religious instruction. It has no concern with any church activity as
such. What it tries to do is to coördinate the community child-welfare
agencies with the school. The lengthening of the school day absorbs an
hour which would otherwise be spent by the city child in the street, or
at home, church, or settlement. All the Gary school does is to organize
and systematize this hour. It may be spent by the child either in play
or auditorium at the school, or in any outside activity which provides
wholesome activities for children. The object is to coördinate the
community opportunities so that they may function regularly and vitally
instead of spasmodically as at present. The school gives to all the
agencies which pretend to be interested in the child’s welfare a chance
to spend themselves effectively. It brings up to the level of public
discussion, for the first time, the question what sort of home, church,
and neighborhood activities are good for children.
Into this scheme the church enters merely as a community institution. As
long as any considerable number of the parents of the children in a
school believe that religious instruction is valuable, no public school
which attempts to be really public can refuse to release children for
this purpose, just as it releases them for playgrounds, settlements,
libraries, home music, or other instruction. This outside time is not
taken from study. Nor are the children turned out into the streets to be
taken care of by the churches and other institutions. No child is
excused unless the parents make formal application. If the parents do
not do this, the child stays at the school for the full seven or eight
hours of work, study, and play. The burden of responsibility rests
entirely upon the parents and the churches. The teachers have nothing to
do with the matter, either in segregating the children or seeing where
they go. There seems to be little fear that the practice will not
conform to the theory. Mr. Wirt tells us that his work-study-and-play
school had been functioning for twelve years in Bluffton and Gary before
any religious organization took advantage of this provision. The idea
that the opportunity would unduly increase religious influence in the
schools seems to be groundless. In the Jefferson School in Gary, which
has been longest in operation under the Wirt plan, and where the fullest
efforts have been made by all the sects and religions of the town to
provide this supplementary instruction, scarcely half the children in
the spring of 1915 were going out to any sort of religious training
whatever. And in one of the Wirt schools in New York, where unusual
efforts have been made by some of the churches to meet the new plan, not
even half of the children are released for this purpose. In another Wirt
school in New York, none of the children are released, because there is
no demand for it on the part of the parents.
What the Gary plan seems to do is not to bring religion into the
schools, but for the first time to take it out of the schools. The
relations now between church and school are hidden. The Gary plan brings
them out into the open. The establishment of a fair, free, and open
relation between the school and all other community institutions is of
utmost importance. No institution which has anything valuable to offer
the child will lose by such a relation. No outside power can dominate or
even partially control a public school which has established it.
_We may sum up the Gary school, then, as primarily a school
community for children of all ages between nursery and college,
providing wholesome activities under a fourfold division of
work, study, play, and expression. It aims to provide the best
possible environment for the growing child throughout the course
of a full eight-hour day. The school community, replacing the
old-time education of household and_ _school, aims to be as
self-sustaining as possible, all activities contributing to the
welfare of the school community life. By the multiple use of
school facilities, on the plan of public-service principles,
such a school may be provided at no more expense than that of
the ordinary public school. The economics effected by this
multiple use enable the Gary school to provide recreational and
educational facilities for adults as well as children all the
year round, as well as to pay better salaries to teachers, and
completely solve “part-time problems.” It makes the school the
cultural center of a community with parks, libraries, and
museums functioning as contributory to the school, as well as
all other activities which provide wholesome interests for
children. It makes the school, for the first time, a genuine
“social center,” and a genuinely “public school” in a
comprehensive sense scarcely realized hitherto._
No better evaluation of the Gary plan has been made than that by William
Paxton Burris, Dean of the College for Teachers, University of
Cincinnati, in the _Bulletin_ of the United States Bureau of Education,
1914, no. 18. In his opinion the school system at Gary provides:—
“1. For the better use of school-buildings day and evening, including
Saturdays, the year round, making it possible to save large sums of
money expended for this purpose.”
This multiple use of school plants, which secures greatly increased
facilities at greatly reduced cost, while it permits the giving of
full-time instruction to all the children of even the congested school
districts, is the aspect which has appealed most generally to educators
outside of Gary. For administrators confronted with problems of
part-time, it makes an examination of the Wirt plan almost essential. No
educationist can afford to ignore a plan which, in mere details of
mechanical administration, provides not only a full-time program, but
actually a longer school day, for all the children in the city
school—something hitherto considered impossible in the larger school
systems. The Gary plan seems to provide an easy solution for these
difficulties which grow progressively worse in the large city with every
year.
“2. The possibility of a better division of time between the old and the
new studies, the ‘regular studies’ and ‘special activities.’”
The Gary plan provides not only an enriched curriculum, but an unusually
favorable and harmonious balance between the various activities. The
larger emphasis on science and manual work has not made the school
ultra-utilitarian in its purpose. The Gary schools have not been “turned
into mills and factories,” as certain educators have feared. For many
visitors, the Gary school is a living refutation of the idea that the
useful and the beautiful are opposed. The new school plants, such as the
Emerson and Froebel, are spacious and dignified buildings, with many
touches of thoughtful taste that one usually associates only with the
high schools of exceptionally wealthy and cultivated suburban
communities. The presence of pictures, the cultivation of music, the
emphasis on expression, the teaching of literature, the systematic use
of the public library, indicate a determined effort to bring the
cultural aspects of education to the front, and make them as real a part
of the school life as the more striking special activities. The
“application” work involves constant care and interest in the
enhancement of the beauty of the school plant. The actual charm of the
school life in Gary—the conservatories and gardens, the play, the
freedom of the children, the dramatic expression, the absence of strain
and confusion, the happiness of the children—is testified to by most
visitors. A very beautiful school life seems to be lived, paradoxical as
it may seem, where every activity is motivated by application and
expression, where the learning is by doing and not by mere studying.
“3. Greater flexibility in adapting studies to exceptional children of
all kinds, thereby diminishing the necessity of special schools.”
The Gary plan provides a school which is adapted to almost every kind of
a child. It does not try to adapt the child to the school, casting off
automatically those who do not fit. But it adapts the school to the very
unequal needs and capacities of the children. Such a school seems to be
one where capacities will be developed wherever there are capacities, a
school where something like equal educational opportunity can be given,
as it cannot be in the ordinary public school. It can almost be said
that the only reason for keeping a child home from the Gary school would
be a case of contagious disease. If the child is physically weak, so
that he cannot undertake all the work, he may take what he can and use
the other facilities of the school as one would use a sanitarium for
regaining health. The daily program permits a child to spend all his
time in the special activities if this is best for him. He may spend his
time resting in the open air, or in supervised play until he gains
strength to do the regular work. The defective child may work at what he
can in the way of manual activity. And the retarded child may take such
activities as will awaken his interest, and gradually bring him up to
the level of his grade. An elementary school system like this has no
need for the expensive special open-air schools, classes for defectives,
etc., special trade schools or commercial schools. In the organized life
of the complete school community, the child may find approximately what
he needs.
“4. The possibility of more expert teaching through the extension of the
departmental plan of organization.”
“5. The better use of playtime, thereby preventing influences which undo
the work of the schools.”
“6. More realism in vocational and industrial work, by placing it under
the direction of expert workmen from the ranks of laboring men, selected
for their personal qualities and teaching ability as well as their skill
in the trade industries.”
The organization of the industrial and other vocational work offers many
practical advantages to the young worker. Not only does he have the
evening continuation courses and the privilege of coming back to the
school shops in the daytime when unemployed, but the most practical
foundation is laid for the development of coöperative courses between
school and factory on the lines of the well-known Fitchburg plan. The
flexibility of administration and curriculum in the Gary school allows
him to attend the academic class during slack hours, or to divide the
job and the school with another student. The Gary school even offers to
provide special instruction for part-time students for any desired
number of hours a week, or allows them to work on their own initiative.
In 1914 in Gary there were said to be about one hundred part-time
students. The plan of the all-year school also offers peculiar
opportunities to the young worker. The opportunity of finding employment
is increased fourfold. For instead of throwing all the pupils on the
market to find jobs at the same time, one quarter of those who needed
work would be available throughout the year. Instead of one continuous
apprentice in an industry or trade, therefore, four pupils could take
his place in alternation. Instead of one young workman spending all his
time at work and none at school, four would be getting a full schooling
of thirty-six weeks in the year, and twelve weeks of practical
apprentice training in the factory. Thus the Gary plan makes it easy for
the young worker to get the maximum benefit of the modern school and his
apprenticeship at the same time.
[Illustration:
THE FOUNDRY AT THE EMERSON SCHOOL
Notice group of curious children at window
]
A word should be said about the value of the vocational industrial
training that the Gary school gives, from the point of view of
preparation for efficiency in the industrial world. The organization of
the manual work as a part of the regular curriculum prevents the narrow
specialization of the trade school. It tends to turn the young worker
out, not as a part of the industrial machine fitted to do only one
thing, but equipped to meet a dynamic, rapidly changing industrial world
which demands above all things versatility, and which scraps methods and
machines as ruthlessly as it does men. Only the man of rounded training
and resourcefulness who can turn his hand quickly to a variety of
occupations has a chance to-day to rise above the mass. The tendency of
the old public school, in spite of its fancied “liberal” curriculum, was
to turn out only very low-grade specialists in book-learning. The
student who comes from the well-rounded curriculum of the Gary school
into the industrial world is bound to be more alert, more interested in,
and more cognizant of, what he is doing. The Gary school seems to be
making an effort to produce the type of mind perhaps the most needed
to-day, that of the versatile engineer, the mind that adapts and masters
mechanism. This exactness, resourcefulness, inventiveness, pragmatic
judgment of a machine by its product, the sense of machinery as a means
not an end in itself,—these qualities of mind which come from an
emphasis on applied science are the qualities which society demands in
almost every industry, profession, and trade. The Gary school tends to
cultivate this type of intelligence. For this type of mind, “culture”
would not be a fringe, but a more or less integral part of life, because
it had been woven in from the earliest years in the school community. On
the other hand, skilled labor would not seem degrading or of lower
value, for it too would have had its equal part in the school life.
“7. Better facilities for the promotion of the health of children.”
The large amount of play, the spacious and sanitary school plants, the
care of the special school physicians and school nurses who devote their
whole time to the purpose, insure the needed attention to the physical
well-being of the children.
“8. The possibility of having pupils do work in more than one grade and
of promoting them by subjects instead of by grades.”
“9. The possibility of having pupils help each other.”
The “helper and observer” system, applied not only in the relations
between children, but between teachers, and between teachers inside the
school and visitors, is one of the most valuable features of the Gary
plan. It entirely alters the usual relations, making for a coöperative
instead of a competitive spirit in work, and facilitating enormously the
work of both pupils and teachers. Children learn by watching and asking
questions—“picking up”—in the most natural way in the world, in contrast
to the formal and stilted ways of the traditional classroom work.
“10. An organization which prevents a chasm between the elementary and
high school, and prevents dropping out of school at critical periods in
the lives of pupils by the introduction, at such times, of subjects
which appeal to awakening interests not satisfied by a continuous and
exclusive devotion to the ‘common branches.’”
The Gary plan, which includes all the grades in one school plant
wherever possible, prevents these chasms more successfully than even
such schemes as the junior high school which are being extensively
experimented with elsewhere. The Gary school has an extraordinary hold
on its pupils. There is no incentive for leaving school, since the
school provides for the needs of the most diversely equipped children,
gives them the practical vocational training they may want, and even
allows their working part-time while continuing with the school. All
those problems of “pupil-mortality,” whereby half the children in our
public schools are said never to pass beyond the sixth grade, are almost
automatically avoided in a school which deliberately sets itself to
meeting the individual child’s needs. The success of the Gary school in
holding its pupils is indicated in the fact that, in spite of the short
time the Gary schools have been in existence, the proportion of
high-school pupils in Gary is said to be almost twice as large as that
in the schools of New York City.
“11. A saving in the cost of instruction by reducing overhead charges
for supervisors, making it possible to pay better salaries or reduce the
number of pupils per teacher, or both.”
“12. A plan which brings together, in a unitary way, with economy and
efficiency in management, the other recreational and educational
agencies of the city.”
These evaluations of Dean Burris’s sum up the various aspects of the
Gary plan as it appeals to practical educators. It must be remembered
that the Gary school represents not a rigid system, or a static and
completed mechanism. Its chief value is that it provides a flexible
program and facility for change and development. Any examples of details
in the curricula or details of administration can only be tentative, for
it is an experimental school, where every one is constantly studying and
learning. It is a growing organism. The only limit to its growth seems
to lie in the imagination of teachers and pupils. Even when it starts
with an admirable equipment, its life is only begun. It is the use of
the equipment, the constant appeal to the imagination and to expression
that is the real education. In such a school, the cultivation of
resource may go on indefinitely. Such a school provides that “embryonic
community life” which Professor Dewey expresses as his ideal of a
school, where in actual work the child senses the occupations and
interests of the larger world into which he is some time actively to
enter.
We may say, then, that the Gary school has national significance because
it is the first public school system in successful established operation
which has been able to solve the pressing and apparently insoluble
problems of the city school; which has kept pace with changing
industrial and social conditions, and adapts the school to every kind of
a child; which synthesizes the best educational endeavors of the day,
and provides the facilities which educators have vainly sought to
provide for all the children, but have only succeeded in providing at
great expense for the more advanced and older pupils of the community;
which marks a distinct advance in democratic education; which realizes
the ideal of a truly public school, in providing for all the people all
of the time; and, which, in its simple organization and ingenious
financial economies, furnishes a practical working-model for imitation
and adaptation in other communities, large and small.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
APPENDIX
I
DISTRIBUTION OF EXPENDITURES
_August 1, 1914-July 31, 1915_
_Schools of Gary, Indiana_
REGULAR SCHOOL (TEN MONTHS, FIVE DAYS PER WEEK, EIGHT-HOUR DAY)
───────────────┬──────────┬──────────┬────────────┬──────────
LARGEST THREE │ Emerson │ Froebel │ Jefferson │ All
SCHOOLS WITH │ School │ 1847_ │ 764 │ schools
NO. OF PUPILS │ (895) │ │ │ 4789
───────────────┼──────────┼──────────┼────────────┼──────────
Instruction │ │ │ │
—Salaries of │ │ │ │
supervisors │ │ │ │
and │ │ │ │
principals, │ │ │ │
and │ $2,750.19│ $4,189.95│ $2,016.60│$13,745.75
miscellaneous│ │ │ │
Salaries of │ 27,954.77│ 46,373.36│ 16,713.70│113,533.24
teachers │ │ │ │
Supplies │ 854.66│ 758.58│ 367.00│ 2,660.09
───────────────┼──────────┼──────────┼────────────┼──────────
Total cost of │$31,559.62│$51,321.89│ $19,097.30│$129,939.08
instruction │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │
Operation and │ │ │ │
maintenance— │ │ │ │
Janitors’ wages│ $3,908.80│ $4,936.02│ $1,131.11│$12,203.15
Fuel, water, │ 4,815.03│ 5,234.70│ 1,205.11│ 13,799.49
light, │ │ │ │
supplies │ │ │ │
───────────────┼──────────┼──────────┼────────────┼──────────
Total cost of │ $8,723.83│$10,170.72│ $2,336.22│$26,002.62
operation │ │ │ │
Maintenance │ 7,420.40│ 6,050.67│ 7,418.36[3]│ 26,574.62
───────────────┴──────────┴──────────┴────────────┴──────────
Footnote 3:
Includes new heating plant.
SATURDAY SCHOOL (TEN MONTHS, EIGHT-HOUR DAY)
────────────┬──────────┬──────────┬──────────┬──────────
SCHOOLS │ Emerson │ Froebel │Jefferson │ All
│ │ │ │ schools
────────────┼──────────┼──────────┼──────────┼──────────
Instruction │ $1,782.20│ $2,721.57│ $860.28│ $6,909.52
Operation │ 1,713.63│ 1,690.83│ 344.65│ 4,332.31
────────────┴──────────┴──────────┴──────────┴──────────
SUMMER SCHOOL (TWO MONTHS)
───────────────┬──────────┬──────────┬──────────┬──────────
SCHOOLS │ Emerson │ Froebel │Jefferson │ All
│ │ │ │ schools
───────────────┼──────────┼──────────┼──────────┼──────────
Instruction— │ $831.56│ $1,349.65│ $543.75│ $3,375.20
Salaries of │ │ │ │
supervisors │ │ │ │
and │ │ │ │
principals │ │ │ │
Salaries of │ 4,213.63│ 3,678.08│ 779.58│ 10,602.91
teachers │ │ │ │
Supplies │ 38.61│ 33.30│ 30.50│ 114.31
───────────────┼──────────┼──────────┼──────────┼──────────
Total cost of │ $5,083.80│ $5,061.03│ $1,353.83│$14,092.42
instruction │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │
Operation— │ $1,317.98│ $1,542.37│ $251.03│ $3,424.34
Janitors’ │ │ │ │
wages │ │ │ │
Fuel, etc. │ 794.37│ 1,308.42│ 131.25│ 2,421.95
───────────────┼──────────┼──────────┼──────────┼──────────
Total cost of │ $2,112.35│ $2,850.79│ $382.28│ $5,846.29
operation │ │ │ │
Maintenance │ 1,149.41│ 689.79│ 1,682.55│ 4,165.90
───────────────┴──────────┴──────────┴──────────┴──────────
SUNDAY-SCHOOL (TWO PLANTS, FOUR HOURS WEEKLY)
───────────────┬──────────┬──────────┬──────────
SCHOOLS │ Emerson │ Froebel │ All
│ │ │ schools
───────────────┼──────────┼──────────┼──────────
Salaries of │ $103.00│ $128.00│ $231.00
teachers │ │ │
Operation │ 954.56│ 847.60│ 1,802.16
───────────────┴──────────┴──────────┴──────────
EVENING SCHOOL (FIVE EVENINGS WEEKLY OF TWO HOURS EACH, NINE MONTHS OF
SCHOOL)
───────────────┬──────────┬──────────┬──────────
SCHOOLS │ Emerson │ Froebel │ All
│ │ │ schools
───────────────┼──────────┼──────────┼──────────
Salaries of │ $1,091.07│ $1,731.45│ $3,813.24
supervisors │ │ │
and │ │ │
principals │ │ │
Salaries of │ 5,112.89│ 5,828.00│ 13,675.73
teachers │ │ │
Supplies │ 340.54│ 471.68│ 1,042.84
───────────────┼──────────┼──────────┼──────────
Total cost of │ $6,544.50│ $8,031.13│$18,531.81
instruction │ │ │
Operation │ 2,283.91│ 2,392.68│ 5,872.55
───────────────┴──────────┴──────────┴──────────
PUPIL _PER-CAPITA_ YEAR (TWELVE MONTHS; ALL ACTIVITIES)
───────────────┬──────────┬──────────┬──────────┬──────────
SCHOOLS │ Emerson │ Froebel │Jefferson │ All
│ │ │ │ schools
───────────────┼──────────┼──────────┼──────────┼──────────
Per-capita cost│ │ │ │
for │ │ │ │
Instruction │ $35.26│ $27.79│ $25.00│ $27.13
Operation │ 9.75│ 5.50│ 3.06│ 5.43
Maintenance │ 8.29│ 3.27│ 9.71│ 5.55
───────────────┼──────────┼──────────┼──────────┼──────────
Current cost, │ $53.30│ $36.56│ $37.77│ $38.11
total │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │
Permanent │ 11.43│ 7.81│ 14.43│ 10.88
improvements │ │ │ │
───────────────┼──────────┼──────────┼──────────┼──────────
Grand total │ $64.73│ $44.37│ $52.20│ $48.99
│ │ │ │
General control│ │ │ │ 3.54
Other payments │ │ │ │ 7.75
Auxiliary │ │ │ │ 1.02
agency │ │ │ │
───────────────┴──────────┴──────────┴──────────┴──────────
ENROLLMENT
────────────┬──────────┬──────────┬────────┬────────┬────────
Day School │Enrollment│ Average │ No. of │ All │Enrollment
│ │ daily │teachers│Average │ per
│ │attendance│ │ salary │teacher
────────────┼──────────┼──────────┼────────┼────────┼────────
Emerson │ 895│ 769.80│ 31│ $915.78│ 27.56
Froebel │ 1,847│ 1,591.06│ 57│ 813.56│ 31.50
Jefferson │ 764│ 661.70│ 22│ 759.71│ 33.50
All schools │ 4,789│ 4,043.98│ 142│ 802.59│ 33.70
Summer │ 1,700│ │ │ │
schools │ │ │ │ │
Evening │182,348[4]│ │ │ │
schools │ │ │ │ │
────────────┴──────────┴──────────┴────────┴────────┴────────
Footnote 4:
Number of student hours.
TOTAL EXPENDITURES—TWELVE MONTHS—ALL ACTIVITIES (REGULAR, SATURDAY,
SUNDAY, SUMMER, EVENING SCHOOLS)
Instruction $169,703.83
Operation 43,855.93
Maintenance 30,740.52
Total current cost 244,300.28
──────────
Total expenditures $362,325.73
------------------------------------------------------------------------
II
SUPERINTENDENT WIRT’S REPORT
ON THE
REORGANIZATION OF THE BRONX SCHOOLS, NEW YORK CITY
_Showing how the Gary Plan may be adapted to the Usual School Plant_
THESE twelve schools, I am informed, are the most congested of any group
of twelve schools in New York City. There are only 25,331 sittings in
these schools and 35,580 children were registered December 31,
1914,—10,249 more than sittings. The registration is 140 per cent of the
sittings. But 2500 of the present sittings, representing 50 classrooms,
are unsatisfactory. There are 779 classes in the schools and only 480
satisfactory classrooms. The classes are 162 per cent of the
satisfactory classrooms.