But I did not propose this morning to talk to you about science as a
part of our educational curriculum, but rather about the scientific
spirit and the scientific method as effective instruments for the
solution of our own peculiar educational problems. I have tried to give
you reasons for believing that an adoption of this policy does not
necessarily commit us to materialism or to a narrowly economic point of
view. I have attempted to show that the scientific method may be applied
to the solution of our problems while we still retain our faith in
ideals; and that, unless we do retain that faith, our investigations
will be without point or meaning.
This problem of vocational education to which I have just referred is
one that is likely to remain unsolved until we have made a searching
investigation of its factors in the light of scientific method. Some
people profess not to be worried by the difficulty of finding time in
our elementary and secondary schools for the introduction of the newer
subjects making for increased vocational efficiency. They would cut the
Gordian knot with one single operation by eliminating enough of the
older subjects to make room for the new. I confess that this solution
does not appeal to me. Fundamentally the core of the elementary
curriculum must, I believe, always be the arts that are essential to
every one who lives the social life. In other words, the language arts
and the number arts are, and always must be, the fundamentals of
elementary education. I do not believe that specialized vocational
education should ever be introduced at the expense of thorough training
in the subjects that already hold their place in the curriculum. And yet
we are confronted by the economic necessity of solving in some way this
vocational problem. How are we to do it?
It is here that the scientific method may perhaps come to our aid. The
obvious avenue of attack upon this problem is to determine whether we
cannot save time and energy, not by the drastic operation of eliminating
old subjects, but rather by improving our technique of teaching, so that
the waste may be reduced, and the time thus saved given to these new
subjects that are so vociferously demanding admission. In Cleveland, for
example, the method of teaching spelling has been subjected to a rigid
scientific treatment, and, as a result, spelling is being taught to-day
vastly better than ever before and with a much smaller expenditure of
time and energy. It has been due, very largely, to the application of a
few well-known principles which the science of psychology has furnished.
Now that is vastly better than saying that spelling is a subject that
takes too much time in our schools and consequently ought forthwith to
be eliminated. In all of our school work enough time is undoubtedly
wasted to provide ample opportunity for training the child thoroughly
in some vocation if we wish to vocationalize him, and I do not think
that this would hurt him, even if he does not follow the vocation in
later life.
To-day we are attempting to detect these sources of waste in technique.
The problems of habit building or memorizing are already well on the way
to solution. Careful tests have shown the value of doing memory work in
a certain definite way--learning by unit wholes rather than by
fragments, for example. Experiments have been conducted to determine the
best length of time to give to drill processes, such as spelling, and
penmanship, and the fundamental tables of arithmetic. It is already
clearly demonstrated that brief periods of intense concentration are
more economical than longer periods during which the monotony of
repetition fags the mind to a point where it can no longer work
effectively. We are also beginning to see from these tests, that a
systematic method of attacking such a problem as the memorizing of the
tables will do much to save time and promote efficiency. We are finding
that it is extremely profitable to instruct children in the technique of
learning,--to start them out in the right way by careful example, so
that much of the time and energy that was formerly dissipated, may now
be conserved.
And there is a suggestion, also, that in the average school, the vast
possibilities of the child's latent energy are only imperfectly
realized. A friend of mine stumbled accidentally upon this fact by
introducing a new method of grading. He divided his pupils into three
groups or streams. The group that progressed the fastest was made up of
those who averaged 85 per cent and over in their work. A middle group
averaged between 75 per cent and 85 per cent in their work, and a third,
slow group was made up of those who averaged below 75 per cent. At the
end of the first month, he found that a certain proportion of his
pupils, who had formerly hovered around the passing grade of 70, began
to forge ahead. Many of them easily went into the fastest stream, but
they were still satisfied with the minimum standing for that group. In
other words, whether we like to admit it or not, most men and women and
boys and girls are content with the passing grades, both in school and
in life. So common is the phenomenon that we think of the matter
fatalistically. But supply a stimulus, raise the standard, and you will
find some of these individuals forging up to the next level.
Professor James's doctrine of latent energies bids fair to furnish the
solution of a vast number of perplexing educational problems. Certain it
is that our pupils of to-day are not overburdened with work. They are
sometimes irritated by too many tasks, sometimes dulled by dead routine,
sometimes exhilarated to the point of mental _ennui_ by spectacular
appeals to immediate interest. But they are seldom overworked, or even
worked to within a healthful degree of the fatigue point.
Elementary education has often been accused of transacting its business
in small coin,--of dealing with and emphasizing trivialities,--and yet
every time that the scientific method touches the field of education, it
reveals the fundamental significance of little things. Whether the
third-grade pupil should memorize the multiplication tables in the form,
"8 times 9 equals 72" or simply "8-9's--72" seems a matter of
insignificance in contrast with the larger problems that beset us. And
yet scientific investigation tells us clearly and unequivocally that any
useless addition to a formula to be memorized increases the time for
reducing the formula to memory, and interferes significantly with its
recall and application. It may seem a matter of trivial importance
whether the pupil increases the subtrahend number or decreases the
minuend number when he subtracts digits that involve taking or
borrowing; and yet investigation proves that to increase the subtrahend
number is by far the simpler process, and eliminates both a source of
waste and a source of error, which, in the aggregate, may assume a
significance to mental economy that is well worth considering.
In fact, if we are ever to solve the broader, bigger, more attractive
problems,--like the problem of vocational education, or the problem of
retardation,--we must first find a solution for some of the smaller and
seemingly trivial questions of the very existence of which the lay
public may be quite unaware, but which you and I know to mean an untold
total of waste and inefficiency in the work that we are trying to do.
And one reason why the scientific attitude toward educational problems
appeals to me is simply because this attitude carries with it a respect
for these seemingly trivial and commonplace problems; for just as the
greatest triumph of the teaching art is to get our pupils to see in
those things of life that are fleeting and transitory the operation of
fundamental and eternal principles, so the glory of the scientific
method lies in its power to reveal the significance of the commonplace
and to teach us that no slightest detail of our daily work is
necessarily devoid of inspiration; that every slightest detail of school
method and school management has a meaning and a significance that it is
worth our while to ponder.