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THE NEW EDUCATION
A REVIEW OF PROGRESSIVE
EDUCATIONAL MOVEMENTS
OF THE DAY
BY
SCOTT NEARING, Ph.D.
Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
AUTHOR OF "SOCIAL ADJUSTMENT,"
"THE SUPER RACE," "WAGES IN THE UNITED STATES,"
"SOCIAL SANITY," "REDUCING THE COST OF LIVING," etc.
CHICAGO NEW YORK
ROW, PETERSON & COMPANY
Copyright, 1915
ROW, PETERSON & COMPANY
* * * * *
PREFACE
During 1910, 1911, and 1912, as a part of a general plan to write a book
on education, I reread a great deal of the classical educational
literature, and carefully perused most of the current material in
magazine and book form. An interest aroused by undergraduate and
graduate work in the department of pedagogy had been whetted by the
revolutionary activity in every field of educational endeavor. The time
seemed ripe for an effective piece of constructive educational writing,
yet I could not see my way clear to begin it. Glaring faults there were;
remedies appeared ready at hand and easy of application; the will of an
aroused public opinion alone seemed to be lacking. By what method could
this wheel horse of reform best be harnessed to the car of educational
progress?
I was still seeking for an answer to this riddle when the editors of
"The Ladies' Home Journal" asked me to consider the preparation of a
series of articles. "We have done some sharp destructive work in our
criticisms of the schools," they said. "Now we are going to do some
constructive writing. We are in search of two things:--first, a
constructive article outlining in general a possible scheme for
reorganizing the course of study; second, a series of articles
describing in a readable way the most successful public school work now
being done in the United States. We want you to visit the schools, study
them at first-hand, and bring back a report of the best that they have
to offer. When your investigation is completed, we shall expect you to
write the material up in such a form that each reader, after finishing
an article, will exclaim,--'There is something that we must introduce
into our schools.'"
That was my opportunity. Instead of writing a book to be read by a
thousand persons, I could place a number of constructive articles before
two million readers. The invitation was a godsend.
The articles, when completed, formed a natural sequence. First there was
the general article (Chapter 3) suggesting the reorganization. Then
followed descriptions of the schools in which some such reorganizations
had been effected. Prepared with the same point of view, the articles
constituted an acceptable series, having a general object and a
connecting idea running throughout. What more natural than to write a
few words of introduction and conclusion, and put the whole in book
form? The style of the articles has been changed somewhat, and
considerable material has been added to them; but, in the main, they
stand as they were written--simple descriptions of some of the most
advanced school work now being done in the United States.
Looked at from any standpoint, this study is a collection of articles
rather than a book, yet there is sufficient relation between the
articles to give a measure of continuity to the thought which they
convey. In no sense is the work pedagogical or theoretical. It is, on
the contrary, a record of the impressions made on a traveler by a number
of school systems and schools. The articles purported to cover the most
progressive work which is being done in the most progressive schools.
Although the selection of successful schools was made only after a
careful canvass among the leading educators of the country, there are
undoubtedly many instances, still at large, which are in every sense as
worthy of commendation as any here recorded. This fact does not in any
way vitiate the purpose of the original articles, which was to set down
a statement of some educational successes in such a way that the lay
reader, grasping the significance of these ventures, might see in them
immediate possibilities for the schools in his locality.
Behind all of the chapters is the same idea--the idea of educating
children--an idea which has taken firm hold of the progressive educators
in every section of the community. The schoolmaster is breaking away
from the traditions of his craft. He has laid aside the birch, the three
"R's," the categorical imperative, and a host of other instruments
invented by ancient pedagogical inquisitors, and with an open mind is
going up and down the world seeking to reshape the schools in the
interests of childhood. The task is Herculean, but the enthusiasm and
energy which inspire his labors are sufficient to overcome even those
obstacles which are apparently insurmountable.
CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION. THE OLD EDUCATION 11
I. The Critical Spirit and the Schools 11
II. Some Harsh Words from the Inside 12
III. A Word from Huxley and Spencer 15
IV. Some Honest Facts 17
V. Have We Fulfilled the Object of Education? 22
CHAPTER I. THE NEW BASIS FOR EDUCATION 24
I. Can There Be a New Basis? 24
II. Social Change 25
III. Keeping Up With the Times 26
IV. Education in the Early Home 27
V. City Life and the New Basis for Education 28
CHAPTER II. TEACHING BOYS AND GIRLS 32
I. The New School Machinery 32
II. Rousseau Versus a Class of Forty 33
III. The Fallacious "Average" 34
IV. The Five Ages of Childhood 35
V. Age Distribution in One Grade 36
VI. Shall Child or Subject Matter Come First? 39
VII. The Vicious Practices of One "Good" School 40
VIII. Boys and Girls--The One Object of Educational Activity 42
CHAPTER III. FITTING SCHOOLS TO CHILDREN 44
I. Child Growth--A Primary Factor in Child Life 44
II. Children Need Health First 45
III. Play as a Means to Growth 46
IV. Some Things Which a Child Must Learn 48
V. What Schools Must Provide to Meet Child Needs 51
VI. The Educational Work of the Small Town 52
VII. The Educational Problems of an Industrial Community 55
VIII. Beginning With Child Needs 56
CHAPTER IV. PROGRESSIVE NOTES IN ELEMENTARY EDUCATION 58
I. The Kindergarten 58
II. Translating the Three R's 59
III. Playing at Mathematics 60
IV. A Model English Lesson 61
V. An Original Fairy Story 65
VI. The Crow and the Scarecrow 67
VII. School and Home 68
VIII. Breaking New Ground 71
IX. The School and the Community 72
X. New Keys for Old Locks 74
XI. School and Shop 76
XII. Half a Chance to Study 79
XIII. Thwarting Satan in the Summer Time 80
XIV. Sending the Whole Child to School 81
XV. Smashing the School Machine 84
XVI. All Hands Around for an Elementary School 86
XVII. From a Blazed Trail to a Paved Highway 90
CHAPTER V. KEEPING THE HIGH SCHOOL IN STEP WITH LIFE 92
I. The Responsibility of the High School 92
II. An Experiment in Futures 92
III. The Success Habit 95
IV. The Help-out Spirit 97
V. Joining Hands With the Elementary Schools 98
VI. The Abolition of "Mass Play" 101
VII. Experimental Democracy 103
VIII. Breaching [the] Chinese Wall of High School Classicism 105
IX. An Up-to-Date High School 107
X. From School to Shop and Back Again 109
XI. Fitting the High School Graduate Into Life 110
XII. The High School as a Public Servant 114
CHAPTER VI. HIGHER EDUCATION AT LOWVILLE 116
I. Lowville and the Neighborhood 116
II. Lowville Academy 117
III. The School's Opportunity 119
IV. Field Work as Education 120
V. Real Domestic Science 122
VI. One Instance of Success 123
CHAPTER VII. A GREAT CITY SCHOOL SYSTEM 125
I. "Co-operation" and "Progressivism" 125
II. An Educational Creed 127
III. Vitalizing the Kindergarten 129
IV. Regenerating the Grades 132
V. Popularizing High School Education 137
VI. A City University 140
VII. Special Schools for Special Classes 141
VIII. Special Schools for Special Children 144
IX. Playground and Summer Schools 145
X. Mr. Dyer and the Men Who Stood With Him 147
CHAPTER VIII. THE OYLER SCHOOL OF CINCINNATI 153
I. An Experiment in Social Education 153
II. An Appeal for Applied Education 156
III. Solving a Local Problem 157
IV. Domestic Science Which Domesticates 159
V. Making Commercial Products in the Grades 161
VI. A Real Interest in School 162
VII. The Mothers' Club 163
VIII. The Disappearance of "Discipline" 165
IX. The Spirit of Oyler 167
CHAPTER IX. VITALIZING RURAL EDUCATION 170
I. The Call of the Country 170
II. Making Bricks With Straw 171
III. Making the One-Room Country School Worth While 182
IV. Repainting the Little Red Schoolhouse 187
V. A Fairyland of Rural Education 188
VI. The Task of the Country School 193
CHAPTER X. OUT OF THE MOUTHS OF BABES AND SUCKLINGS 195
I. Miss Belle 195
II. Going to Work Through the Children 196
III. Beginning on Muffins 197
IV. Taking the Boys in Hand 200
V. "Busy Work" as an Asset 201
VI. Marguerite 203
VII. Winning Over the Families 204
CHAPTER XI. WIDE-AWAKE SLEEPY EYE 207
I. Fitting Schools to Needs 207
II. Getting the Janitor in Line 208
III. The Department of Agriculture 209
IV. A Short Course for Busy People 212
V. Letting the Boys Do It 214
VI. A Look at the Domestic Science 214
VII. How It Works Out 216
VIII. Theoretical and Practical 217
CHAPTER XII. THE SOUTH FOR THE NEW EDUCATION 220
I. A Dream of Empire 220
II. Finding the Way 222
III. Jem's Father 224
IV. Club Life Militant 228
V. Canning Clubs 234
VI. Recognition Day for Boys and Girls 235
VII. Teaching Grown-Ups to Read 236
VIII. George Washington, Junior 237
IX. A Step Toward Good Health 239
X. Theory and Practice 242
XI. A People Coming to Its Own 249
CHAPTER XIII. THE SPIRIT OF THE NEW EDUCATION 251
I. The Standard of Education 251
II. Standardization Was a Failure 252
III. Education as Growth 254
IV. Child Needs and Community Needs 255
V. The Final Test of Education 257
THE NEW EDUCATION
INTRODUCTION
THE OLD EDUCATION
I The Critical Spirit and the Schools
"Everybody is doing it," said a high school principal the other day. "I
look through the new books and I find it; it stands out prominently in
technical as well as in popular magazines; even the educational papers
are taking it up,--everybody seems to be whacking the schools. Yesterday
I picked up a funny sheet on which there were four raps at the schools.
One in particular that I remember ran something like this,--
"'James,' said the teacher, 'if Thomas has three red apples and William
has five yellow apples, how many apples have Thomas and William?'
"James looked despondent.
"'Don't you know?' queried the teacher, 'how much three plus five is?'
"'Oh, yes, ma'am, I know the answer, but the formula, ma'am,--it's the
formula that appals me.'
"Probably nine-tenths of the people who read that story enjoyed it
hugely," continued the schoolman, "and they enjoyed it because it struck
a responsive chord in their memories. At one time or another in their
school lives, they, too, bowed in dejection before the tyranny of
formulas."
This criticism of school formulas is not confined to popular sources.
Prominent authorities in every field which comes in contact with the
school are barbarous in their onslaughts. State and city
superintendents, principals, teachers, parents, employers,--all have
made contribution to the popular clamor. On every hand may be gleaned
evidences of an unsatisfied critical spirit.
II Some Harsh Words from the Inside
The Commissioner of Education of New York State writes of the
schools,--[1] "A child is worse off in a graded school than in an
ungraded one, if the work of a grade is not capable of some specific
valuation, and if each added grade does not provide some added power.
The first two grades run much to entertainment and amusement. The third
and fourth grades repeat the work supposed to have been done in the
first two. Too many unimportant and unrelated facts are taught. It is
like the wearying orator who reels off stories only to amuse, seems
incapable of choosing an incident to enforce a point, and makes no
progress toward a logical conclusion.
"When but one-third of the children remain to the end of the elementary
course, there is something the matter with the schools. When half of the
men who are responsible for the business activities and who are guiding
the political life of the country tell us that children from the
elementary schools are not able to do definite things required in the
world's real affairs, there is something the matter with the schools.
When work seeks workers, and young men and women are indifferent to it
or do not know how to do it, there is something the matter with the
schools.[2]
"There is a waste of time and productivity in all of the grades of the
elementary schools."[3] "The things that are weighing down the schools
are the multiplicity of studies which are only informatory, the
prolongation of branches so as to require many text-books, and the
prolixity of treatment and illustration that will accommodate
psychological theory and sustain pedagogical methods which have some
basis of reason, but which have been most ingeniously overdone."[4]
Former United States Commissioner of Education, E. E. Brown, is
responsible for the statement that,--"With all that we have done to
secure regular and continuous attendance at school, it is still a mark
of distinction when any city is able to keep even one-half of the pupils
who are enrolled in its schools until they have passed even the seventh
grade."[5]
Here is an illustration, from the pen of a widely known educational
expert, of the character of educational facilities in the well-to-do
suburb of an Eastern city. After describing two of the newer schools
(1911) Prof. Hanus continues,--"The Maple Avenue School is too small for
its school population, without a suitable office for the principal or a
common room for the teachers, and, of course, very inadequately equipped
for the work it ought to do; it ought, therefore, to be remodeled and
added to without delay. The Chestnut Street School is old, gloomy,
crowded, badly ventilated, and badly heated, has steep and narrow
stairways, and it would be dangerous in case of fire. There are fire
escapes, to be sure, but the access to some of these, though apparently
easy in a fire drill, might be seriously inadequate and dangerous in
case of haste or panic due to a real fire. In such a building sustained
good work by teachers and pupils is very difficult....
"The High School is miserably housed. It is dingy, badly lighted and
badly ventilated. These defects constitute a serious menace to the
physical welfare of pupils and teachers and, of course, seriously
interfere with good work. It is crowded. Intercommunication is devious
and inconvenient. The building is quite unfit for high school uses. Some
of the school furniture is very poor; the physical and chemical
classrooms and laboratories are very unsatisfactory, and its biological
laboratory and equipment scarcely less so. The assembly room is too
small, badly arranged, and badly furnished. There are no toilet-rooms
for the teachers, and there is no common room. There is no satisfactory
or adequate lunch-room. The library is in crowded quarters; the
principal's office space is altogether too small, and his private office
almost derisively so."[6]
Overwork in the school is said to be alarmingly prevalent. "It is
generally recognized by physicians and educators to-day that many
children in the schools are being seriously injured through nervous
overstrain. Throughout the world there is a developing conviction that
one of the most important duties of society is to determine how
education may be carried on without depriving children of their health.
It is probable that we are not requiring too much work of our pupils,
but they are not accomplishing their tasks economically in respect to
the expenditure of nervous energy. Some experiments made at home and
abroad seem to indicate that children could accomplish as much
intellectually, with far less dissipation of nervous energy, if they
were in the schoolroom about one-half the time which they now spend
there. German educators and physicians are convinced that a fundamental
reform in this respect is needed. In fact, among school children we are
learning the same lesson as among factory employees, viz., that high
pressure and long hours are not economy but waste of time."[7]
The school has been rendered monotonous. "We have worked for system till
the public schools have become machines. It has been insistently
proclaimed that all children must do things the same way for so long a
time, that many of us have actually come to believe it. Children unborn
are predestined to work after the same fashion that their grandparents
did."[8]
III A Word from Huxley and Spencer
These are typical of a host of similar criticisms of the schools which
leading educators, men working within the school system, are directing
against it. Out of the fullness of their experience they spread the
conviction that the school often fails to prepare for life, that it
frequently distorts more effectively than it builds. The thought is not
new. Thomas Huxley asked, years ago, whether education should not be
definitely related to life. He wrote,--"If there were no such things as
industrial pursuits, a system of education which does nothing for the
faculties of observation, which trains neither the eye nor the hand,
and is compatible with utter ignorance of the commonest natural truths,
might still be reasonably regarded as strangely imperfect. And when we
consider that the instruction and training which are lacking are exactly
those which are of most importance for the great mass of our population,
the fault becomes almost a crime, the more so in that there is no
practical difficulty in making good these defects."[9]
Approaching the matter from another side, Tyler puts a pertinent
question in his "Growth and Education,--" "In the grammar grade is
learning and mental discipline of chief importance to the girl, or is
care of the body and physical exercise absolutely essential at this
period? No one seems to know, and very few care. What would nature
say?"[10]
Herbert Spencer answers Tyler's question in spirited fashion. "While
many years are spent by a boy in gaining knowledge, of which the chief
value is that it constitutes 'the education of a gentleman;' and while
many years are spent by a girl in those decorative acquirements which
fit her for evening parties; not an hour is spent by either of them in
preparation for that gravest of all responsibilities--the management of
a family."[11] "For shoe-making or house-building, for the management of
a ship or a locomotive-engine, a long apprenticeship is needful. It is,
then, that the unfolding of a human being in body and mind, may we
superintend and regulate it with no preparation whatever?"[12]
One fact is self-evident,--the existence of a body of criticism and
hostility is prima facia evidence of weakness on the part of the
institution criticised, particularly when the criticism comes strong and
sharp from school-men themselves. The extent and severity of school
criticism certainly bespeaks the careful consideration of those most
interested in maintaining the efficiency of the school system.
IV Some Honest Facts
Let us face the facts honestly. If you include country schools, and they
must be included in any discussion of American Education, the school
mortality,--i. e., the children who drop out of school between the first
and eighth years--is appalling. We may quarrel over percentages, but the
dropping out is there.
The United States Commissioner of Education writes,--[13] "Of
twenty-five million children of school age (5 to 18), less than twenty
million are enrolled in schools of all kinds and grades, public and
private; and the average daily attendance does not exceed fourteen
million, for an average school term of less than 8 months of 20 days
each. The average daily attendance of those enrolled in the public
schools is only 113 days in the year, less than 5-3/4 months. The
average attendance of the entire school population is only 80-1/2 days,
or 4 months of 20 days each. Assuming that this rate of attendance shall
continue through the 13 school years (5 to 18), the average amount of
schooling received by each child of the school population will be 1,046
days, or a little more than 5 years of 10 school months. This bureau
has no reliable statistics on the subject, but it is quite probable that
less than half the children of the country finish successfully more than
the first 6 grades; only about one-fourth of the children ever enter
high school; and less than 8 in every 100 do the full 4 years of high
school work. Fewer than 5 in 100 receive any education above the high
school."
Taking this dropping out into consideration, it is probable that the
majority of children who enter American schools receive no more
education than will enable them to read clumsily, to write badly, to
spell wretchedly, and to do the simplest mathematical problems
(addition, subtraction, etc.) with difficulty. In any real sense of the
word, they are neither educated nor cultured.
Judge Draper, Superintendent of Public Instruction in New York State,
writes,--[14] "We cannot exculpate the schools. They are as wasteful of
child life as are the homes. From the bottom to the top of the American
educational system we take little account of the time of the child....
We have eight or nine elementary grades for work which would be done in
six if we were working mainly for productivity and power. We have shaped
our secondary schools so that they confuse the thinking of youth and
break the equilibrium between education and vocations, and people and
industries.... In the graded elementary schools of the State of New
York, less than half of the children remain to the end of the course.
They do not start early enough. They do not attend regularly enough. The
course is too full of mere pedagogical method, exploitation and
illustration, if not of kinds and classes of work. The terms are too
short and the vacations too long.... More than half of the children drop
out by the time they are fourteen or fifteen, the limits of the
compulsory attendance age, because the work of the schools is behind the
age of the pupils, and we do not teach them the things which lead them
and their parents to think it will be worth their while to remain."
Observe that Judge Draper writes of the graded schools only. Could you
conceive of a more stinging rebuke to an institution from a man who is
making it his business to know its innermost workings?
These statements refer, not to the small percentage of children who go
to high school, but to that great mass of children who leave the school
at, or before, fourteen years of age. If you do not believe them, go
among working children and find out what their intellectual
qualifications really are.
One fact must be clearly borne in mind,--the school system is a social
institution. In the schools are the people's children. Public taxes
provide the funds for public education. Perhaps no great institution is
more generally a part of community interest and experience than the
public school system.
The most surprising thing about the school figures is the overwhelming
proportion of students in the elementary grades--17,050,441 of the
18,207,803. If you draw three lines, the first representing the number
of children in the elementary schools, the second showing the number in
the high school, and the third the number of students in colleges,
professional and normal schools, the contrast is astonishing.
It is perfectly evident, therefore, that the real work of education
must be done in the elementary grades. The high schools with a million
students, and the universities, colleges, professional and normal
schools with three hundred thousand more, constitute an increasingly
important factor in education; at the same time, for every seven
students in these higher schools, there are ninety-three children in the
elementary grades. The proportion is so unexpected that it staggers
us--more than nine-tenths of the children who attend school in the
United States are in the elementary grades! Can this be the school
system of which our forefathers dreamed when they established a
universal, free education nearly a hundred years ago? Did they foresee
that such an overwhelming proportion of American children would never
have an opportunity to secure more than the rudiments of an education?
Be that as it may, the facts glower menacingly at us from city, town and
countryside,--the overcrowded elementary grades and the higher schools
with but a scant proportion of the students. So, if we wish to educate
the great mass of American children, we must go to the primary grades to
do it.
There are, in the public schools, 533,606 teachers, four-fifths of whom
are women. These teachers are at work in 267,153 school buildings having
a total value of $1,221,695,730. Each year some four hundred and fifty
million dollars are devoted to maintaining and adding to this
educational machine.
The school system is the greatest saving fund which the American people
possess. The total value of school property is greater than the entire
fortune of the richest American. Each year the people spend upon their
schools a sum sufficient to construct a Panama Canal or a
transcontinental railway system. Thus the public school is the greatest
public investment in the United States.
It is one thing to invest, and quite a different matter to be assured a
fair return on the investment. Nevertheless, the individual investor
believes in his right to a fair return. From their public investments,
the people, in fairness, can demand no more; in justice to themselves,
they may accept no less. Are they receiving a fair return? The people of
the United States have invested nearly a billion dollars in the public
school system; each year they contribute nearly half a billion dollars
more toward the same end. Are they getting what they pay for?
Turn to another section of the Report of the Commissioner of Education,
and note how, in mild alarm, he protests against teachers' salaries so
low "that it is clearly impossible to hire the services of men and women
of good native ability and sufficient scholarship, training and
experience to enable them to do satisfactory work;" against the
schoolhouses, which are "cheap, insanitary, uncomfortable and
unattractive;" against "thousands of schools" in which "one teacher
teaches from twenty to thirty classes a day;" against "courses of study
ill-adapted to the interest of country children or the needs of country
life;" against "a small enrollment of the total children of school age,"
and a school attendance so low that "the average of the entire school
population is only 80-1/2 days per year."[15]
The tone of these statements is certainly not reassuring. Perhaps it is
high time that the citizens inquired into the status of their
educational securities--their public school system.
V Have We Fulfilled the Object of Education?
The object of education is complete living. A perfect educational system
would prepare those participating in it to live every phase of their
lives, and to derive from life all possible benefit. Any educational
system which enables men to live completely is therefore fulfilling its
function. On the other hand, an educational system which does not
prepare for life is not meeting the necessary requirements.
Charles Dickens, in his characteristic way, thus describes in "Hard
Times" a public school class under the title "Murdering the Innocents:"
"'In this life, we want nothing but Facts, sir; nothing but
Facts.'
"The speaker and the school master swept with their eyes the
inclined plane of little vessels then and there arranged in
order, ready to have imperial gallons of facts poured into them
until they were full to the brim. So Mr. M'Choakumchild (the
school master) began in his best manner. He went to work on this
preparatory lesson, not unlike Morgiana in the Forty
Thieves--looking into all the vessels ranged before him, one
after another, to see what they contained. Say, good Mr.
M'Choakumchild: when from thy store thou shalt fill each jar
brim full by and by, dost thou think thou wilt always kill
outright the robber Fancy lurking within, or sometimes only maim
him and distort him!"
Is the picture overdrawn? Are there grades in our large American cities
where conditions similar to those just portrayed may be found? Every
parent who has a child in the public schools, every taxpayer who
contributes to school support, has a right to a direct, impartial and
honest answer to that question.
Among educators as well as among members of the general public a spirit
of educational unrest has developed. Everywhere there is an ill-defined
feeling of dissatisfaction with the work of the schools; everywhere an
earnest desire to see the schools do more effectively the school work
which is regarded, on every hand, as imperative.
The facts of school failure are more generally known than the facts of
school success; yet there are successful schools. Indeed, some of the
school systems of the United States are doing remarkably effective work.
Emphasis has been lavished on the failure side of the educational
problem, until public opinion is fairly alive to the necessity of some
action. The time is, therefore, ripe for a positive statement of
educational policy. Many schools have succeeded. Let us read the story
of the good work. Efficient educational systems are in operation. Let us
model the less successful experiments on those more successful ones.
Circumstances force people to live in one place, to see one set of
surroundings and meet one kind of folks, until they are led to believe,
almost inevitably, that their kind is _the_ kind. Schools are the
victims of just such provincialism. Although the school superintendents
and principals, and some of the school teachers meet their co-workers
from other cities, the people whose children attend the schools almost
never have an opportunity to learn intelligently what other schools are
doing. This city develops one educational idea, and that city develops
another idea. Although both ideas may deserve widespread consideration,
and perhaps universal adoption, they will fail to measure up to the full
stature of their value unless the people in all communities learn about
them intelligently.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: "American Education," Andrew S. Draper, Boston;
Houghton Mifflin Co., 1909, pp. 281-83.]
[Footnote 2: Ibid., p. 275.]
[Footnote 3: Ibid., p. 281.]
[Footnote 4: Idem.]
[Footnote 5: The Responsibility of the School, E. E. Brown, U. S.
Commissioner of Education. A pamphlet privately printed in
Philadelphia, 1908, containing a series of addresses.]
[Footnote 6: Report on the Programme of Studies in the Public
Schools of Montclair, N. J., Paul H. Hanus, Cambridge, Mass., pp.
7 and 8.]
[Footnote 7: Report on National Vitality, Irving Fisher,
Washington Government Print., 1909, pp. 76-77.]
[Footnote 8: The Problem of Individualizing Instruction, W. F.
Andrew, Education, Vol. 26, p. 135 (1905).]
[Footnote 9: Evolution and Ethics, T. H. Huxley, New York, D.
Appleton & Co., 1902, p. 220.]
[Footnote 10: Growth and Education, J. M. Tyler, Houghton Mifflin
Co., New York, 1907, p. 21.]
[Footnote 11: Education, H. Spencer, New York, D. Appleton & Co.,
1861, p. 162.]
[Footnote 12: Supra, p. 63.]
[Footnote 13: Annual Report, U. S. Commissioner of Education,
1911; Washington Government Print., 1912, Vol. I, pp. 12-13.]
[Footnote 14: Conserving Childhood, Andrew S. Draper; The Child
Workers of the Nation, Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Conference
on Child Labor, Chicago, Ill., Jan. 21-23, 1909; New York, 1909,
pp. 9-10.]
[Footnote 15: Report U. S. Commissioner of Education, 1911, Vol.
I, p. 12.]
CHAPTER I
THE NEW BASIS FOR EDUCATION[16]
I Can There Be a New Basis?
Can there be a new basis for education? Does the foundation upon which
education rests really change? Is the educational system of one age
necessarily unfitted to provide for the educational needs of the next?
These, and a multitude of the similar questions which people interested
in educational progress are asking themselves, arise out of the process
of transition that is seemingly one of the fundamental propositions of
the universe. All things change, and are changing, from the smallest
cell to the most highly organized creature, the noblest mountain range,
and the vastest sun in the heavens. To-day differs from yesterday as
to-morrow must differ from to-day. All things are becoming.
Test this statement with the observed facts of life. Here is a garden,
well-planted and watered. The soil is loamy and black. On all its
surface there is nothing, save a clod here and there, to relieve the
warm, moist regularity. Come to-morrow and the level surface is broken
by tiny green shoots which have appeared at intervals, thrusting through
the top crust. Next week the black earth is striped with rows of green.
Onions, beets, lettuce, and peas are coming up. Go back to the hills
which you climbed in boyhood, ascend their chasmed sides and note how
even they have changed. Each year some part of them has disappeared
into the rapid torrent. Had you been there in April, you might have seen
particles of your beloved hills in every water-course, hurrying toward
the lowlands and the sea. While you watch them, the clouds change in the
sky, the sunset wanes, and the forest covers the bared hills. Nature,
fickle mistress of our destinies, spreads a never-ending panorama before
our eyes that we may recognize the one great law of her being,--the law
of progression.
II Social Change
How well does this principle of change apply to the organization of
society! The absolute monarchy of one age yields to the semi-democracy
of the next. Yesterday the church itself traded in men's
bodies,--holding slaves, and accepting, without question, the proceeds
of slavery. To-day machines replace men in a thousand industries.
To-morrow slavery is called into question, until in the dim-glowering
nineteenth century, men will struggle and die by tens of thousands;--on
the one side, those who believe that the man should be the slave; on the
other, those who hold that the slavery of the machine is alone necessary
and just. Thus is every social institution altered from age to age. Thus
is effected that transformation which men have chosen to call progress.
How profoundly does this truth apply to the raw material of
education,--the children who enroll in the schools! Under your very eyes
they lose their childish ways, feel their steps along the precipice of
adolescence, enter the wonderland of imagery and idealism, and pass on
into the maturity of life. How vain is our hope that the child may
remain a child; how worthless our prayer that adult life shall never lay
her heavy burden of cares and responsibilities upon his beloved
shoulders. Even while you raise your hands in supplication, the child
has passed from your life forever, leaving naught save a man to confront
you.
From these mighty scythe strokes which change sweeps across the meadows
of time, naught is exempt. The petals fall from the fairest flower; the
bluest sky becomes overcast; the greatest feats of history are
surpassed; and the social machinery, adequate for the needs of one age,
sinks into the insignificance of desuetude in the age which follows.
Thus does the inevitable come to pass. Thus does the social institution,
wrought through centuries of turmoil and anguish, become useless in the
newer civilization which is arising on every hand. The educational
system in its inception was well founded, but the changes of time
invalidate the original idea. Yesterday the school fulfilled the needs
of men. To-day it fails to meet a situation which reshapes itself with
each rising and each setting of the sun.
Each epoch must have its institutions. With the work of the past as a
background, the present must constantly reshape the institutions which
the past has bequeathed to it. These modified institutions, handed on in
turn by the present, must again be rebuilt to meet the needs of the
future; and so on through each succeeding age.
III Keeping Up with the Times
At times the march of progress is so rapid that even the most advanced
grow breathless with attempts to keep abreast of the vanguard. Again,
marking time for ages, progressive movements seem wholly dead, and the
path to the future is overgrown with tradition, and blocked by oblivion
and decay. The rapid advances of the nineteenth century, challenging the
quickest to keep pace, forced upon many institutions surroundings
wholly foreign to their bent and scope.
Nowhere is this more true than in the case of the educational system,
which had its rise in an age of individualized industry and governmental
non-interference, and now faces a newly inaugurated socialization of
industry and an impromptu system of government control.
The new basis of education lies in the changes which the nineteenth
century wrought in industry, transforming village life into city
dwelling, and substituting for the skilled mechanic, using a tool, the
machine, employing the unskilled worker. The men of the eighteenth
century made political institutions, and were content with democracy;
the men of the nineteenth century, accepting government as it stood,
built up a new industry. The society which we in the twentieth century
must erect upon the political and industrial triumphs of our
forefathers, can never be successful unless it recognizes the
fundamental character of the issues which nineteenth century industry
and eighteenth century politics have brought into twentieth century
life.
Is it too much to ask that the school stand foremost in this recognition
of change, when it is in the school that the ideas of the new generation
are moulded, tempered, and burnished? May we not expect that in its
lessons to the young our educational system shall speak the language of
the twentieth century rather than that of the eighteenth?
IV Education in the Early Home
Before the modern system of industry had its inception, while the old
hand trades still held sway, at a time when the household was the center
of work and pleasure, when the family made its butter, cheese, oatmeal,
ale, clothing, tools, and utensils,--in such an atmosphere of domestic
industry, Froebel wrote his famous "Education of Man." Note this
description of the way in which a father may educate his son. "The son
accompanies his father everywhere, to the field and to the garden, to
the shop and to the counting house, to the forest and to the meadow; in
the care of domestic animals and in the making of small articles of
household furniture; in the splitting, sawing, and piling up of wood; in
all the work his father's trade or calling involves."[17] In another
passage he calls upon parents, "more particularly fathers (for to their
special care and guidance the child ripening into boyhood is confided),"
to contemplate "their parental duties in child guidance;"[18] and he
prefaces this exhortation with a long list of illustrations, suggesting
the methods which may be pursued by the farm laborer, the goose-herd,
the gardener, the forester, the blacksmith, and other tradesmen and
craftsmen, in the education of their sons. Any such man, Froebel points
out, may take his child at the age of two or three and teach him some of
the simple rules of his trade. How different is the position of the son
of a workman in a modern American city! An American city dweller reading
Froebel's discussion would not conceive of it as applying in any sense
to him, or to his life.
V City Life and the New Basis for Education
The very thought of city life precludes the possibility of home work.
The narrow house, the tenement, the great shop or factory, on the one
hand, prevent the mechanic from carrying on his trade near his family;
and on the other hand, make it impossible for the father whose work
lies far from his home to give his boys the "special care and guidance"
about which Froebel writes.
The system of industry which was established in England during the
closing decades of the eighteenth century, and which secured a foothold
in both Germany and the United States during the first half of the
nineteenth century, has revolutionized the basis of our lives. The
workshop has been transplanted from the home to the factory; both men
and women leave their homes for ten, eleven, or even twelve hours a day
to carry on their industrial activities; great centers of population
collect about the centers of industry; the farm, the flock of geese, the
garden, the forest, and the blacksmith shop disappear; food, clothing,
and other necessaries of life--formerly the product of home
industry--are produced in great factories; and the city home, stripped
of its industrial functions, restricted in scope, robbed of its adults,
presents little opportunity for the education of the city child.
Standing on the threshold of his meager dwelling, this child of six
looks forward to a life which must be based on the instruction provided
in a public school system.
The country boy still has his ten-acre lot, where he may run and play.
There are flowers and freckles in the spring; kite-flying, fishing,
hunting, and trapping in summer and autumn. The general farm is a
storehouse of useful information in rudimentary form. From day to day
and from year to year the country boy may learn and enjoy.
The city boy is differently situated. His playground is the street,
where he plays under the wheels of wagons, automobiles, and trolley
cars; or else he plays in a public playground in company with hundreds,
or even thousands, of other children. Even then his activities are
restricted by city ordinances, monitors, policemen, and other exponents
of law and order.
The city home, whether tenement or single house, cannot begin to supply
the opportunities for growth and development which were furnished by
life in the open. Where else, then, does the responsibility for such
growth and development rest than upon the school? On the farm the boy
learned his trade, as Froebel suggests, at the hands of his father. The
father of the city boy spends his working hours in a mill, or in an
office, where boys under fourteen or sixteen are forbidden by law to go.
The city home is unavoidably deprived of the chance to provide adequate
recreation or adequate vocational training for its children. The burden
in both cases shifts to the school.
A hundred years ago practically all industries were carried on in
connection with the home. The weaver, the carpenter, the hatter, the
cobbler, the miller, lived and worked on the same premises. Then steam
was applied to industry; the machine replaced the man; semi-skilled and
unskilled labor replaced skilled labor; great numbers of men and women,
and even of children, crowded together in factories to spin thread, make
bolts and washers, weave ribbon, bake bread, manufacture machinery, or
do some one of the many hundreds of things now done in factories. The
change from home industry to factory industry is well named the
Industrial Revolution. It completely overturned the established and
accepted means of making a living.
The industrial upheaval has changed every phase of modern life. Industry
itself has replaced apprenticeship by a degree of specialization
undreamed of in primitive life. From the superintendent to the office
boy, from the boss roller to the yard laborer, from the chief clerk to
the stenographer, the work of men and women is monotonous and
specialized. The city has grown up as a logical product of an industrial
system which centers thousands, or even tens of thousands, of workmen in
one place of employment. The city home differs fundamentally from the
country home as the city differs from the country.
The changes now going on in farming are no less significant than those
which the nineteenth century witnessed in manufacturing. Science has
been applied to agriculture. Old methods are brought into question.
Intensive study and specialization are widespread. The time has passed
when a farmer can afford to neglect the agricultural bulletins or
papers. To be successful, he must be a trained specialist in his line,
and the school and college are called upon to provide the training.
No individual is responsible for these changes. They have come as the
logical product of a long series of discoveries and inventions. New
methods, built upon the ideas and methods of the past, have created a
new civilization.
The civilized world, reorganized and reconstituted, rebuilt in all of
its economic phases, demands a new teaching which shall relate men and
women to the changed conditions of life. This is the new basis for
education,--this the new foundation upon which must be erected a
superstructure of educational opportunity for succeeding generations. It
remains for education to recognize the change and to remodel the
institutions of education in such a way that they shall meet the new
needs of the new life.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 16: Portions of this chapter originally appeared in The
Journal of Education.]
[Footnote 17: "The Education of Man," F. Froebel. Translated by
W. N. Halliman, New York; D. Appleton & Co. 1909, p. 103.]
[Footnote 18: Ibid., p. 187.]