the standpoint of health, the educational

efforts of the school, and general social habits or ideals.

The study of environmental influences and a neglect of play show that

some of this street and unsupervised play results disastrously, even

in delinquency, and supports the claim of many observers that most of

the bad habits of children develop in play under bad influences.

If the play of children is to be wholesome and generally developmental

rather than inactive or detrimental, they must have wholesome places

to play in, equipment, companionship, and at least a part of the

time organized play and leadership. In so far as the home cannot

supply these demands most of the time—and the larger number of homes

cannot—public interest in the welfare of the rising generation demands

that the play be centered in a community playground under proper

supervision. The supreme need of children of Madison is playgrounds

under trained directors.

The recreational needs of the young men and women of the city

requiring public attention are of three classes, all of which

require places, organization and leadership. (1) They need athletic

and aquatic activities, athletic organization and leadership.

These activities are wholesome and increase efficiency rather

than decrease it. (2) The young men and women need facilities and

organization for more wholesome social activities, such as dances.

They need to be under the auspices of the best influences rather than

the questionable, and it is just as easy to have the best as the

questionable. (3) Young men and women need opportunities for, and

direction in, the more constructive use of their leisure time. They

need places for their club meetings that have a distinct educational

value as well as organization and general leadership. Individual use

of museums and libraries also needs organization. The facilities

for these activities are meager and an effective organization and

leadership are totally lacking.

The needs of adults in the way of activities and facilities are so

complicated that it is almost impossible to summarize them. From

the standpoint of public effort, the main points are provisions for

the essentials in the way of facilities, organization, promotion

and direction that cannot be supplied by individuals or small-group

initiative or enterprise. This requires a public body that can study

and deal with these needs. There is still a great body of adult

individuals, largely of the untrained, laboring classes, without

recreational resources and unprovided for by any recreational agency

except, perhaps, the saloon. These men are recreational outcasts; they

seriously need a place where they can find clean opportunities for

their toilet and bath and wisely organized recreation. The provision

of organization is the way to a simple, constructive use of leisure

time by at least some of the younger of these men; here is a demand

for a new type of men’s club, or a new type of organization of men who

have no recreational resources. It is a need practically untouched by

social agencies, yet one that must be faced frankly if these men are

to gain or maintain any semblance of self-respect and not be a menace

to democratic institutions.[86]

PLAY AS PART OF THE REGULAR SCHOOL PROGRAM

Third, the work of the schools should be so adjusted that play will

take its place with other subjects as a regular and essential part of

the curriculum. This implies not only that play will be given time in

the program but also that the same kind of expert guidance will be

provided for play as is provided for the other activities of the day.

The great value of a varied program is evident to all who have watched

the process which has been going on very rapidly in recent years of

opening up the school hours so as to include many different types

of activity. Play needs not only to be organized as play and to be

equipped with proper facilities, but it needs also to be incorporated

into the regular systematic program of the school. This statement may

be reënforced by extracts from the conclusions reached by the Cleveland

survey.

Some reorganization of the educational corps should take place with a

view to efficient administration of play and recreation from a broad

educational and social standpoint. This would lead to a far greater

influence of the school upon the out-of-school life of the community.

Through lack of greater influence of the school during out-of-school

hours, there is a great social leakage for which the city must pay.

The school is the natural and logical agency for the safeguarding

of the great fundamental interests of children and youth. Each year

discloses more and more clearly that the school is the one institution

we have yet conceived that is best fitted adequately to conserve

these interests and utilize them for educational and social progress.

Opportunities that came as a matter of course to children a generation

ago do not come to many children now unless they are specifically

planned for by some agency other than the home. Met wisely by the

community, this seeming handicap may, in the end, result in a great

and new-found social strength.

Play is more than recreation. If its educational significance is real

in the kindergarten period, it is real in every subsequent stage of

growth and development. Rightly conceived, play is a most efficient

method of education for life, for work, for social service. The fact

that we do not yet know how to make full use of play in education need

not and should not prevent the utilization of play, to the full extent

to which we are prepared, for the tremendous social service it can

render.[87]

SLOW SPREAD OF MODERN ATTITUDE TOWARD PLAY

The suggestions just given, if acted on, would completely reverse the

attitude of the Puritans, with whom our school program originated.

To them play was a distraction, an evil to be avoided during the

few serious hours which are to be devoted to self-improvement. This

Puritan attitude is contrary to experience, unsupported by science, and

disadvantageous for the school and society. To reverse it has required

long centuries and will require a more general recognition than now

exists in the minds of most people of the possibility and importance

of incorporating play as an integral and systematic part of the

educational scheme.

FOOTNOTES:

[84] Howard R. Knight, Play and Recreation in a Town of 6000 (A

Recreation Survey of Ipswich, Massachusetts), pp. 7-8. Russell Sage

Foundation, New York City.

[85] George E. Johnson, Education through Recreation, pp. 48-50.

Cleveland Education Survey. Published by the Survey Committee of the

Cleveland Foundation, Cleveland, Ohio, 1916.

[86] Madison Recreational Survey, pp. 97-99. Prepared by a Special

Committee of the Madison Board of Commerce, 1915.

[87] George E. Johnson, Education through Recreation, pp. 91-92.

Cleveland Education Survey. Published by the Survey Committee of the

Cleveland Foundation, Cleveland, Ohio, 1916.

EXERCISES AND READINGS

Let the class undertake a survey of the recreation facilities of the

town or a survey of the play activities in which its members actually

engage in the course of twenty-four hours.

A whole series of questions arise with regard to athletics. Is

professional baseball a form of recreation, or is it work? Is

attendance on the theater a form of play? The early students of the

theory of play spoke of literature as play. What can be said in support

of this view? How late in life do animals play? How does play relate

itself to business?

Play when considered in connection with school work is undoubtedly in

some cases a distraction. Is it for this reason to be criticized? Under

what conditions are play and study at odds with each other? Are there

methods of adjusting the relation without giving up play?

On the administrative side such questions as these arise: Should all

the teachers take part in the teaching and supervision of games, or

should a special teacher be employed to have full charge of this part

of the school program? Should there be any effort on the part of the

school to supervise play after school hours?

GROOS, K. Play of Man. D. Appleton and Company.

GROOS, K. Play of Animals. D. Appleton and Company.

Third Yearbook of the National Playground Association. Playground

Association of America, New York City. This contains an elaborate

syllabus on play and also a full bibliography.

CHAPTER XX

HEALTH SUPERVISION

THE RELATION OF HEALTH TO SCHOOL WORK

Ordinary school work is so dependent on health that one wonders how

teachers of an earlier generation could have failed to see the absolute

necessity of systematic supervision of health. When we think, for

example, of the consequences of absence from class exercises because

of illness; when we think of a child’s sense organs unable to carry

to his mind the full message brought by the sounds and sights of the

schoolroom; when we think of the nervous system dull and unresponsive

because of malnutrition or hunger,—we begin to realize that the school

is concerned in a very vital way with the problem of supervising health.

TREATMENT OF PATHOLOGICAL CASES

In order to exhibit something of the scope of the present movement

toward complete supervision of health, we may begin with the extreme

cases. In progressive school systems the children who are tubercular

or anæmic or otherwise seriously affected are taken out of the regular

classes and put where the whole educational program can be subordinated

to the one consideration of bringing them back to physical vigor. Often

these classes are conducted in open-air rooms, and often the equipment

of the rooms includes cots on which the pupils may rest as a part of

the regular school exercise.

SCHOOL LUNCHEONS

A second line of treatment deals with nutrition. The importance of one

aspect of this matter is brought out in the following paragraphs:

Long ago Horace Greeley, in an address before a convention of

teachers, called attention to one of the most perplexing social and

economic problems of the age—a problem which still confronts school

authorities of to-day.

“In vain,” he said, “shall we provide capable teachers, and

comfortable school rooms, apparatus, libraries, etc., for those

children who sit distorted by the gnawings of hunger, ... or suffering

from the effects of innutritious or unwholesome food.”

Medical inspection is forcing upon public attention _this_ appalling

fact—that a large percentage of children in school are in no physical

condition, because of malnutrition, to profit by the present generous

outlay of public money for school purposes. Practical educators,

everywhere, are agreed that even the most patient, thoughtful

effort to train under-nourished children is attended with but

partial success. Out of their experience comes this plea—give the

under-nourished child _body food_ first, before offering him the

wisdom of ages.[88]

In view of the condition in which many pupils come to school, it

has been found important for school authorities or philanthropic

organizations to provide luncheons. These have been most successful

where a small price is charged for the food.

CONTROL OF HOME FEEDING

The influence of this experiment in feeding is important not merely

because of the positive nourishment given to the pupils but also

because of the example which it sets in proper standards of eating at

home. Many families do not know how to feed children. The son of a

truck driver who breakfasts with his father on coffee, sausage, and

griddle-cakes will spend the morning trying to digest the food which is

appropriate to his father’s occupation but not to the sedentary life of

the scholar.

PUBLIC ATTENTION TO NUTRITION OF CHILDREN

The importance of the whole problem of nutrition can be made clear by

quoting from the work of a specialist. The paragraphs selected are

the more impressive because they show that other nations as well as

ourselves are confronted by these problems.

Recently there has been an increasing tendency to make the report

on nutrition of different children the basis of the entire

medical-inspection report. This is because it has been demonstrated

again and again that the occurrence of disease and physical defects is

largely conditioned by nutritional disturbances.

In Paris medical inspectors have charge of the school canteens and

are required to report on the nutrition of each child. They are

further expected to follow up any child with impaired nutrition and to

administer tonics and special care.

In England, since 1907, compulsory medical inspection has included

inspection of nutrition. Beginning with 1909, the chief medical

officer of the National Board of Education has reported yearly on

the nutrition of the children throughout the country and on the work

of the school feeding centers. In Scotland the medical inspectors

are required to see that children suffering from malnutrition are

fed properly either by the school or by the parents. As a result of

this systematic work British school doctors are developing methods of

technique and standards for judging malnutrition, which, on account

of its complex and interwoven causes, is very difficult to estimate

accurately....

In American cities no record of the nutrition of the entire school

population has been made. In 1907 in New York the Committee on

Physical Welfare of School-Children reported 13 per cent of 990

children, selected as typical of the whole city, to be suffering

from malnutrition. A similar investigation of 10,090 children in

Chicago in 1908 revealed 12 per cent badly nourished in all grades,

the proportion decreasing from 15 per cent in the kindergarten to

6 per cent in the fifth grade and above. Wherever an attempt has

been made to include all classes of children in the examinations,

the percentages found suffering from acute malnutrition run from 10

to 15. Where only schools in the poorer districts are included, the

percentages are far higher, and vary between 20 and 40. However,

it must be remembered that children from the poorer districts far

outnumber those in other schools, so that in point of figures the

actual proportion of children suffering from malnutrition is probably

nearer the second estimate. Doctor Thomas F. Wood, of Columbia, gives

25 per cent as the estimate for the school population of the whole

country.

“The longer a medical officer remains at school inspection,” remarks

Doctor Hope, of Liverpool, in a report for 1912, “the more severe

becomes his standard of nutrition, and the less readily does he pass a

child as being well nourished.”[89]

One reason that health conditions in rural schools have been so long

neglected is because of the common idea that country children are

naturally vigorous and healthy. “This ought to be so but unfortunately

is not,” says Doctor Ernest Hoag, in a recent government report. He

finds that, “in general, food is not as well prepared in the country

as it is in the city; the available variety is smaller.” Bad methods

of ventilation and heating at home and at school, exposure to wet

in the long walks to school, and overdressing in the house—all are

inroads on the already badly nourished bodies. Investigations show

that malnutrition and its accompanying diseases are quite as frequent

among country as among city children.[90]

CONTROL OF CONTAGION

Turning from nutrition to another aspect of the physical condition in

schools, it is easy to show that the school must control contagion.

The bringing together of hundreds of children increases so greatly the

probability of spread of disease that the health authorities always

welcome the arrival of the summer vacation as a relief from the most

strenuous of their duties.

THE SCHOOL HEALTH DEPARTMENT

The kinds of demands described have led to the development of health

departments in many school systems. The various functions served by a

school health department have been described by Dr. E. A. Peterson, a

health officer in one of the largest cities of the country, in a report

from which the following paragraphs are extracted:

The problem of checking contagion is an acute problem in the schools.

The facts show that in the early years of a child’s school life he has

more of the diseases of childhood than at any other period, especially

more than he had when he was at home during the period immediately

preceding school. Furthermore, as soon as school breaks up for the

long vacation, contagion subsides. The bringing together of large

groups of children in schools is one of the most prolific methods of

spreading contagion....

But the school health service soon developed far beyond this first

stage of merely policing the schools. Indeed, one sees the real

justification of a separate school health department if he follows

this health department into what may be called its second, third, and

final stage of evolution....

Examinations by physicians within the last decade indicate that as

many as five per cent of school children suffer from defective vision

to such an extent that they cannot see lessons on the board unless

they have the services of expert oculists, that one in every hundred

cannot hear what the teacher is saying, that ten in every hundred are

so “stopped up” by adenoids that attention to school work is nearly

impossible until the science of medicine gives them relief.

This drew the attention of the educational world to the necessity

of ridding children of these defects in order that they may take

advantage of the educational opportunity offered in the schools....

One characteristic development shown at this second stage of school

health organization is the employment of the school nurse. The school

nurse marks the growth of the health era away from its first or

merely policing stage. The school nurse is at once a medical officer

and a teacher. She teaches the parents in the home and she teaches

the children. She becomes a most important link between the home and

the school. Her methods are those of persuasion, not those of the

emergency police officer....

Once the idea of making health a matter of intelligent interest took

root, it was sure to grow. Correction of physical defects is itself

a tardy method of dealing with the situation. Why not prevent the

defects? This kind of thinking turned attention to the environment of

the child and the necessity of making it as conducive to health as

possible....

Finally, it is by no means satisfactory that we should stop with the

negative work of preventing disease and unfavorable conditions. We

must be positive in our treatment of health. We want more health, more

vigor, more efficiency. The fourth stage of medical inspection may

properly be called the health development stage and has to do not only

with the teaching of hygiene but with the development of higher ideals

of wellness, with the raising of the standard of normality, with

taking a person who is well and making him “wellest.”...

The department must constantly assume new functions without dropping

any of the old. If it is to be an efficient department, it must carry

on all of the activities suggested in the summary which can be made up

from the foregoing study.

First stage—Inspection

1. Inspection of children for contagious diseases

Second stage—Discovering and correcting defects

2. Physical examination of all children

3. Follow-up work in the home to get corrections

4. Maintenance of school clinics

Third stage—Prevention

{ Hygiene of building

5. Sanitary inspection { Hygiene of curriculum

{ Hygiene of instruction

{ Special schools for special cases

6. Examination and inspection of principals, teachers, janitors and

other employees

Fourth stage—Health development

7. Health teaching at school and at home

8. Establishing health habits by means of

_a._ Toothbrush drills

_b._ Handkerchief drills

_c._ Bathing, etc.

_d._ Health clubs[91]

DIFFICULTIES OF INTRODUCING HEALTH INSTRUCTION

Health work in the schools, as it has risen to the level of a subject

of instruction, has encountered the kind of obstacles met by every

new school subject. Teachers are ignorant on medical matters, and the

doctors who come into the schools are ignorant of methods of teaching.

The result is that the instruction given by teachers is sometimes

formal and unscientific, while the work of the doctors does not prove

as effective as it might because it does not reach the pupils. A

partial corrective for this difficulty can be supplied through a better

system of training teachers.

The following extracts from a paper by Dr. Allison show how one state

is attempting to cope with this problem:

In this tremendous but not superhuman task of teaching health, there

seems to me no more effective method than to commit it to those who

are and are to be the teachers. Progress in these matters cannot be

made without an intelligent understanding on the part of the teacher.

It is therefore important to teach the teacher. It is said that the

normal school is historically the only institution in the country

which has aimed to deal with the teaching problem.

The Board of Regents of the normal schools of Wisconsin felt the

need of making the normal schools of the state instruments of public

health and in 1912 appointed a physician for this work. The work as

organized consists of: (1) exclusion of the physically unfit among the

normal-school students; (2) detection of remedial physical defects

with suggestions in regard to same; (3) instruction in preventive

medicine.

1. The term “physically unfit” is very elastic, but we should have

some physical standard. The public has not been in a position to

protect itself against those physically unfit in the profession, but

it is beginning to make certain demands. For example, what community

will now tolerate a teacher who is known to be tuberculous? It is

well to enlighten these physically unfit, and stop the source of the

physically undesirable, as we would the intellectually undesirable.

My experience with several thousand young men and women during the

last three years has shown me that the health habits of teachers need

improving....

2. In the normal schools of Wisconsin a health-record card for each

student is on file in the department of physical training. The side

filled out by the physical-training teacher consists of a record

of height, weight, and lung capacity, the neck, chest, and hip

measurements, and a detailed record of posture. The physician’s report

includes a record of the past medical history, personal history, sex

history, family history, and the present condition of nutrition,

skin, eyes, ears, nose, throat, teeth, glands, lungs, heart, and

elimination. Each student is advised in accordance with the conditions

which are found....

3. Instruction in preventive medicine consists of individual advice

and classroom instruction as follows:

(_a_) Personal hygiene. This supplements what they have studied from

the text and what they have received from the instructors of hygiene

and physical training.

(_b_) A couple of lectures are given on the physical examination of

school children. Teachers should be taught the essential facts about

defective vision, defective hearing, adenoids, catarrh, diseased

tonsils, nervousness, and mental defects....

(_c_) Lectures are given on the cause, avenue of infection, mode of

transmission, period of incubation, symptoms, complications, results,

and prevention of the following communicable and preventable diseases:

measles, scarlet fever, chicken-pox, smallpox, mumps, whooping cough,

grippe, pneumonia, tuberculosis, diphtheria, meningitis, and infantile

paralysis.[92]

HEALTH AS A SUBJECT OF INSTRUCTION AND AS A MODE OF LIFE

A movement such as that described in the paragraphs just quoted shows

perhaps better than any general description the strength of the

demand that the schools teach and train for health. Health must be

acquired as well as thought of in abstract terms. The school methods

of dealing with it require a rational combination of the work of the

physical-training department with that of the school physician and

the teacher. The movement is therefore one of those broad movements

in education which require the introduction of new materials of

instruction but also call for a general and constructive administrative

policy which shall support instruction by opening the way for an

enlargement of school work of a practical type.

EXERCISES AND READINGS

What devices other than school luncheons can the school adopt in the

effort to make people intelligent about the feeding of school children?

What are the symptoms exhibited by children who are badly fed at home?

What are the different types of difficulty which arise in the matter of

nutrition?

Are the public-health controls in the city adequate to take care

of contagion in the school? Should the school be dismissed in time

of contagion? It is noted that pupils have a great many contagious

diseases when they first come to school. This is sometimes explained by

saying that the age from 6 to 8 years is more susceptible to disease.

Is any other explanation to be offered? At what time in the year is

contagion most common?

Would children’s health be endangered by continuing school during

the summer? Are physical examinations of pupils justified in public

schools? What objections are raised to such examinations? Who should

make them? It is sometimes argued that the expense of medical

inspection and physical examinations is too great. Is there any answer?

Here, as in the case of play, the administrative question arises,

should all teachers have a part in the health supervision, or should

the task be assigned to specialists? Argue the case.

GULICK, L. H., and AYRES, L. P. Medical Inspection of Schools.

Charities Publication Committee, New York City. This is the book which

contributed very powerfully to the beginnings of the movement for

school departments of health.

WOOD, T. D. National Welfare and Rural Schools. _Proceedings of

the National Education Association_, Vol. I-IV, 1916. Report of

investigations of country and city children.

FOOTNOTES:

[88] Sarah Webb Maury and Lena L. Tachau, A Penny Lunch, p. 8. 1915.

[89] Louise Stevens Bryant, “School Feeding.” Educational Hygiene

(edited by Louis W. Rapeer), chap. xvi, pp. 286-287, 289. Charles

Scribner’s Sons, 1915.

[90] Ibid. p. 285.

[91] Dr. E. A. Peterson, “Medical Inspection.” Survey of the St. Louis

Public Schools, Vol. VII, Part II, pp. 41-45. Published by the Board of

Education, St. Louis, Missouri.

[92] Elizabeth Wilson Allison, “The Teacher’s Field in Public Health

Work.” _Proceedings of the National Education Association_, pp.

676-678. Published by the Secretary of the Association, Ann Arbor,

Michigan, 1915.

CHAPTER XXI

SCIENTIFIC SUPERVISION

EVOLUTION OF THE DEMAND FOR SUPERVISION

In the days when the school system was simple in its equipment and in

its course of study no distinction was drawn between the problems of

teaching and the problems of organizing the school. The teacher did

everything that was done in the school. The teacher made the program,

promoted the pupils, consulted with the town officials and parents,

conducted the classes, and in not a few cases swept the floor and built

the fire. There was, to use a phrase of the business world, no overhead

management.

The course of study has grown complex. The work of the classroom is

absorbing, and yet its success depends on equipment and organization

that need to be studied and intelligently arranged. The work of one

school must be correlated with the work of the schools in neighboring

communities. The public must have authoritative information about

the fiscal needs of the school and about the outcome of the public

investments in education. The demand has arisen for a new type of

school officer—the supervisor. This officer is not a teacher but a

manager. His duty is one of organization and central adjustment.

THE PRINCIPAL

The new demand here referred to can be described by means of an example

which exhibits one of the greatest weaknesses of our present school

system. Schools of all grades which have grown large enough to employ

three or more teachers commonly have an officer who is known as the

principal.

In the small school the principal spends most of his or her time in

teaching. In larger schools the principal does no classroom work. In

both cases the principal is universally selected for a special position

in the school because of his or her success in teaching. The work of

the principal is thought of as that of a head teacher. The fact is,

however, entirely at variance with this idea; the work of the principal

is not that of teaching. Principals ought to be managers and central

organizers. They ought to know the system as a whole and ought to

devote time and thought to problems of a managerial type. The weakness

of our present school system is that most principals are in no sense

equipped for this central managing task. They do not know how to use

profitably the release from classroom work which attaches to their

office and title. The result is that they drift, often with the full

cognizance of the board of education, into the habit of spending time

on trifling clerical tasks which are wholly unworthy of the special

position which they are supposed to occupy in the system. It is a

deficiency of our educational system that while there are institutions

for the training of teachers there are only a few general courses for

administrative officers.

There certainly can be no objection to experience as a teacher in the

classroom as preliminary training for the person who is to occupy a

school principalship. But the moment the experienced teacher leaves the

ranks and takes up the office of principal, a wholly new set of central

problems should come within his view. He should recognize the fact that

from this time on his task is one of a broader type, and the successful

execution of that task will require a kind of study which is demanded

at most in very minor degree of the teacher.

OTHER SUPERVISORY OFFICERS

What has been said of the principal is true also of assistant

superintendents and of the superintendent of the school system. It is

true also of departmental supervisors who have general oversight of

certain subdivisions of the work. All these officers ought to become

expert in a type of study and a type of management which are not

expected of the individual teacher.

LACK OF PUBLIC APPRECIATION OF CENTRAL PROBLEMS

In general, it is evident from a study of American school systems

that emphasis has not been laid on central organization. Cities have

employed a superintendent when they had a population of five thousand

inhabitants and have expected a single officer to continue to perform

all the duties of that office when the population has increased to one

hundred thousand. A principal is put in charge of a high school of two

hundred students and continues to have full responsibility for the

school when it increases to eight hundred students. Boards of education

have refused to give supervisory officers clerical assistance, and

have thus required a principal or superintendent receiving the highest

salary of any person in the system to do work which a clerk could do

more economically and quite as efficiently, thus interfering with the

performance of important central duties for which no time is left.

MANAGERIAL TRAINING IN RELATION TO DEMOCRACY

The training of a large number of persons who will be competent to take

up managerial functions is especially important in the school system of

a democracy because the problems of each community are in some measure

local problems to be solved at the point where they arise. In a school

system which treats every child and every community exactly alike

administration is simplified through uniformity. In a school system

which is as complex as ours there must be an intelligent adaptation of

organization to particular ends, and every device which will promote

such adaptation is economical.

THE PURPOSE OF THE PRESENT DISCUSSION

The general discussion of supervision will be clearer if we take up for

brief description some of the problems which should be dealt with by

central officers and some of the methods of solving these problems. It

will not be the purpose of this discussion to attempt anything like a

complete enumeration of such problems or methods, but merely to suggest

their type.

STUDIES OF THE COMMUNITY

First, there must be a study of the community. To some extent the

individual teacher must take a share in this study. The character of

each pupil and the facts about his home surroundings are important to

the teacher in carrying on class work. But there must be some agency

which can devote time and attention to a systematic collection of

facts. The teacher has a right to expect that the school system as

a system will make information readily available which it would be

difficult for an individual to collect. The central officers should

make such a study.

The making of a school census is a duty of the central officers who

have in hand the enforcement of the compulsory-attendance laws. When

these officers recognize their task as a large educational task,

they will make the census not merely a formal basis for compelling

attendance but a means of collecting a body of facts on which

educational adaptations can be based.

It has been pointed out in earlier chapters that the community should

be studied with a view to discovering the needs of pupils. Up to

this time such studies have been made as special undertakings in a

few isolated communities. For example, the industries of Richmond,

Virginia, of Minneapolis, Minnesota, and of the state of Indiana have

been studied by special commissions and reported at three annual

meetings of the National Society for the Promotion of Industrial

Education. What is needed is a constant study of these problems in

every community. Again, teachers cannot meet the demand. This problem

is a central problem, and the central management must be equipped to

get information which the teachers need but cannot collect.

SELECTION AND MANAGEMENT OF TEACHERS

A second group of central problems have to do with the selection of

teachers and their continued training while in service. It used to be

very generally assumed, and in some quarters it seems to be assumed

to-day, that in the teaching profession there is no need of training

beyond the initial normal course or the initial college course that

brought the candidate through the first requirements. A kind of

persistence in professional efficiency on the part of teachers is

assumed.

The day of such easy-going neglect of professional requirements is

over. Score cards of teachers’ qualifications are being worked out. The

relative importance of such personal qualifications as a pleasant voice

and manner as compared with such products of training as knowledge of

the correct forms of English expression and knowledge of geography

or Latin must be determined with direct reference to the particular

duties which are required of the teacher. The development of methods

of correcting deficiencies in the equipment of a teaching corps, the

proper distribution of the time and energy of a group of teachers, and

the proper method of keeping the records of the work of teachers are

all central problems. As the teacher stands in a central relation to

his or her class, so the supervisor stands in a central relation to a

corps of teachers.

Of all the problems touching teachers, that of their training in

service is perhaps the most important. There is a great deal of very

blind and ineffective effort expended each year in futile attempts

to meet this problem. A great deal of required reading is done by

teachers, and a great many meetings are attended which could be turned

to better account if there were well-organized systems of training in

service and of parallel promotional requirements.

STANDARDIZATION BY MEASUREMENT OF RESULTS

A third group of problems are those which have been referred to in

the chapter on standardization. The results of classroom work must

be evaluated and comparisons must be made on a large scale to guide

the future work of the pupils. In some measure this is a problem for

teachers. But so far as the individual class teacher is concerned,

there will have to be dependence on central agencies for the collection

of material which can be used in comparisons.

At the present time a large share of the standardizing material is

being collected by private agencies. Men and women who are interested

in the promotion of educational science are making individual studies

and are bringing together bodies of comparative material. This is

entirely legitimate so long as the movement of standardization and

quantitative treatment of results is in what may be described as an

experimental stage. As soon as the utility of measurements has been

proved, it becomes a public obligation to provide agencies for this

work.

The growth of the movement toward the addition in all large school

systems of one or more officers whose duty it shall be to measure

results has been commented on in earlier connections. There is a

national organization of school-efficiency officers with a membership

including representatives of some twenty of the leading systems of

the country. This shows in a concrete way that the demand for central

officers of standardization is beginning to be met.

AN EXAMPLE OF PUBLIC RECOGNITION OF THE NEED OF EFFICIENCY MEASUREMENTS

A single example of a personal type may serve further to impress on the

reader the character of this movement. Mr. S. A. Courtis, who is widely

known as the author of a system of arithmetic tests, began his work in

testing as a teacher in a private school for girls, the Liggett School

of Detroit. He devised tests to find out how well his pupils were

doing their work. He found at once that he needed comparative material

because he saw that the success of his classes was in a measure a

comparative matter. He published his first findings, and secured the

coöperation of other interested teachers and school officers. Soon he

became a center for arithmetic tests. He was compelled to give up more

and more of his time and energy to a task which was broader in its

scope than the task of teaching his classes. The school was intelligent

enough to recognize this general service to all schools and gave him

time and assistance in organizing his tests. The individual work of a

scientific student thus began to develop. He was called to all parts of

the country to discuss his methods and results, and centers of interest

were established where his tests were used.

Ultimately Mr. Courtis was called to assist in the survey of New York

City and in the surveys of other systems, notably Gary, Indiana. He

was also asked to organize for the city of Detroit a department of

investigation as a permanent division of the administration of the city

schools.

SCIENTIFIC STUDIES AND CENTRAL SUPERVISION

Example after example could be given of the organization of public

supervision on the basis of private scientific investigation. These

examples are important not only as exhibitions of the demand for more

central supervision but also as demonstrations of the demand that

all the larger problems of the school system be approached in the

scientific spirit. The school system of this country, like all public

institutions, has passed through the period of first organization. This

was a period of urgent practical demands. Work had to be done by any

means that came to hand. The situation was like all pioneer situations.

In many cases teachers who were meagerly trained had to administer

unorganized courses of study, and the public had to be satisfied with

results which were, to say the least, uncertain. The pioneering period

is not altogether passed yet, but there is wealth enough in most

communities to support a more deliberate type of organization. There

is a perfection of the instruments of education, an organization of

the agencies of education, and a standardization of results which were

impossible in earlier days.

The business of the central officers in a school system can be defined

in terms of this discussion as the collection and distribution of

scientific information and the administration of the system in keeping

with the scientific information thus collected. Such a formula can be

carried over to problems other than those enumerated thus far in this

chapter. The problems of promotion and of the course of study, even the

problems of class management and instruction, have large supervisory

aspects with which the central school officers must deal.

SCIENTIFIC SUPERVISION

Such a statement gives a view of the principalship or superintendency

of schools which is wholly different from that which is expressed

by applying to these offices the title “head teacher.” In England

the chief officer in a school building is the head teacher or the

head master. These names imply merely an extension of the teaching

function and fail to recognize the necessity of a scientific study and

administration of the schools.

The view advocated in this chapter is also at variance with the

conception expressed in the titles of the chief school officers of

German schools. There the head of a school is a rector or director.

His personal authority is large. He continues in many cases to teach;

his administrative influence as implied in his title arises from the

fact that he represents the state. His task is that of dictating school

policies, not that of organizing the school on the basis of a complete

scientific study of the educational situation in the community in which

he works.

It cannot be asserted that the American principals of schools are

everywhere devoted and competent students of the science of education.

There is, however, a freer opportunity in our schools than in those of

any other nation for a complete realization of the scientific ideal.

There is comparative freedom of organization, and there is comparative

adequacy of equipment. There is at hand a body of broadly collected

information. With this background there is every prospect of a more

intelligent use of all the opportunities which are gradually being

evolved for intelligent scientific supervision.

EXERCISES AND READINGS

The study of community needs has been carried on most vigorously in

trying to answer the question, What industrial training do pupils in

cities need? The National Society for the Promotion of Industrial

Education has organized three extensive surveys, one in Richmond,

Virginia, one in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and one in the state of

Indiana. One of the best exercises which can be suggested is for the

class to study the needs of a community after the model of one of these

surveys.

A second exercise that may be suggested is that of examining the

operations of a school building in detail. How does a building get its

supplies? How many janitors are there? Who supervises the janitors? How

much time does a principal spend in visiting rooms? What reports does

a principal have to render? What reports do the teachers render to the

principal?

The volumes of the Cleveland survey, including those which deal with

industrial education, are models of exposition of community needs.

(Copies may be secured from the Russell Sage Foundation, New York City.)

There is a body of sociological material with which students of this

chapter ought to become acquainted. See the _Survey_ (New York City), a

journal devoted to the discussion of sociological problems.

CHAPTER XXII

THE SCIENCE OF EDUCATION

SCIENTIFIC METHODS OF STUDYING SCHOOLS

Each of the preceding chapters has aimed to set forth certain practical

school problems and to suggest the sources of information on the basis

of which these problems are to be solved. Some of the information to

which reference has been made is confessedly incomplete; some of it is

in a form which renders very difficult exact and final inferences as to

its meaning. Taken in the aggregate, however, the body of information

at hand regarding schools is so great that we are justified in speaking

of a science of education. Furthermore, the use of the term “science”

would be justified even if we were in possession of fewer solutions of

school problems than we now have, for the essence of science is its

method of investigation, not its ability to lay down a body of final

rules of action.

A complete transformation of the method of approaching school problems

has come about in recent years. The time was when opinion, especially

if it was backed by even a little practical experience, was urged as

sufficient reason for all kinds of school practices. To-day it is only

the rashly ignorant who talk about education or aim to influence actual

school operations without informing themselves through a study of known

and recorded facts. A host of practical school officers and special

students of school problems have carried out laborious investigations

and have created a technical literature which promises to reach every

phase of school work.

DEFINITION THROUGH ENUMERATION OF METHODS

It is not too early, therefore, to define the scope and methods of

the science of education. Such a definition need in no wise limit the

further development of the science, while it may serve to stimulate

more exact formulation of its problems and methods. Our effort to frame

such a definition naturally leads us to review the courses which have

commonly been given to teachers-in-training.

THE HISTORY OF EDUCATIONAL THEORY AND PRACTICE

The historical method of studying education was the first which was

cultivated in institutions which undertook the training of teachers.

The history of education divides readily into two branches: one deals

with the history of educational theories, the other with the history of

actual school practices. The history of theories is the easier of the

two branches to cultivate because it consists chiefly in a review of

the writings left behind by writers who discuss educational problems.

Thus the earlier histories of education laid great emphasis on the

writings of Plato and Quintilian, of Comenius and Locke, of Rousseau

and Pestalozzi. Reviews of earlier writers were, however, of little

real influence in molding modern practice, and the history of theories

had only a very indirect influence on teachers.

More significant by far is the recent movement which studies

practices in schools, especially the schools of one’s own country.

The development of arithmetic or grammar in American schools is

illuminating as showing both the direction in which we are moving and

the kinds of forces which operate in reformulating the course of study.

Earlier chapters have aimed to suggest the value of such studies,

especially Chapters II and III.

COURSES IN PSYCHOLOGY

Along with the study of the history of education there has commonly

been prescribed in training schools for teachers a course in

psychology. Herbart pointed out more than a hundred years ago the

importance of the study of mental processes as a basis for the proper

direction of educational practices. The science of psychology has

also by its own developments encouraged the practical educator to

expect help in the solution of school problems. There was a period

when so-called child psychology flourished in this country and aimed

to contribute to the development of school methods as well as to the

solution of problems of the curriculum and school management.

EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY

A friendly alliance will always exist between the science of psychology

and the science of education. Psychology has given to education certain

methods and such special results as it has worked out with regard to

memory and learning and the nature of behavior; education has taken the

psychological material and developed a special branch of science under

the name “educational psychology.”

There are two fruitful psychological methods which have been borrowed

in this way and put to work for education. These are the statistical

method and the experimental method.

STATISTICAL STUDIES

An impressive example of the statistical method is given in the studies

of individual differences. For example, Thorndike has made a careful

study of the degrees of likeness between twins, and between brothers

and sisters who are not twins, for the purpose of defining more fully

the meaning of the term “individual differences.”

THE EXPERIMENTAL METHOD

The experimental method has been employed in many ways. Thus, Freeman

has recorded with the aid of suitable apparatus the rate at which one

writes long and short letters. This study he has made with individuals

of various ages and degrees of training and under different conditions.

One result which he derived from these records is the fact that a given

writer’s rhythm of movement is the same in letters of different sizes

and becomes more regular and more fixed with increase in skill.

EXTENSION OF USE OF PSYCHOLOGICAL METHODS

In taking over the methods of psychology and applying them to the

solution of educational problems, a secondary advantage of the greatest

importance has come to the science of education. These methods are

capable of adaptation to a much broader range of problems than

psychology would have attempted to solve. Both the statistical method

and the experimental method have accordingly been carried over in the

science of education to the widest possible range of applications.

STUDIES OF RETARDATION

One of the first and most fruitful statistical studies made in

education dealt with the retardation of pupils. Those who fell behind

their grade were counted, and the problem which they presented was

stated emphatically enough to bring about the organization of all kinds

of special devices for the training of retarded individuals and groups.

SCHOOL EXPERIMENTS AND LABORATORY STUDIES

The experimental method was carried over and applied to whole classes.

For example, two parallel classes were measured with reference to the

effects of supervised study.

The experimental method has also been productively applied in detailed,

analytical studies of particular subjects. Thus, to recall an example

presented in an earlier chapter, reading has been investigated in

the cases of slow and fast readers when they were reading orally

and silently, when they were trained by the ordinary methods of the

school, and when they were trained by special methods adapted to

their individual cases. Like studies have been made of the movements

performed in writing and of the stages passed through in various

learning processes.

EXAMPLES THROUGHOUT EARLIER CHAPTERS

Further examples will, however, be unnecessary for the reader who has

had the patience to go through the earlier chapters of this volume.

There are numerous illustrations in those chapters of statistical

and experimental investigations of educational problems. These

investigations show the extent to which the new science has borrowed

from the old and the extent to which a new structure has been erected

which has a right to claim an independent name and rank among the

social sciences.

STUDIES OF ADMINISTRATIVE PROBLEMS

The recognition of the science of education as a separate discipline

can be urged on the ground that the scientific methods which were

first applied to the problems of mental development have opened up

every aspect of school organization to scientific study. Thus, in the

field of administration more than in any other field the value of

scientific studies has been recognized. The promotion of pupils, the

grading system, the construction of buildings, and the organization of

financial systems are all spheres in which exact scientific methods

have in recent years worked most important transformations in practice.

METHOD OF COMPARISON

In many investigations the method of comparison has been brought to

a degree of perfection which justifies reference to it as a special

method of scientific research. All the previous discussions of

standardization show how a single school system profits by the effort

to evaluate its own practices in the light of the experiences and

results of other school systems.

RECORDS NECESSARY TO SCIENTIFIC STUDY

The scientific methods which have been referred to imply as their

necessary basis a series of detailed and accurate records. Some of

these records, as, for example, those which show school attendance and

those which deal with expenditures, are kept in ordinary routine. Some

have to be made especially for the purposes of scientific studies.

Here belong all those records which are made through tests. Tests are

merely devices for showing clearly and explicitly how far educational

practices have succeeded in special cases.

SUBDIVISIONS OF THE SCIENCE OF EDUCATION

The subdivisions into which the science of education naturally breaks

up are dictated in part by the needs of different individuals within

the school system and in part by the methods which are employed.

Thus the supervisor needs a different type of training from that

which is required by the classroom teacher. Again, the functions of

the different supervisors are so different that some require full

information on problems of school finance, while others are in more

direct contact with the problems of promotion and of the curriculum. A

second line of cleavage is that which is described most fully in this

chapter and results from the use of different methods of investigation.

Thus, laboratory studies of reading and writing naturally separate

themselves from statistical studies of administrative problems.

Another line of division is that dictated by school organization.

High-school problems are likely to be considered in special courses,

elementary-school problems in others.

There is no need in a general introduction of the type here offered of

attempting to consider these subdivisions. Our purposes are adequately

served if we can show what the science as a whole is by referring

to typical examples of scientific work undertaken in several of the

subdivisions.

RAPID EXPANSION OF THE SCIENCE OF EDUCATION

Furthermore, it is to be understood explicitly that the science of

education is in process of rapid expansion. Any effort to describe

its methods and content in full would of necessity fail. The rapid

enlargement of the science and its methods in recent years is the most

impressive fact which can be recorded in a chapter describing the scope

and purpose of such a study. A simple definition within which there

is wide room for expansion is therefore the only definition which is

appropriate at the end of this introduction.

DEFINITION OF THE SCIENCE OF EDUCATION

The science of education aims to collect by all available methods full

information with regard to the origin, development, and present form of

school practices and also full information with regard to social needs.

It aims to subject present practices to rigid tests and comparisons

and to analyze all procedure in the schools by experimental methods

and by observation. It aims to secure complete and definite records of

all that the school attempts and accomplishes. The results of school

work are to be evaluated by rigid methods of comparison and analysis.

To direct studies of the school the science of education must add

full studies of the social life of which the school is a part and of

the individual nature which is to be trained and molded through the

educational processes. In the light of such studies the science of

education is to suggest such enlargements and modifications of school

practices as seem likely to promote the evolution of the educational

system.

This program is so comprehensive in its scope that it becomes evident

at once that the science of education is a composite science requiring

the coöperation of many investigators. In its formulations it may deal

in a broad way with general problems, or it may break up into numerous

subdivisions appealing to the specialist.

It would therefore be more accurate to describe it as a group of

specialized studies rather than as a single discipline.

EXERCISES AND READINGS

This chapter furnishes an opportunity to study the contributions of

other sciences to the study of educational problems. What does biology

contribute? In this connection Spencer’s first essay is perhaps one

of the clearest examples of application of biology to education.

Stanley Hall has carried to an extreme the use of biological hypotheses

(“Adolescence,” D. Appleton and Company). Fiske in his essay on the

“Meaning of Infancy” (Houghton Mifflin Company) furnishes another

example. The student should raise pointedly the question whether

biological principles apply without modification to human education.