While affixing my signature to the report of this Committee, as
expressing substantial agreement with most of its leading propositions,
I beg leave also to indicate my dissent from certain of its
recommendations and to suggest certain additions which, in my judgment,
the report requires.
1. There are other forms of true correlation which should be included
with the four mentioned in the first part of the report and which
should be as clearly and fully treated as are these four.
The first is that form of correlation which is popularly understood
by the name, and which is also called by some writers concentration,
co-ordination, unification, and alludes in general to a division of
studies into content and form; by content meaning that upon which it is
fitting that the mind of the child should dwell, and by form the means
or modes of expression by which thoughts are communicated. Or, it may
be thus expressed: The true content of education is (1), philosophy or
the knowledge of man as to his motives and hidden springs of action
indicated in history and literature, and (2) science, the knowledge
of nature, and its manifestations and laws. Its form is art, which
is the deliberate, purposeful, and effective expression to others of
that which has been produced within man by contact with other men and
with nature, and is commonly referred to as divided into various arts,
such as reading, writing, drawing, making, and modeling. The relation
of content and form is that of principle and subordinate, the latter
receiving its chief value from the former. In a true education they
are so presented to the mind of the child that he instinctively and
unconsciously grasps this relation and is thereby lifted into a higher
plane of thinking and living than if the various arts are taught, as
they too commonly are, without reference to a noble content. This
relation of form to content is vaguely referred to in the report, but
nowhere definitely treated. It seems to me that it is a true form of
correlation, and, as such, deserves special and definite treatment.
Moreover, it is at present much in the minds of the teachers of this
country, often in forms that are misleading and harmful. The fact that
it adds the important element of interest to the dry details of common
school life makes it especially attractive to progressive and earnest
teachers, and this Committee should recognize its importance and make
such an utterance upon it as will guide the average teacher to a clear
comprehension of its meaning and to a wise use of it in the schoolroom.
Second, there is a still higher form of correlation which is definitely
referred to later in the report as that “of the several branches of
human learning in the unity of the spiritual view furnished by religion
to our civilization.” This in the report is assigned absolutely to the
province of higher education. While I do not wish to dissent wholly
from this view, since it is doubtless true that this higher unity
cannot be comprehensively stated for the use of a child, yet a wise
teacher can so present subjects to even a young child that a sense of
the unity of all knowledge will, to a certain degree, be unconsciously
developed in his mind. In regard to certain of the great divisions
of human knowledge, this relation is so evident that they cannot be
properly presented at all unless the relation be made clear. Such
studies are history and geography.
2. The recommendations upon the subject of language should be broadened
to cover the production of good English by the child himself, with the
suggestion of suitable topics and proper methods. This report confines
itself to the absorptive side of education and ignores that development
of power over nature, man, and self, which comes from free exercise
of faculties and free expression of thought. The study of language as
something for the child to use himself, the great means by which he is
to assert his place in civilization, and exert his influence for good,
is nowhere referred to except in the vaguest way. This statement in
regard to language applies almost equally well to drawing, and here is
made evident the importance of the form of correlation to which I have
just referred. The proper material for the training of the child in
expression is that which is furnished by the study of man and nature.
His mind being filled with high themes, he asserts his individuality,
expresses himself in regard to them, and thereby gains at once both a
closer and clearer comprehension of what he has studied, and also the
power by which he may become a factor in his generation.
3. I would wish to omit the word “weekly” where it occurs in the
discussion of the subjects of general history and science, unless it be
understood to mean that an amount of time in the school year equivalent
to sixty minutes weekly be given to each of these subjects. It is often
better to condense these studies into certain portions of the year,
giving more time to them each week, and using them as the basis, to
a certain degree, of language work. I believe that, especially with
young children, clearer concepts are produced by such connected study,
pursued for fewer weeks, than by lessons seven days apart.
4. In my judgment manual training should not be limited to the seventh
and eighth grades, but should begin in the kindergarten with the
simple study of form from objects and the reproduction in paper of the
objects presented, and should extend, in a series of carefully graded
lessons, through all the grades, leaving, however, the heavier tools,
such as the plane, for the seventh and eighth grades. By these means an
interest is kept up in the various human industries, sympathy for all
labor is created, and a certain degree of skill is developed; moreover,
the interest of the pupils in their school is greatly enhanced. Manual
training has often proved the magnet by which boys at the restless age
have been kept in school instead of leaving for some gainful occupation.
5. I desire to suggest that geometry may be so taught as to be a better
mathematical study than algebra to succeed or accompany arithmetic
in the seventh and eighth grades. I do not refer particularly to
inventional geometry, to which the Committee accords a slighting
attention, but to constructive geometry and the simplest propositions
in demonstrative geometry, thus involving the comprehension of the
elementary geometric forms and their more obvious relations. This study
may be made of special interest in connection with manual training and
drawing, while it presents fewer difficulties to the immature mind than
the abstractions of algebra, since it connects more directly with the
concrete, by which its presentation may often be aided.
6. While agreeing fully with the majority of the Committee that the
full scientific method should not be applied to the study of elementary
science by young children, yet I am compelled to favor more of
experimentation and observation by the child, and less of telling by
the teacher than the report would seem to favor.
7. I would go farther than the majority of the Committee, and insist
that, except in rare cases, there should be no specialization of the
teaching force below the high school, and that even in the first years
of the high school, so far as possible, specialization should be
subordinated to a general care of the child’s welfare and oversight of
his methods of study, which are impossible when a corps of teachers
give instruction, each in one subject, and see the student only during
the hour of recitation.
8. While in the main I agree with the bald statements under the head
“Correlation by synthesis of studies,” since reference is made to
only a very artificial mode of synthesis not at all in vogue in this
country, I must dissent emphatically from this portion of the report
as by inference condemning a most important department of correlation,
to which I have referred earlier. The doctrine of concentration is not
necessarily artificial; rather it refers to the higher unity, of which
this Committee has spoken in glowing terms as belonging to the province
of higher education. It also includes the division of the school
curriculum into content and form, which this Committee inferentially
adopts in its treatment of language. I do not believe, any more than
do the majority of the Committee, that the entire course of study can
be literally and exactly centred about a single subject, nor do I
believe in any artificial correlation; but there is a natural relation
of all knowledges, which this Committee admits in various places, and
which is the basis of a proper synthesis of studies, according to the
psychological principle of apperception.
9. If by the term “oral,” as applied to lessons in biography and in
natural science, the Committee means, as the word would imply, that
the instruction is to be given in the form of lectures by the teacher,
I cannot in full agree with the Committee’s conclusions. As I have
already stated, in natural science the work should be largely that of
observation, and in history and biography, while in the very lowest
grades the teachers should tell the children stories, as soon as it
is possible the desired information should be obtained by the student
through reading. To this end the reading lesson in school should be
properly correlated with his other studies, and he should be advised
as to his home reading. The information thus obtained should be the
subject of conversation in the class, and should furnish the material
for much of the written language work of the children.
10. I must dissent emphatically and entirely from that portion of the
report which recommends that a text-book in grammar be introduced into
the fifth year of the child’s school life. It is a question in my mind
whether it would not be better if the text-book were not introduced
into the grades below the high school at all. Certainly it should not
appear before the seventh year. Such knowledge of grammar as will
familiarize the child with the structure of the sentence, the basis of
all language and as will enable him to use correctly forms of speech
which the necessities of expression require, should be given orally by
the teacher in connection with the child’s written work, when needed;
but against the introduction of a text-book upon grammar, the most
abstruse of all the subjects of the school curriculum, when the pupil
is not more than ten years old, I must protest. Instead of that, the
child should devote much time, some every day, to writing upon proper
themes in the best English he can command, furnishing occasion to the
teacher to correct such errors as he may make, and acquiring by use
acquaintance with the correct forms of grammar. If, as will doubtless
be the case in most cities, local conditions render the introduction of
Latin into the eighth grade inadvisable, this study of grammar may be
made in that grade somewhat more intensive.
11. If by a text-book in geography is meant that which is commonly
understood by the term, and not simply geographical reading matter, in
my judgment, it should not be introduced earlier than the fifth year.
These suggestions and expressions of dissent, if approved by the
Committee, would necessitate some change in the programme submitted,
the most important of which would be the making room for the production
of English in the grades. This could be provided in the first and
second grades by taking some of the time devoted to penmanship and
doing the work partly in connection with the reading classes. In the
third and fourth grades it should take some of the time devoted to
penmanship and should be studied also in connection with geography and
reading, and in the fifth and sixth grades it should take all of the
time given to grammar.
I regret to be compelled to express dissent upon so many points, but
as most of them appear to me vital and as the differences appear to be
not merely superficial but fundamental, affecting and affected by one’s
entire educational creed, I cannot do otherwise. To most of the report
I most gladly give my assent and approval.