School Efficiency Monographs
THE RECONSTRUCTED SCHOOL
by
FRANCIS B. PEARSON
Superintendent of Public Instruction for Ohio
Author of _The Evolution of the Teacher_, _The High School Problem_,
_Reveries Of A Schoolmaster_, and _The Vitalized School_
World Book Company
1921
PREFACE
In our school processes there are many constants which have general
recognition as such by thoughtful people. On the other hand, there are
many variables which should be subjected to close scrutiny to the end that
they may be made to yield forth the largest possible returns upon the
investment of time and effort. These phases of school procedure constitute
the real problem in the work of reconstruction, and the following pages
represent an effort to point the way toward larger and better results in
the realm of these variables. In general, the aims and purposes of the
worker determine the quality of the work done. If, therefore, this volume
succeeds in stimulating teachers to elevate the goals of their endeavors,
it will have accomplished its purpose.--F.B.P.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. A PRELIMINARY SURVEY OF THE TASK BEFORE THE SCHOOL
II. THE PAST AS RELATED TO THE PRESENT
III. THE FUTURE AS RELATED TO THE PRESENT
IV. INTEGRITY
V. APPRECIATION
VI. ASPIRATION
VII. INITIATIVE
VIII. IMAGINATION
IX. REVERENCE
X. SENSE OF RESPONSIBILITY
XI. LOYALTY
XII. DEMOCRACY
XIII. SERENITY
XIV. LIFE
INDEX
THE RECONSTRUCTED SCHOOL
CHAPTER ONE
A PRELIMINARY SURVEY OF THE TASK BEFORE THE SCHOOL
When people come to think alike, they tend to act alike; unison in
thinking begets unison in action. It is often said that the man and wife
who have spent years together have grown to resemble each other; but the
resemblance is probably in actions rather than in looks; the fact is that
they have had common goals of thinking throughout the many years they have
lived together and so have come to act in unison. The wise teacher often
adjusts difficult situations in her school by inducing the pupils to think
toward a common goal. In their zeal for a common enterprise the children
forget their differences and attain unison in action as the result of
their unison in thinking. The school superintendent knows full well that
if he can bring teachers, pupils, and parents to think toward a common
goal, he will soon have unity of action. When people catch step mentally,
they do the same physically, and as they move forward along the paths of
their common thinking, their ways converge until, in time, they find
themselves walking side by side in amiable and agreeable converse.
In the larger world outside the school, community enterprises help to
generate unity of thinking and consequent unity of action. The pastor
finds it one of his larger tasks to establish a focus for the thinking of
his people in order to induce concerted action. If the enterprise is one
of charity, the neighbors soon find themselves vying with one another in
zeal and good will. In the zest of a common purpose they see one another
with new eyes and find delight in working with people whose society they
once avoided. They can now do teamwork, because they are all thinking
toward the same high and worthy goal; lines of demarcation are obliterated
and spirits blend in a common purpose. Unity of action becomes inevitable
as soon as thinking becomes unified.
Coöperation follows close upon the heels of community thinking. In the
presence of a great calamity, rivalries, differences of creed and party,
and long-established animosities disappear in the zeal for beneficent
action. In the case of fire or flood people are at one in their actions
because they are thinking toward the common goal of rescue. They act
together only when they think together. Indeed, coöperation is an
impossibility apart from unified thinking. Herein lies the efficacy of
leadership. It is the province of the leader to induce unity of thinking,
to animate with a common purpose, knowing that united action will
certainly ensue. If he can cause the thinking of people to center upon a
focal point, he establishes his claim to leadership.
What is true of individuals is true, also, of nations. Before they can act
in concert, they must think in concert, and, to do this, they must acquire
the ability to think toward common goals. If, to illustrate, all nations
should come to think toward the goal of democracy, there would ensue a
closer sympathy among them, and, in time, modifications of their forms of
government would come about as a natural result of their unity of
thinking. Again, if all nations of the world should set up the quality of
courage as one of the objectives of their thinking they would be drawn
closer together in their feelings and in their conduct. If the parents and
teachers of all these nations should strive to exorcise fear in the
training of children, this purpose would constitute a bond of sympathy
among them and they would be encouraged by the reflection that this high
purpose was animating parents and teachers the world around. Courage, of
course, is of the spirit and typifies many spiritual qualities that
characterize civilization of high grade. It is quite conceivable that
these qualities of the spirit may become the goals of thinking in all
lands. Thus the nations would be brought into a relation of closer
harmony. Had a score of boys shared the experience of the lad who grew
into the likeness of the Great Stone Face, their differences and
disparities would have disappeared in the zeal of a common purpose and
they would have become a unified organization in thinking toward the same
goal.
We cannot hope to achieve the brotherhood of man until the nations of the
world have directed their thinking toward the same goals. What these goals
shall be must be determined by competent leadership through the process of
education. When we think in unison we are taken out of ourselves and
become merged in the spirit of the goal toward which we are thinking. If
we were to agree upon courage as one of the spiritual qualities that
should characterize all nations and organize all educational forces for
the development of this quality, we should find the nations coming closer
to one another with this quality as a common possession. Courage gives
freedom, and in this freedom the nations would touch spiritual elbows and
would thus become spiritual confederates and comrades. By generating and
developing this and other spiritual qualities the nations would become
merged and unity of feeling and actions would surely ensue. Since love is
the greatest thing in the world, this quality may well be made the major
goal toward which the thinking of all nations shall be directed. When all
peoples come to think and yearn toward this goal, hatred and strife will
be banished and peace and righteousness will be enthroned in the hearts of
men. When there has been developed in all the nations of the earth an
ardent love for the true, the beautiful, and the good, civilization will
step up to a higher level and we shall see the dawn of unity.
We who are indulging in dreams of the brotherhood of man must enlarge our
concept of society before we can hope to have our dreams come true. It is
a far cry from society as a strictly American affair to society as a world
affair. The teaching of our schools has had a distinct tendency to
restrict our notion of society to that within our own national boundaries.
In this we convict ourselves of provincialism. Society is far larger than
America, or China, or Russia, or all the islands of the sea in
combination. It may entail some straining at the mental leash to win this
concept of society, but it must be won as a condition precedent to a fair
and just estimate of what the function of education really is and what it
is of which the schoolhouse must be an exponent. Society must be thought
of as including all nations, tribes, and tongues. In our thinking, the
word "society" must suggest the hut that nestles on the mountain-side as
well as the palace that fronts the stately boulevard. It must suggest the
cape that indents the sea as well as the vast plain that stretches out
from river to river. And it must suggest the toiler at his task, the
employer at his desk, the man of leisure in his home, the voyager on the
ocean, the soldier in the ranks, the child at his lessons, and the mother
crooning her baby to sleep.
We descant volubly upon the subjects of citizenship and civilization but,
as yet, have achieved no adequate definition of either of the terms upon
which we expatiate so fluently. Our books teem with admonitions to train
for citizenship in order that we may attain civilization of better
quality. But, in all this, we imply American citizenship and American
civilization, and here, again, we show forth our provincialism. But even
in this restricted field we arrive at our hazy concept of a good citizen
by the process of elimination. We aver that a good citizen does not do
this and does not do that; yet the teachers in our schools would find it
difficult to describe a good citizen adequately, in positive terms. Our
notions of good citizenship are more or less vague and misty and,
therefore, our concept of civilization is equally so.
Granting, however, that we may finally achieve satisfactory definitions of
citizenship and civilization as applying to our own country, it does not
follow that the same definitions will obtain in other lands. A good
citizen according to the Chinese conception may differ widely from a good
citizen in the United States. Topography, climate, associations,
occupations, traditions, and racial tendencies must all be taken into
account in formulating a definition. Before we can gain a right concept of
good citizenship as a world affair we must make a thoughtful study of
world conditions. In so doing, we may have occasion to modify and correct
some of our own preconceived notions and thus extend the horizon of our
education.
What society is and should be in the world at large; what good citizenship
is and ought to be in the whole world; and what civilization is, should
be, and may be as a world enterprise--these considerations are the
foundation stones upon which we must build the temple of education now in
the process of reconstruction. Otherwise the work will be narrow,
illiberal, spasmodic, and sporadic. It must be possible to arrive at a
common denominator of the concepts of society, citizenship, and
civilization as pertaining to all nations; it must be possible to contrive
a composite of all these concepts to which all nations will subscribe; and
it must be possible to discover some fundamental principles that will
constitute a focal point toward which the thinking of all nations can be
directed. Once this focal point is determined and the thinking of the
world focused upon it, the work of reconstruction has been inaugurated.
But the task is not a simple one by any means; quite the contrary, for it
is world-embracing in its scope. However difficult the task, it is, none
the less, altogether alluring and worthy. It is quite within the range of
possibilities for a book to be written, even a textbook, that would serve
a useful purpose and meet a distinct need in the schools of all lands. At
this point the question of languages obtrudes itself. When people think in
unison a common language is reduced to the plane of a mere convenience,
not a necessity. The buyer and the seller may not speak the same language
but, somehow, they contrive to effect a satisfactory adjustment because
their thinking is centered upon the same objective. When thinking becomes
cosmopolitan, conduct becomes equally so. If this be conceded, then it is
quite within the range of possibilities to formulate a course of study for
all the schools of the world, if only we set up as goals the qualities
that will make for the well-being of people in all lands. True, the means
may differ in different lands, but, even so, the ends will remain
constant. A thousand people may set out from their homes with Rome as
their destination. They will use all means of travel and speak many
languages as they journey forward, but their destination continues
constant and they will use the best means at their command to attain the
common goal. Similarly, if we set up the quality of loyalty as one of our
educational goals, the means may differ but the goal does not change and,
therefore, the nations will be actuated by a common purpose in their
educational endeavors.
The one thing needful for the execution of this ambitious program of
securing concerted thinking is to have in our schools teachers who are
world-minded, who think in world units. Such teachers, and only such, can
plan for world education and world affairs, and bring their plans to a
successful issue. Some teachers seem able to think only of a schoolroom;
others of a building; others of a town or township; still others of a
state; some of a country; and fewer yet of the world as a single thing. A
person can be no larger than his unit of thinking. One who thinks in small
units convicts himself of provincialism and soon becomes intolerant. Such
a person arrogates to himself superiority and inclines to feel somewhat
contemptuous of people outside the narrow limits of his thinking. If he
thinks his restricted horizon bounds all that is worth knowing, he will
not exert himself to climb to a higher level in order that he may gain a
wider view. He is disdainful and intolerant of whatever lies beyond his
horizon, and his attitude, if not his words, repeats the question of the
culpable Cain, "Am I my brother's keeper?" He is encased in an armor that
is impervious to ordinary appeal. He is satisfied with himself and asks
merely to be let alone. He is quite content to be held fast bound in his
traditional moorings without any feeling of sympathy for the world as a
whole.
The reverse side of the picture reveals the teacher who is world-minded.
Such a teacher is never less than magnanimous; intolerance has no place in
his scheme of life; he is in sympathy with all nations in their progress
toward light and right; and he is interested in all world progress whether
in science, in art, in literature, in economics, in industry, or in
education. To this end he is careful to inform himself as to world
movements and notes with keen interest the trend and development of
civilization. Being a world-citizen himself, he strives, in his school
work, to develop in his pupils the capacity and the desire for
world-citizenship. With no abatement of thoroughness in the work of his
school, he still finds time to look up from his tasks to catch the view
beyond his own national boundaries. If the superintendent who is
world-minded has the hearty coöperation of teachers who are also
world-minded, together they will be able to develop a plan of education
that is world-wide. To produce teachers of this type may require a
readjustment and reconstruction of the work of colleges and training
schools to the end that the teachers they send forth may measure up to the
requirements of this world-wide concept of education. But these
institutions can hardly hope to be immune to the process of
reconstruction. They can hardly hope to cite the past as a guide for the
future, for traditional lines are being obliterated and new lines are
being marked out for civilization, including education in its larger and
newer import.
CHAPTER TWO
THE PAST AS RELATED TO THE PRESENT
In a significant degree the present is the heritage of the past, and any
critical appraisement of the present must take cognizance of the influence
of the past. That there are weak places in our present civilization, no
one will deny; nor will it be denied that the sources of some of these may
be found in the past. We have it on good authority that "the fathers have
eaten sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge." Had the
eating of sour grapes in the past been more restricted, the present
generation would stand less in need of dentistry. When we take an
inventory of the people of the present who are defective in body, in mind,
or in spirit, it seems obvious that the consumption of sour grapes, in the
past, must have been quite extensive. If the blood of the grandfather was
tainted, it is probable that the blood of the grandchild is impure.
The defects of the present would seem to constitute a valid indictment
against the educational agencies of the past. These agencies are not
confined to the school but include law, medicine, civics, sociology,
government, hygiene, eugenics, home life, and physical training. Had all
these phases of education done their perfect work in the past, the present
would be in better case. It seems a great pity that it required a world
war to render us conscious of many of the defects of society. The draft
board made discoveries of facts that seem to have eluded the home, the
school, the family physician, and the boards of health. Many of these
discoveries are most disquieting and reflect unfavorably upon some of the
educational practices of the past. The many cases of physical unfitness
and the fewer cases of athletic hearts seem to have escaped the attention
of physical directors and athletic coaches, not to mention parents and
physicians. Seeing that one fourth of our young men have been pronounced
physically unsound, it behooves us to turn our gaze toward the past to
determine, if possible, wherein our educational processes have been at
fault.
The thoughtful person who stands on the street-corner watching the
promiscuous throng pass by and making a careful appraisement of their
physical, mental, and spiritual qualities, will not find the experience
particularly edifying. He will note many facts that will depress rather
than encourage and inspire. In the throng he will see many men and women,
young and old, who, as specimens of physical manhood and womanhood, are
far from perfect. He will see many who are young in years but who are old
in looks and physical bearing. They creep or shuffle along as if bowed
down with the weight of years, lacking the graces of buoyancy and
abounding youth. They are bent, gnarled, shriveled, faded, weak, and
wizened. Their faces reveal the absence of the looks that betoken hope,
courage, aspiration, and high purpose. Their lineaments and their gait
show forth a ghastly forlornness that excites pity and despair. They seem
the veriest derelicts, tossed to and fro by the currents of life without
hope of redemption.
Their whole bearing indicates that they are languid, morbid, misanthropic,
and nerveless. They seem ill-nourished as well as mentally and spiritually
starved. They seem the victims of inherited or acquired weaknesses that
stamp them as belonging among the physically unfit. If the farmer should
discover among his animals as large a percentage of unfitness and
imperfection, he would reach the conclusion at once that something was
radically wrong and would immediately set on foot well-thought-out plans
to rectify the situation. But, seeing that these derelicts are human
beings and not farm stock, we bestow upon them a sneer, or possibly a
pittance by way of alms, and pass on our complacent ways. Looking upon the
imperfect passersby, the observer is reminded of the tens of thousands of
children who are defective in mind and body and are hidden away from
public gaze, a charge upon the resources of the state.
Such a setting forth of the less agreeable side of present conditions
would seem out of place, if not actually impertinent, were we inclined to
ignore the fact that diagnosis must precede treatment. The surgeon knows
full well that there will be pain, but he is comforted by the reflection
that restoration to health will succeed the pain. We need to look squarely
at the facts as they are in order to determine what must be done to avert
a repetition in the future. We have seen the sins of the fathers visited
upon the children to the third and fourth generation and still retained
our complacency. We preach temperance to the young men of our day, but
fail to set forth the fact that right living on their part will make for
the well-being of their grandchildren. We exhibit our thoroughbred live
stock at our fairs and plume ourselves upon our ability to produce stock
of such quality. In the case of live stock we know that the present is the
product of the past, but seem less ready to acknowledge the same fact as
touching human animals. We may know that our ancestors planted thorns and
yet we seem surprised that we cannot gather a harvest of grapes, and we
would fain gather figs from a planting of thistles. But this may not be.
We harvest according to the planting of our ancestors, and, with equal
certainty, if we eat sour grapes the teeth of our descendants will surely
be put on edge.
If we are to reconstruct our educational processes we must make a critical
survey of the entire situation that we may be fully advised of the
magnitude of the problem to which we are to address ourselves. We may not
blink the facts but must face them squarely; otherwise we shall not get
on. We may take unction to ourselves for our philanthropic zeal in caring
for our unfortunates in penal and eleemosynary institutions, but that will
not suffice. We must frankly consider by what means the number of these
unfortunates may be reduced. If we fail to do this we convict ourselves of
cowardice or impotence. We pile up our millions in buildings for the
insane, the feeble-minded, the vicious, the epileptic, and plume ourselves
upon our munificence. But if all these unfortunates could be redeemed from
their thralldom, and these countless millions turned back into the
channels of trade, civilization would take on a new meaning. Here is one
of the problems that calls aloud to education for a solution and will not
be denied.
One of the avowed purposes of education is to lift society to a higher
plane of thinking and acting, and it is always and altogether pertinent to
make an inventory to discover if this laudable purpose is being
accomplished. Such an inventory can be made only by an analyst; the work
cannot be delegated either to a pessimist or to an optimist. In his
efforts to determine whether society is advancing or receding, the analyst
often makes disquieting discoveries.
It must be admitted by the most devoted and patriotic American that our
civilization includes many elements that can truly be denominated
frivolous, superficial, artificial, and inconsequential. As a people, we
seek to be entertained, but fail to make a nice distinction between
entertainment and amusement. War, it is true, has caused us to think more
soberly and feel more deeply; but the bizarre, the gaudy, and the
superficial still make a strong appeal to us. We are quite happy to wear
paste diamonds, provided only that they sparkle. So long have we been
substituting the fictitious for the genuine that we have contracted the
habit of loose, fictitious thinking. So much does the show element appeal
to us that we incline to parade even our troubles. Simplicity and
sincerity, whether in dress, in speech, or in conduct, have so long been
foreign to our daily living and thinking that we incline to style these
qualities as old-fogyish.
A hundred or more young men came to a certain city to enlist for the war.
As they marched out through the railway station they rent the air with
whooping and yells and other manifestations of boisterous conduct. These
young fellows may have hearts of gold, but their real manhood was overlaid
with a veneer of rudeness that could not commend them to the admiration of
cultivated persons. Inside the station was another group of young men in
khaki who were quiet, dignified, and decorous. The contrast between the
two groups was most striking, and the bystanders were led to wonder
whether it requires a world-war to teach our young men manners and whether
the schools and homes have abdicated in favor of the cantonment in the
teaching of deportment. In the schools and the homes that are to be in our
good land we may well hope that decorum will be emphasized and magnified;
for decorum is evermore the fruitage of intellectuality and genuine
culture.
As a nation, we have been prodigal of our resources and, especially, of
our time. We have failed to regard our leisure hours as a liability but,
like the lotus eaters, have dallied in the realm of pleasure. Like
children at play, we have gone on our pleasure-seeking ways all heedless
of the clock, and, when misfortune came and necessity arose, many of us
were unwilling and more of us unable to engage in the work of production.
In some localities legislation was invoked to urge us toward the fields
and gardens. We have shown ourselves a wasteful people, and in the wake of
our wastefulness have followed a dismal train of disasters, cold, hunger,
and many another form of distress. Deplore and repent of our prodigality
as we may, the effects abide to remind us of our decline from the high
plane of industry, frugality, and conservation of leisure. Nor can we hope
to avert a repetition of this crisis unless education comes in to guide
our minds and hands aright.
Again, we have been wont to estimate men by what they have rather than by
what they are, and to regard as of value only such things as are quoted in
the markets. Wall Street takes precedence over the university and to the
millionaire we accord the front seat even in some of our churches. We
accept the widow's mite but do not inscribe her name upon the roll of
honor. We give money prizes for work in our schools and thus strive to
commercialize the things of the mind and of the spirit. We have laid waste
our forests, impoverished our fields, and defiled our landscapes to
stimulate increased activity in our clearing-houses. Like Jason of old, we
have wandered far in quest of the golden fleece. We welcome the rainbow,
not for its beauty but for the bag of gold at its end. We seek to scale
the heights of Olympus by stairways of gold, fondly nursing the conceit
that, once we have scaled these heights, we shall be equal to the gods.
To indulge in even such a brief review of some of the weak places and
defections of society is not an agreeable task, but diagnosis must
necessarily precede the application of remedies. If we are to reconstruct
education in order to effect a reconstruction of society we must know our
problem in advance, that we may proceed in a rational way. Reconstruction
cannot be made permanently effective by haphazard methods. We must
visualize clearly the objectives of our endeavors in order to obviate
wrong methods and futility. We must have the whole matter laid bare before
our eyes or we shall not get on in the work of reconstruction. It were
more agreeable to dwell upon our achievements, and they are many, but the
process of reconstruction has to do with the affected parts. These must be
our special care, these the realm for our kindly surgery and the arts of
healing. We need to become acutely conscious that the present will become
the past and that there will be a new present which will take on the same
qualities that now characterize our present. We need to feel that the
future will look back to our present and commend or condemn according to
the practices of this generation. And the only way to make a sane and
right future is to create a sane and right present.
CHAPTER THREE
THE FUTURE AS RELATED TO THE PRESENT
In planning a journey the one constant is the destination. All the other
elements are variable, and, therefore, subordinate. So, also, in planning
a course of study. The qualities to be developed through the educational
processes are the constants, while the agencies by which these qualities
are to be attained are subject to change. The course of study provides for
the school activities for the child for a period of twelve years, and it
is altogether pertinent to inquire what qualities we hope to develop by
means of these school activities. To do this effectively we must visualize
the pupil when he emerges from the school period and ask ourselves what
qualities we hope to have him possess at the close of this period. If we
decide upon such qualities as imagination, initiative, aspiration,
appreciation, courage, loyalty, reverence, a sense of responsibility,
integrity, and serenity, we have discovered some of the constants toward
which all the work of the twelve years must be directed. In planning a
course of study toward these constants we do not restrict the scope of the
pupil's activities; quite the reverse. We thus enlarge the concept of
education both for himself and his teachers and emphasize the fact that
education is a continuous process and may not be marked by grades or
subjects. For the teachers we establish goals of school endeavor and thus
unify and articulate all their efforts. We focus their attention upon the
pupil as they would all wish to see him when he completes the work of the
school.
If children are asked why they go to school, nine out of ten, perhaps,
will reply that they go to school to learn arithmetic, grammar, geography,
and history. Asked what their big purpose is in teaching, probably three
out of five teachers will answer that they are actuated by a desire to
cause their pupils to know arithmetic, grammar, geography, and history.
One of the other five teachers may echo something out of her past
accumulations to the effect that her work is the training for citizenship,
and the fifth will say quite frankly that she is groping about, all the
while, searching for the answer to that very question. It would be futile
to ask the children why they desire knowledge of these subjects and there
might be hazard in propounding the same question to the three teachers.
They teach arithmetic because it is in the course of study; it is in the
course of study because the superintendent put it there; and the
superintendent put it there because some other superintendent has it in
his course of study.
Now arithmetic may, in reality, be one of the best things a child can
study; but the child takes it because the teacher prescribes it, and the
teacher takes it on faith because the superintendent takes it on faith and
she cannot go counter to the dictum of the superintendent. Besides, it is
far easier to teach arithmetic than it would be to challenge the right of
this subject to a place in the course of study. To most people, including
many teachers, arithmetic is but a habit of thinking. They have been
contracting this habit through all the years since the beginning of their
school experience, until now it seems as inevitable as any other habitual
affair. It is quite as much a habit of their thinking as eating, sleeping,
or walking. If there were no arithmetic, they argue subconsciously, there
could be no school; for arithmetic and school are synonymous. Again, let
it be said that there is no thought here of inveighing against arithmetic
or any other subject of the curriculum. Not arithmetic in itself, but the
arithmetic habit constitutes the incubus, the evil spirit that needs to be
exorcised.
This arithmetic habit had its origin, doubtless, in the traditional
concept of knowledge as power. An adage is not easily controverted or
eradicated. The copy-books of the fathers proclaimed boldly that knowledge
is power, and the children accepted the dictum as inviolable. If it were
true that knowledge is power, the procedure of the schools and the course
of conduct of the teachers during all these years would have ample
justification. The entire process would seem simplicity itself. So soon as
we acquire knowledge we should have power--and power is altogether
desirable. The trouble is that we have been confusing knowledge and wisdom
in the face of the poet's declaration that "Knowledge and wisdom, far from
being one, have ofttimes no connection." Our experience should have taught
us that many people who have much knowledge are relatively impotent for
the reason that they have not learned how to use their knowledge in the
way of generating power. Gasoline is an inert substance, but, under
well-understood conditions, it affords power. Water is not power, but man
has learned how to use it in generating power. Knowledge is convenient and
serviceable, but its greatest utility lies in the fact that it can be
employed in producing power.
We are prone to take our judgments ready-made and have been relying upon
the copy-books of the fathers rather than our own reasoning powers. If we
had only learned in childhood the distinction between knowledge and
wisdom; if we had learned that knowledge is not power but merely
potential; and if we had learned that knowledge is but the means to an end
and not the end itself, we should have been spared many a delusion and our
educational sky would not now be so overcast with clouds. We have been
proceeding upon the agreeable assumption that arithmetic, geography, and
history are the goals of every school endeavor, the Ultima Thule of every
educational quest. The child studies arithmetic, is subjected to an
examination that may represent the bent or caprice of the teacher, manages
to struggle through seventy per cent of the answers, is promoted to the
next higher grade, and, thereupon, starts on his journey around another
circle. And we call this education. These processes constitute the
mechanics of education, but, in and of themselves, they are not education.
One of the big problems of the school today is to emancipate both teachers
and pupils from the erroneous notion that they are.
The child does not go to school to learn arithmetic and spelling and
grammar. The goal to be attained is far higher and better than either of
these or all combined. The study of arithmetic may prove a highly
profitable means, never the end to be gained. This statement will be
boldly challenged by the traditional teacher, but it is so strongly
intrenched in logic and sound pedagogy that it is impregnable. The goal
might, possibly, be reached without the aid of arithmetic, but, if a
knowledge of this subject will facilitate the process, then, of course, it
becomes of value and should be used. Let us assume, for the moment, that
the teacher decides to set up thoroughness as one of the large objectives
of her teaching. While she may be able to reach this goal sooner by means
of arithmetic, no one will contend that arithmetic is indispensable. Nor,
indeed, will any one contend that arithmetic is comparable to thoroughness
as a goal to be attained. If the teacher's constant aim is thoroughness,
she will achieve even better results in the arithmetic and will inculcate
habits in her pupils that serve them in good stead throughout life. For
the quality of thoroughness is desirable in every activity of life, and we
do well to emphasize every study and every activity of the school that
helps in the development of this quality.
If the superintendent were challenged to adduce a satisfactory reason why
he has not written thoroughness into his course of study he might be hard
put to it to justify the omission. He hopes, of course, that the quality
of thoroughness will issue somehow from the study of arithmetic and
science, but he lacks the courage, apparently, to proclaim this hope in
print. He says that education is a spiritual process, while his course of
study proves that he is striving to produce mental acrobats, relegating
the spiritual qualities to the rank of by-products. His course of study
shows conclusively that he thinks that knowledge is power. Once
disillusion him on this point and his course of study will cease to be to
him the sacrosanct affair it has always appeared and he will no longer
look upon it as a sort of sacrilege to inject into this course of study
some elements that seem to violate the sanctities of tradition.
Advancing another brief step, we may try to imagine the superintendent's
suggesting to the teachers at the opening of the school year that they
devote the year to inculcating in their pupils the qualities of
thoroughness, self-control, courage, and reverence. The faces of the
teachers, at such a proposal, would undoubtedly afford opportunity for an
interesting study and the linguistic reactions of some of them would be
forcible to the point of picturesqueness. The traditional teachers would
demand to know by what right he presumed to impose upon them such an
unheard-of program. Others might welcome the suggestion as a means of
relief from irritating and devastating drudgery. In their quaint innocence
and guilelessness their souls would revel in rainbow dreams of
preachments, homilies, and wise counsel that would cause the qualities of
self-control and reverence to spring into being full-grown even as Minerva
from the head of Jove.
But their beatific visions would dissolve upon hearing the superintendent
name certain teachers to act as a committee to determine and report upon
the studies that would best serve the purpose of generating reverence, and
another committee to select the studies that would most effectively
stimulate and develop self-control, and so on through the list. It is here
that we find the crux of the whole matter. Here the program collides with
tradition and with stereotyped habits of thinking. Many superintendents
and teachers will contend that such a problem is impossible of solution
because no one has ever essayed such a task. No one, they argue, has ever
determined what subjects will effectually generate the specific qualities
self-control or reverence, no one has ever discovered what school studies
will function in given spiritual qualities. According to their course of
reasoning nothing is possible that has not already been done. However,
there are some progressive, dynamic superintendents and teachers who will
welcome the opportunity to test their resourcefulness in seeking the
solution of a problem that is both new and big. To these dynamic ones we
must look for results and when this solution is evolved, the work of
reconstruction will move on apace.
Reverting, for the moment, to the subject of thoroughness: it must be
clear that this quality is worthy a place in the course of study because
it is worthy the best efforts of the pupil. Furthermore, it is worthy the
best efforts of the pupil because it is an important element of
civilization. These statements all need reiteration and emphasis to the
end that they may become thoroughly enmeshed in the social consciousness.
If we can cause people to think toward thoroughness rather than toward
arithmetic or other school studies, we shall win the feeling that we are
making progress. Thoroughness must be distinguished, of course, from a
smattering knowledge of details that have no value. In the right sense
thoroughness must be interpreted as the habit of mastery. We may well
indulge the hope that the time will come when parents will invoke the aid
of the schools to assist their children in acquiring this habit of
mastery. When that time comes the schools will be working toward larger
and higher objectives and education will have become a spiritual process
in reality.
It will be readily conceded that the habit of mastery is a desirable
quality in every vocation and in every avocation. It is a very real asset
on the farm, in the factory, in legislative halls, in the offices of
lawyer and physician, in the study, in the shop, and in the home. When
mastery becomes habitual with people in all these activities society will
thrill with the pulsations of new life and civilization will rise to a
higher level. But how may the child acquire this habit of mastery? On what
meat shall this our pupil feed that he may become master of himself,
master of all his powers, and master of every situation in which he finds
himself? How shall he win that mastery that will enable him to interpret
every obstacle as a new challenge to his powers, and to translate
temporary defeat into ultimate victory? How may he enter into such
complete sense of mastery that he will not quail in the presence of
difficulties, that he will never display the white flag or the white
feather, that he will ever show forth the spirit of Henley's _Invictus_,
and that nothing short of death may avail to absolve him from his
obligations to his high standards?
These questions are referred, with all proper respect, to the
superintendent, the principal, and the teachers, whose province it is to
vouchsafe satisfactory answers. If they tell us that arithmetic will be of
assistance in the way of inculcating this habit of mastery, then we shall
hail arithmetic with joyous acclaim and accord it a place of honor in the
school regime,--but only as an auxiliary, only as a means to the great end
of mastery. If they assure us that science will be equally serviceable in
our enterprise of developing mastery, then we shall give to science an
equally hearty welcome. However, we shall emphasize the right to stipulate
that, in the course of study, the capitals shall be reserved for the big
objective thoroughness, of the habit of mastery, and that the means be
given in small letters and as sub-heads.
We may indulge in the conceit that a flag floats at the summit of a lofty
and more or less rugged elevation. The youth who essays the task of
reaching that flag will need to reinforce his strength at supply stations
along the way. If we style one of these stations arithmetic, it will be
evident, at once, that this station is a subsidiary element in the
enterprise and not the goal, for that is the flag at the top. These supply
stations are useful in helping the youth to reach his goal. We may
conceive of many of these stations, such as algebra, or history, or Greek,
or Chinese. Whatever their names, they are all but means to an end and
when that end has been attained the youth can afford to forget them, in
large part, save only in gratitude for their help in enabling him to win
the goal of thoroughness.
The child eats beefsteak because it is palatable; the mother prescribes
beefsteak and prepares it carefully with the child's health as the goal of
her interests. Moreover, she has a more vital interest in beefsteak
because she is thinking of health as the goal. For another child, she may
prescribe eggs and, for still another, milk or oatmeal, according to each
one's needs. Health is the big goal and these foods are the supply
stations along the way. The physician must assist in determining what
articles of food will best serve the purpose and to this end he must
cooperate with the mother in knowing his patients. He must have knowledge
of foods and must know how to adapt means to ends, never losing sight of
the real goal. The inference is altogether obvious. A superintendent must
write the prescription in the form of a course of study and he may not
with impunity mistake a supply station for the goal. He must have
knowledge of the pupils and know their individual needs and native
interests. Having gained this knowledge, he will supply abundant electives
in order to assist each child in the best possible way toward the goal.
If, then, the relation between major ends and minor means has been made
clear, we are ready for the statement that these major ends may be made
the common goals of endeavor in the schools of all lands. Thoroughness is
quite as necessary in the rice fields of China as in the wheat fields of
America, as necessary in the banks of Rome as in the banks of New York,
quite as essential to mercantile transactions in Cape Town as in Chicago,
and quite as essential to home life in Tokyo as in San Francisco. If these
big objectives are set up in the schools of all countries pupils,
teachers, and people will come to think in unison and thus their ways will
converge and they will come to act in unison. The same high purposes will
actuate and animate society as a whole and this, in turn, will make for a
higher type of civilization and accelerate progress toward unity in school
procedure.
CHAPTER FOUR
INTEGRITY
Integrity connotes many qualities that are necessary to success in the
high art of right and rational living and that are conspicuous, therefore,
in society of high grade. It is an inclusive quality, and is, in reality,
a federation of qualities that are esteemed essential to a highly
developed civilization. The term, like the word from which it is derived,
_integer_, signifies completeness, wholeness, entirety, soundness,
rectitude, unimpaired state. It implies no scarification, no blemish, no
unsoundness, no abrasion, no disfigurement, no distortion, no defect. In
ordinary parlance integrity and honesty are regarded as synonyms, but a
close analysis discovers honesty to be but one of the many manifestations
of integrity. Lincoln displayed honesty in returning the pennies by way of
rectifying a mistake, but that act, honest as it was, did not engage all
his integrity. This big quality manifested itself at Gettysburg, in the
letter to Mrs. Bixby, in visiting the hospitals to comfort and cheer the
wounded soldiers, and in his magnanimity to those who maligned him.
In every individual the inward quality determines the outward conduct in
all its ramifications, whether in his speech, in his actions, or in his
attitude toward other individuals. It is quite as true in a pedagogical
sense as in the scriptural sense that "Men do not gather grapes of thorns
or figs of thistles," and, also, that "By their fruits ye shall know
them." The stream does not rise higher than the source. What a man is
doing and how he is doing it tells us what he is. When we would appraise a
man's character we take note of his habits, his daily walk and
conversation in all his relations to his fellows. If we find a blemish in
his conduct, we arrive at the judgment that his character is not without
blemish. In short, his habitual acts and speech, in the marts of trade, in
the office, in the field, in the home, and in the forum betoken the
presence or absence of integrity. It follows, then, as a corollary that,
if we hope to have in the stream of life that we call society the elements
that make for a high type of civilization we must have integrity at the
source; and with this quality at the source these elements will inevitably
issue forth into the life currents. This being true, we have clear warrant
for the affirmation that integrity is a worthy goal toward which we do
well to direct the activities of the school.
Integrity in its large import implies physical soundness, mental
soundness, and moral soundness. In time we may come to realize that
physical soundness and mental soundness are but sequences of moral
soundness, or, in other words, that a sound body and a sound mind are
manifestations of a right spirit. But, for the present, we may waive this
consideration and think of the three phases of integrity--physical, mental
and moral. If, at the age of eighteen years, the boy or girl emerges from
school experience sound in body, in mind, and in spirit, society will
affirm that education has been effective. To develop young persons of this
type is a work that is worthy the best efforts of the home, the school,
the church and society, nor can any one of these agencies shift or shirk
responsibility. The school has a large share of this responsibility, and
those whose duty it is to formulate a course of study may well ask
themselves what procedure of the school will best assist the child to
attain integrity by means of the school activities.