I
I wish to discuss with you some phases of the problem that is perhaps
foremost in the minds of the teaching public to-day: the problem,
namely, of making education bear more directly and more effectively upon
the work of practical, everyday life. I have no doubt that some of you
feel, when this problem is suggested, very much as I felt when I first
suggested to myself the possibility of discussing it with you. You have
doubtless heard some phases of this problem discussed at every meeting
of this association for the past ten years--if you have been a member so
long as that. Certain it is that we all grow weary of the reiteration of
even the best of truths, but certain it is also that some problems are
always before us, and until they are solved satisfactorily they will
always stimulate men to devise means for their solution.
I should say at the outset, however, that I shall not attempt to justify
to this audience the introduction of vocational subjects into the
elementary and secondary curriculums. I shall take it for granted that
you have already made up your minds upon this matter. I shall not take
your time in an attempt to persuade you that agriculture ought to be
taught in the rural schools, or manual training and domestic science in
all schools. I am personally convinced of the value of such work and I
shall take it for granted that you are likewise convinced.
My task to-day, then, is of another type. I wish to discuss with you
some of the implications of this matter of utility in respect of the
work that every elementary school is doing and always must do, no matter
how much hand work or vocational material it may introduce. My problem,
in other words, concerns the ordinary subject-matter of the
curriculum,--reading and writing and arithmetic, geography and grammar
and history,--those things which, like the poor, are always with us, but
which we seem a little ashamed to talk about in public. Truly, from
reading the educational journals and hearing educational discussion
to-day, the layman might well infer that what we term the "useful"
education and the education that is now offered by the average school
are as far apart as the two poles. We are all familiar with the
statement that the elementary curriculum is eminently adapted to produce
clerks and accountants, but very poorly adapted to furnish recruits for
any other department of life. The high school is criticized on the
ground that it prepares for college and consequently for the
professions, but that it is totally inadequate to the needs of the
average citizen. Now it would be futile to deny that there is some truth
in both these assertions, but I do not hesitate to affirm that both are
grossly exaggerated, and that the curriculum of to-day, with all its
imperfections, does not justify so sweeping a denunciation. I wish to
point out some of the respects in which these charges are fallacious,
and, in so doing, perhaps, to suggest some possible remedies for the
defects that every one will acknowledge.