diff options
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 3 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 26919-8.txt | 9177 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 26919-8.zip | bin | 0 -> 169944 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 26919-h.zip | bin | 0 -> 190798 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 26919-h/26919-h.htm | 10577 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 26919-h/images/logo.jpg | bin | 0 -> 5445 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 26919.txt | 9177 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 26919.zip | bin | 0 -> 169919 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 |
10 files changed, 28947 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/26919-8.txt b/26919-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..045276e --- /dev/null +++ b/26919-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9177 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The New Education, by Scott Nearing + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The New Education + A Review of Progressive Educational Movements of the Day (1915) + +Author: Scott Nearing + +Release Date: October 14, 2008 [EBook #26919] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NEW EDUCATION *** + + + + +Produced by Chris Curnow, Matt Mello and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + * * * * * + +TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: Every effort has been made to replicate this text as +faithfully as possible; please see detailed list of printing issues at +the end of the text, after the Index. + + * * * * * + + + + +THE NEW EDUCATION + +A REVIEW OF PROGRESSIVE +EDUCATIONAL MOVEMENTS +OF THE DAY + + +BY + +SCOTT NEARING, Ph.D. + +Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania + +AUTHOR OF "SOCIAL ADJUSTMENT," +"THE SUPER RACE," "WAGES IN THE UNITED STATES," +"SOCIAL SANITY," "REDUCING THE COST OF LIVING," etc. + + + CHICAGO NEW YORK + ROW, PETERSON & COMPANY + + Copyright, 1915 + ROW, PETERSON & COMPANY + + + * * * * * + + + + +PREFACE + + +During 1910, 1911, and 1912, as a part of a general plan to write a book +on education, I reread a great deal of the classical educational +literature, and carefully perused most of the current material in +magazine and book form. An interest aroused by undergraduate and +graduate work in the department of pedagogy had been whetted by the +revolutionary activity in every field of educational endeavor. The time +seemed ripe for an effective piece of constructive educational writing, +yet I could not see my way clear to begin it. Glaring faults there were; +remedies appeared ready at hand and easy of application; the will of an +aroused public opinion alone seemed to be lacking. By what method could +this wheel horse of reform best be harnessed to the car of educational +progress? + +I was still seeking for an answer to this riddle when the editors of +"The Ladies' Home Journal" asked me to consider the preparation of a +series of articles. "We have done some sharp destructive work in our +criticisms of the schools," they said. "Now we are going to do some +constructive writing. We are in search of two things:--first, a +constructive article outlining in general a possible scheme for +reorganizing the course of study; second, a series of articles +describing in a readable way the most successful public school work now +being done in the United States. We want you to visit the schools, study +them at first-hand, and bring back a report of the best that they have +to offer. When your investigation is completed, we shall expect you to +write the material up in such a form that each reader, after finishing +an article, will exclaim,--'There is something that we must introduce +into our schools.'" + +That was my opportunity. Instead of writing a book to be read by a +thousand persons, I could place a number of constructive articles before +two million readers. The invitation was a godsend. + +The articles, when completed, formed a natural sequence. First there was +the general article (Chapter 3) suggesting the reorganization. Then +followed descriptions of the schools in which some such reorganizations +had been effected. Prepared with the same point of view, the articles +constituted an acceptable series, having a general object and a +connecting idea running throughout. What more natural than to write a +few words of introduction and conclusion, and put the whole in book +form? The style of the articles has been changed somewhat, and +considerable material has been added to them; but, in the main, they +stand as they were written--simple descriptions of some of the most +advanced school work now being done in the United States. + +Looked at from any standpoint, this study is a collection of articles +rather than a book, yet there is sufficient relation between the +articles to give a measure of continuity to the thought which they +convey. In no sense is the work pedagogical or theoretical. It is, on +the contrary, a record of the impressions made on a traveler by a number +of school systems and schools. The articles purported to cover the most +progressive work which is being done in the most progressive schools. +Although the selection of successful schools was made only after a +careful canvass among the leading educators of the country, there are +undoubtedly many instances, still at large, which are in every sense as +worthy of commendation as any here recorded. This fact does not in any +way vitiate the purpose of the original articles, which was to set down +a statement of some educational successes in such a way that the lay +reader, grasping the significance of these ventures, might see in them +immediate possibilities for the schools in his locality. + +Behind all of the chapters is the same idea--the idea of educating +children--an idea which has taken firm hold of the progressive educators +in every section of the community. The schoolmaster is breaking away +from the traditions of his craft. He has laid aside the birch, the three +"R's," the categorical imperative, and a host of other instruments +invented by ancient pedagogical inquisitors, and with an open mind is +going up and down the world seeking to reshape the schools in the +interests of childhood. The task is Herculean, but the enthusiasm and +energy which inspire his labors are sufficient to overcome even those +obstacles which are apparently insurmountable. + + + + +CONTENTS + + PAGE + +INTRODUCTION. THE OLD EDUCATION 11 + + I. The Critical Spirit and the Schools 11 + + II. Some Harsh Words from the Inside 12 + + III. A Word from Huxley and Spencer 15 + + IV. Some Honest Facts 17 + + V. Have We Fulfilled the Object of Education? 22 + + +CHAPTER I. THE NEW BASIS FOR EDUCATION 24 + + I. Can There Be a New Basis? 24 + + II. Social Change 25 + + III. Keeping Up With the Times 26 + + IV. Education in the Early Home 27 + + V. City Life and the New Basis for Education 28 + + +CHAPTER II. TEACHING BOYS AND GIRLS 32 + + I. The New School Machinery 32 + + II. Rousseau Versus a Class of Forty 33 + + III. The Fallacious "Average" 34 + + IV. The Five Ages of Childhood 35 + + V. Age Distribution in One Grade 36 + + VI. Shall Child or Subject Matter Come First? 39 + + VII. The Vicious Practices of One "Good" School 40 + +VIII. Boys and Girls--The One Object of Educational Activity 42 + + +CHAPTER III. FITTING SCHOOLS TO CHILDREN 44 + + I. Child Growth--A Primary Factor in Child Life 44 + + II. Children Need Health First 45 + + III. Play as a Means to Growth 46 + + IV. Some Things Which a Child Must Learn 48 + + V. What Schools Must Provide to Meet Child Needs 51 + + VI. The Educational Work of the Small Town 52 + + VII. The Educational Problems of an Industrial Community 55 + +VIII. Beginning With Child Needs 56 + + +CHAPTER IV. PROGRESSIVE NOTES IN ELEMENTARY EDUCATION 58 + + I. The Kindergarten 58 + + II. Translating the Three R's 59 + + III. Playing at Mathematics 60 + + IV. A Model English Lesson 61 + + V. An Original Fairy Story 65 + + VI. The Crow and the Scarecrow 67 + + VII. School and Home 68 + +VIII. Breaking New Ground 71 + + IX. The School and the Community 72 + + X. New Keys for Old Locks 74 + + XI. School and Shop 76 + + XII. Half a Chance to Study 79 + +XIII. Thwarting Satan in the Summer Time 80 + + XIV. Sending the Whole Child to School 81 + + XV. Smashing the School Machine 84 + + XVI. All Hands Around for an Elementary School 86 + +XVII. From a Blazed Trail to a Paved Highway 90 + + +CHAPTER V. KEEPING THE HIGH SCHOOL IN STEP WITH LIFE 92 + + I. The Responsibility of the High School 92 + + II. An Experiment in Futures 92 + + III. The Success Habit 95 + + IV. The Help-out Spirit 97 + + V. Joining Hands With the Elementary Schools 98 + + VI. The Abolition of "Mass Play" 101 + + VII. Experimental Democracy 103 + +VIII. Breaching [the] Chinese Wall of High School Classicism 105 + + IX. An Up-to-Date High School 107 + + X. From School to Shop and Back Again 109 + + XI. Fitting the High School Graduate Into Life 110 + + XII. The High School as a Public Servant 114 + + +CHAPTER VI. HIGHER EDUCATION AT LOWVILLE 116 + + I. Lowville and the Neighborhood 116 + + II. Lowville Academy 117 + + III. The School's Opportunity 119 + + IV. Field Work as Education 120 + + V. Real Domestic Science 122 + + VI. One Instance of Success 123 + +CHAPTER VII. A GREAT CITY SCHOOL SYSTEM 125 + + I. "Co-operation" and "Progressivism" 125 + + II. An Educational Creed 127 + + III. Vitalizing the Kindergarten 129 + + IV. Regenerating the Grades 132 + + V. Popularizing High School Education 137 + + VI. A City University 140 + + VII. Special Schools for Special Classes 141 + +VIII. Special Schools for Special Children 144 + + IX. Playground and Summer Schools 145 + + X. Mr. Dyer and the Men Who Stood With Him 147 + + +CHAPTER VIII. THE OYLER SCHOOL OF CINCINNATI 153 + + I. An Experiment in Social Education 153 + + II. An Appeal for Applied Education 156 + + III. Solving a Local Problem 157 + + IV. Domestic Science Which Domesticates 159 + + V. Making Commercial Products in the Grades 161 + + VI. A Real Interest in School 162 + + VII. The Mothers' Club 163 + +VIII. The Disappearance of "Discipline" 165 + + IX. The Spirit of Oyler 167 + + +CHAPTER IX. VITALIZING RURAL EDUCATION 170 + + I. The Call of the Country 170 + + II. Making Bricks With Straw 171 + + III. Making the One-Room Country School Worth While 182 + + IV. Repainting the Little Red Schoolhouse 187 + + V. A Fairyland of Rural Education 188 + + VI. The Task of the Country School 193 + + +CHAPTER X. OUT OF THE MOUTHS OF BABES AND SUCKLINGS 195 + + I. Miss Belle 195 + + II. Going to Work Through the Children 196 + + III. Beginning on Muffins 197 + + IV. Taking the Boys in Hand 200 + + V. "Busy Work" as an Asset 201 + + VI. Marguerite 203 + + VII. Winning Over the Families 204 + +CHAPTER XI. WIDE-AWAKE SLEEPY EYE 207 + + I. Fitting Schools to Needs 207 + + II. Getting the Janitor in Line 208 + + III. The Department of Agriculture 209 + + IV. A Short Course for Busy People 212 + + V. Letting the Boys Do It 214 + + VI. A Look at the Domestic Science 214 + + VII. How It Works Out 216 + +VIII. Theoretical and Practical 217 + + +CHAPTER XII. THE SOUTH FOR THE NEW EDUCATION 220 + + I. A Dream of Empire 220 + + II. Finding the Way 222 + + III. Jem's Father 224 + + IV. Club Life Militant 228 + + V. Canning Clubs 234 + + VI. Recognition Day for Boys and Girls 235 + + VII. Teaching Grown-Ups to Read 236 + +VIII. George Washington, Junior 237 + + IX. A Step Toward Good Health 239 + + X. Theory and Practice 242 + + XI. A People Coming to Its Own 249 + + +CHAPTER XIII. THE SPIRIT OF THE NEW EDUCATION 251 + + I. The Standard of Education 251 + + II. Standardization Was a Failure 252 + + III. Education as Growth 254 + + IV. Child Needs and Community Needs 255 + + V. The Final Test of Education 257 + + + + +THE NEW EDUCATION + +INTRODUCTION + +THE OLD EDUCATION + + +I The Critical Spirit and the Schools + +"Everybody is doing it," said a high school principal the other day. "I +look through the new books and I find it; it stands out prominently in +technical as well as in popular magazines; even the educational papers +are taking it up,--everybody seems to be whacking the schools. Yesterday +I picked up a funny sheet on which there were four raps at the schools. +One in particular that I remember ran something like this,-- + +"'James,' said the teacher, 'if Thomas has three red apples and William +has five yellow apples, how many apples have Thomas and William?' + +"James looked despondent. + +"'Don't you know?' queried the teacher, 'how much three plus five is?' + +"'Oh, yes, ma'am, I know the answer, but the formula, ma'am,--it's the +formula that appals me.' + +"Probably nine-tenths of the people who read that story enjoyed it +hugely," continued the schoolman, "and they enjoyed it because it struck +a responsive chord in their memories. At one time or another in their +school lives, they, too, bowed in dejection before the tyranny of +formulas." + +This criticism of school formulas is not confined to popular sources. +Prominent authorities in every field which comes in contact with the +school are barbarous in their onslaughts. State and city +superintendents, principals, teachers, parents, employers,--all have +made contribution to the popular clamor. On every hand may be gleaned +evidences of an unsatisfied critical spirit. + + +II Some Harsh Words from the Inside + +The Commissioner of Education of New York State writes of the +schools,--[1] "A child is worse off in a graded school than in an +ungraded one, if the work of a grade is not capable of some specific +valuation, and if each added grade does not provide some added power. +The first two grades run much to entertainment and amusement. The third +and fourth grades repeat the work supposed to have been done in the +first two. Too many unimportant and unrelated facts are taught. It is +like the wearying orator who reels off stories only to amuse, seems +incapable of choosing an incident to enforce a point, and makes no +progress toward a logical conclusion. + +"When but one-third of the children remain to the end of the elementary +course, there is something the matter with the schools. When half of the +men who are responsible for the business activities and who are guiding +the political life of the country tell us that children from the +elementary schools are not able to do definite things required in the +world's real affairs, there is something the matter with the schools. +When work seeks workers, and young men and women are indifferent to it +or do not know how to do it, there is something the matter with the +schools.[2] + +"There is a waste of time and productivity in all of the grades of the +elementary schools."[3] "The things that are weighing down the schools +are the multiplicity of studies which are only informatory, the +prolongation of branches so as to require many text-books, and the +prolixity of treatment and illustration that will accommodate +psychological theory and sustain pedagogical methods which have some +basis of reason, but which have been most ingeniously overdone."[4] + +Former United States Commissioner of Education, E. E. Brown, is +responsible for the statement that,--"With all that we have done to +secure regular and continuous attendance at school, it is still a mark +of distinction when any city is able to keep even one-half of the pupils +who are enrolled in its schools until they have passed even the seventh +grade."[5] + +Here is an illustration, from the pen of a widely known educational +expert, of the character of educational facilities in the well-to-do +suburb of an Eastern city. After describing two of the newer schools +(1911) Prof. Hanus continues,--"The Maple Avenue School is too small for +its school population, without a suitable office for the principal or a +common room for the teachers, and, of course, very inadequately equipped +for the work it ought to do; it ought, therefore, to be remodeled and +added to without delay. The Chestnut Street School is old, gloomy, +crowded, badly ventilated, and badly heated, has steep and narrow +stairways, and it would be dangerous in case of fire. There are fire +escapes, to be sure, but the access to some of these, though apparently +easy in a fire drill, might be seriously inadequate and dangerous in +case of haste or panic due to a real fire. In such a building sustained +good work by teachers and pupils is very difficult.... + +"The High School is miserably housed. It is dingy, badly lighted and +badly ventilated. These defects constitute a serious menace to the +physical welfare of pupils and teachers and, of course, seriously +interfere with good work. It is crowded. Intercommunication is devious +and inconvenient. The building is quite unfit for high school uses. Some +of the school furniture is very poor; the physical and chemical +classrooms and laboratories are very unsatisfactory, and its biological +laboratory and equipment scarcely less so. The assembly room is too +small, badly arranged, and badly furnished. There are no toilet-rooms +for the teachers, and there is no common room. There is no satisfactory +or adequate lunch-room. The library is in crowded quarters; the +principal's office space is altogether too small, and his private office +almost derisively so."[6] + +Overwork in the school is said to be alarmingly prevalent. "It is +generally recognized by physicians and educators to-day that many +children in the schools are being seriously injured through nervous +overstrain. Throughout the world there is a developing conviction that +one of the most important duties of society is to determine how +education may be carried on without depriving children of their health. +It is probable that we are not requiring too much work of our pupils, +but they are not accomplishing their tasks economically in respect to +the expenditure of nervous energy. Some experiments made at home and +abroad seem to indicate that children could accomplish as much +intellectually, with far less dissipation of nervous energy, if they +were in the schoolroom about one-half the time which they now spend +there. German educators and physicians are convinced that a fundamental +reform in this respect is needed. In fact, among school children we are +learning the same lesson as among factory employees, viz., that high +pressure and long hours are not economy but waste of time."[7] + +The school has been rendered monotonous. "We have worked for system till +the public schools have become machines. It has been insistently +proclaimed that all children must do things the same way for so long a +time, that many of us have actually come to believe it. Children unborn +are predestined to work after the same fashion that their grandparents +did."[8] + + +III A Word from Huxley and Spencer + +These are typical of a host of similar criticisms of the schools which +leading educators, men working within the school system, are directing +against it. Out of the fullness of their experience they spread the +conviction that the school often fails to prepare for life, that it +frequently distorts more effectively than it builds. The thought is not +new. Thomas Huxley asked, years ago, whether education should not be +definitely related to life. He wrote,--"If there were no such things as +industrial pursuits, a system of education which does nothing for the +faculties of observation, which trains neither the eye nor the hand, +and is compatible with utter ignorance of the commonest natural truths, +might still be reasonably regarded as strangely imperfect. And when we +consider that the instruction and training which are lacking are exactly +those which are of most importance for the great mass of our population, +the fault becomes almost a crime, the more so in that there is no +practical difficulty in making good these defects."[9] + +Approaching the matter from another side, Tyler puts a pertinent +question in his "Growth and Education,--" "In the grammar grade is +learning and mental discipline of chief importance to the girl, or is +care of the body and physical exercise absolutely essential at this +period? No one seems to know, and very few care. What would nature +say?"[10] + +Herbert Spencer answers Tyler's question in spirited fashion. "While +many years are spent by a boy in gaining knowledge, of which the chief +value is that it constitutes 'the education of a gentleman;' and while +many years are spent by a girl in those decorative acquirements which +fit her for evening parties; not an hour is spent by either of them in +preparation for that gravest of all responsibilities--the management of +a family."[11] "For shoe-making or house-building, for the management of +a ship or a locomotive-engine, a long apprenticeship is needful. It is, +then, that the unfolding of a human being in body and mind, may we +superintend and regulate it with no preparation whatever?"[12] + +One fact is self-evident,--the existence of a body of criticism and +hostility is prima facia evidence of weakness on the part of the +institution criticised, particularly when the criticism comes strong and +sharp from school-men themselves. The extent and severity of school +criticism certainly bespeaks the careful consideration of those most +interested in maintaining the efficiency of the school system. + + +IV Some Honest Facts + +Let us face the facts honestly. If you include country schools, and they +must be included in any discussion of American Education, the school +mortality,--i. e., the children who drop out of school between the first +and eighth years--is appalling. We may quarrel over percentages, but the +dropping out is there. + +The United States Commissioner of Education writes,--[13] "Of +twenty-five million children of school age (5 to 18), less than twenty +million are enrolled in schools of all kinds and grades, public and +private; and the average daily attendance does not exceed fourteen +million, for an average school term of less than 8 months of 20 days +each. The average daily attendance of those enrolled in the public +schools is only 113 days in the year, less than 5-3/4 months. The +average attendance of the entire school population is only 80-1/2 days, +or 4 months of 20 days each. Assuming that this rate of attendance shall +continue through the 13 school years (5 to 18), the average amount of +schooling received by each child of the school population will be 1,046 +days, or a little more than 5 years of 10 school months. This bureau +has no reliable statistics on the subject, but it is quite probable that +less than half the children of the country finish successfully more than +the first 6 grades; only about one-fourth of the children ever enter +high school; and less than 8 in every 100 do the full 4 years of high +school work. Fewer than 5 in 100 receive any education above the high +school." + +Taking this dropping out into consideration, it is probable that the +majority of children who enter American schools receive no more +education than will enable them to read clumsily, to write badly, to +spell wretchedly, and to do the simplest mathematical problems +(addition, subtraction, etc.) with difficulty. In any real sense of the +word, they are neither educated nor cultured. + +Judge Draper, Superintendent of Public Instruction in New York State, +writes,--[14] "We cannot exculpate the schools. They are as wasteful of +child life as are the homes. From the bottom to the top of the American +educational system we take little account of the time of the child.... +We have eight or nine elementary grades for work which would be done in +six if we were working mainly for productivity and power. We have shaped +our secondary schools so that they confuse the thinking of youth and +break the equilibrium between education and vocations, and people and +industries.... In the graded elementary schools of the State of New +York, less than half of the children remain to the end of the course. +They do not start early enough. They do not attend regularly enough. The +course is too full of mere pedagogical method, exploitation and +illustration, if not of kinds and classes of work. The terms are too +short and the vacations too long.... More than half of the children drop +out by the time they are fourteen or fifteen, the limits of the +compulsory attendance age, because the work of the schools is behind the +age of the pupils, and we do not teach them the things which lead them +and their parents to think it will be worth their while to remain." + +Observe that Judge Draper writes of the graded schools only. Could you +conceive of a more stinging rebuke to an institution from a man who is +making it his business to know its innermost workings? + +These statements refer, not to the small percentage of children who go +to high school, but to that great mass of children who leave the school +at, or before, fourteen years of age. If you do not believe them, go +among working children and find out what their intellectual +qualifications really are. + +One fact must be clearly borne in mind,--the school system is a social +institution. In the schools are the people's children. Public taxes +provide the funds for public education. Perhaps no great institution is +more generally a part of community interest and experience than the +public school system. + +The most surprising thing about the school figures is the overwhelming +proportion of students in the elementary grades--17,050,441 of the +18,207,803. If you draw three lines, the first representing the number +of children in the elementary schools, the second showing the number in +the high school, and the third the number of students in colleges, +professional and normal schools, the contrast is astonishing. + +It is perfectly evident, therefore, that the real work of education +must be done in the elementary grades. The high schools with a million +students, and the universities, colleges, professional and normal +schools with three hundred thousand more, constitute an increasingly +important factor in education; at the same time, for every seven +students in these higher schools, there are ninety-three children in the +elementary grades. The proportion is so unexpected that it staggers +us--more than nine-tenths of the children who attend school in the +United States are in the elementary grades! Can this be the school +system of which our forefathers dreamed when they established a +universal, free education nearly a hundred years ago? Did they foresee +that such an overwhelming proportion of American children would never +have an opportunity to secure more than the rudiments of an education? + +Be that as it may, the facts glower menacingly at us from city, town and +countryside,--the overcrowded elementary grades and the higher schools +with but a scant proportion of the students. So, if we wish to educate +the great mass of American children, we must go to the primary grades to +do it. + +There are, in the public schools, 533,606 teachers, four-fifths of whom +are women. These teachers are at work in 267,153 school buildings having +a total value of $1,221,695,730. Each year some four hundred and fifty +million dollars are devoted to maintaining and adding to this +educational machine. + +The school system is the greatest saving fund which the American people +possess. The total value of school property is greater than the entire +fortune of the richest American. Each year the people spend upon their +schools a sum sufficient to construct a Panama Canal or a +transcontinental railway system. Thus the public school is the greatest +public investment in the United States. + +It is one thing to invest, and quite a different matter to be assured a +fair return on the investment. Nevertheless, the individual investor +believes in his right to a fair return. From their public investments, +the people, in fairness, can demand no more; in justice to themselves, +they may accept no less. Are they receiving a fair return? The people of +the United States have invested nearly a billion dollars in the public +school system; each year they contribute nearly half a billion dollars +more toward the same end. Are they getting what they pay for? + +Turn to another section of the Report of the Commissioner of Education, +and note how, in mild alarm, he protests against teachers' salaries so +low "that it is clearly impossible to hire the services of men and women +of good native ability and sufficient scholarship, training and +experience to enable them to do satisfactory work;" against the +schoolhouses, which are "cheap, insanitary, uncomfortable and +unattractive;" against "thousands of schools" in which "one teacher +teaches from twenty to thirty classes a day;" against "courses of study +ill-adapted to the interest of country children or the needs of country +life;" against "a small enrollment of the total children of school age," +and a school attendance so low that "the average of the entire school +population is only 80-1/2 days per year."[15] + +The tone of these statements is certainly not reassuring. Perhaps it is +high time that the citizens inquired into the status of their +educational securities--their public school system. + + +V Have We Fulfilled the Object of Education? + +The object of education is complete living. A perfect educational system +would prepare those participating in it to live every phase of their +lives, and to derive from life all possible benefit. Any educational +system which enables men to live completely is therefore fulfilling its +function. On the other hand, an educational system which does not +prepare for life is not meeting the necessary requirements. + +Charles Dickens, in his characteristic way, thus describes in "Hard +Times" a public school class under the title "Murdering the Innocents:" + + "'In this life, we want nothing but Facts, sir; nothing but + Facts.' + + "The speaker and the school master swept with their eyes the + inclined plane of little vessels then and there arranged in + order, ready to have imperial gallons of facts poured into them + until they were full to the brim. So Mr. M'Choakumchild (the + school master) began in his best manner. He went to work on this + preparatory lesson, not unlike Morgiana in the Forty + Thieves--looking into all the vessels ranged before him, one + after another, to see what they contained. Say, good Mr. + M'Choakumchild: when from thy store thou shalt fill each jar + brim full by and by, dost thou think thou wilt always kill + outright the robber Fancy lurking within, or sometimes only maim + him and distort him!" + +Is the picture overdrawn? Are there grades in our large American cities +where conditions similar to those just portrayed may be found? Every +parent who has a child in the public schools, every taxpayer who +contributes to school support, has a right to a direct, impartial and +honest answer to that question. + +Among educators as well as among members of the general public a spirit +of educational unrest has developed. Everywhere there is an ill-defined +feeling of dissatisfaction with the work of the schools; everywhere an +earnest desire to see the schools do more effectively the school work +which is regarded, on every hand, as imperative. + +The facts of school failure are more generally known than the facts of +school success; yet there are successful schools. Indeed, some of the +school systems of the United States are doing remarkably effective work. +Emphasis has been lavished on the failure side of the educational +problem, until public opinion is fairly alive to the necessity of some +action. The time is, therefore, ripe for a positive statement of +educational policy. Many schools have succeeded. Let us read the story +of the good work. Efficient educational systems are in operation. Let us +model the less successful experiments on those more successful ones. + +Circumstances force people to live in one place, to see one set of +surroundings and meet one kind of folks, until they are led to believe, +almost inevitably, that their kind is _the_ kind. Schools are the +victims of just such provincialism. Although the school superintendents +and principals, and some of the school teachers meet their co-workers +from other cities, the people whose children attend the schools almost +never have an opportunity to learn intelligently what other schools are +doing. This city develops one educational idea, and that city develops +another idea. Although both ideas may deserve widespread consideration, +and perhaps universal adoption, they will fail to measure up to the full +stature of their value unless the people in all communities learn about +them intelligently. + + FOOTNOTES: + + [Footnote 1: "American Education," Andrew S. Draper, Boston; + Houghton Mifflin Co., 1909, pp. 281-83.] + + [Footnote 2: Ibid., p. 275.] + + [Footnote 3: Ibid., p. 281.] + + [Footnote 4: Idem.] + + [Footnote 5: The Responsibility of the School, E. E. Brown, U. S. + Commissioner of Education. A pamphlet privately printed in + Philadelphia, 1908, containing a series of addresses.] + + [Footnote 6: Report on the Programme of Studies in the Public + Schools of Montclair, N. J., Paul H. Hanus, Cambridge, Mass., pp. + 7 and 8.] + + [Footnote 7: Report on National Vitality, Irving Fisher, + Washington Government Print., 1909, pp. 76-77.] + + [Footnote 8: The Problem of Individualizing Instruction, W. F. + Andrew, Education, Vol. 26, p. 135 (1905).] + + [Footnote 9: Evolution and Ethics, T. H. Huxley, New York, D. + Appleton & Co., 1902, p. 220.] + + [Footnote 10: Growth and Education, J. M. Tyler, Houghton Mifflin + Co., New York, 1907, p. 21.] + + [Footnote 11: Education, H. Spencer, New York, D. Appleton & Co., + 1861, p. 162.] + + [Footnote 12: Supra, p. 63.] + + [Footnote 13: Annual Report, U. S. Commissioner of Education, + 1911; Washington Government Print., 1912, Vol. I, pp. 12-13.] + + [Footnote 14: Conserving Childhood, Andrew S. Draper; The Child + Workers of the Nation, Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Conference + on Child Labor, Chicago, Ill., Jan. 21-23, 1909; New York, 1909, + pp. 9-10.] + + [Footnote 15: Report U. S. Commissioner of Education, 1911, Vol. + I, p. 12.] + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE NEW BASIS FOR EDUCATION[16] + + +I Can There Be a New Basis? + +Can there be a new basis for education? Does the foundation upon which +education rests really change? Is the educational system of one age +necessarily unfitted to provide for the educational needs of the next? +These, and a multitude of the similar questions which people interested +in educational progress are asking themselves, arise out of the process +of transition that is seemingly one of the fundamental propositions of +the universe. All things change, and are changing, from the smallest +cell to the most highly organized creature, the noblest mountain range, +and the vastest sun in the heavens. To-day differs from yesterday as +to-morrow must differ from to-day. All things are becoming. + +Test this statement with the observed facts of life. Here is a garden, +well-planted and watered. The soil is loamy and black. On all its +surface there is nothing, save a clod here and there, to relieve the +warm, moist regularity. Come to-morrow and the level surface is broken +by tiny green shoots which have appeared at intervals, thrusting through +the top crust. Next week the black earth is striped with rows of green. +Onions, beets, lettuce, and peas are coming up. Go back to the hills +which you climbed in boyhood, ascend their chasmed sides and note how +even they have changed. Each year some part of them has disappeared +into the rapid torrent. Had you been there in April, you might have seen +particles of your beloved hills in every water-course, hurrying toward +the lowlands and the sea. While you watch them, the clouds change in the +sky, the sunset wanes, and the forest covers the bared hills. Nature, +fickle mistress of our destinies, spreads a never-ending panorama before +our eyes that we may recognize the one great law of her being,--the law +of progression. + + +II Social Change + +How well does this principle of change apply to the organization of +society! The absolute monarchy of one age yields to the semi-democracy +of the next. Yesterday the church itself traded in men's +bodies,--holding slaves, and accepting, without question, the proceeds +of slavery. To-day machines replace men in a thousand industries. +To-morrow slavery is called into question, until in the dim-glowering +nineteenth century, men will struggle and die by tens of thousands;--on +the one side, those who believe that the man should be the slave; on the +other, those who hold that the slavery of the machine is alone necessary +and just. Thus is every social institution altered from age to age. Thus +is effected that transformation which men have chosen to call progress. + +How profoundly does this truth apply to the raw material of +education,--the children who enroll in the schools! Under your very eyes +they lose their childish ways, feel their steps along the precipice of +adolescence, enter the wonderland of imagery and idealism, and pass on +into the maturity of life. How vain is our hope that the child may +remain a child; how worthless our prayer that adult life shall never lay +her heavy burden of cares and responsibilities upon his beloved +shoulders. Even while you raise your hands in supplication, the child +has passed from your life forever, leaving naught save a man to confront +you. + +From these mighty scythe strokes which change sweeps across the meadows +of time, naught is exempt. The petals fall from the fairest flower; the +bluest sky becomes overcast; the greatest feats of history are +surpassed; and the social machinery, adequate for the needs of one age, +sinks into the insignificance of desuetude in the age which follows. +Thus does the inevitable come to pass. Thus does the social institution, +wrought through centuries of turmoil and anguish, become useless in the +newer civilization which is arising on every hand. The educational +system in its inception was well founded, but the changes of time +invalidate the original idea. Yesterday the school fulfilled the needs +of men. To-day it fails to meet a situation which reshapes itself with +each rising and each setting of the sun. + +Each epoch must have its institutions. With the work of the past as a +background, the present must constantly reshape the institutions which +the past has bequeathed to it. These modified institutions, handed on in +turn by the present, must again be rebuilt to meet the needs of the +future; and so on through each succeeding age. + + +III Keeping Up with the Times + +At times the march of progress is so rapid that even the most advanced +grow breathless with attempts to keep abreast of the vanguard. Again, +marking time for ages, progressive movements seem wholly dead, and the +path to the future is overgrown with tradition, and blocked by oblivion +and decay. The rapid advances of the nineteenth century, challenging the +quickest to keep pace, forced upon many institutions surroundings +wholly foreign to their bent and scope. + +Nowhere is this more true than in the case of the educational system, +which had its rise in an age of individualized industry and governmental +non-interference, and now faces a newly inaugurated socialization of +industry and an impromptu system of government control. + +The new basis of education lies in the changes which the nineteenth +century wrought in industry, transforming village life into city +dwelling, and substituting for the skilled mechanic, using a tool, the +machine, employing the unskilled worker. The men of the eighteenth +century made political institutions, and were content with democracy; +the men of the nineteenth century, accepting government as it stood, +built up a new industry. The society which we in the twentieth century +must erect upon the political and industrial triumphs of our +forefathers, can never be successful unless it recognizes the +fundamental character of the issues which nineteenth century industry +and eighteenth century politics have brought into twentieth century +life. + +Is it too much to ask that the school stand foremost in this recognition +of change, when it is in the school that the ideas of the new generation +are moulded, tempered, and burnished? May we not expect that in its +lessons to the young our educational system shall speak the language of +the twentieth century rather than that of the eighteenth? + + +IV Education in the Early Home + +Before the modern system of industry had its inception, while the old +hand trades still held sway, at a time when the household was the center +of work and pleasure, when the family made its butter, cheese, oatmeal, +ale, clothing, tools, and utensils,--in such an atmosphere of domestic +industry, Froebel wrote his famous "Education of Man." Note this +description of the way in which a father may educate his son. "The son +accompanies his father everywhere, to the field and to the garden, to +the shop and to the counting house, to the forest and to the meadow; in +the care of domestic animals and in the making of small articles of +household furniture; in the splitting, sawing, and piling up of wood; in +all the work his father's trade or calling involves."[17] In another +passage he calls upon parents, "more particularly fathers (for to their +special care and guidance the child ripening into boyhood is confided)," +to contemplate "their parental duties in child guidance;"[18] and he +prefaces this exhortation with a long list of illustrations, suggesting +the methods which may be pursued by the farm laborer, the goose-herd, +the gardener, the forester, the blacksmith, and other tradesmen and +craftsmen, in the education of their sons. Any such man, Froebel points +out, may take his child at the age of two or three and teach him some of +the simple rules of his trade. How different is the position of the son +of a workman in a modern American city! An American city dweller reading +Froebel's discussion would not conceive of it as applying in any sense +to him, or to his life. + + +V City Life and the New Basis for Education + +The very thought of city life precludes the possibility of home work. +The narrow house, the tenement, the great shop or factory, on the one +hand, prevent the mechanic from carrying on his trade near his family; +and on the other hand, make it impossible for the father whose work +lies far from his home to give his boys the "special care and guidance" +about which Froebel writes. + +The system of industry which was established in England during the +closing decades of the eighteenth century, and which secured a foothold +in both Germany and the United States during the first half of the +nineteenth century, has revolutionized the basis of our lives. The +workshop has been transplanted from the home to the factory; both men +and women leave their homes for ten, eleven, or even twelve hours a day +to carry on their industrial activities; great centers of population +collect about the centers of industry; the farm, the flock of geese, the +garden, the forest, and the blacksmith shop disappear; food, clothing, +and other necessaries of life--formerly the product of home +industry--are produced in great factories; and the city home, stripped +of its industrial functions, restricted in scope, robbed of its adults, +presents little opportunity for the education of the city child. +Standing on the threshold of his meager dwelling, this child of six +looks forward to a life which must be based on the instruction provided +in a public school system. + +The country boy still has his ten-acre lot, where he may run and play. +There are flowers and freckles in the spring; kite-flying, fishing, +hunting, and trapping in summer and autumn. The general farm is a +storehouse of useful information in rudimentary form. From day to day +and from year to year the country boy may learn and enjoy. + +The city boy is differently situated. His playground is the street, +where he plays under the wheels of wagons, automobiles, and trolley +cars; or else he plays in a public playground in company with hundreds, +or even thousands, of other children. Even then his activities are +restricted by city ordinances, monitors, policemen, and other exponents +of law and order. + +The city home, whether tenement or single house, cannot begin to supply +the opportunities for growth and development which were furnished by +life in the open. Where else, then, does the responsibility for such +growth and development rest than upon the school? On the farm the boy +learned his trade, as Froebel suggests, at the hands of his father. The +father of the city boy spends his working hours in a mill, or in an +office, where boys under fourteen or sixteen are forbidden by law to go. +The city home is unavoidably deprived of the chance to provide adequate +recreation or adequate vocational training for its children. The burden +in both cases shifts to the school. + +A hundred years ago practically all industries were carried on in +connection with the home. The weaver, the carpenter, the hatter, the +cobbler, the miller, lived and worked on the same premises. Then steam +was applied to industry; the machine replaced the man; semi-skilled and +unskilled labor replaced skilled labor; great numbers of men and women, +and even of children, crowded together in factories to spin thread, make +bolts and washers, weave ribbon, bake bread, manufacture machinery, or +do some one of the many hundreds of things now done in factories. The +change from home industry to factory industry is well named the +Industrial Revolution. It completely overturned the established and +accepted means of making a living. + +The industrial upheaval has changed every phase of modern life. Industry +itself has replaced apprenticeship by a degree of specialization +undreamed of in primitive life. From the superintendent to the office +boy, from the boss roller to the yard laborer, from the chief clerk to +the stenographer, the work of men and women is monotonous and +specialized. The city has grown up as a logical product of an industrial +system which centers thousands, or even tens of thousands, of workmen in +one place of employment. The city home differs fundamentally from the +country home as the city differs from the country. + +The changes now going on in farming are no less significant than those +which the nineteenth century witnessed in manufacturing. Science has +been applied to agriculture. Old methods are brought into question. +Intensive study and specialization are widespread. The time has passed +when a farmer can afford to neglect the agricultural bulletins or +papers. To be successful, he must be a trained specialist in his line, +and the school and college are called upon to provide the training. + +No individual is responsible for these changes. They have come as the +logical product of a long series of discoveries and inventions. New +methods, built upon the ideas and methods of the past, have created a +new civilization. + +The civilized world, reorganized and reconstituted, rebuilt in all of +its economic phases, demands a new teaching which shall relate men and +women to the changed conditions of life. This is the new basis for +education,--this the new foundation upon which must be erected a +superstructure of educational opportunity for succeeding generations. It +remains for education to recognize the change and to remodel the +institutions of education in such a way that they shall meet the new +needs of the new life. + + FOOTNOTES: + + [Footnote 16: Portions of this chapter originally appeared in The + Journal of Education.] + + [Footnote 17: "The Education of Man," F. Froebel. Translated by + W. N. Halliman, New York; D. Appleton & Co. 1909, p. 103.] + + [Footnote 18: Ibid., p. 187.] + + + + +CHAPTER II + +TEACHING BOYS AND GIRLS + + +I The New School Machinery + +The influence which the industrial changes of the past hundred years has +had on education is considerable. With the transformation of the home +workshop into the factory has come the transition from rural and village +life to life in great industrial cities and towns. The introduction of +specialized machinery has placed upon education the burden of vocational +training. More important still, it has so augmented the size of the +educational problem that an intricate system of school machinery has +been devised to keep the whole in order. + +The rural, or village, school was a one or two-room affair, housing a +handful of pupils. Aside from matters of discipline, the administration +of the school was scarcely a problem. General superintendents, associate +superintendents, compulsory attendance laws, card index systems, and +purchasing departments were unknown. The school was a simple, personal +business conducted by the teacher in very much the same way that the +corner grocer conducted his store--on faith and memory. + +The growth of cities and towns necessitated the introduction of +elaborate school machinery. In place of a score of pupils, thousands, +tens, and even hundreds of thousands were placed under the same general +authority. City life made some form of administrative machinery +inevitable. + +The increasing size of the school system,--and in new, growing cities +the school system increases with a rapidity equal to the rate of growth +of the population,--leads to increase in class size. A school of twenty +pupils is still common in rural districts. In the elementary grades of +American city schools, investigators find fifty, sixty, and in some +extreme cases, seventy pupils under the charge of one teacher, while the +average number, per teacher, is about forty. + +Recrimination is idle. The obvious fact remains that the rate of growth +in school population is greater than the rate of growth in the school +plant. The schools in many cities have not caught up with their +educational problem. The result is a multiplication of administrative +problems, not the least of which is the question of class size. + + +II Rousseau Versus a Class of Forty + +A toilsome journey it is from the education of an individual child by an +individual teacher (Rousseau's Emile) to the education of forty children +by one teacher (the normal class in American elementary city schools). +Rousseau pictured an ideal; we face a reality--complex, expanding, at +times almost menacing. + +The difference between Rousseau's ideal and the modern actuality is more +serious than it appears superficially. Rousseau's idea permitted the +teacher to treat the child as an individuality, studying the traits and +peculiarities of the pupil, building up where weakness appeared, and +directing freakish notions and ideas into conventional channels. The +modern city school with one teacher and forty pupils places before the +teacher a constant temptation, which at times reaches the proportions of +an overmastering necessity, to treat the group of children as if each +child were like all the rest. A teacher who can individualize forty +children, understand the peculiarities of each child, and teach in a way +that will enable each of the children to benefit fully by her +instruction, is indeed a master, perhaps it would be fairer to say a +super-master in pedagogy. A class of forty is almost inevitably taught +as a group. + +There is another feature about the large school system which is even +more disastrous to the welfare of the individual child. Rousseau studied +the individual to be educated, and then prescribed the course of study. +The city teacher, no matter how intimately she may be acquainted with +the needs of her children, has little or no say in deciding upon the +subjects which she is to teach her class. Such matters are for the most +part determined by a group of officials--principals, superintendents, +and boards of education,--all of whom are engaged primarily in +administrative work, and some of whom have never taught at all, nor +entered a psychological laboratory, nor engaged in any other occupation +that would give first-hand, practical, or theoretical knowledge of the +problems encountered in determining a course of study. + +A course of study must be devised, however, even though some of the +responsible parties have no first-hand knowledge of the points at issue. +The method by which it is devised is of peculiar importance to this +discussion. The administrative officials, having in mind an average +child, prepare a course of study which will meet that average child's +needs. Theoretically, the plan is admirable. It suffers from one +practical defect,--there is no such thing as an average child. + + +III The Fallacious "Average" + +Averages are peculiarly tempting to Americans. They supply the same +deeply-felt want in statistics that headlines do in newspapers. They +tell the story at a glance. In this peculiar case the story is +necessarily false. + +An average may be taken only of like things. It is possible to average +the figures 3, 4, and 8 by adding them together and dividing by 3. The +average is 5. Such a process is mathematically correct, because all of +the units comprising the 3, 4, and 8 are exactly alike. One of the +premises of mathematics is that all units are alike, hence they may be +averaged. + +Unlike mathematical units, all children are different. They differ in +physical, in mental, and in spiritual qualities. Their hair is different +in color and in texture. Their feet and hands vary in size. Some +children are apt at mathematics, others at drawing, and still others at +both subjects. Some children have a strong sense of moral +obligation,--an active conscience,--others have little or no moral +stamina. No two children in a family are alike, and no two children in a +school-room are alike. After an elaborate computation of hereditary +possibilities, biologists announce that the chance of any two human +creatures being exactly alike is one in five septillions. In simple +English, it is quite remote. + + +IV The Five Ages of Childhood + +A very ingenious statement of the case is made by Dr. Bird T. Baldwin. +Children, says Dr. Baldwin, have five ages,-- + + 1. A chronological age, + 2. A physical age, + 3. A mental age, + 4. A moral age, + 5. A school age. + +Two children, born on the same day, have the same age in years. One is +bound to grow faster than the other in some physical respect. Therefore +the two children have different physical ages, or rates of development. +In the same way they have differing mental and moral ages. The school +age, a resultant of the first three, is a record of progress in school. +Even when children are born on the same day, the chances that they will +grow physically, mentally, and morally at exactly the same rate, and +will make exactly the same progress in school, are remote indeed. School +children are, therefore, inevitably different. + + +V Age Distribution in One Grade + +A very effective illustration of the differences in chronological age, +in school age, and in the rate of progress in school is furnished in the +1911 report of the superintendent of schools for Springfield, Mass. +There are in this report a series of figures dealing with the ages, and +time in school, of fifth-grade pupils in Springfield. The first table +shows the number of years in school and the age of all the fifth-grade +pupils. + + +TABLE 1 + +_Age and Time in School, Fifth Grade, Springfield, December, 1911_ + + Years in Ages + School 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 Total + -----------------------------+---+----------------------------------- + 1 .. .. .. .. .. ..| 1| .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 1 + 2 .. .. .. 2 1 1| 1| 2 2 .. .. .. .. .. 9 + 3 .. .. .. 6 38 25| 9| .. 1 1 .. .. .. .. 80 + 4 .. .. .. .. 162 200| 63| 12 10 3 .. .. .. .. 450 + -----------------------------+---+----------------------------------- + 5 .. .. .. .. 17 178|131| 47 14 2 .. .. .. .. 389 + -----------------------------+---+----------------------------------- + 6 .. .. .. .. 1 11|120| 60 29 3 .. .. .. .. 224 + 7 .. .. .. .. .. 1| 3| 46 29 8 1 .. 1 .. 88 + 8 .. .. .. .. .. ..| 1| 4 17 4 1 .. .. .. 28 + 9 .. .. .. .. .. ..| ..| .. .. 4 1 .. .. .. 5 + 10 .. .. .. .. .. ..| ..| .. .. 1 .. .. .. .. 1 + 11 .. .. .. .. .. ..| ..| .. .. .. .. .. .. .. + 12 .. .. .. .. .. ..| ..| .. .. .. .. .. .. .. + 13 .. .. .. .. .. ..| ..| .. .. .. .. .. .. .. + Total .. .. .. 8 219 416|329| 171 102 26 3 .. 1 .. 1,275 + -----------------------------+---+----------------------------------- + + +Theoretically, children in Springfield enter the school at six, and +spend one year in each grade. If all of the children in the Springfield +schools had lived up to this theory, there would be 1,275 eleven years +of age, and 1,275 in the fifth grade. A glance at the table shows that +only 131, or about 10 per cent of the children, are both eleven years of +age and five years in the school. Among the 1,275 fifth-grade children, +389, or 31 per cent, have been in school five years, and 329, or 26 per +cent, are eleven years of age. + +The superintendent follows this general table with other tables giving a +more detailed analysis of over and under age pupils, and of rate of +progress in school. + + +TABLE 2 + +_Age and Progress Groups of Fifth-Grade Pupils in Springfield, +December, 1911_ + + Young | Normal | Over-age | Total + | | | + Per | Per | Per | Per + No. Cent | No. Cent | No. Cent | No. Cent + + Rapid 435 34 | 74 6 | 31 2 | 540 42 + Normal 195 16 | 131 10 | 63 5 | 389 31 + Slow 13 1 | 124 10 | 209 16 | 346 27 + --- -- | --- -- | --- -- | ----- --- + Total 643 51 | 329 26 | 303 23 | 1,275 100 + + +The inferences from Table 2 are very clear. Of the 1,275 fifth-grade +pupils, 435, or 34 per cent, are not only under-age for the grade, but +they have progressed at more than normal speed. They are the +exceptionally capable pupils of the grade. At the other extreme we find +209 children, or 16 per cent of all in the grade, who need special +attention because they are both over-age and slow. Feeble-minded +children rarely advance beyond the second grade; hence we know that none +of these are feeble-minded, but among their number will be found many +who will be little profited by the ordinary curriculum; 110 of them are +already 12 years old, and 75 are 13 years old. A majority of them will, +in all probability, drop out of school as soon as they reach the age of +14, unless prior to that time some new element of interest is introduced +that will make a strong appeal; for example, some activity toward a +vocation. + +A further study of the over-age column shows that 31 pupils, 2 per cent, +are over-age, but they have reached their present position in less than +usual time; while 63 of them, also over-age, have required the full five +years to reach their present grade position. Unless by limiting the +required work of these over-age pupils to the essentials, or by some +administrative arrangement involving special grouping with relatively +small numbers in a class, so that we can in the one case maintain, and +in the other case bring about, accelerated progress, there is little +likelihood that any large number will remain in school to complete the +ninth grade, much less take a high school course; for four years hence +their ages will range from 16 to 18 years. The 124 pupils who are of +normal age, but slow, are also subjects for special attention, for they +have repeated from one to three grades, or have failed to secure from +two to six half-yearly promotions, and are in danger of acquiring the +fatal habit of failure, if they have not already acquired it. + +The superintendent then goes on to emphasize the imperative duty resting +on each principal, to examine and to understand the varying capacities +of individual children in his school. Without such an understanding real +educational progress cannot be made. + +This study is most illuminating. Nothing could more effectually show +variation in individual children than the difference in one city grade +of the most obvious of characteristics--age and progress in school. The +infinitely greater variations in the subtle characteristics that +distinguish children can be more readily guessed at than measured. Under +these circumstances, the attempt to prepare studies for an "average +child" is manifestly futile. The course may be organized, but it will +hardly meet the needs of large numbers of the individual children who +take it. + + +VI Shall Child or Subject Matter Come First? + +The old education presupposed an average child, and then prepared a +course of study which would fit his needs. The new education recognizes +the absurdity of averaging unlike quantities, and accepts the ultimate +truth that each child is an individual, differing in needs, capacity, +outlook, energy, and enthusiasm from every other child. An arithmetic +average can be struck, but when it is applied to children it is a +hypothetical and not a real quantity. There is not, and never will be, +an average child; hence, a school system planned to meet the needs of +the average child fits the needs of no child at all. + +Mathematics may be taught to the average child. So may history and +geography. While subject matter comes first in the minds of educators, a +course of study designed to meet average conditions is a possibility. +The moment, however, that the schools cease to teach subjects and begin +to teach boys and girls, such a proceeding is out of the question. + +The temptation in a complex school system, where children are grouped by +hundreds and thousands, to allow the detail of administration to overtop +the functions of education is often irresistible. The teacher with +forty pupils learns to look upon her pupils as units. The superintendent +and principals, seeking ardently for an overburdened commercial ideal +named "efficiency," sacrifice everything else to the perfection of the +mechanism. Among the smooth clicking cogs, child individuality has only +the barest chance for survival. + + +VII The Vicious Practices of One "Good" School + +There are school systems in which organization has overgrown child +welfare, in which pedagogy has usurped the place of teaching. In such +systems the teacher teaches the prescribed course of study, whether or +no. The officers of administration, aiming at some mechanical ideal, +shape the schools to meet the requirements of system. + +The proneness of some teachers and school administrators alike to +overemphasize mechanics, and to underemphasize the welfare of individual +children is well illustrated in a recent statement by Dr. W. E. +Chancellor, who, in writing of a first-hand investigation made in a city +in the Northeast, describes a condition which he says "I know by fairly +authoritative reports does exist in a considerable number of cities and +towns--not merely in a school here and there, but generally and +characteristically. + +"In the city to which I definitely refer," Dr. Chancellor continues, "I +found that the intermediate and grammar grade teachers had +systematically, deliberately, and successfully sacrificed hundreds of +boys and girls upon the altar of examinations to the fetish of good +schools. They have been so anxious to have good schools that they have +kept an average of 20 per cent of their pupils one grade lower than they +belong. In some schools the average runs to above 35 per cent. + +"Some teachers and some school superintendents cannot see that the +school is simply a machine for developing boys and girls; cannot see +that the machine in itself is worthless save as it contributes to human +welfare. A school may be so good as actually to damage the souls and +bodies of human beings. It damages their souls when the machine +operators, seeking 75 per cent in every subject, keep boys and girls in +grammar schools until they average sixteen years of age."[19] Dr. +Chancellor continues with a stinging arraignment of school officials who +sacrifice children to systems. + +The article strikes an answering chord in the experiences of many men +and women. A friend came recently to our bungalow, and, with a troubled +face, spoke of his daughter's ill-health. + +"She is not sick," he said, "but just ailing. These first May days have +taken her appetite. She needs the country air." + +The daughter was a dear little girl of twelve--any one might have envied +the father of his treasure--and we offered to keep her with us for a +month in the country, and to go over her school work with her every day. +The father accepted our proposal on the spot, but two days later he came +back to say that he could not make the arrangements. + +"It cannot be done," he explained, "because the school will not let her +off. I told the principal about my daughter's health and showed him the +advantage of a month in the country with her school work carefully +supervised. Her school is rather crowded, and as I want her to go on +with her class in the autumn, I asked him if he could arrange to keep +her place for her. In reply he said,-- + +"'I cannot do as you wish. Such cases as yours interfere seriously with +the working of the school.'" + + +VIII Boys and Girls--The One Object of Educational Activity + +Perhaps our language was not as temperate as it should have been, but we +told that father something which we would fain repeat until every +educator and every parent in the United States has heard it and written +it on the tables of his heart,-- + + THE ONE OBJECT OF EDUCATION IS TO ASSIST AND PREPARE + CHILDREN TO LIVE. + +Why have we established a billion-dollar school system in the United +States? Is it to pay teachers' salaries, to build new school houses, and +to print text-books by the million? Hardly. These things are incidents +of school business, but they are no more reason for the school's +existence than fertilizer and seed are reasons for making a garden. +Gardens are cultivated in order to secure plants and flowers; the school +organization of which Americans so often boast exists to educate +children. + +"Of course," you exclaim, "we knew that before." Did you? Then why was +my friend forced to choose between the wreck of his daughter's health +and the disarrangement of a bit of school machinery? Why is Dr. +Chancellor able to describe a situation existing "generally and +characteristically," in which the welfare of children is bartered away +for high promotion averages? The truth is that society still tolerates, +and often accepts, the belief that the purpose of education is the +formation of a school system. We have yet to learn that, to use Herbert +Spencer's phrase, the object of education is the preparation of +children for complete living. + +Education exists for the purpose of preparing and assisting children to +live. To do that work effectively, it must devote only so much effort to +school administration and to school machinery as will perform for boys +and girls that very effective service. + +No two children are alike, and no two children have exactly similar +needs. There are, however, certain kinds of needs which all children +have in common. It is obviously impossible to discuss in the abstract +the needs of any individual child. It is just as obviously possible to +analyze child needs, and to classify them in workable groups. It is true +that all children are different; so are all roses different, yet all +have petals and thorns in common. Similarly, there are certain needs +which are common to all children who play, who grow, who live among +their fellows, and who expect to do something in life. The matter may be +stated more concretely thus,-- + + I. The school exists to assist and prepare children to live. + + II. Living involves three kinds of needs, which it is the duty + of the school to understand and interpret. + + 1. Needs which the child has because he is a physical being. + + 2. Needs which result from the child's surroundings. + + 3. Needs which arise in connection with the things which the + child hopes to do in life. + +A further analysis of these groups of needs constitutes the subject +matter of the next chapter. + + FOOTNOTES: + + [Footnote 19: Sacrificing Children, W. E. Chancellor, Journal of + Education, Vol. 77, pp. 564-565 (May 22, 1913).] + + + + +CHAPTER III + +FITTING SCHOOLS TO CHILDREN + + +I Child Growth--A Primary Factor in Child Life + +In the first place children have certain needs because in common with +many other living creatures they develop through spontaneous, +self-expressive activity. The growth of children is a growth in body, in +mind and in soul. + +During the first six years of life the bodies of children grow rapidly, +and during these years we wisely make no attempt to train their minds. +From six to twelve or thirteen body growth is slower, the mind is having +its turn at development, and during these years the children start to +school. + +Then, at twelve or thirteen or fourteen, differing with different races +and different individuals, all normal children enter the fairyland of +adolescence. Life takes on new meanings, human relationships are closer, +great currents of feeling run deep and strong through the child's being, +because there is coming into his life one of the most wonderful of human +experiences--the dawning of sex consciousness. + +This period of sex awakening produces a profound change in the lives of +boys, but it works an even greater transformation in the lives of girls. +For both sexes it is a time of rapid physical growth and of severe +mental and spiritual strain. It is a time when the energies of the body +are so entirely devoted to the development of sex functions that great +mental stress should above all things be avoided, yet it is at this +very time--think of it!--when we send our boys and girls to high school, +and force them to spend a great part of their waking hours in severe +intellectual efforts. + + +II Children Need Health First + +Had we set out with the deliberate intention of torturing our children +we could have devised no better method. If we had applied ourselves to +physiology, found out the time when the child needed the most energy for +physical growth and the most relief from mental strain, and had then set +out to plan a course of study which would wreck his health, we should +have built a school system which gave him the comparatively easy work of +the elementary grades until he was fourteen, and then, at the most +critical period of his life, sent him into a new system of schools to +study new, abstract subjects. + +What is it that our children must have before they can acquire anything +else? Health! We cry the word aloud, emphasizing and exhorting--nothing +without health! Yet, despite our protest, at a period of rapid physical +growth, at the time of severe spiritual trial, there yawns the high +school--grim for boys, ghastly for girls--with its ever-recurring +demand: "Work, study; study, work." + +Considering the child's physical welfare, the high school is placed at +exactly the point (fourteen to eighteen years) where it is best +calculated to destroy the delicate balance of sanity, rendering its +victims unable to stand the burden and heat of life's later day. + +We cannot escape the fact that children have bodies. The first duty of +the schools, therefore, is to recognize the existence of these bodies by +giving them due attention, particularly at the crucial periods of +physical growth. Therefore every school must provide as much physical +training as is necessary to insure normal body growth at each particular +age. + +Then there are certain rules of health--"hygiene," they are +called--which should be taught to every child. Since bodies do not stay +normal if they are abused every child should have right ideas of body +care. + +Most important of all, the schools must instruct children in sex hygiene +because the growth of sex consciousness is one of the most significant +of the changes which occur in the life of a child. + +"But must sex hygiene be taught in the school?" you will ask. + +Undoubtedly it must. If it were a choice between sex instruction in the +home or in the school, there would be no hesitation about delegating it +to the home; but since most homes neglect the discussion of sex matters, +leaving the children to gain their knowledge of sex from unreliable +sources on the streets, the choice lies between the perversion of sex as +it is taught on the streets, and the science of sex as it should be +taught in the schools. + + +III Play as a Means to Growth + +Children's minds grow as well as their bodies--grow in retention, in +grasp, and in power. Memory work (the learning of poems, songs, and +formulas) helps to make minds more retentive, while all studies, but +particularly number work, increase mental grasp and power. + +Besides body growth and mind growth all children have soul growth. They +develop human sympathy, and they are interested in esthetic things. To +supply these needs the school must give the child literature and art. +Simple these lessons must be, particularly in the elementary grades; but +there is scarcely a child who will not respond to the noble in +literature or the beautiful in art if these things are presented to him +in an understandable way. + +The bodies, minds, and souls of children grow. They are all sacred. Each +child needs a normal body, an active mind, a healthy and a beautiful +soul. We dare not develop bodies at the expense of minds and souls, but +neither may we educate minds at the expense of souls and bodies--a +tendency which has been fearfully prevalent in American education. + +The most valuable means of securing this all-important growth is "play," +which Froebel said contained the germinal leaves of all later life. +Growth comes only through expression. One does not develop muscle by +watching the strong man in the circus, but by exercising. The child's +chief means of expression is through play, hence play is the child's +method of securing growth. + +In their earliest infancy children play. Their frolics and antics are +really "puppy play," the product of overflowing life and animal spirits. +At this "puppy play" stage, when the child plays merely to work off +surplus energy, the most essential thing is a place to play, and the +school must meet this need by providing playgrounds. + +As children grow older they turn to a more advanced type of play. +Instead of romping and frolicking individually they play in groups. It +is in these group plays that the child gets his first idea of the duty +which he owes to his fellows, his first glimmering of a social sense. In +the home and in the school he is in a subordinate position, but in the +"gang," or "set," he is as good as the next. Group play teaches +democracy. More than that, group play has a moral value. Each one must +play fair. Those who do not are ruthlessly ostracized, so children learn +to abide by the decision of the crowd. While children's plays should be +as untrammeled as possible, it is the duty of the school to stimulate +group play by suggesting new games, organizing athletic meets, getting +up interclass sports, and in other ways supervising and directing games +and sports. + +In the course of the child's life play takes another form, the form of +creative work. Boys build wagons and houses; girls cook, and make dolls. +The "puppy play" of their early childhood has evolved into a form of +creative activity that sooner or later grips every human creature. We +want to plant, to build, to plan, to make. It is the creative power +within us yearning for expression, hence the well-planned school will +provide simple forms of manual training by means of which both boys and +girls will be taught to use their hands so skillfully that they may +translate an idea into a concrete product. + +Civilization has been described as the art of playing. Big folks are apt +to look down on play because most of it is done by children. But listen, +big folks: When Anna plays dolls she does it in a frank, serious, +whole-souled way that you seldom imitate. There is no activity so vital +to the child as play, nor does any man succeed at his work unless he can +"play at it" with the fervor and abandon of a child. + + +IV Some Things Which a Child Must Learn + +So much for the needs which a child has because he is a living creature. +Suppose we turn now to some other needs--the needs which arise because +the child is in a great universe and surrounded by his fellowmen. +Wherever a child lives and whatever he does he must always face certain +surrounding conditions. First among his surroundings are people. No one +except Robinson Crusoe can get away from people, and even Crusoe had his +man Friday. + +Since we are compelled, whether we like it or not, to live with people, +the school must teach language (oral and written), in order that the +children may learn to tell others what they think, and may likewise +understand the thoughts of others. The better the language the more +clearly can they understand each other. + +In order that children may have a proper respect for the rights of +others the school should teach ethics by means of simple stories about +people. Teachers should explain how men live in groups, and how, if +group life is to be tolerable, men must respect each other's rights. + +Perhaps in the upper elementary grades, and certainly in the high +school, there should be some simple work in psychology in order that +children may know how people's minds work. + +Then besides the people of the present there are the people of the past, +and, because the things which they did enable us to live as we do, +children should be taught history, particularly the history of their own +country, state, and town. + +The child comes into contact, in addition to people, with the +institutions which people have constructed--the home, the school, the +state, the industrial system. Every child who grows to maturity will +participate in the activity of these institutions, hence every child +should be taught about them. In the last two years of the elementary +grades civics can be successfully taught, since even at twelve years +children are interested in the things which are happening around them. +In the high schools this work can be carried much further in the form of +social and industrial problem courses. + +The most universal and by far the largest of the child's surroundings +consist of the things about him. He lives in a world, a very little +world to be sure, but to him it is great; and a knowledge of the world +comes through a study of geography. Beginning with the geography of his +native town (not with the basin of the Ganges) he can learn successively +about the geography of the county, the state, the country, and then of +the world. + +Surrounding the child on every hand are plants and animals. Nature study +gives him an intelligent interest in them. As he grows older general +nature study may be subdivided into geology, botany, zoology; and the +forces of nature may be examined in astronomy, chemistry, and physics: +but most of these subjects are too specialized for the elementary +grades, and should appear, if at all, in the high schools. + +There is a group of courses which belongs in every school--elementary +school as well as high school--namely, the courses which prepare +children for life activity. Growth and training in the art of living +enable children to fulfill the third function of their being--that of +doing. Every man and every woman needs work in order to live, and it is +a part of the duty of education to prepare them for that work. + +First of all, as modern society has developed, every man and many women +need an income-producing trade or occupation; hence it is the duty of +the schools to provide trade and professional educations (really the +same thing under different names). No child should be permitted to leave +the schools until he is proficient in some income-giving work. The +character of the teaching must be altered to suit the locality, but the +principle is absolute. + +Further, since men should not devote their entire lives to the same +task, because they require a change of occupation, the school should aim +to provide an avocation, or secondary occupation, which may occupy +leisure hours. Manual training, agriculture, art work, and civics will +supply different people with occupations for spare time. + +Finally, since one of the chief duties of society is to insure a healthy +and increasingly valuable supply of human beings, no one should leave +the schools without a thorough domestic training, including training for +parenthood. While this training should be given in a measure to boys, it +should be intended primarily for girls, and should include biology, +hygiene, chemistry, dietetics, psychology, and nursing. Although the +elementary grades can provide only the simplest training along these +lines that training should be given to every future housekeeper and +mother. + + +V What Schools Must Provide to Meet Child Needs + +If, up to this point, we have rightly described child needs, the school +must be so organized as to provide for growth and play, for instructing +the child in a knowledge of people, institutions, things and ideas, and +for preparing every child to do his work in life. + +These subjects must be so apportioned over the grades that each child +has the benefit of them. The high school is a continuation of the +elementary school. It is in the high school that children should begin +to specialize, because specialization before the beginning of +adolescence is undesirable; but since, in many localities, almost all of +the children leave before reaching the high school, these subjects must +be taught in the elementary grades. Certain things every child must +know. If he is going to drop school at fourteen, as three-quarters of +the American school children do, he must be reached in the first eight +school grades. If he goes to high school he may there be given an +opportunity to complete and intensify the education which the elementary +school has started. + +We believe that these fundamental principles of education are +sufficiently flexible to fit any community in the United States; they +will apply to places of the most divergent school needs. + + +VI The Educational Work of the Small Town + +Let us begin by applying the scheme to a mining village of three +thousand inhabitants, a typical industrial community. + +In this village more than nine-tenths of the children leave school at or +before fourteen years of age, so that whatever school training they get +must be secured between the ages of six and fourteen. + +The kind of activities that the children will take up in life is fixed +by the custom of the town. The great majority of the boys go into the +mines or shops, while practically all of the girls help around the home +until they marry. A small number work in stores and factories. + +The life is rather primitive; the houses are set far apart; the children +have an abundance of play space; they are required to do chores in homes +where they receive little home training. The town affords an +unparalleled opportunity to learn nasty things in a nasty way. + +Almost all of the educational work in such a town must be done in the +elementary schools. While high school facilities may be afforded they +will appeal to a vanishingly small percentage of the children. + +The elementary schools in such a village must provide organized games +for the younger children and organized sports for the older ones; a +sufficient amount of physical training to insure robust bodies; careful +instruction in physiology, body hygiene, and sex hygiene; simple manual +training for the younger children; thorough preparation in the reading +and writing of English; the fundamentals of numbers; geography with +particular reference to the geographic conditions in the immediate +locality; civics and history--particularly American history; a thorough +drill in English and American literature; a minimum amount of +instruction in fine art--drawing, painting, modeling; an extensive +system of nature study, supplemented by field trips. + +This course should be required of boys and girls alike. In addition to +these studies the boys in a coal-mining village should receive careful +instruction in geology, particularly in the mineralogy of the region in +which the mine is located; technical training in mining, drafting, and +shop work; and a sufficient training in agriculture to enable them to +make good kitchen gardens, since gardening is one of the chief +avocations of men in such a community. + +Parallel to this special training for boys the schools should provide +for girls a thorough course in domestic science, with particular +emphasis on economical purchasing, and an education for parenthood, +including hygiene, dietetics, psychology, and nursing. + +Such a course of study given in a typical mining village would tend to +make of the boys educated, trained workmen, and of the girls educated, +trained mothers. To be sure this course would not make of the boys +railroad presidents or United States senators; but even that is not a +drawback because, incredible as it may sound to many old-fashioned +ears, the vast majority of these boys will be miners and mechanics. The +question is, therefore, Shall they be good miners or bad ones? United +States senatorships bother them not a whit. + +If there are, as there always will be in such a village, a few +exceptional children who desire more advanced work, the teacher can do +exactly what he does now--namely, give them special instruction. + +Such an educational system as that outlined would require more training +in the teachers, and an additional outlay for tools and school-rooms, +but it would train the boys and girls of the village to live their lives +effectively. + +The mine-village educational problem is rendered especially easy of +solution because the community is small in size, and because there are +only two occupations, mining and homekeeping, into which the children +go. + +A similar situation may be found in most of the agricultural districts, +except that the boys take up farming instead of mining, while the girls +are called upon to participate in farm work to the extent of caring for +chickens and pigs, and sometimes for milk. In such an agricultural +community the same outline for study might apply, except that in +training for occupations boys should be taught the facts regarding soil +fertility, fruit culture, dairying, market gardening, and other +agricultural problems, while girls need instruction which will fit them +for domestic life and for parenthood. + +In New York State a number of agricultural high schools giving a course +such as the one just hinted at, have met with marked success. Most +country children do not go to high school, however--although they are +doing so in increasing numbers--and hence the necessity for shaping the +elementary course along similar lines. + + +VII The Educational Problems of an Industrial Community + +When the mining village and the farming district are replaced by the +industrial town and the city, the school problem is greatly complicated +by the crowding of many people into a small space and by the great +diversity of occupations which the people pursue. The larger the town +the worse the crowding and the greater the variety of jobs. Otherwise +the problem of education remains largely the same. + +The most apparent need of the town child is a place to play, and the +plainest duty of the town elementary school is to provide play space. In +thinly settled places there is no such need. In towns and cities there +is no more imperative duty resting on the school than the furnishing of +playgrounds and gymnasiums for children. The practice of building school +houses without gymnasiums and without play spaces cannot be too strongly +condemned. It is robbing children of the chance to grow into normal +human beings. + +The other side of the town problem--the question of occupations--has +been settled in Germany, and more recently in certain American cities, +by the "continuation" school, which unties the Gordian knot by cutting +it. Instead of allowing children to stop school at fourteen the +"continuation" system requires partial school attendance until they are +eighteen. + +Under this system, when children reach the end of the elementary schools +they may either go on with a high school course for four years, or else +they may take a "continuation" course for four years. + +For example, if a boy elects to be a carpenter he spends forty hours a +week as a carpenter's apprentice. Then for fourteen hours a week he goes +to a school where he is taught mechanical drawing, designing, the +testing of materials, and any other subjects which bear on carpentering. +The time he spends in school is credited on the time sheets of his +employer. + +So at the end of four years the boy, at eighteen, has been well trained +in the practice of carpentering by working at his job, and well schooled +in its theory by taking a "continuation" course which bore directly on +his work. Thus wage-earning and education are united to produce a +well-trained man. + +The school problem of the city suburb is very different from that of the +mining village, the rural community, the industrial town, or the city. +The children have space, good homes, and abundant opportunity to go +through high school and even through college. Under these conditions the +elementary grades can be directly preparatory for high school work, +since six or even seven out of ten children will go to high school. + +In the city suburb there need be little specialization in the elementary +grades. The high school, with a general course and two or three special +courses, can be relied upon for all necessary specific training. + + +VIII Beginning with Child Needs + +In the industrial town, in the city, and in the city suburb the high +school is being looked to as the place where specialized training must +be given. The trade school can succeed a little, but its effectiveness +will always be limited by the narrow technical character of its +instruction, which makes the "continuation" school generally preferable. +The high school is not a separate institution, but an integral part of +the school system. In a high school, therefore, the children should move +naturally from the studies of the elementary grades to more advanced +studies, but the purpose of both elementary and high schools is the +same--the preparation of children for living. + +Children have needs which the schools are here to supply. Certain of +these needs are common to all children, and to that extent all schools +must provide similar training. Other needs, varying with the size and +character of the community, call for a like variation in the course of +study. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +PROGRESSIVE NOTES IN ELEMENTARY EDUCATION + + +I The Kindergarten + +No single chapter can contain all of the progressive notes that are +being sounded in American Elementary Education; yet it is possible, +after some arbitrary picking and choosing, to describe a number of the +most typical and most successful educational innovations. At the bottom +of most up-to-date elementary school systems is the kindergarten. Not so +often as it might be, but still frequently, the child begins school work +there. The games, the songs, the children's sports of these kindergarten +years, make a joyous entry-way into the grades. In Gary the kindergarten +child sees life. The flowers, leaves, grasses, lichens, fruits, +butterflies, moths, and birds are usually brought to the classroom. The +Gary children go on expeditions to explore nature's wonderland, besides +making excursions to squares, parks, and to the open country. The +kindergartners of Cincinnati plant tulip bulbs in the city parks, and +visit farms in order to have a chance to meet the farm animals. Singing, +visiting, playing, shaping, building, the kindergarten child sees life +on many sides. Perhaps, finally, other cities following the lead of +Cincinnati will introduce the kindergarten spirit and kindergarten +activities into the lower grades where they will clarify an atmosphere, +fetid and dank with concepts which to the six-year-old are meaningless +abstractions. + + +II Translating the Three R's + +At best the kindergarten reaches but a few. Even in cities which boast +of a system of organized kindergartens, only a small portion of the +children attend them. On the other hand, since practically all school +children enter the grades, it is on them that an inquiry into elementary +education must be focused. + +The time has passed when reading, writing, and arithmetic made up the +entirety of a satisfactory elementary education. Like the kindergarten, +the elementary school must touch life; like the kindergarten, it must +provide for child needs. Everywhere schools are turning from the old +methods of teaching spelling, multiplication, and syntax to the new +methods of teaching children,--yes, and teaching them those things which +they need, irrespective of name. Three R's no longer suffice. The child +requires training from the Alpha to the Omega of life. + +Compare, for example, the old method of teaching geography with the new. +Under the abandoned system, the child began with capes, peninsulas, +continents, meridians, trade routes, rivers, boundaries and products. +Under the new system, he begins with the town in which he lives. Each +schoolroom in Newark, for example, is provided with a large map of the +city. In addition to these complete maps, each child is given a series +of small maps, each of which centers about a familiar square, store, or +public building. Then, from this simple beginning, the child fills in +the surrounding streets and buildings. Newark geography begins in the +third grade with a description of the school yard and the surroundings +of the school lot. After all, what more simple geography could be +conceived than the geography that you already know. Borneo and +Beloochistan are abstractions except to the most traveled, but what +child has not noted the red bricks and ugly iron fences surrounding his +own school yard? Charity and geography both begin logically at home. + +When in the later Newark grades the children are taught about Europe and +Australasia, they are taught on a background of the geography of yards, +alleys, squares, streets and playgrounds with which they are familiar. +Geography thus concretely presented, becomes comprehensible to even the +dullest mind. + + +III Playing at Mathematics + +The passing system of elementary mathematics took the innocents through +addition, subtraction and the abatis of multiplication tables, until +every child was fully convinced that + + Multiplication is vexation, + Division's twice as bad, + The rule of three perplexes me, + And practice drives one mad. + +To-day arithmetic begins with life. The teachers at Gary organize games +in which the children are divided into two sides. Some of the children +play the game, while others keep score. Unconsciously, under the stress +of the most gripping of impulses--the desire to win--these little +scorekeepers learn addition. As they advance in the work, they take up +practical problems--measure the room for flooring and measure the school +pavement for cementing. At school No. 4, in Indianapolis, one of the +teachers wanted a cold-frame and a hot-bed for use in connection with +her nature work. The class in mathematics made the measurements; the +drawing class provided the plans; the boys in the seventh and eighth +grades dug the pit and constructed the beds. + +The higher grade mathematics work in Indianapolis is extremely concrete. +Prices and descriptions of materials are supplied, and the children are +asked to compute given problems involving the buying of meats, +groceries, and other household articles; the cost of heating and +lighting the home; the cost of home furnishing; the construction of +buildings; cost-keeping in various factories; the management of the city +hospital; the taxation of Indianapolis; the estimation and construction +of pavement; and, generally, the mathematical problems involved in the +conduct of public and private business. + +Mathematics is alive when it is joined to the problem of life. Well +taught, it becomes a part of the real experiences of childhood and +furnishes a foundation for the knowledge of later life. + + +IV A Model English Lesson + +Of all subjects taught in the schools, English is the most practical, +because it is most used in life. We buy with it, sell with it, converse +with it, write with it, adore with it, and protest with it. English is +the open sesame of life in English-speaking countries. In some classes +the English period would be fascinating even for adults. + +What experience could be more delightful than a visit to a third or +fourth grade room in which the children were writing original poems, +fables and stories! The monotony of routine English work was completely +broken down; the children were enthusiastic,--enthusiastic to such a +degree that they had all written poetry. + +Just before Halloween the teacher had distributed pictures of a witch on +a broomstick, with a cat at her side, riding toward the moon. Each +child was called upon for an original poem on this picture. One boy of +eight wrote:-- + + There was an old witch + Who flew up in the sky, + To visit the moon + That was shining so high. + +Another child improved somewhat upon the versification-- + + The witch's cat was as black as her hat, + As black as her hat was he. + He had yellow eyes which looked very wise + As he sailed high over the trees. + +How many of you mature men and women could have done a better piece of +work than Dorothy Hall, nine and a half years old? + + THE MOONLIGHT PEOPLE + + When the stars are twinkling, + And the ground with snow is white, + And we are just awaking + For to see the morning light; + Little moonlight people + Are dancing here and there + O'er a snow white carpet, + Dancing everywhere. + +This same class of little people, after learning Riley's "Pixie People," +were asked to write down what they believed were the circumstances under +which Riley composed the poem. Their reasons varied all the way from a +dream of butterflies, to cornfields. + +Seventh and eighth grade children in this same city (Newton, Mass.) +write books, the titles of which are selected by the children with the +approval of the teacher. "A Boy's Life in New York," "Fairy Stories," +"A Book About Airships," "A Story of Boarding School Life," are a few of +the titles. Having chosen his title, the child outlines the work and +then begins on it, writing it week by week, illustrating the text with +drawings, illuminating and decorating the margins with water colors, +painting a tasty cover, and at last, as the product of a year's work in +English, taking home a book written, hand printed, hand illumined, +covered and bound by the author. Could you recognize in this fascinating +task the dreaded English composition and spelling of your childhood +days? + +One eighth grade lad, who had always made a rather poor showing in +school, decided to write his book on birds. As he worked into the +subject it gradually got hold of him. In the early spring he found +himself, at half past four, morning after morning, out in the squares, +the parks and the fields, watching for the birds. He became absorbed in +writing his book, but at the same time the teachers of other subjects +found him taking additional interest in them. The whole tone of his +school work improved; and when, in May, he delivered an illustrated +lecture, before one of the teachers' meetings, on the birds of Newton, +he was triumphant. In less than a year he had vitalized his whole being +with an interest in one study. + +"In his talk to the teachers," said Superintendent Spalding, "he showed +a deeper knowledge of the subject than most of the teachers present +possessed." + +Those who remember with a shiver of dread the syntax, parsing, sentence +diagramming, paragraph dissecting, machine composition construction of +the grammar grades, should have stepped with me into the class of an +Indianapolis teacher of seventh grade English. The teacher sat in the +back of the room. The class bent forward, attentively listening while a +roughly clad, uncouth boy, slipshod in attitude, stumbled through the +broken periods of his ungrammatical sentences. + +"And Esau went out after a venison," he was saying, "and Jacob's mother +cooked up some goat's meat till it smelled like a venison. And then +Jacob, he took the venison--I mean the goat's meat to Isaac, and Isaac +couldn't tell it wasn't Esau because"--so the story continued for two or +three minutes. When it was ended, the boy stood looking gloomily at the +class. + +"Well, class?" queried Miss Howes, "has any one any criticism to make?" + +Instantly, three-quarters of the class was on its feet. + +"Well, Edward." + +Edward, a manly fellow, spoke quietly to the boy who had told the story. + +"Paul, you don't talk quite loud enough. Then you should raise and lower +your voice more." + +Several of the class (having intended to make the same criticism) sat +down with Edward. The teacher turned. + +"Yes, Mary." + +"Paul, your grammar wasn't very good. You didn't make periods." + +One by one, in a spirit of kindly helpfulness, criticisms were made. +When the children had finished, Miss Howes said: + +"Paul, you did very well. This is your first time in this class, isn't +it?" + +"Yes'm." + +"Yes, Paul, you did very well; but, Paul"--and with care and precision +she outlined his mistakes, suggesting in each case ways of avoiding them +in the future. + +Throughout the grades in Indianapolis the children have some oral +English work every day. When they reach the seventh and eighth years +this oral work takes on quite pretentious forms. Beginning with Aesop's +Fables, the children tell fairy tales, Bible stories, Greek legends, +Norse legends, animal stories, and any other stories that the teacher +thinks appropriate. Each child may select in the particular group of +stories whatever topic seems most interesting. + +Each day has its written English work, too. On Monday, letters are +written and criticized; Tuesday is composition day; on Wednesday each +scholar writes a description of the day in a Season Journal; Thursday is +set aside for the revision and correction of compositions; and on +Friday, the letters for the following Monday are written. Wherever +possible, the subjects for written work are selected with reference to +the other studies which the child is taking. + + +V An Original Fairy Story + +The work is arranged primarily to arouse interest. At Halloween, the +theme is timely, and one girl, Dorothy Morrison, selects as her title, +"How the Witch got the Black Cat for her Prisoner." Read this charming +fairy tale--an original piece of work by a girl of twelve: + + "Years ago, when the witch rode her broomstick, no snarling + black cat accompanied her on her midnight rides. That wicked + person was always planning and plotting how to get some nice + young girl to go with her. + + "At this time there lived a beautiful fairy, who was condemned + to death by a cruel magician, who had no reason to do so. This + good fairy, Eilene, finally decided to take the shape of a bird + and to fly through the tiny window of her prison to her old + friend, Mr. Moon. + + "She did so, and when she arrived at her friend's home she + assumed the form of a fairy and entreated him to keep her safe + from the cruel clutches of the magician. + + "He promised to do his best. + + "The next Halloween, the witch, Crono, rode up to the moon and + on spying Eilene she exclaimed, 'Aha, just what I have been + looking for--a nice young maiden.' + + "Eilene became frightened at first and clutched the moon's hand. + Just then Crono grabbed at her, but she was too quick for her, + for she changed herself into a bird and flew out of the reaches + of the witch. + + "Shaking her fist at the girl she muttered, 'I will get you + yet.' + + "Then the witch returned to her caldron and Eilene returned to + the moon. Mr. Moon then advised her to be careful for Crono + wanted her for her prisoner. She did not heed this because she + thought that she could outwit Crono with all her fairy power, + but she was mistaken, for Crono had more power than she. One + day, while sitting at the moon's knee, listening to the story of + how he got up in the sky, Eilene's hands and feet were tied, and + before Mr. Moon could help her, what little power that fat + personage possessed was taken from him. + + "Crono transformed Eilene into a snarling black cat which now + always accompanies her on her Halloween rides when she tells the + grinning Jack-o'-Lanterns of how she captured Eilene. + + "Because Mr. Moon loved Eilene so well, Crono gave him a picture + of the fairy, which he always keeps near him, and even to this + day, if we look up at the moon, we can see the picture of + Eilene. So let us remember that, although the black cat does + appear fierce, she is really good at heart." + + +VI The Crow and the Scarecrow + +When corn was sprouting, "Crows and Scarecrows" was announced as a +topic, and one Irish lad, giving rein to his imagination, wrote:-- + + THE CROW AND THE SCARECROW + + "Having a story to write concerning a crow, I decided to go to + the zoological gardens and seek an interview with one of the + species. Accordingly I went, and after passing numerous cages + containing all kinds of animals, I arrived at the bird cages. + Here in one cage all by himself I met Mr. Crow. He was a big + bird with coal-black feathers that glistened in the sunlight. + + "I made a bow, explained my errand and asked for a story. He + cocked his head to one side, looked steadily for a few seconds + and then actually winked at me. 'Well, young man,' he said in a + throaty voice, 'you have certainly come to the right place. But + as it is near my lunch time I must be brief. + + "'In the first place, I was the leader of as wild and + mischievous a band of crows as you ever heard tell of. There was + one particular farm in our territory we loved to visit. The + owner's name was Silas Whimple and he was the grouchiest, most + miserly man in the county. He lived alone and what part of the + ground that was tilled, he did it himself. As much to tease as + to eat, we would pay him an occasional flying visit, digging up + his newly planted seeds, nibbling at the young green shoots, or, + later on, scratching up his potatoes. All his shouting and + screaming did not scare us a bit. One day one of my companions + came winging with the news that Silas had a farm hand. I laughed + and said, "If there is another man on the farm then Silas + Whimple must be dead." Off we flew to investigate. Sure enough, + out in a patch of potatoes was a man. Watching him quite a + while, I saw he did not move or make a noise as Silas would. He + just stood still. I came down to take a closer look, when who + should come to the doorway but Silas himself. He was laughing + and shouting, "Now I have something to keep you away. The + scarecrow shall keep you from bothering me any more." He laughed + and laughed, but I watched my chance and flew behind this being + and scratched off his cap. Then the story was out. It was only a + straw man. I went back to my companions and explained, and + before evening we had picked the scarecrow to pieces. Next day I + was unfortunate enough to put my foot in a wire trap and then + they sent me up here for life.' + + "At this moment his keeper came up with something to eat, so I + bade him good-bye and left." + +English, in these classes, is so alive with interest that the children +write with ardor and read eagerly the literature which, improperly +handled, they learn so soon to despise. + +The time-honored studies of the old curriculum may be charged with +interest if they are linked to life. The most irksome task has its +pleasant aspects. Even the three R's may be translated into current +thought. + + +VII School and Home + +Even more significant for the future is the work which is being done in +a few cities to train girls for their chief work in life--homemaking. +The home schools at Indianapolis and Providence are, perhaps, typical. +The Indianapolis School Board bought a number of wretched homes near one +school in a crowded district. The boys in the school renovated the +homes, converting one into a rug shop, another into a mop factory, and +still a third into a shoe-shop. In these shops the children of the +school did their trade work. Another house was made into a model +home--(model for that quarter)--in which the domestic science department +was located. Of this home the girls took entire charge, living in it by +the day. There they were taught, by practical experience, the art of +homemaking. + +The home school of Providence, Rhode Island, under the direction of Mrs. +Ada Wilson Trowbridge, has received nation-wide recognition. Six hundred +dollars, appropriated by the Board of Education, renovated and furnished +the flat on Willard Avenue in which the school is held. + +The girls who elect to take work in the home school--the work is wholly +elective--may come on Monday and Tuesday, or on Wednesday and Thursday. +The hours are 4 to 6, or 7:30 to 9:30. On Friday, anyone comes who cares +to. The day pupils are from the grammar schools and the evening pupils +come from the factories and shops. Seventy-five names on the waiting +list of day classes indicate the popularity of the school. + +"We try to keep the school like the homes from which these girls come," +explained Mrs. Trowbridge, as she showed her tastefully arranged +apartment. "The girls in the Technical High School worked out the color +schemes, selected the patterns and bought the materials. We tried to get +things which were good looking and durable." + +The three kinds of work, (1) Cooking, (2) Housekeeping, and (3) Sewing, +are carried on in rotation, a girl spending one entire afternoon at +cooking, the next at sewing and a third at housework. Thus each girl +does an afternoon's job in each subject. The cooking class studies +successively "breakfast," "lunch" and "dinner," in each case preparing +menus and cooking the food. A meal is served nearly every day. The +service falls to the housekeeping class, which is also responsible for +cleaning up, tending the furnace, washing, ironing and the like. +Included in this part of the work are a number of thorough discussions +of personal hygiene and home sanitation. To the sewing class, the girls +bring their home sewing problems. Certain classes darn stockings while a +teacher reads to them. Some girls make underclothing and dresses. The +beginners hem table cloths, napkins, towels, dustcloths, etc., for the +school. The classes are small (ten to fifteen) making individual work +possible. + +"No, no," protested Mrs. Trowbridge, "we have no course of study, or +else, if you please, there are as many courses as there are girls. Each +girl has her problems and we aim to meet them." + +The backyard, utilized as a garden, furnishes vegetables which the girls +cook and can. These vegetables, together with canned fruits, jellies, +jams and pickles, which the girls put up, give the school such an +excellent source of revenue that last year it turned over $15 to the +Superintendent of Schools. + +The crowning work of the school was done in a bare upstairs room which +the girls papered and painted themselves. "Two of them have since done +the same thing with rooms at home," declared Mrs. Trowbridge, happily. +"Isn't that good for a start?" + +The home school stays close to home problems, dealing with the facts of +life as the girls who come to school see them. It would hardly be fair +to expect more of any school. + + +VIII Breaking New Ground + +The regular work of the public school has been supplemented, of late +years, by a number of significant innovations, of which the most +far-reaching is, perhaps, a medical inspection of schools which involves +a thorough physical examination of all school children by experts. By +this scheme, the defect of the individual child is corrected, and the +danger of widespread contagion or infection in the schoolroom is reduced +to a minimum. + +Following these physical examinations, the children who are clearly +sub-normal are placed in special classes or special schools, where, +under the direction of specially fitted teachers, they do any mental +work for which they are fitted, in the interims of time between manual +activities. Weaving, woodworking, folding and similar employments hold +the attention of sub-normal children where intellectual work will not. +The special school, freed from the throttling grip of an iron-clad +course of study, studies the need of each child, and makes a course of +study to fit the need. Although the special school has been used for +incorrigibles, its real value rests in its care of the defective child. + +Anaemic children and those who show a tubercular tendency are treated in +open air schools. In Springfield a special school was constructed. In +Providence an old building was employed. In all cases, however, the +windows are notable by their absence. The school supplies caps and army +blankets, a milk lunch in the middle of the forenoon and the afternoon, +and a plain, wholesome dinner at noon. A few months of such treatment +works wonders with most of the children. It seems only fair that the +sick school child should be treated to fresh air and full nutrition, +even though the well child is not so favored. + +The open air school has borne fruit, however, in the establishment of +numerous open-window classes. Against these classes, there seems to be +only one complaint. The children are too lively. Fancy! They get a +supply of oxygen sufficient to stimulate them into life during school +hours. How tragic this must seem to the teacher who is in the habit of +calming the troubled spirits of her class by a generous administration +of closed windows and carbon dioxide. + +A few cities are attempting to relieve underfeeding by the provision of +wholesome school lunches at cost. Buffalo leads in the work, with +Chicago, Philadelphia and a number of other cities trailing behind. When +you remember that the Chicago School Board reported that in the Chicago +schools there were "five thousand children who were habitually hungry," +while "ten thousand others do not have sufficient nourishing food," you +will perhaps agree that the time has come for some action. + +Among the liveliest educational movements of the day is that of +providing school children with a legitimate occupation and a convenient +place to be occupied outside of school hours. Chicago, with an unequaled +system of playgrounds, and Philadelphia, with a department devoted to +school gardens, are leaders in two fields which promise great things for +the future welfare of American city school children. + + +IX The School and the Community + +Not content with doing those needful things involved in the education of +children of school age, the school is reaching far out into the +community. Night schools came first, as a means of education for those +who could not attend school during the daytime. Every progressive city +and town has a night school now, and the scholars who come after working +hours use the same expensive equipment that is furnished to the regular +classes. Machines, cooking apparatus, maps and blackboard all do double +duty. In the foreign quarters, particularly, the night schools attract a +large following of adults, eager to learn the language and ways of the +new land. Though many a one falls asleep over the tasks, who shall say +that the spirit is not willing? + +Public lectures are being used more and more as a means of public +education. There is scarcely an up-to-date city that has not some public +lectures connected with its school or library system, while in a center +like New York, the Board of Education has established an elaborate +organization for the delivery of lectures in public school buildings +throughout the city. The lecture topics--widely advertised through the +schools and elsewhere--cover every field of thought. + +Perhaps the whole movement of the schools to influence the community may +be summed up in the phrase, "A wider use of the school plant." Why +should not the schools be open, as they are in Gary, day and evening, +too? Why should the mothers and fathers not be organized into "Home and +School Leagues," meeting in the schools as they do on a large scale in +Philadelphia? Why should not the social sentiment of a community be +crystallized around its schoolhouse, as it has been in Rochester? Is it +better to have the children playing in the street in the summer time, or +in the school yards and playgrounds, as they do in Minneapolis and St. +Paul? + +The billion dollars invested in the school plant must be made to yield a +return in broader social service with each succeeding year. + + +X New Keys for Old Locks + +Nor have progressive educators been satisfied to change the methods of +teaching old subjects. More important still, they have introduced new +courses which aim to open larger fields for child experience. Hygiene, +nature study, civics, manual training and domestic science have all been +called upon to enrich the elementary school curriculum. + +The nineteenth century physiology--names of muscles and bones, symptoms +of diseases and the like--has been replaced in the twentieth century +schools by a physiology which aims to teach that the body is worth +caring for and developing into something of which every boy and girl may +be proud. Beginning with nature study and elementary science, the +hygiene course in Indianapolis emphasizes, first, the care of the body +and then, in the seventh and eighth grades, public health, private and +public sanitation, etc. From nature and her doings, the child is led to +see the application of the laws of physiology and hygiene to the life of +the individual and of the community. + +Nature study, elementary science, horticulture and school gardens have +taken their place, on a small scale, in all progressive educational +systems. There is an education in watching things grow; an education in +the sequence and significance of the seasons, which brick and cement +pavements can never afford. + +Scattered attempts are being made to teach children the relation between +individual and community life. All of the seventh and eighth grade +children in Indianapolis visit the city bureaus--water, light, health, +fire and police. Trips to factories teach them the relation between +industry and the individual life, while social concepts are developed by +newspaper and magazine reading, book reading and class discussions of +the articles and books which are read. At election time they discuss +politics; they take up strikes and labor troubles; woman suffrage is +occasionally touched upon; and they are even asked to suggest methods of +making a given wage cover family needs. + +The widespread introduction of domestic science and elementary manual +training renders any special discussion of them unnecessary. In some +instances, however, they are developed to a high degree. In Gary, +Indianapolis and Cincinnati, seventh and eighth grade girls make their +own garments, cook and serve meals to teachers or to other classes; +while in the advanced grades the boys make furniture, sleds, derricks, +bridges and telegraph instruments. Chair caning, weaving and clay +modeling are also widely used in the hand work of both boys and girls. + +Fitchburg, Mass., has developed a Practical Arts School, paralleling the +seventh and eighth grades in the grammar school. The school includes a +Commercial Course, a Practical Arts Course, a Household Arts Course and +a Literary Course. The regular literature, composition, spelling, +mathematics, geography, history and science of the seventh and eighth +grades is supplemented by social dancing, physical training and music in +all of these courses; and in addition for the Commercial Course by +typewriting, shorthand, bookkeeping, business arithmetic and designing; +for the Practical Arts Course, by drawing, designing, printing, making +and repairing; for the Household Arts Course, by cooking, sewing, +homekeeping and household arts; and for the Literary Course, by +half-time in modern language and the other half in manual training and +household arts. + +At the end of the sixth year (at about twelve years of age) children in +Fitchburg may elect to take this school of Practical Arts instead of the +regular grammar school course. The results of this election are +extraordinary. The practical course was planned for the children who +expected to leave school at fourteen, or at the end of the eighth grade. +Curiously enough, all types of children have flocked into it. Sons of +doctors, lawyers and well-to-do business men; boys and girls preparing +for college, and children who must stop school in a year or two are all +clamoring for admission. In spite of the fact that pupils are kept in +these schools six hours a day instead of five, as in the other schools, +the attendance at the end of two years has outrun the accommodations. +The children who leave this applied work and enter the high school are +apparently not a whit less able to do the high school work than those +children who have come up through the regular grades. + +The new education is broader than the old, because it accepts and adopts +any study which seems likely to meet the needs or wants of any class of +children or of any individual child. The storehouse of the mind is +to-day unlocked with educational keys of which educators in past +generations scarcely dreamed. + + +XI School and Shop + +For the present, at least, there are a great number of children who must +leave school at fourteen, whether they have completed the grammar grades +or not. With them, the problem of education shapes itself into this +question: "Shall they be well or badly prepared for their work?" The +boys enter the shops and mills; the girls marry and make homes. Are they +to be efficient workers and housekeepers? The answer rests largely with +the schools. + +Ohio has provided, for the solution of the problem, a continuation +school law, modeled on the more extensive plans of the German +Continuation School system. The law reads: "In case the board of +education of any school district establishes part-time day schools for +the instruction of youths over fourteen years of age who are engaged in +regular employment, such board of education is authorized to require all +youths who have not satisfactorily completed the eighth grade of the +elementary schools to continue their schooling until they are sixteen +years of age; provided, however, that such youths, if they have been +granted Age and Schooling Certificates and are regularly employed, shall +be required to attend school not to exceed eight hours a week between +the hours of 8:00 A. M. to 5:00 P. M. during the school term." + +Cleveland and Cincinnati, acting under this authority, have established +continuation schools. In Cleveland they are voluntary; in Cincinnati +they are compulsory. In both cities, children between fourteen and +sixteen may attend school, during factory time, for four hours each +week. + +Little enough, you protest. Yes, but it is a beginning. + +The child in such a continuation school may choose between academic +work, art, drawing and designing, shop-work, millinery, dressmaking and +domestic science. In some cases a continuation course is possible. Thus +far the system has worked admirably. + +Equally significant are the Massachusetts Vocational Schools, which are +intended to provide a technical training for the boys who wish to pass +directly from the grammar school into industry. + +Under the Massachusetts law, the state pays half of the running expenses +of any vocational school which is organized with the approval of the +State Director of Vocational Training. The Springfield school, under +the supervision of E. E. MacNary, is housed on one floor of a factory +building. The boys may not come at an earlier age than fourteen and Mr. +MacNary insists, where possible, that they complete the regular seventh +grade work before coming to him. His school, which includes pattern +making, cabinet work, carpentry and machine shop work, is run on the +"job" plan. That is, a boy is assigned to a job such as making a +head-stock for a lathe. The boy makes his drawings, writes his +specifications, orders his material and tools, estimates the cost of the +job, makes the head-stock and then figures up his actual costs and +compares them with the estimated cost. Not until he has gone through all +of the operations, may he turn to a new piece of work. + +"We tried the half-day and half-day in shop plan," Mr. MacNary explains, +"but it was not a success. It disturbed the boys too much. So we hit on +the plan of letting each boy divide his time as he needed to. When he +has drawing and estimating to do, he does that and when the time for +lathe work comes, he turns to that. It breaks up any system in your +school, but it gives the best chance to the individual boy." + +One day a week all of the boys meet the teachers in conference to +discuss their work and to make and receive general suggestions. + +The boys who come to Mr. MacNary's school are boys who would probably +leave the regular school at fourteen. Many boys come because they are +discouraged with the grade work, and of these "grade failures," many +succeed admirably in the new school. During the two years of this +shop-work, the boys get a training which enables them to take and hold +good positions in the trades. As one foreman said, "A boy gets more +training in the two years of that school than he gets in three years of +any shop." + +These are but an index of the myriad of attempts which cities are making +to bring school and shop together, to train for usefulness, to start +boys in life. + + +XII Half a Chance to Study + +There are other ways in which the school may help. For example, in the +case of homework. On the one hand, homework for the sake of homework may +be eliminated. On the other hand, children may be given half a chance to +read and study. + +One day in a squalid back street I glanced through the window of a +corner house. The front of the house was a grocery store. The room into +which I happened to look was a general dwelling room. On one side stood +the kitchen stove; the floor was littered with children and rubbish, and +just under the window a child sat, her book before her on the +supper-covered dining table, doing multiplication examples--her +homework. The well-to-do child, less than ten squares away, who bent +over her problems in a quiet room, could scarcely appreciate the +difficulties attached to homework, when the family lives in three rooms +and does everything possible to reduce the bill for kerosene. + +There is just one place in every neighborhood where the child can find +light, air and quiet--that place is the school. Why then should the +school not be open for the child? "Why, indeed," asked the schoolmen of +Newark, N. J. Passing from thought to deed, they opened schools in the +crowded neighborhoods four nights a week from 7 to 9. + +Into these evening study classes, in charge of advisory teachers, any +child might come at all. The city librarian, generous in co-operation, +lent library books in batches of forty, for two months at a time. +Evening after evening, the boys and girls assemble and with text-books +or library books, do those things in the school which are impossible in +the home. For what other purpose should the school exist? + + +XIII Thwarting Satan in the Summer Time + +Another project, equally effective, involves the opening of schools +during the summer time. The farmer needed his boy for the harvest, so +summer vacations became the established rule, but the city street needs +neither the boy nor the girl at any time of the year. Idleness and +mischief link hands with street children and dance away toward +delinquency. Then why not have school in the summer time? Why not? + +The answer takes the form of vacation schools. In most cases the work of +the vacation school is designed primarily to interest the child. Games, +stories, gardening, manual work of various sorts, excursions and similar +devices are relied upon to maintain interest. + +A few cities, like Indianapolis, Worcester and Gary, on the other hand, +have established vacation schools in which children may make up back +work, or pursue studies in which they are especially interested. + +As a means of bringing below-grade children up to the standard of +affording an opportunity for the able children to advance more rapidly +in school, and, in general, as a means of keeping city children usefully +occupied during the summer months, the vacation school has won its +place. + +Newark, making an even more radical departure from tradition, runs some +schools twelve months in the year. Edgar G. Pitkin, principal of a +school in an immigrant district, first put the idea into practice. At +the end of the regular session in June, he announced to his children +that school would start again on the following Monday. Fearfully he +approached the building. The streets about the school seemed unusually +deserted that Monday morning. Suppose no one should be there! When the +gong sounded, however, more than seven-tenths of the two thousand +children belonging in the school were in their places. The attendance +that summer was ninety-two per cent, and the promotion ninety-five per +cent. During the three summer months there were exactly two cases of +discipline. + +"You see what happened," Mr. Pitkin explained. "All of the bright +ambitious children came back and the loafers stayed away. From that +picked crowd nothing but good work could be expected. There was no +attendance officer on duty, but the children were regular. Order was so +good that on hot days we put up the sashes between rooms, and on the +second floor, where four class-rooms were thrown into one, four classes +worked industriously under four teachers without the least friction." + +This school has been organized on a year schedule. If the children come +four terms each year instead of three, they will reduce the time between +the first and eighth grades by one-third, which means a saving to them +and to the school. Since it is the able children who come, the twelve +months' school affords them an opportunity to go quickly through work on +which the slower classmates must hold a more moderate pace. + + +XIV Sending the Whole Child to School + +It is a long step from the school of-- + + Reading, and writing and 'rithmetic, + Taught to the tune of the hickory stick, + +to the school which aims at the education of the whole child; yet that +step has been attempted in Gary, Indiana. There, perhaps more +consistently than anywhere else in the United States, the school +authorities are providing for the whole child in their schools. Many +schools have manual training and domestic science; many schools have +school gardens and playgrounds; many schools have nature work in the +parks and squares; but in no school that I have visited did I find a +more conscious effort to unite mental and physical, hand and head, and +vocation and recreation, in one complete system. + +This result, which to some may sound unbelievably like the impossible, +is accomplished first, by engaging experts to teach such special +subjects as botany and physical training; second, by abolishing grade +promotions and permitting each child to advance in his subject when he +is ready to do so; third, by keeping the school open morning, afternoon +and evening during practically the entire year; fourth, by making the +work of interest to each individual child. Perhaps this matter of +interest sums up better than any other the spirit of the Gary schools. +The system aims to make the school so attractive that children will +prefer to be there rather than to be anywhere else. + +How is this done? Take the case of John Frena, who occupies a place of +no particular distinction in the fifth year of the Gary schools. John's +school day (from 8:30 A. M. to 4:00 P. M.) is divided equally between +regular work (reading, writing, geography, etc.) and special work (play, +nature study, manual training and the like). A day of John's school life +reads like this: + + _First period_--Playground, games, sports and gymnastics, under + the direction of an expert. + + _Second period_--Nature study, elementary science and physical + geography. + + _Third and fourth periods_--Reading, writing, spelling and + language. + + _Lunch hour._ + + _Fifth period_--Playground (as before). + + _Sixth period_--Drawing and manual training. + + _Seventh and eighth periods_--History, political geography and + arithmetic. + +During his school day, John has played, used his head and his hands, and +alternated the work in such a way that no one part of it ever became +irksome. + +Next week, music and literature will be substituted on John's program +for drawing; the following week manual training will replace one period +of play. The four special subjects (drawing and manual training, music +and literature, nature study and science, and plays and games) rotate +regularly. Each day, however, includes four periods of this special work +and four periods of regular work. + +Such a plan sounds complicated. In reality, it is very easy. The +gymnasium teacher stays in the gymnasium, the drawing teacher in the +drawing room. In the regular work, there are forty children in each +class. For science and manual training these classes split in two. At +the end of each period, or of each two periods, depending on the +subject, the children pass from one room to another. While this system +brings them under several teachers each day, it enables them to take a +subject like art with one teacher for twelve years. + +Meanwhile our little friend John has shown himself bright in language, +but slow in arithmetic. Immediately he is advanced in language, and +perhaps placed in a lower arithmetic class. He may even be transferred +to another teacher for special arithmetic work. The system permits this +flexibility because it allows each teacher, an expert in her own field, +to shape her work to suit her pupils. + +Better still, if John cannot master his arithmetic in the regular +classes, he may attend voluntary classes on Saturday, at night, or +during the summer months. The schools afford him every chance to keep up +in every subject, and if he cannot make his way in this subject or in +that, he works in the fields which are open to him, doing what he can to +make his course a success. + +John, in the schools of Gary, is John Frena, with all of John Frena's +limitations and possibilities. The Gary school seeks to bridge the +limitations, expand the possibilities, and give John Frena a thousand +and one reasons for believing that if there is any place in the world +where he can grow into a complete man, that place is the Gary school. + + +XV Smashing the School Machine + +One of the oft-repeated complaints against the old education arose from +the iron-clad system of promotion which once in each year, with +automatic precision, separated the sheep from the goats, saying to the +sheep, "go higher," and to the goats, "repeat the grade." + +For the sheep, the system worked fairly well, at least that once; but +for the goats, it was a tragedy. The child who had failed in one out of +six branches, side by side with the child failing in six out of six, +repeated the year. + +The new education affords several remedies for this situation. Of these +the most generally known is promotion twice yearly. While this affords +considerable relief, it is greatly improved upon in Springfield, Mass., +by the division of each grade into three divisions--advanced, normal +and backward. These divisions the teacher handles separately so that +when promotion time comes the children who have shown special aptitude +are prepared to go into the next grade. Meantime the children have been +constantly changing from one division in the class to another. + +Perhaps the most generally practicable plan for relieving the mechanical +features of promotion is found in Indianapolis, and even more intensely +in Gary, where children are promoted by subjects rather than by grades. +In Indianapolis, the child entering the sixth grade, takes all English +with one teacher from that time until the end of the eighth grade. If +the child is strong in English, he advances rapidly. If he is weak in +English, the teacher gives him special attention. Learning each pupil's +capabilities in her particular branch, the teacher is able to give the +individual child, over a series of years, the help which his special +case requires. + +In Gary the departmental idea is carried through the entire school +system. In the Emerson School, for instance, children may take eighth +grade work in English and high school work in nature study or history. +The departmental work is strengthened in Gary, in Indianapolis, and in a +number of other cities, by afternoon work, Saturday classes and vacation +schools. Here, a child interested in any phase of the school work or +desiring to make up work in which he is deficient, may spend his spare +time to his heart's content. + +An even greater individuation of children exists in Fitchburg and +Newton, Mass., and in Providence, R. I. Children from the country and +foreign children who have difficulty with their English, together with +any other children who do not fit into any grade, are placed in an +ungraded class. A typical ungraded class of fifty pupils contained +Germans, Russians, Greeks, French, Italians and Polish children, who +were unable to speak English on entering the school. The ages of these +children varied from eight to fifteen. As soon as the ungraded children +appear to be fitted for any special grade, they are transferred. + +This ungraded work is supplemented by "floating teachers," who are +located in each school for the purpose of dealing with special cases. +The case of any child who, for this reason or that, cannot keep up with +the work in a particular subject, is handed over to these teachers. Thus +individual attention is secured in individual cases. + + +XVI All Hands Around for An Elementary School + +These progressive educational steps are not isolated instances of +success in new lines, nor are they incompatible with good work. They may +be welded into a unified system, aglow with the real interests of real +life. It is possible to correlate the old standard courses and the new +fields in such a way that the child will gain in interest and in life +experience. + +Nowhere is this possibility better illustrated than in the elementary +schools of Indianapolis. Take as an example School No. 52, which is +located in an average district. The children, neither very rich nor very +poor, possess the advantages and disadvantages of that great mass known +as "common people." + +The children in grades one to three, inclusive, in addition to studying +the three R's, spend thirty minutes each day learning to measure, fold, +cut and weave paper. In grades four and five, an hour and a half per +week is devoted to simple weaving, knife-work, raffia work, sewing and +basketry. Grade six has four and a half hours of similar work each week, +while in grades seven and eight, the pupils are occupied for one-third +of their entire school time in art work, book-binding, pottery work, +weaving (blankets and rugs), chair caning, cooking, sewing and printing. + +"But how is it possible?" queries the defender of the old system. "How +can the necessary subjects be taught in two-thirds of the time now +devoted to them? Are we not already crowded to death?" + +Yes, crowded with dead work, the proof of which lies in the fact that +the children who devote a third of the time to apply their knowledge get +as good or better marks in the academic work than the three-thirds +children. That, however, is not the really important point. This course +of study is valuable because it gives a rounded, unified training. + +This is how the course is organized. The school life is a unit, into +which each department fits and in which it works. The spelling lesson is +covered in the classroom and set in type in the print shop. The grammar +lesson consists in revising compositions with regulation proofreaders' +corrections. The art department designs clothes which are made in the +sewing classes. The drawing room furnishes plans for the wood and iron +work and designs for basketry and pottery. In the English classes, the +problems of caning and weaving are written and discussed. The +mathematical problems are problems of the school. Children in the +sixth year keep careful accounts of personal receipts and +expenditures--accounts which are balanced semi-weekly. The boy in one +woodworking class makes out an order for materials. A boy in another +class makes the necessary computations and fills the order. All costs of +dressmaking and cooking materials are carefully kept and dealt with as +arithmetic problems. For the older boys, shop-cards are kept, showing +the amount and price of materials used and the time devoted to a given +operation. These again form a basis for mathematical work. The whole is +knit together in a civics class, which deals with the industrial, +political and social questions, in their relations to the child and to +the community. + +Best of all, the things which the children talk and figure about, plan +and make, have value. The seventh and eighth year girls make clothes +which they are proud to show and wear; they cook lunch for which some of +the teachers pay a cost price. The baskets are taken home. Eighty chairs +are caned by the children each year. The bindery binds magazines, songs +and special literature. The boys make sleds and carts, hall stands, +umbrella racks, center tables and stools. They make cupboards and +shelves for the school, quilting-frames on which the girls do patchwork. +Rags are woven into rag carpets and sold. The print shop prints all of +the stationery for the school. Each can of preserves, in the ample stock +put up by the girls, is labeled thus: + + "PRESERVED PEACHES" + +with labels printed by the boys. + +June, 1912, witnessed a triumph for the entire school. The children in +the upper class had taken up the study of book-making. They even went to +a bindery and saw a book bound and lettered. Then, to show what they had +learned, they composed, set up and printed-- + + A BOOK + ABOUT BOOKS + by + June 8 A Class. + +This book of twenty-eight pages, tastefully covered and decorated, +contained three half-tone cuts which the children paid for by means of +entertainments; an essay by Hazel Almas on "The History of Books," one +by Adele Wise on "The Printing of a Book," and one by Ruth Kingelman on +"The Art of Bookbinding"; the program of the commencement exercises, and +a collection of poems and wise sayings. + +The children went further and invited Mr. Charles Bookwalter, the owner +of the bookbindery where they had learned their lesson, to come and talk +to them on Commencement Day. He came, made a splendid address and went +away filled with wonder before these achievements of fourteen-year-old +grammar school children. + +Each grade has a special subject of study. This year the boys in the +Eighth A are studying saws; the boys in Eighth B, lumbering; the girls +in Eighth A are investigating wool and silk; while in Eighth B the girls +are studying cotton and flax. This "study" means much. Not only do the +children discuss the topics, write about them, read books on them, and +do problems concerning them, but they visit the factories and study the +processes from beginning to end. + +When the problem of pins came up, the teacher desired several copies of +a description of pin-making, so she asked the class to write out a +letter to the manufacturers. The class, left to select, decided to send +this letter: + + SCHOOL NO. 52, + Indianapolis, Ind., Oct. 11, 1912. + + AMERICAN PIN COMPANY, + Waterbury, Conn. + + _Dear Sirs_: On seeing the pamphlet on pins you have been kind + enough to send us, I have decided to write and ask you if you + would kindly send us about twenty of your pamphlets on the + making of pins. + + We are in the eighth grade, and expect to go out into the world + in January, and your process of making pins will be spread + abroad to the whole world. + + We are very anxious to know more about the making of pins, and + we are very much interested in your process. + + Yours sincerely, + RUTH HARRISON. + +Need I say that the American Pin Company sent immediately twenty +duplicates of the desired pamphlet? + +The work in this school where thought and activity go hand in hand, is +done by the regular grade teachers--done, and done well. They are as +enthusiastic as the pupils. Four years' trial has convinced them. On the +day that I visited the school, I walked into a classroom where twenty +girls were busy sewing. The order was perfect. Every one was busy. The +teacher was nowhere in evidence. + +"That teacher," explained the principal to me later, "is off at a +teachers' meeting. She left these girls on their honor to work. You see +the result." + +I saw and marveled. Yet why marvel? Was not this a typical product of +the system which knits thought and activity into such a harmonious, +fascinating whole as the most fortunate adults find in later life? Out +of such a school may we not well develop harmony and keen life? Never +yet have men gathered grapes from thistles, but often and often have +they plucked from fig trees the figs which they craved and sought. + + +XVII From a Blazed Trail to a Paved Highway + +Pages might be filled with descriptions of similar successes, yet I +think that my point is already sufficiently established. How can we +disagree regarding so plain a matter? The path of educational progress +has led away from the three R's along a trail, blazed at first by a few +men and women who dreamed and stepped forward hesitatingly. Often they +retraced their steps, discouraged, and gave over the little they had +gained. By degrees, however, the trail was blazed. The way became +clearer. After all it was possible to connect education with life. + +Slowly the light of this truth dawned upon men's minds. Gradually the +way opened before them. One by one they trod the path, bridging the +worst defiles, straightening the road, cutting out the thickets and +filling in the morasses, until at last, behold the way, explored by +hesitating, derided pioneers, no longer a trail, but a broad highway. +Others have gone--their name is legion--and have succeeded. The three +R's are but the beginning of an adequate elementary curriculum. You, in +your own city, with your own teachers, can vitalize your elementary +schools. You can teach the children to use their heads and hands +together, and thus show them the way to a deeper interest in your +schools, and a larger outlook on their work in life. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +KEEPING THE HIGH SCHOOL IN STEP WITH LIFE + + +I The Responsibility of the High School + +"Every pupil of high school maturity should be in high school atmosphere +whether he has completed the work of the grammar grades or not," insists +Dr. F. E. Spaulding. "Perhaps the high school course of study is not +adapted to the needs of such children. Well, so much the worse for the +course of study. The sooner the high school suits its work to the needs +of fourteen and fifteen-year-old boys and girls, the sooner it will be +filling its true place in the community." Such opinions, voiced in this +case by a man whose national reputation is founded on his splendid work +as superintendent of the school system of Newton Mass., bespeak the +attitude of the most progressive American high schools. + +The high school is not a training ground for colleges, nor is it a +repository of classical lore. As an advanced school it differs no more +from the elementary school than the six cylinder automobile differs from +the four cylinder car. Though its work is more complex, like the +elementary school it exists for the sole purpose of helping children to +live wholesome, efficient lives. + + +II An Experiment in Futures + +Children who get stranded in the seventh or eighth grades may have +failed in one subject or in several. Over age and out of place, they +lose interest, become discouraged and at fourteen drop out of school to +work or to idle. In Newton, as in every other town, there were a number +of just such children whom Mr. Spaulding decided to get into the high +school. + +"There they will be among children of their own age," he explained. +"They may take a new line of work and acquire a real interest." + +"But they will fail in their high school work as they have failed in +their grade work," protested the doubters. + +Mr. Spaulding, smiling his quiet, genial smile, tried his experiment all +the same. From the seventh and eighth grades of the Newton schools he +picked the boys and girls who were fifteen or more at their next +birthdays. These pupils, seventy in all--forty girls and thirty +boys--were transferred, without examination, into the high school. + +"These youngsters were going to drop out of school for good in one year, +or two at the outside," explained Mr. Spaulding, "so I made up my mind +that during that year at least they should have some high school +training. They went to the regular high school teachers for their +hand-work; but for their studies, I put them in charge of three capable +grade teachers, who were responsible for seeing that each child was +making good. I put it to the grade teachers this way: 'Here are a lot of +children who have got the failure habit by failing all through their +school course. Unless we want to send them out of our school to make +similar failures in life, we must teach them to succeed. Take each child +on his own merits, give him work that he can do and let him learn +success.' + +"We gave these boys and girls twenty hours a week of technical work +(drawing, designing, shop-work, cooking and sewing) and ten hours a +week of academic work (English, mathematics, civics and hygiene). Shop +costs, buying of materials and simple accounting covered their +mathematics. Those were the things which would probably be most needful +in life. The boys got deeply interested in civics, and we let them go as +far and as fast as they pleased. With the girls we discussed hygiene, +dressing and a lot of other things in which they were interested. + +"When those children entered the school they were boisterous and rough. +The girls dressed gaudily, reveling in cheap finery. By Christmas, to +all appearances, their classes differed in no way from the other high +school classes. They all brushed their hair. The boys were neater and +the girls were becomingly dressed.["] + +Most of the seventy children stayed through the year. Twenty-seven of +the forty girls and seventeen of the thirty boys entered the regular +high school course the next fall. They were thus put into competition +with their former seventh and eighth grade comrades, although they had +had only two-fifths as much academic work as the regular eighth grade +pupils. There was the test. + +Could these derelicts, after one year of special care, take their places +in the regular freshman high school work? After the end of the first +quarter, a study made of the 800 children in the high school showed that +on the average there were fifty-four hundredths of one failure for each +scholar. Among the twenty-seven girls from the special classes, however, +there was but seventeen-hundredths of a failure for each girl, or +one-third as many failures as in the whole school. The boys made an even +better showing. Of the entire seventeen, only one boy failed, and in +only one subject. + + +III The Success Habit + +"We had given them something they liked and could do," Mr. Spaulding +concluded. "They succeeded a few times, got the success habit, learned +to like school, went into the regular high school course and succeeded +there." + +As an illustration of the way in which the new plan works, take the case +of James Rawley. James was in a serious predicament. Time after time the +court had overlooked his truancy and misdoings, but James had taken the +pitcher once too often to the well, and the open doors of the State +Reform School stared him grimly in the face. + +"It will be best for him in the long run," commented the judge. "Each +month of this wild life makes him a little less fit to keep his place in +the community. He has had his last chance." + +Yet there was one ray of hope, for James lived in and out of Boston, a +city located near the Newton Technical High School. This fact led +James's custodians to propose to the judge that he give James one more +trial, this time in the Newton Technical High School. The judge, also of +the initiated, agreed to the suggestion, and James, a dismal eighth +grade failure, entered the Newton Technical High School in one of the +special transfer classes. + +Just a word about James. He began life badly. His mother died when he +was young; and his father, a rather indifferent man, boarded the boy out +during his early years with an aunt, who first spoiled him through +indulgence, and then, inconsistently enough, hated him because he was +spoiled. Growing up in this uncongenial atmosphere, James became +entirely uncontrollable. He was disagreeable in the extreme, wild and +unmanageable. + +The people with whom James was boarding grew tired of his continued +truancy and he was placed on a farm near Boston. There, too, he was +discontented, dissatisfied and disobedient. Time after time he ran away +to Boston. He went on from bad to worse, falling in with vagrants, +learning their talk and their ways, acquiring a love for wandering and a +distaste for regularity and direction. Taken into custody by the +Juvenile Court, and placed on probation with a family outside of Boston, +James again ran away to mingle with a crowd of his old associates in +Boston. It was at this point that the court decided to send him to the +Reform School. It was likewise at this time that some friendly people +took him in charge, found him a home in Newton, and started his life +anew in the Newton Technical High School, which James entered with a +special transfer class. Promoted to the regular freshman class on trial, +James has renewed his interest in education and bids fair to make his +way through the high school. + +James is doing well in the Newton Technical High School. Though he does +not like all of the regular high school work, he has a full course, and +is working at it persistently. Heretofore school has never appealed to +him--in fact, he hated it cordially--but the school at Newton offered +him such a variety of subjects that he was able to find some which were +attractive. Since then he has been working on those subjects. + +There are many cities in which every school door would have been closed +to James, because he did not fit into the school system, but the +superintendent of the Newton schools believes in making the school fit +the needs of the boy. A fantastic theory? Well, perhaps a trifle, from +one viewpoint; nevertheless, it is the soul of education. + + +IV The Help-Out Spirit + +As a result of this special promotion policy, there are practically no +over-age pupils in the grammar schools of Newton. Instead of square pegs +in round holes, the Newton High School can boast of sixty or seventy +children who come, each year, in search of a new opening for which they +are technically not ready, but into which they may grow. After coming to +the high school, two-thirds of them find an incentive sufficient to lead +them to continue with an education of which they had already wearied. + +The Newton High School, recognizing its obligation to serve the people, +strains every nerve to enable boys and girls to take high school work. +The printing teacher pointed to his class of twenty. + +"Only three of them do not work on Saturdays and after school. They +couldn't come here if they didn't work. Hiney, there, was in a bakeshop +all day at three and a half a week. We got him a job afternoons and +Saturdays that pays him three dollars. That tall fellow will send +himself through high school on the six dollars a week that he gets from +a drug store where he works outside of school hours." + +"We aim," added Mr. Spaulding, "to do everything in our power to make it +possible for the boys to come here. If their parents cannot afford to +send them, we find work for them to do outside of school hours." + +That is virile work, is it not? And the result? During the past eight +years the number of pupils in the Newton schools who are over fourteen +has increased three times as fast as the number of pupils who are under +fourteen. The school authorities have searched the highways and byways +of the educational world until one-quarter of the school children of +Newton are in the high schools. + + +V Joining Hands with the Elementary Schools + +The same result which is attained informally at Newton is accomplished +more formally by the organization of the junior high schools which have +sprung up in Berkeley and Los Angeles, California; Evansville, Indiana; +Dayton, Ohio, and a number of other progressive educational centers. The +child's school life under this plan is divided into three parts--the +elementary grades (years one to six), the junior high school (years +seven to nine) and the high school proper (years ten to twelve). The +break, if break there must be, between the elementary and the high +school, thus comes at age twelve and at age fifteen, instead of, as +formerly, coming at age fourteen, when the temptation to leave school is +so strong. Then, too, the sharp transition from work by grades to work +by departments is made easier because the junior high school combines +the two, leading the pupil gradually over from the grade method to the +department method. + +Though the junior high school has so great a popularity, its work is +eclipsed by the still more revolutionary program of those educators who +advocate the complete abolition of any line between the elementary and +the high school, and the establishment of a public school of twelve +school years. This plan, coupled with promotion by subjects rather than +by grades, replaces the machine method of promotion and the gap between +elementary and high schools by an easy, natural progression adaptable to +the needs of any student, from the end of the kindergarten to the +beginning of the university. + +Superintendent Wirt of Gary, Indiana, has established such a +twelve-year course in the Emerson School. The grades, numbered from one +to twelve, are so arranged that a girl may take half of her subjects in +school year eight (last grammar grade) and the other half in school year +nine (first high school grade). In order to make the harmony more +complete, Mr. Wirt places the elementary rooms, containing the second +grade pupils, next door to the rooms which shelter high school seniors. +On this side of the hall is a kindergarten; directly across from it is a +class in high school geometry. + +The same plan, on a larger scale, has been adopted by I. B. Gilbert, +principal of the Union High School, Grand Rapids, Michigan, which houses +twelve hundred students. + +"We have obliterated the sharp line of distinction between the grades," +declared Mr. Gilbert. "The school, which is a new one, has a very +complete equipment--physical, chemical, and biological laboratories, two +cooking rooms, dressmaking and millinery rooms, an art department, a +woodworking shop, a forge room and a machine shop; the print shop, +though not yet installed, is to be put in this year. By bringing +children of all grades to the school, we place at the disposal of grade +pupils apparatus ordinarily reserved for high school pupils only. At the +same time, our equipment is in constant use and the cost of establishing +a separate industrial department or school for the grades is eliminated. + +"These are merely the surface advantages, however. The real gain to the +students is in other and most significant directions. First, the +abolishing of rigid grading allows each child to follow his own bent. At +the beginning of the adolescent period, when the old interests begin to +lag, some new ideas must be furnished if the child is to be kept in +school. We provide that new stimulus by beginning departmental work +with the seventh year (at twelve or thirteen). Then, if the child shows +any particular preference for any line of work, he may pursue it. From +the seventh grade up, promotion is by subjects entirely, and not by +grades. If a student elects art, she may follow up her art work for the +next six years; similarly, a boy may follow shop-work, or a girl +domestic science or millinery. In order to fit the school more quickly +to the pupils' need, we make a division at the beginning of the eighth +grade of those pupils desiring to take academic work and those desiring +to take industrial work in the high school. The latter group does extra +sewing or shop-work twice each week. + +"Again, we take all over-age and over-size pupils from the schools in +this section of the city, and by placing them in ungraded classes, +permit them to take the work which they can do. Here is a boy who cannot +master grammar. That is no reason why he should not design jewelry, so +we give him fourth year language, and take him into the tenth year class +in jewelry design. Yes, and he makes good, doing excellent craft work +and gradually pulling up in his language. By this means we make our +twelve grade school fit the needs of any and every pupil who may come to +it. + +"We have a natural educational progress for twelve years," concluded Mr. +Gilbert. "There is no break anywhere. Instead of making it hard to step +from grade eight to grade nine, we interrelate them so intimately that +the student scarcely feels the change from one to the other. The result? +Last June there were 152 pupils in our eighth grade. Of that number 118, +or more than three-quarters of them reported in the ninth grade this +fall. We have cancelled the invitation to quit school at the end of the +eighth grade and our children stay with us." + + +VI The Abolition of "Mass Play" + +Thus the dark narrow passage-way from the elementary to the higher +schools is being widened, lighted, paved and sign-posted. In some school +systems it has disappeared altogether, leaving the promotion from the +eighth year to the first year high school as easy as the step from the +seventh to the eighth grade. After the children have reached the high +school, however, the task is only begun. First they must be +individualized, second socialized, and third taught. + +"The trouble with the girls," complained Wm. McAndrew, in discussing his +four thousand Washington Irvingites, "is that they have always been +taught mass play. Take singing, for instance. A class started off will +sing beautifully all together, but get one girl on her feet and she is +afraid to utter a note. The grade instruction has taught them group +acting and group thinking. I step into a class of Freshmen with a 'Good +morning, girls'. + +"'Good morning,' they chorus. + +"'Are you glad to see me, girls?' + +"'Yes sir,' again in chorus. + +"'Do you wished I was hanged?' + +"'Yes sir,' generally,-- + +"'Oh, no sir,' cries one girl who has begun to cerebrate. The idea +catches all over the class, and again the chorus comes,-- + +"'Oh, no sir, no sir.' + +"So it goes. The bright girl takes her cue from the teacher and the +class takes the cue from the bright girl. They must be taught to think +and do for themselves." + +Everyone interested in school children should visit the Washington +Irving School (New York) and watch the truly wonderful McAndrew system +of individualization. In the office, you are cordially greeted. You wish +to see the school? By all means! But no teacher is detailed to serve +you. Instead, a messenger goes in search of the Reception Committee. Two +of the school girls, after a formal introduction, start your tour of +inspection, if you are fortunate enough to be there at nine, with a +visit to one of the assembly rooms, where, in groups of three or four +hundred, the girls enjoy three-quarters of an hour each morning. The +word "enjoy" is used advisedly, for, unlike the ordinary assembly, this +one is conducted entirely by the girls. + +Each morning a different chairman and secretary is selected, so that in +the course of the year every girl has had her turn. The chairman, after +calling the meeting to order and appointing two critics for the day, +reads her own scripture selection, and then calls upon some girl to lead +the salute to the flag. The minutes of the previous day's meeting are +then read, discussed and accepted. After fifteen minutes of +singing--singing of everything from "Faust" to "Rags"--the chairman +calls on the two critics for their criticism of the conduct of that +day's meeting. Some special event is then in order. On one Monday in +December Miss Sage, head of the Biology Department, described the +Biological Laboratory in the new school building. After she had +finished, the chairman rose. + +"Will anyone volunteer to tell in a few words the principal points which +Miss Sage made?" + +Three girls were promptly on their feet, giving, in clear, collected +language, an analysis of the talk. + +After you, as a guest, have been conducted to the platform, introduced +to the chairman, and given a seat of honor, the chairman turns to the +assembly, with the announcement,-- + +"Girls, I wish to introduce to you our guest of this morning." + +Instantly the whole assembly rises, singing blithely, "Good morning, +honored guest, we the girls of the Washington Irving High School are +glad to welcome you." + +The proceedings having come to an end, the chairman declares the meeting +adjourned and you look about, realizing with a start that the +girls--freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors--have spent +three-quarters of an hour in charge of themselves, and have done it with +interest, and with striking efficiency. Continuing your journey, you +find the process of individualization everywhere present. Here a girl is +in front of a class, directing the calisthenics which precede each class +hour. There a girl is standing at the front of the room, leading singing +or quizzing in geometry. + +"Yes, it was a wrench," Mr. McAndrew admits. "You see, the teachers +hated to give up. They had been despots during all of their teaching +lives, and the idea of handing the discipline and a lot of the +responsibility of the school over to the girls hurt them dreadfully, but +they have tried it and found that it works." + + +VII Experimental Democracy + +The high school pupil, after discovering himself, must next determine +his relation to the community. It is one thing to break down what Mr. +McAndrew calls the W. I. (Wooden Indian) attitude. It is quite another +to relate pupils to the community in which they live. Yet this, too, can +be done. The school is a society--incomplete in certain respects, yet in +its broad outline similar to the city and the state. The social work of +the school consists in showing the citizens of the school-community how +to enjoy the privileges and act up to the responsibilities of +citizenship. The Emerson School at Gary and the Union High School at +Grand Rapids, organized into complete schools from the first grade to +the end of the high school, are miniature working models of the +composite world in which all of the children will live. + +Particularly effective work has been done on the social side of high +school organization at the William Penn High School (Philadelphia), +where Mr. Lewis has turned the conduct of student affairs over to a +Student Government Association, directed by a Board of Governors of +eighteen, on which the faculty, represented by five members, holds an +advisory position only. The Association gives some annual event, like a +May day fete, in which all of the girls take part. It assumes charge of +the corridors, elevators, and lunch rooms; grants charters to clubs and +student societies, and assumes a general direction of student affairs. + +"It really doesn't take much time," Irene Litchman, the first term +(1912-13) President, explained. "We like it and we're proud to do it. We +used to have teachers everywhere taking charge of things. Now we do it +all ourselves." True enough, Madame President, and it is well done, as +any casual observer may see. Similar testimony is to be had from the +sick girls who have received letters and flowers, from the children +whose Christmas has been brightened by Association-dressed dolls, and +from the girls whose misunderstandings with members of the faculty have +been settled by the Student Association. + +Each class in the Washington Irving High School (New York) gives one +reception a term to one of the other classes. In addition, an annual +reception and play are given by the entire school. The plays for these +occasions are written, costumed and staged by the students. Last year +the reception was given to Mrs. Dix, wife of the Governor of New York, +and the play "Rip Van Winkle" was acted by eighteen hundred girls. Such +organizations and activities lead high school students to feel social +relationships, and to assume responsibilities as members of the social +group. + + +VIII Breaching the Chinese Wall of High School Classicism + +A high school education is included, by progressive communities, in the +birthright of every child. Since only a small part of these children are +preparing for college, the school must offer more than the traditional +high school course. The principal of a great Western high school which +housed nearly two thousand children, pointed to one room in which a tiny +class bent over their books. "That is probably the last class in Greek +that we shall ever have in the school," he said. "They are sophomores. +Only two freshmen elected Greek this fall, and we decided not to form +the class." Time was when Greek was one of the pillars of the high +school course of study. In this particular school, splendidly equipped +laboratories, sewing rooms, and shops have claimed the children. The +classics are still popular with a small minority, but the vast majority +come to learn some lesson which will direct their steps along the +pathway of life. + +Everywhere the technical high school courses are gaining by leaps and +bounds. The William Penn High School (Philadelphia), established in +1909, is to-day enrolling four-fifths of the girls who enter +Philadelphia high schools. In some cities, technical work and classical +work are done in the same building; in other cities, they are sheltered +separately, but everywhere the high school is opening its doors to that +great group of school children who, at seventeen or eighteen, must and +will enter the arena of life. + +The technical high school has not gained its prestige easily, however. +The bitter contests between the old and the new are well portrayed by +one dramatic episode from the history of the Los Angeles High School. +Mr. John H. Francis, now superintendent of the schools of Los Angeles, +was head of the Commercial Department in the Los Angeles High School. +Despite opposition and ridicule the department grew until it finally +emerged as a full-fledged technical high school, claiming a building of +its own,--a building which Mr. Francis insisted should contain +accommodations for two thousand students. The authorities +protested,--"Two thousand technical students? Why, Los Angeles is not a +metropolis." Mr. Francis gained his point, however, and the building was +erected to accommodate two thousand children. When the time for opening +arrived it was discovered, to the astonishment of the doubters, that +more students wanted to come into the school than the school would hold. +When Mr. Francis announced that students up to two thousand would be +admitted in order of application, excitement in school circles ran high, +and on the day before Registration Day a line began to form which grew +in length as the day wore on, until by nightfall it extended for squares +from the school. All that night the boys and girls camped in their +places, waiting for the morning which would bring an opportunity to +attend the technical high school. + +Though less dramatic in form, the rush toward technical high school +courses is equally significant. It is not that the old high school has +lost, but that the new high school is drawing in thousands of boys and +girls who, from lack of interest in classical education, would have gone +directly from the grammar school into the mill or the office. + + +IX An Up-to-Date High School + +The modern high school is housed in a building which contains, in +addition to the regular class rooms, gymnasiums, a swimming tank, +physics, and chemical laboratories; cooking, sewing, and millinery +rooms; wood-working, forge, and machine shops; drawing rooms; a music +room; a room devoted to arts and crafts; and an assembly room. This +arrangement of rooms presupposes Mr. Gilbert's plan of making the high +school, like the community, an aggregation of every sort of people, +doing every sort of work. + +Physical training in the high school has not yet come into its own, +though it is on the road to recognition. All of the newer high schools +have gymnasiums, but the children do not use them for more than thirty, +forty, or fifty minutes a week. Sometimes the work is optional. The West +Technical of Cleveland, with its outdoor basket ball court, its athletic +grounds and grandstand, in addition to the indoor gymnasium, offers a +good example of effective preparation for physical training. William D. +Lewis of the William Penn High School sends all students who have +physical defects to the gymnasium three, four, or even five times a +week, until the defects are corrected. These exceptions merely serve to +emphasize the fact that we have not yet learned that high school +children have bodies which are as much in need of development and +training as the minds which the bodies support. + +Several real attempts are being made to teach high school boys and girls +to care for their bodies, as they would for any other precious thing. +Hygiene is taught, positively,--the old time "don'ts" being replaced by +a series of "do's." In many schools, careful efforts are being made to +give a sound sex education. The program at William Penn, in addition to +the earlier work in biology and in personal and community hygiene, +includes a senior course, extending through the year, in Domestic +Sanitation and Eugenics. The course, given by the women in charge of +Physical Training, deals frankly with the domestic and personal problems +which the girls must face. The time is ripe for other schools to fall in +line behind these much-needed pioneers. + +The course of study in the modern high school is a broad one. Latin may +always be taken, and sometimes there is Greek. French, German and +Spanish, Mathematics, History, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, and Civics +are almost universally offered on the cultural side of the curriculum. +In addition, girls may take dress designing, sewing, millinery and home +economics; boys may take wood-working, forge work, machine-tool work, +electricity, printing, and house designing; and both boys and girls have +an opportunity to elect art, arts and crafts work and music. + +In some schools the combination of subjects group themselves into +definite courses, as in the Newton High School, which offers,-- + + The Classical Course. + The Scientific Course. + The General Course. + The Technical Course. + The Technology-College Course. + The Extra Technical Course. + The Fine Arts Course. + The Business Course. + +Other schools, like the Indianapolis Manual Training School, permit the +pupil, with the advice of the principal, to make his own combination of +subjects. Whether prepared by the school or by the pupil, however, the +courses lead to college, to normal schools, to advanced technical +schools, or to some definite vocation. On one subject, progressive high +schools are in absolute agreement,--the course of study must furnish +both culture and technical training in a form which meets the needs of +high school children. + + +X From School to Shop and Back Again + +The tendency toward vocational training finds its extreme expression in +the so-called Industrial Co-operative Course in which boys and girls +spend part of their time in school and part in the factory. Note this +legal document. "The party of the second part agrees to place, as far as +possible, the facilities of his establishment at the disposal of the +School Committee for general educational purposes along industrial +lines." In these words, the individual manufacturers of Providence, +Rhode Island, who are co-operating with the school board for the +establishment of the industrial co-operative course in the Technical +High School, place their mills and factories at the disposal of the +school authorities. The plan instituted at the suggestion of the +manufacturers themselves has won the approval of all parties during the +two years of its operation. + +The Providence experiment differs from those of Cincinnati and +Fitchburg, Mass., in two respects,--in the first place, the school +authorities have a written contract with the manufacturers. In the +second place, they may decide what the character of the shop-work shall +be. The boy who elects to take the industrial co-operative course in +Providence spends ten weeks in a shop at the end of his freshman year. +Apprenticeship papers are signed, the boy gives a bond, which is +forfeited if he drops the course without a satisfactory reason, and for +three years he spends 29 weeks in the shop and 20 weeks in school, +alternating, one week in the shop, the next in the school. For their +shop-work the boys receive ten cents, twelve cents, and fourteen cents +an hour during the first, second, and third years, respectively. Though +this wage is not high, it is sufficient to enable the boys to earn +enough during the year ($175 to $250) to pay for their keep at home +during their high school course. + +At the present time sixty-two Providence boys are working part time in +machine shops, in drafting rooms, in machine tool construction, in +pattern making and in jewelry making. In order to keep the scheme +elastic, the school offers to form a class in any trade for which +sixteen or more boys will apply. + +The part-time course is primarily educational and secondarily +vocational. Since it may determine the character of the shop-work, the +school is in a position to insure its educational value. Again, the +academic training is still received in the school, while the technical +work, heretofore done in school rooms, is carried on in the fields of +real industry. As a supplement of the old time system of apprenticeship, +the part-time school is an undoubted success, because it adds to shop +apprentice work all of the essential elements of a high school +education. + + +XI Fitting the High School Graduate Into Life + +The high school has not done its full duty when it has educated the +child,--it must go a step farther and educate him for something; then it +must go a step beyond that and help him to find himself in his chosen +profession. This vocational guidance which is filling so large a place +in public discussions, may mean guidance to a job or it may include +guidance in the job. In either case children must be led to decide upon +the kind of work for which they are fitted before they leave the school. + +Jesse B. Davis, Principal of the Central High School at Grand Rapids, +furnishes a brilliant example of this vocational directing. Mr. Davis +begins his work through the theme writing and oral composition of the +seventh and eighth grades. The purpose of the pupils' reading and +discussion is to arouse their vocational ambition and to lead them to +appreciate the value of further education and training for life. This +study upon the part of the pupil is supplemented by talks given by Mr. +Davis, prominent business and professional men and high school boys who +have come back to finish their education after a few years of battle +with the world. + +The high school classes in English are small--never more than +twenty-five, and the work is so arranged that the teacher may get a good +idea of the capability of each student. To facilitate this, the English +Department has prepared a series of essay subjects in the writing of +which the pupil gives the teacher a very definite idea of himself. +Beginning with "My Three Wishes;" the pupil next writes a story about +his ancestry; an essay on "My Church," which explains his belief; an +essay on "The Part I'd Like to Play in High School;" a study of "My Best +Friend," and finally an essay on "The Work of My Early School Days," +which shows the pupil's likes and dislikes. In addition to this, the +teacher notes any physical defects--eyesight, hearing, and the +like--which might incapacitate the pupil for particular vocations. This +data, together with reports from all departments on neatness, +sincerity, ambition and other qualities is filed in the office. + +During the second term of the freshman year papers are written on +approved biographies, dealing in each case with the qualities, +opportunities and education of the great one. These essays, read in +class, form the basis for a compilation of the elements necessary for +success in life. + +The work of the sophomore year begins with the preparation of a class +list of professions, semi-professions and trades,--a list which is +checked with the permanent list kept by the department. Succeeding +classes thus discover the breadth of the vocational field, besides +adding to the knowledge accumulated by their predecessors. + +After completing this list, the pupils write a letter to the teacher, +choosing a vocation and assigning reasons for the choice. When the pupil +cannot decide, the teacher assigns the vocation apparently best suited +to the pupil's capacity. An essay on his vocation is then prepared by +each pupil, showing first, what kind of activity and what +responsibilities the vocation involves; second, its social, intellectual +and financial advantages; third, the corresponding disadvantages; +fourth, the qualifications and traits necessary to success in the +vocation; and fifth, the reasons for choosing the vocation. Then, under +the advice of the teacher, the pupil writes to some man well known in +the profession of his choice--some lawyer, mining engineer, doctor or +contractor--explaining what he is doing, and asking for advice. The +generous responses given by men in all walks of life do much to confirm +the pupil in his faith, or to make him see that his choice is an unwise +one. + +At the beginning of the junior year those pupils preparing for college +send for the catalogues of the colleges which stand highest in the line +of work in which they are interested, and write an essay, giving the +comparative value of the courses offered by the various institutions. By +this means judgment takes the place of sentiment in the selection of a +college. While the college preparatory pupils are engaged in writing on +their college courses, pupils who are going directly from the high +school into business write an elaborate essay on the kind of preparation +necessary for their vocation, the qualities requisite for success in it, +and the best place and means of entering it. Studies of the proper +relations between employer and employed occupy the second half of the +junior year. + +The work of the senior year deals, in the first half, with the relation +between a citizen and his city; the second half, with the relation +between a citizen and the state. The pupil has thus passed from the +narrower to the broader aspects of his work in life. + +The effectiveness of the work is enhanced by the organization of the +high school boys into a Junior Association of Commerce (in an exact +imitation of the Grand Rapids Association of Commerce), which meets in +the rooms of the latter on Saturday morning; transacts business; listens +to an address by a specialist, and then visits his works, if he is +engaged in a local industry. On the Saturday before Thanksgiving (1912), +for example, Mr. VanWallen, of the VanWallen Tannery Co., gave the boys +a talk on the tanning industry, then took them through his tannery, +where they saw the processes of manufacture. The business men of Grand +Rapids, who are highly pleased with this practical turn in education, +co-operate heartily in every way. The boys are urged, during the summer +months, to take a position in the work which they have chosen, start at +the bottom and find out whether their beliefs regarding the industry +are true. Then, too, the Free Library makes a point of collecting books +and articles on various professions and vocations, and placing them +prominently before the students. The English Department (with five +periods a week) does other work, but none so vital to the pupils' lives +as this of directing them in the thing which they hope to do when they +leave school. + +The school may do more than direct the pupils in the choice of their +occupations, by actually securing positions for them. The head of the +Commercial Department in the Newton (Massachusetts) High School has a +card for every student, giving on one side a record of class work for +four years, and on the other side a statement of positions and pay of +the graduate. New pupils are placed; old pupils are offered better +opportunities. Employers are interviewed in attempts to have them +promote graduates. Through this system, Mr. Maxim keeps in constant +touch with the labor market and with graduates of his school. + +Certainly the high school must prepare students for life. Whether, in +addition, it shall constitute itself a Public Employment Bureau, finding +positions for students, keeping in touch with their careers, and +assisting in their advancement, is a matter yet to be determined. + + +XII The High School as a Public Servant + +Will the high school retain its present form? Probably not. If the +Berkeley-Los Angeles plan prevails, there will be three steps in the +public schools,--from elementary to junior high, to high school. If the +Gary plan wins, there will be twelve years of schooling, following one +another as consecutively as day follows night. Whether the Los Angeles +or the Gary plan is adopted, one thing seems reasonably certain,--the +high school will keep in close touch with life. + +The high school is securing a surer grip on the world with each passing +day. It is reaching out toward the grades, calling the pupils to come; +it is reaching out into the world, making places there for them to +occupy. The modern high school has ceased to be an adjunct to the +college. Instead, it is a distinctive unit in educational life, taking +boys and girls between the ages of fourteen and nineteen and relating +them to the world in which they must live. + +The era of the high school course is being succeeded by the era of the +high school boy and the high school girl. First, last, now and always, +the boys and girls, not the course, deserve primary consideration. +Whatever their needs, the high school must supply them if it is to +become a public servant, responsible for training children of high +school age in the noble art of living. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +HIGHER EDUCATION AT LOWVILLE[20] + + +I Lowville and the Neighborhood + +Away off in northwestern New York State, where the sun shines fiercely +in the summer mid-day, where the ice forms thick on the lakes, and the +snow lies on the north side of the hills from Thanksgiving well on to +Easter, there is a town of some three thousand inhabitants, called +Lowville. The comfortable homes, brick stores, wide tree-bordered +streets, smiling hills and giddy children look very much the same at +Lowville as they do in any one of a thousand similar towns east of the +Mississippi. Situated far back from the line of ordinary travel, the +town is typical of a great class. + +Stretching in all directions about Lowville is a fertile, prosperous, +agricultural region, farmed by good farmers, who are intelligently awake +to the problem of scientific agriculture in its multiple phases. + +These farmers grow fruits, raise general farm produce, breed a little +stock, cut some timber, besides all of the time-honored occupations of +the professional farmer. The boys and girls growing up in the town or +the neighboring countryside, blessed with good air, and a cheap supply +of wholesome food, look pleasantly forward toward life as something +worth living. + +So much for the good side of Lowville. Sad indeed is it to recall that +there is another side. Anyone who has been in close contact with +country life can readily imagine the ignorance, bigotry, prejudice, +unfairness and unsociableness of the population; the tendency to cling +to the past no matter what its shortcomings; the unwillingness to +venture into even the rosiest future which involves change. Lowville is +blessed a great deal and cursed a very little. The blessings are being +augmented and the curses minimized by means of the local high school. + + +II Lowville Academy + +Lowville Academy is an ancient private school whose usefulness was +immensely enhanced when it was converted into a public high school. When +Mr. W. F. H. Breeze took over the principalship he made no particular +objection to the old class rooms and wooden stairs, but he was very +insistent upon discovering, first, what the community needed, and +second, whether or not the school was meeting the need. + +More than half (at the present time sixty-five per cent.) of the pupils +at the school came from outside of the village. That is, they come from +the farms. As farmers' boys, many of them have been brought up to all of +the unscientific crudities which have been handed down in American +agriculture since the early settlers took the land from the Indians in +grateful recognition of their instructions in fertilization. While many +agricultural anachronisms may be laid to the door of the redskins, +planting by the moon and several equally absurd customs are traceable to +the higher civilization of Western Europe. + +Saturated with traditional agricultural lore--some better and some +worse--the boys and girls from outside of Lowville, sixty-five in each +hundred high school students, were growing up to become the owners of +promising New York farms. They needed, first of all, an education which +should equip them with all of the culture of our schools, beside giving +them a knowledge of the sciences of agriculture and of mechanics. Those +boys and girls who were planning to go to college required an advance +course in those purgatorial topics which, for some inexplicable reason, +are still regarded as necessary preliminaries to a college education. +Most of the girls in Lowville and the immediate vicinity hope to marry +sooner or later, and to preside over wholesome, clean homes. For +home-making, also, there were certain possible educational provisions. + +As prospective farmers, mechanics, college students, business men and +women, as prospective fathers and mothers, the boys and girls of +Lowville were looking to the schools--high as well as elementary--for an +education which should enable them to do successfully and efficiently +those things which life was holding before them. + +Furthermore, Lowville had no spot around which community interests and +civic ideas could center. There was intelligent interest in Lowville, +its streets, schools, trees, houses, and business interests; there was, +too, an interest, expressed among the neighboring farmers, in the +wonderful strides of agriculture; furthermore, men and women were +anxious to discuss political and social happenings in other parts of the +world. + +What more natural than that the school be converted into a center of +interest and education for Lowville and the surrounding territory. +Adults, as well as young folks, needed school help. Adults as well as +young folks should then be accommodated in the Lowville schools. + + +III The School's Opportunity + +"There was a peculiar opportunity," said Mr. Breeze, in his crisp direct +way. "The place needed organizing in educational lines. People were +anxious to have it done. They wanted the advantage of a modern +educational institution, but no one had provided it, so I made up my +mind that my business was to do it." + +Mr. Breeze made his first innovation in the course of study, +supplementing the old course by domestic science, several phases of +agriculture and mechanics. Then he correlated the various branches in +such a way that the subjects all harmonized with the work which any +particular student was doing. + +"We made up our minds," Mr. Breeze explained, "that if we were to hold +the children and to educate them usefully, we must make our course fit +the things which they had to do in life. The work must come down to +earth. It had to be practical--that is, applicable to everyday affairs. +Some people confuse practical with pecuniary. There is no relation +between the two words. Practical means usable. We set out to make a +usable education." + +"No education is usable which has frills," Mr. Breeze insists. "Frills +are nice for looks, but you can't put on frills until you have a garment +to which they may be attached. Our school is providing the garment--we +will leave the frills to some one else." + +With this idea in mind, the applied courses in the school were +organized. Wood-alcohol cook stoves, such as those used in the village, +ordinary sewing machines, typewriters for the commercial course, and the +simplest tools for the machine shop, made up the equipment. + +"These boys have but a few tools at home," Mr. Breeze says. "When they +go on the farm they will be compelled to use these tools. Why, then, +should they be taught mechanics with tools which they cannot duplicate +on their farms without an unjustifiable extravagance?" + + +IV Field Work as Education + +Pursuant to such philosophy, the boys began their shop-work by equipping +the shop, building benches, tool-chests, cabinets, and saw horses; +putting lath and plaster on the ceiling; setting up the simple tools and +putting the shop in running order. Meanwhile, the agricultural students +set up two cream separators and a milk-tester, and arranged their +laboratory. Then the school was ready for applied work, or rather, the +students having graduated from a course in shop equipment, were ready +for shop practice. + +The entire class in agriculture makes inspection of nearby farms--here +to see a well-managed orchard, there a new type of cow-barn or silo. +Again they inspect the soil of a district, going carefully over it, +picking samples and testing them on return to the school. In +fruit-packing season, the students visit the packing houses, or else, in +the case of some of the boys, they take a week of employment with a good +fruit packer. In season they practice tree pruning, grafting, budding, +transplanting and spraying. Whenever possible, the applied work of the +school is done in connection with the real applied work of life. + +The physics and chemistry are both related to the agriculture and the +mechanics courses in the most intimate manner. From the earliest lessons +in physics through analyses of heat, light and the principles of +mechanics, the theories are constantly interpreted in practical +problems which arise in the daily work of the Lowville farmer. The +physics teacher, enthusiastic over his students and his work, builds +machines and testing devices, which the boys and girls use in solving +the problems which they bring from their homes. No less close to the +life of the place is the chemical laboratory, which offers opportunity +for the analysis of soil, the chemistry of fertilizers, experiments in +testing food and milk, and a number of other matters pertaining to +agriculture and domestic life. + +The mechanical courses are closely related to the work in agriculture, +since most of the boys who take up the mechanical work are to go on the +farms. The course in mechanics passes quickly over the elements of the +work--most boys have learned to use saw, plane, chisel, auger, and +hammer years before. The smithing work of tempering, annealing, welding, +soldering and removing rust, all leads up to the real work of the +shops,--the making of products. The boys make pruning knives, squares +and drawing boards, grafting hooks, nail boxes, apple-boxing devices +(for this is an apple country), cement rollers, mallets, whiffle-trees, +bob-sleds, holders for saw filing, bag-holders, chicken-coops, poultry +exhibit boxes, hammer handles, greenhouse flats. Besides, they have +exercises in belt-lacing, in cement work, and reinforced concrete. Then, +too, they make models of barns and bridges, computing strains, +lumber-costs, labor-costs, floor spacing and arrangement. + +The agricultural course deals, in some detail, with fruit-growing, +animal husbandry, grain-growing, and related topics. Though the scope of +such a course is necessarily limited in a high school, it forms an +invaluable addition to the knowledge of the boy who cannot go to an +agricultural college before he begins his life on the farm. Taught by +an agricultural expert, the work assumes real importance to the +prospective farmer. + +Nor are the girls of Lowville neglected. + + +V Real Domestic Science + +The domestic science department, in charge of an expert, takes up +household economics, sewing, dietetics and cooking. The work throughout +is practical, the girls learning the principles of sanitation, and their +application to the household; domestic art and home decoration; +lighting, heating and ventilation. The sewing classes cover the usual +exercises in simple hemming and darning, making towels, hemming napkins, +and the like; then underclothes, and later dresses are made. + +In the cooking laboratory the girls learn food values and food +combinations, the cooking of simple dishes, the preparation of entire +meals. The girl who finishes the domestic science course in the Lowville +Academy is competent to organize a home, cook, sew, keep house and make +as efficient use of her opportunities as does her brother who has been +trained in mechanics or agriculture. + +It is not in the applied courses alone that an extraordinary amount of +co-operation has been attained. The academic branches, likewise, are so +adjusted as to bear directly upon the work of the remaining courses. The +Academic co-ordination is particularly noticeable in the English work, +which is required of everyone during the entire high school course. +English composition is made to serve as a connecting, co-ordinating +study--related to all of the other courses in the school. + +The student in agriculture writes reports on various phases of +agricultural work, collecting them in a folder and arranging them in +order, according to subject. Chemistry reports, history reports, all +are made a legitimate part of the work in English. + +The results of this system have been more than satisfactory to Mr. +Breeze and his staff of co-workers. Students who would have left at the +end of the grammar school, are attracted by the high school program, and +"saved" by a high school course. The appeal of the school is a wide one. +There are no class of boys and girls in Lowville who cannot find +something worth while in the high school. Often a student otherwise not +brilliant will succeed remarkably in a particular line. Of one such boy +in particular Mr. Breeze spoke. + + +VI One Instance of Success + +"He had no taste for Greek, but his reports and analysis in agriculture +and mechanics were brilliant. The excellent drawing and sketching and +the careful work showed how much appeal the applied course had made to +his mind; yet but for the agricultural course he would never have come +to high school. A farmer's son with little taste for the ordinary +academic studies was inspired by the idea of improved, scientific +farming and was getting a thorough insight into the principles of +agriculture, chemistry, physics, and mechanics, which will be of the +greatest service to him when he takes up farming. Such topics as judging +the age of cows, breed of cattle, cost of milk production, the cost of +cow-barn construction, grain, hay, cattle rations, silage, and nutrition +will all bear directly on the work of the farm in which he is so deeply +interested.["] + +So much for the contribution of the Lowville High School to the students +who have gone out of its class-rooms and class excursions, stronger in +body and more alert of mind. No less remarkable has been its service to +the community. At the suggestion of the school authorities acting in +co-operation with the Grange, the State, and several other agencies, +Lowville has secured an agricultural specialist, whose business it is to +travel through the countryside, advising farmers, discussing their +problems and suggesting better methods of operating the farms, or of +experimenting in new directions. Each winter for one week, a school for +adults is held, with courses in agriculture for the men and courses in +domestic science for the women. The teachers,--experts from the Cornell +School of Agriculture,--are exceptionally well prepared to deal with the +problems of New York State farmers. + +Higher education at Lowville is education for everyone in Lowville and +vicinity who wants it. With one eye on community needs and the other on +the best means of supplying them, the Lowville Academy is giving to the +citizens of Lowville a twentieth century higher education. + + FOOTNOTES: + + [Footnote 20: Much of the material in this chapter appeared + originally in the Journal of Education.] + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +A GREAT CITY SCHOOL SYSTEM[21] + + +I "Co-operation" and "Progressivism" + +If any two words in the English language can express the spirit of the +Cincinnati schools, they are "co-operation" and "progressivism." The +people of Cincinnati, high and low, have banded themselves together in +an endeavor to make good schools. Cincinnati schools are not a monument +to any individual or group of individuals, rather they are the handiwork +of the citizenship. In their eagerness for educational progress, the +people are not hypnotized by every cry of "lo here! lo there!" nor do +they live in terror of new educational ideas. Their one aim, the +education of Cincinnati's children, takes precedence over every other +consideration. Perhaps that fact explains both the co-operation and the +progressivism. + +Co-operation in the educational work of Cincinnati has been developed to +a remarkable degree. "There is not a civic society in the whole town +which is not working with the schools," says former Superintendent Dyer. +Mr. Dyer might have left out the word "civic" and still have been very +close to the truth. + +Mr. Frederick A. Geier, a leader among the manufacturers who have made +possible the "half time in shop, half time in school" system, says of +his activity in co-operating with the school authorities: "As a citizen +of Cincinnati, I am interested in the schools for two reasons: first, +because good schools will bring under their influence the maximum number +of pupils and parents, and it is the best agency I can conceive of for +producing a high quality of citizenship; second, as a manufacturer I +feel that the material prosperity of a community is directly related to +the mental and manual equipment of its people." Showing his faith by his +works, Mr. Geier has labored in season and out of season to make the +schools of Cincinnati the most progressive in the country. + +Speaking as "a woman and mother," Mrs. Isabella C. Pendleton, of the +Civic League, which has played an active part in building up school +sentiment, says: "I consider that the most important features of our +school system are the manual training for boys and the domestic science +for girls. I am happy to say that to-day a girl on graduating from our +schools is capable of taking care of a home." As public schools go, that +is not an insignificant achievement. No wonder Mrs. Pendleton, a woman +and mother, is interested in schools which accomplish such vital +results. + +From what extraordinary sources do the schools in Cincinnati secure +their support! "All of the local dentists have been brought into close +contact with the school system by the efforts of the Dental Society to +introduce mouth hygiene into the schools," says Dr. Sidney G. Rauh. "We +dentists," adds Dr. Rauh, "are firm believers in general co-operation." +No less cordial is the Board of Health in its endorsement of the +schools, and in its efforts to raise the health standard of school +children. + +"I do not believe there is any city in the United States which offers as +good an example of the spirit of co-operation as Cincinnati does," +affirms Carl Dehoney, of the Chamber of Commerce. "Why are we so active +in co-operating with the schools? Simply because we realize that good +schools, and especially practical schools, which will fit young men and +women for their real life work, have a tremendous bearing upon the +efficiency of the people of the city." Mr. W. C. Cauldius, also of the +Chamber of Commerce, says: "Our school development is the result of a +few years of public support and sympathy." In similar enthusiastic words +the leaders of every phase of Cincinnati life express their interest in +educational progress. + + +II An Educational Creed + +Let no one infer from what has been said that the people of Cincinnati +are agreed upon all of the details of educational policy, nor upon the +fundamentals either, for that matter, but they have adopted an +educational creed which runs about as follows: + +1. I believe in making the schools provide for the educational +necessities of every child. + +2. I believe that this can be done when all work together. + +3. I believe that new ideas are the life-blood of educational advance. + +That simple creed adopted by teachers, principals, mothers, +manufacturers, dentists and trade unionists has become a great motive +force in the upbuilding of the Cincinnati schools. + +The most evident thing about the Cincinnati school organization is its +democracy. The feudal spirit of lordship and serfdom existing in many +schools between superintendents and principals on the one hand, and +teachers on the other, is nowhere evident in the Cincinnati schools; +instead, each teacher, thrown upon her own initiative, is a creative +artist, solving her particular problem as she believes that it should be +solved, and abiding by the consequence of her failure or success. + +Early in his work Mr. Dyer made it clear that he would not tolerate a +mechanical system of education. "Up here on the hill, in a wealthy +suburban district, is a grammar school. Its organization, administration +and course of study must necessarily differ from that other school, +located in the heart of the factory district. The principal of each of +these schools has a problem to face--each will succeed in proportion as +he grasps the significance of his own problem and the readiest means for +its solution." Is not that a refreshing sentiment from a superintendent +of city schools? Note this other delightful touch: "My teachers soon +learned that I regard the teacher who works exactly like another teacher +as pretty poor stuff." Before the axe of such incisive radicalism, how +the antiquated structure of the old school machinery came crashing to +the ground, to be replaced by a system which recognized each teacher as +an individual builder of manhood and womanhood, working to meet the +needs of individual children. It is not an idle boast which the English +make when they glory in the absence of a curriculum; for even the best +curriculum, if mismanaged, is speedily converted into a noose, the knot +of which adjusts itself mechanically under the left ear of teacher and +child alike. The school authorities of Cincinnati destroyed both knot +and rope by giving to their teachers and principals this injunction: +"Make your school fit the needs of your children and your community." + +The old-time, machine-minded school superintendent, filled with the +spirit of co-operative coercion, assembles his teachers. "Now let's all +work together," he exclaims, "Here, Susie Smith, this is what you are +to teach your pupils, and this is the way in which you are to do it." It +was in quite a different spirit that Mr. Dyer said to each one of his +teachers: "You do your work, I'll do mine, and together we will make the +schools go." It was in this spirit that the teachers were called +together to confer on the reorganization of the course of study. Each +teacher in each grade had her say in the matter. If the most +insignificant teacher in Cincinnati said to Mr. Dyer: "I have an idea +that I think would improve the work in my grade," his invariable reply +was: "Then try it. There is no way to determine the value of ideas +except to try them." By that policy Mr. Dyer surrounded himself with a +group of vitally interested people, each one suited to the task in which +he believed implicitly, and each one fully convinced that the success or +failure of that part of the Cincinnati school system with which he was +immediately concerned, depended directly upon his efforts. No wonder the +schools succeeded! + + +III Vitalizing the Kindergarten + +The kindergartens are at the basis of the educational system of +Cincinnati, and they are in charge of a woman who believes in herself +and in her work. Perhaps the people of Cincinnati are not justified in +believing that their kindergartens are the very best in the whole United +States, but Miss Julia Bothwell, who directs them, says, modestly +enough, that she has visited kindergartens in many cities, adopting +their schemes and improving in response to their suggestions, until she +is convinced that no other city in the land can show a better +kindergarten system than that of Cincinnati. In truth, her plan is +ordinarily referred to as the "Cincinnati idea." + +Cincinnati children begin their kindergarten work at four and a half or +five, entering the first grade at six. While in the kindergarten they +play the games and sing the songs that all kindergartens play and sing, +but with this difference: their plays and songs are built around the +things that they do. + +The yellow October leaves of Cincinnati's parks half shadow the activity +of the busy classes of little kindergarten folks who go there to work +and to learn. The Park Commissioners, like every one else in Cincinnati, +are in thorough sympathy with the work of the schools, so they allot to +each kindergarten class a plot in the park, in which the children--using +all of the tools themselves--plant tulip bulbs under the direction of +the park gardeners. + +"Tulips are the first thing up in the spring," Miss Both well explained, +"so we have decided to use them. For years we tried gardens, but +children of kindergarten age are not willing to give gardens as much +attention as they require; then, too, the gardens ran wild during the +summer, so we have settled on the tulip. After the children have planted +the bulbs they sing and talk about their work. Then, early in the +spring, they begin to visit their plots, watching the first shoots of +green as they appear, looking eagerly for the buds, and then, at last, +as the reward of their interest, picking the flowers and taking them +home. Thus, each child, during his kindergarten course, sees the +complete cycle from bulb to flower." + +Besides this flower-culture in the park, the children grow hyacinths in +the school rooms, visit the woods to collect autumn leaves and spring +flowers, make excursions to the country, where they may see animals and +crops, and always, for a few days after an excursion, talk about the +things which they saw, draw them, sing about them and play games about +them. In order to facilitate the work the Board of Education leases a +farm, to which the kindergartens go in succession. By these means the +life of the city kindergarten child is thoroughly linked with nature. + +These things are not new in kindergartening, however. They have merely +taken firm root in the fertile soil of Cincinnati's educational +enthusiasm. The real excellence of Miss Bothwell's experiment consists +in connecting the kindergarten with the early elementary grades on the +one hand and with the community on the other. + +The first grade children of Cincinnati come back to the kindergarten +teachers for an hour's kindergartening once each week, in order to +clinch the kindergarten influence on the lives of the first graders. The +first grade teachers meet the director of kindergartening once each +week, for a discussion of kindergarten methods, and an initiation into +the kindergarten spirit. Thus the lump of first grade abstraction is +leavened with the leaven of kindergarten concretes, and the grade +teachers get the spirit of kindergarten work. In the near future Miss +Bothwell hopes to have the kindergarten work extend to the second grade, +in order that the spirit, rhythm, harmony and joy of the kindergarten +may thoroughly permeate the roots of the Cincinnati school system. + +Even more significant--if anything could be more significant than the +breakdown of the ironclad, first grade traditions--is the grip which the +kindergartens of Cincinnati have secured on the people. The Cincinnati +kindergartener is more than a teacher--she serves many masters. In the +morning she holds kindergarten classes. On two afternoons a week she +does kindergarten work with first grade children; on one afternoon she +holds a conference with the supervisor; on a fourth afternoon she visits +the classes of first grade teachers or confers with mothers' clubs, and +on her remaining afternoon she visits her children in their homes. Out +of these varied duties has come: first, a group spirit among the +kindergarteners, built upon frequent interchange of plans and ideas; +second, an understanding of the relation between the problems of the +kindergarten and the problems of the grades; third, a sympathetic grasp +of the home conditions surrounding the life of many a difficult child; +and fourth, sixty-one mothers' clubs, one organized in connection with +each kindergarten, which furnish a social gathering-place for mothers, +an opportunity to influence parental ideas, and a body of invaluable +public sentiment. + +The idea of a kindergarten, usually regarded as a small part of the +school program, has been evolved until, in this one city, it is a potent +influence, working on children, teachers, parents and public opinion. + + +IV Regenerating the Grades + +The kindergarten is not alone in its appeal to the child and in its +affiliation with the community. Traditional grade education has likewise +been modified and rehabilitated until it makes an appeal to parent and +child alike. In the first place, a consistent effort has been made to +provide accommodations for the physical education in the grades of the +fifty-seven elementary schools. Twenty-five now have fully equipped +gymnasiums in which children have two or three periods of exercise each +week. In the schools not so equipped the physical work is confined to +calisthenics. Each year the Board of Education appropriates five +hundred dollars for the Public School Athletic League, which organizes +meets and games, open to all public school pupils free of charge. +Besides field days, baseball, soccer and football there is an athletic +badge awarded to all pupils who pass an "efficiency" test in athletic +activities. + +The academic work of the grades is alive with enthusiasm. History, so +often made a mass of dead names and dates, is taught in terms of life. +The children learn that history is in reality a record of the things +which people did, and of the forces which were at work in their lives; +furthermore, that the commonplace acts of to-day will be the history of +to-morrow. Translated into ideas and social changes, history stimulates +thought, turning the child's mind from the purely personal side of life +to the social activities of which history is made. + +Arithmetic and geography begin at home, in the things which the children +know and do. Both are taught in terms of child experience. Both call to +the child mind the things of daily life. + +English, too, which is so important an element in education, is made to +reflect child experiences. Teaching the reading lesson of "Eyes and No +Eyes" one teacher asked her class: "Well, children, what did you see on +your way to school this morning? What did you see, Elmer?" + +"Well, I saw--I saw--" and Elmer sat down. + +"I saw that it had been raining in the night by the mud in the streets," +said Alice; while John had seen trolley cars, and remembered that the +number on one of them was 647. + +A seventh grade girl had read the Psalm beginning, "Who shall ascend +unto the hill of the Lord, or who shall stand in His holy place?" After +asking what a psalm was, and who wrote the Psalms, the teacher asked: + +"Who was David?" + +"He was the king of Palestine," replied one boy promptly. After +straightening out the history the teacher next asked: + +"For what was David noted?" + +"For being Solomon's father," ventured one little girl. + +"Oh, no," protested a boy, "He was the fighter." + +"Sure enough," said the teacher, "would the fact that he was a warrior +naturally influence his thoughts?" After an affirmative answer from the +class: "Where do we find any evidence of that in this Psalm, George?" +asked the teacher. + +George considered the reading a moment. "Oh, I see, it's where he says, +'The Lord mighty in battle.'" + +After an elaboration of this idea the teacher went on to ask why David +wrote, "Lift up your heads, oh ye gates, and the King of Glory shall +come in." By careful questioning the class was led to see that cities +had walls and gates; that David, who had won many victories, was +accustomed to have the gates thrown wide to receive him, and that his +triumphal entries had made a deep impression on his thoughts. After some +more discussion the Psalm was read again, this time with surprising +intelligence and feeling. + +One eighth grade class in English was engaged in preparing a catalog of +all of the pictures in the school, looking up the painters, their lives, +their principal works, and the circumstances connected with the painting +of the pictures which hung on the school wall. In the same room a girl +had written a description of a sunset, in which she had said: "The +western sky is illuminated with a fiery red, and the edges of the +clouds are also tinted with a silvery hue." + +"What would Corot say about that?" asked the teacher. + +The girl thought a moment. "I guess he would say that there was too much +color." + +"Yes," smiled the teacher, "he would say, 'Let's go home and wait for a +few moments.'" + +The essay work in the upper grades is linked with all of the other +school work. The children write about civics, architecture, localities, +books and pictures. One girl of thirteen wrote on "The Reaper"--"As I +enter my bedroom one picture especially catches my gaze. It hangs on the +eastern wall. It is the picture of a large city by moonlight. The moon +is bright and the stars are out. A beautiful lake borders the far end of +the city, and the moon makes the lake look like a mirror. The church +steeple stands out clear against the sky. It is a beautiful summer +night, and while the city sleeps an angel descends and bears a little +child to the heavens above. Some mother must have given up one of her +beloved flowers." + +No less valuable are the essays describing an ideal kitchen, a location +for a house, a home, school life, and the various other things with +which the child comes in contact. + +Last among the academic branches, there is a carefully organized eighth +grade course in civics, which, beginning with the geography and early +history of Cincinnati, covers family relations and the tenement problem; +the protection of public health--street cleaning, sewage, water, smoke +abatement, and the activities of the Board of Health in providing for +sanitation and the suppression of disease; the protection of life and +property; the business life of the community--relation of the citizen +to business life, the growth of commerce and industry in Cincinnati; +Cincinnati as a manufacturing center, the labor problem, and the +regulation of business by the government; the necessity for civic +beauty; the educational forces of the community; the care of dependents +and delinquents; the functions of government; and the collection and +expenditure of city funds. In this way the child, before he leaves the +elementary school, is given an idea of the real meaning of citizenship. + +Beginning in the kindergarten, the art work extends through the high +school, including in the lower elementary grades, paper-cutting and +pasting related to school work, the seasons and the holidays. From the +third grade on, the children make real products--trays, boxes, blotter +pads, calendars, booklets and folios--work which is supplemented by +object and constructive drawing and designing. + +Shop-work is given to boys, and domestic science to girls, in all of the +schools. The point at which these subjects are introduced and the amount +of time devoted to them depends upon--what do you think? The regulations +prescribed in the course of study? Not a bit of it! It depends upon the +needs of the community and of the child. + +Schools which are located in the poorer districts begin manual training +and domestic science with the second grade, though ordinarily they are +not introduced until the sixth. Normally the children are given one and +one-half or two hours a week of such work, but over-age, backward and +defective children may spend as much as half of their time upon it. For +some of the girls a five-room flat has been rented, in which they are +taught housekeeping in all of its phases. Otherwise the domestic +science consists of hand and machine sewing, the designing and making of +simple garments, the planning and preparation of food, and the +organization and care of a household. Wherever possible, the boys make +useful products in their shop-work, instead of constructing show pieces +which have no value. + +From top to bottom the grades are shaped to meet the needs of children. +Each class and each school is built around this central idea. The school +system, instead of taking the usual form of a cumbrous machine, is a +delicate mechanism adjusted to the wants of Cincinnati children. + + +V Popularizing High School Education + +Not content with making the grades interesting, the school authorities +of Cincinnati have made the high schools so profitable and popular that +ninety-five out of each one hundred children who complete the eighth +grade go to the Cincinnati high schools. Furthermore, during the past +six years the high school attendance in Cincinnati has doubled. These +two noteworthy conditions are the product of carefully matured and +efficiently executed plans, and of infinite labor. Yet the results have +more than repaid the labor which they cost. + +"Our first task," explained Dr. E. D. Lyon, principal of the Hughes High +School, "was to persuade the community that it needed high school +training. Next we secured two fine new high school buildings. Then those +of us who are engaged in high school work faced the supreme task. We had +to prove to the people that their expenditures on high schools were +worth while, by providing a high school education that would mean +something to the pupils and to the community." Note the spirit of social +obligation--a feeling prevalent throughout the Cincinnati schools. + +"Most parents fail to see the importance of the high school problem," +said Assistant Superintendent Roberts, "because they never make +consistent efforts to have their children choose their vocations +intelligently. We began our work right there, at the bottom, by telling +the parents of grade children about the high school courses, and what +they meant. Eighth grade teachers, under the guidance of Mr. F. P. +Goodwin, are expected to talk to their classes regularly on the +vocational opportunities in Cincinnati and elsewhere, and to help the +children get started right in high school careers. Besides that, we take +the grade children on trips to the high schools, showing them on each +trip some striking feature of high school work. Parents' meetings are +held, in which the high schools are explained and discussed, and we send +circulars to the parents of sixth, seventh and eighth grade pupils, +explaining the high school work as simply as may be." + +After arousing such expectations, the high school cannot fulfill its +obligations in any way other than by the provision of a thorough course +of study adapted to the needs of all types of pupils. The preparation +for this in Cincinnati has been made with consummate skill. The pupil, +on entering the high school, may select any one of the nine general +courses, in which there are twenty-three possible combinations of +subjects. + +Four of the courses--General, Classical, Domestic Science and Manual +Training--prepare for various colleges and technical schools. The other +five courses--Commercial, Technical Co-operative Course for Boys; +Technical Co-operative Course for Girls; Art and Music, lead to +vocations. Housed in the same high school building is this range of +work, which permits boys and girls to select a course which will bear +directly on almost any line of work that they may care to follow in +later life. + +Each course is shaped to give the children who select it a definite +training in the line of their interest. The General Course prepares +pupils for college; the Domestic Science Course shows girls how to make +and keep a home; the Commercial Course turns out bookkeepers; the +Technical Co-operative Courses, enabling boys and girls to spend part of +their time in the school and part in the factory, are arranged in +co-operation with the principal industries of Cincinnati. The Art and +Music Courses, like the other special work, are in the hands of experts +who are competent to give a practical direction to the activity of their +pupils. + +In passing, it is interesting to note that the people of Cincinnati are +getting the best possible use out of their splendid high school +equipment. In addition to the regular classes which fill the Woodward +High School from 8:30 to 3:00, the pupils in the continuation courses +occupy the building every afternoon and all day Saturday. Five nights a +week it is filled by an enthusiastic night school, three thousand +strong, and during six weeks of the summer vacation a summer school +holds its sessions there. It would be difficult to find a school plant +which comes nearer to being used one hundred per cent of its time. To be +sure, such things were not done "in father's time," but then the people +of Cincinnati have a theory that while a good thing is worth all it +costs, it does not pay to let even the best of things decay for lack of +use. That is why the school system tingles from end to end with vigor +and enthusiasm. + + +VI A City University + +Besides the kindergarten, elementary schools, and high schools, the city +of Cincinnati has a university, which, like all of the other educational +forces of the city, is tied up with the general educational program. +Those graduates of the Cincinnati high schools who desire to go to +college, may pass from the high school of Cincinnati into the University +of Cincinnati without a break in the continuity of their education. + +The University of Cincinnati is a municipal university. The city +appropriates one-half of one mill on the general assessment, for +university purposes. The board of education appropriates ten thousand +dollars a year toward the maintenance of the Teachers' College, the +school in which the city teachers are trained. The training school for +kindergarteners is affiliated with the university, having the same +entrance requirements as the other university courses. In explanation of +this close connection between the city and the university, President +Dabney begins his 1911 report to the board of directors by saying: "An +effort has been made in this report to explain the service of the +university to the city and people of Cincinnati. It is therefore not +only an official report to the directors, but is also a statement for +the information of all citizens." Begun in this spirit of public +obligation, the report details the services of the Teachers' College in +supplying teachers; of the School of Economics and Political Science in +supplying municipal experts; and of the Engineering School for its +inauguration of the widely-known industrial co-operative courses--for be +it known to the uninitiated that the five hundred students of the +University Engineering School spend alternately two weeks in the school +and two weeks in a shop. More than that, the Engineering School +furnishes experts for municipal engineering work. + +That the students of the University may feel the interest of the city in +their work, preference is given to the University graduates in +appointments of teachers, of municipal engineers, and of employees on +such municipal work as testing food, inspecting construction, and the +like. University students may thus occupy their spare time in practical +municipal work. + +"The University should lead the progressive thought of the community," +says President Dabney, and by way of making good his proposition he +avails himself of every opportunity to turn his students into municipal +activities, or to co-operate in any way with the forces that are making +for a greater Cincinnati. + + +VII Special Schools for Special Classes + +There are children in Cincinnati, as in every other city, who cannot +afford to go to the high school. The easiest answer to such children is, +"Well, then, don't." The fairest answer is a system of schools which +will enable them to secure an education even though they are at work. +Cincinnati in selecting the latter course has opened a school for the +education of every important group unable to attend the high schools who +wish to avail themselves of advanced educational opportunities. + +First there is the night school work, which, in addition to the ordinary +academic courses, offers special opportunities in machine shop practice, +blacksmithing, mechanical and architectural drawing, and domestic +science. As these courses are carried forward in the Woodward High +School building the students have all of the advantages of high school +equipment. + +Night school, coming after a day's exertion, is so trying that only the +most robust can profit by it. No small importance therefore attaches to +the operation of the compulsory continuation schools under the Ohio law, +which empowers cities to compel working children between fourteen and +sixteen years of age to attend school for not more than eight hours a +week between the hours of 8:00 A. M. and 5:00 P. M.--hours which will +presumably be subtracted from shop time. By means of this adaptation of +the German system even those children who must leave school at fourteen +are guaranteed school work for the next two years at least. Although +this is but a minimum requirement, it represents a beginning in the +right direction. + +No less significant than this compulsory system are the voluntary +continuation schools for those over sixteen years of age, which have +been established for machinists' apprentices, for printers' apprentices, +for saleswomen, and for housewives. The first two courses are conducted +under the direction of a genius named Renshaw, who takes from the +machine shop boys of every age, nationality and experience, fits them +somewhere into his four-year course; gives them a numbered time check +from his time board; teaches them reading, writing, arithmetic, +mechanical drawing, geometry, algebra and trigonometry by means of an +ingenious series of blueprints, which constitute their sole text-book; +visits them in their shops, giving suggestions and advice about the shop +work, and finally sends them out finished craftsmen, with an excellent +foundation in the theoretical side of the trades. The work is entirely +voluntary, yet so excellent is it that a number of Cincinnati +manufacturers send their apprentices to Mr. Renshaw, paying them +regular wages for the four hours of credit which the said Renshaw +registers weekly on the boys' time-cards. "One firm sends sixty boys +here each week," commented Mr. Renshaw's assistant. "That makes two +hundred and forty hours of school work each week for which they pay +regular wages. Well, sir, the superintendent there told me that they +didn't so much as notice the loss." + +"I tried to explain my system to one superintendent," said Mr. Renshaw, +"but he wouldn't even listen. 'It makes no difference how you do it,' he +grumbled, 'I don't care about that. I know that the boys are neater, +more careful, more accurate, and better all-around workmen after they +have been with you for a while. That's enough explanation for me.'" + +Acting on such sentiments the manufacturer peremptorily dismisses the +boy who does not do his school tasks satisfactorily. The responsibility +is in the school, whose growing enrollment and influence tell their own +story. Firms send their boys to the school with the comment that the +hours of school time, for which they are paid, do not add to the cost of +shop management, but do add to the value of the boys to the shop. +Increased efficiency pays. + +A school of salesmanship for women has met with a like success. The +leading stores, glad of an opportunity to raise the standard of their +employees, grant the saleswomen a half day each week, without loss of +pay, during which they take the salesmanship course. The course has the +hearty backing of the best Cincinnati merchants, who see in it an +opportunity, as Mr. Dyer put it, "to make their employees the most +skilled and intelligent, the most obliging and trustworthy, the best +treated and best paid--in short, the very best type of saleswomen in +the country." + +That this work may keep pace with the demand for it the school +authorities offer industrial instruction in any pursuit for which a +class of twenty-five can be organized. + +"A large number of women were born too soon to get the advantage of the +courses in domestic science now being offered in our high schools," +comments Mr. Dyer in his dry way. Scores of such women anxious to learn +all that was known about domestic arts constituted a class for which the +school was well equipped to provide. "Then suppose we give them what +they need," said Mr. Dyer. Just fancy--a continuous course in domestic +science! Yet there it is, in Cincinnati, with an enrollment of more than +eleven hundred women, attending the public schools to learn domestic +arts. What could be more rational than this Cincinnati system of making +a school--even though it be a continuation school--to fit the +educational needs of Cincinnati people--grown-ups and children alike? + + +VIII Special Schools for Special Children + +The Cincinnati schools provide for special children as well as for +special classes of people. First there are the unusually bright +children, who "mark-time" in the ordinary classes. These children were +placed in "rapidly moving classes." While omitting none of the work, +they were allowed to go as fast as their mental development would allow +them, instead of as slowly as the other members of the class made it +necessary to move. At the beginning the teacher found these +exceptionally able children lacking in effort and attention, qualities +which they had not needed to keep their place in the grades. "The extra +work and responsibility stimulated their mental activity, increased +their power of attention, fostered thoroughness and accuracy, developed +resourcefulness and initiative, and those other qualities necessary for +leadership." Why should it not be so? Why should not the specially able +child be taught as thoroughly as the defective one? Yet Mr. Dyer, +speaking from experience, remarks: "Strange to say, it is harder to +establish such classes than defective and retarded ones." Strange +indeed! + +For the sub-normal or retarded children Cincinnati has made ample +provision. Spending from a quarter to a half of their time in manual +work, the children are no longer tortured with the doing of things +beyond their powers. The overgrown boys have instruction in shop work. +The overgrown girls have a furnished flat in which they learn the arts +of home-making at first hand. There are in all over four hundred +children in these schools. + +Similar accommodations are provided for other special groups. The +anaemic and tubercular children are taught in two open-air schools; six +teachers are detailed to instruct the deaf children; one teacher devotes +her time to the blind children, and ten teachers are employed to take +charge of those children who are mentally defective. Thus, by adjusting +the schools to the needs of special groups of people, and of special +individuals, Cincinnati is providing an education which reaches the +individual members of the community. + + +IX Playground and Summer Schools + +The vacation school is planned to meet the needs of the children in the +crowded districts during the hot summer months. "For that reason," says +Mr. Dyer, "it provides industrial work of all kinds unassociated with +book instruction, but mingled with a great amount of recreational +activity--excursions, stories, folk-dancing, and a wide variety of +games." + +The field of industrial activity is a broad one, including cooking, +nursing, housekeeping, sewing, knitting, crocheting, weaving and +basketry; drawing and color work, brush and plastic work; bench work +with tools, making useful articles; sports and games, including +folk-dancing for girls and ball for boys. The primary and kindergarten +classes offer a delightful round of song, story, games, excursions, +paper work and other forms of construction. For the girls who have to +take care of babies there are special classes. The boys make useful +articles in the shops, and the girls, in sewing-room and cooking +laboratory, learn to do the things around which the interests of the +home always center. By co-operation with the park commissioners, the +playgrounds were made an integral part of the summer school work. + +Besides the recreational summer school Cincinnati has maintained for the +past five years an academic summer school, in which children might make +up back work in school, or do special work in any line which was of +particular interest to them. In these schools "the very best instructors +that can be secured" are employed, and their recommendations are +accepted by the school principals when the fall term opens. "This school +is one of the means taken to deal with the problem of repeaters in our +schools," says Mr. Dyer. "Instead of requiring children who are behind +to fall back a year, they may, if they are not hopeless failures, but +only deficient in a few studies, remove their deficiencies in the summer +school and go on with their class. We have followed up these pupils," +Mr. Dyer adds, "and found that a normal percentage keep up with the +class in succeeding years." + + +X Mr. Dyer and the Men Who Stood With Him + +A spirit of comradeship and hearty co-operation breathes from every nook +and cranny of the Cincinnati schools. Principals and teachers alike +sense the fact. Alike they aim toward the upbuilding of the schools. + +"Never in my life have I found such a spirit of mutual helpfulness," +says Assistant Superintendent Roberts. "Every teacher has felt that she +had a part to play, that she counted, that her suggestions were worth +while, and she has worked earnestly toward this end." + +"Everywhere I encounter the same willingness to co-operate with the +schools," said Superintendent Condon, after spending three months in the +place that Mr. Dyer vacated when he became superintendent of the Boston +schools. "There is a heartiness in it, too, that grips a man." + +"There is always the jolliest good-fellowship in the Schoolman's Club," +exclaimed a grammar school principal. "It's always 'Roberts' and 'Lyon' +and 'Dyer' there. They're as good as the rest, no better. We all go +there to work, and to work hard for the schools." + +On such a spirit is the school system of Cincinnati founded. From its +point of vantage, set upon its high hill of ministry to child needs, it +flashes like a searchlight through the storm of nineteenth century +pedagogical obscurity. The optimist sings a new, glad song; the +pessimist is confounded; the searcher after educational truth uncovers +reverently before this masterpiece of educational organization, this +practical demonstration of the wonders that may be accomplished where +head and heart work together through the schools, for the children. + +Such is the triumph, but whose the glory? + +"It is not mine," protests Mr. Dyer, "I did only my part." "Nor mine," +"Nor mine," echo his assistants. Truly, wisely, bravely spoken. The +glory is not to Mr. Dyer, nor to any other one man or woman--the glory +is to Mr. Dyer and the men and women who worked with him for the +Cincinnati schools. + +"My predecessor was an able organizer," explained Mr. Dyer. "He left +things in splendid condition, and we took up his work. There were five +things which marked great epochs in the upbuilding of the Cincinnati +schools: + +"First, we established the merit system for the appointment of teachers. + +"Second, we improved the school buildings and equipment. + +"Third, we organized special courses for children who were not able to +profit by the regular work. + +"Fourth, by putting applied work in the grades we gave the children a +chance to use their hands as well as their heads. + +"Fifth, we enlarged the school system by adding buildings and courses +until there was a place in the schools for every boy and girl, man and +woman in Cincinnati who wanted an education. + +"That was the sum total of our work. It was a long and difficult task." +Mr. Dyer's tall form straightened a trifle. His earnest, determined face +relaxed. From under his bushy eyebrows flashed a gleam of triumph--the +triumph of a strong, purposeful, successful man. "But when it was all +over," he concluded, "and when the things for which we had striven were +accomplished we knew that they were worth while." + +When Mr. Dyer left his position in Cincinnati to become Superintendent +of the Boston schools, there was, on every hand, a feeling of loss and +of uncertainty among those most interested in the city's educational +problems. During those months which elapsed between Mr. Dyer's departure +for Boston and the election of his successor there was a feeling that, +after all, perhaps he was not replaceable. + +Then the successor came,--a quiet man, with a constructive imagination +that enabled him to grasp, readily and completely, Cincinnati's +educational need. There had been an era of radical educational +adjustment in the city. The school system had been changed,--artfully +changed, it is true--but changed, nevertheless, in all of the essential +elements of its being. Some of the changes had been made with such +rapidity that their foundations had not been fully completed. The +brilliant school policy which Mr. Dyer had inaugurated needed rounding +out for fulfilment and completion. Randall J. Condon saw these things; +and he saw, furthermore, that in a community so awakened as Cincinnati, +almost any educational program was feasible, so long as it remained +reasonable. + +The Cincinnati school people who went to Providence for the purpose of +inviting Mr. Condon to take charge of the Cincinnati schools, felt the +constructive power of his leadership. Providence had been educationally +transformed, and Mr. Condon was the man responsible for the +transformation. + +The people of Cincinnati have every cause to congratulate themselves +upon the new school head. At the outset Mr. Condon said,--"I purpose, to +the best of my ability, to live up to and follow out the policies +inaugurated by Mr. Dyer." With the utmost fidelity he has kept his word. + +There is far more in Mr. Condon's administration than a mere follow-up +policy. Everywhere he is building. In the face of a difficult financial +situation which compels a serious curtailment of expenses for the time +being, he is insisting upon additional kindergartens, extended high +school accommodations, a more intimate correlation of the elementary and +high school system, and an extensive system of recreation and social +centers. It is upon the latter point that Mr. Condon is laying the +greatest emphasis at the outset of his administration. + +The Cincinnati policy which Mr. Condon has inaugurated with regard to +civic centers is admirably summed up in his statement of the case. "A +larger use of the school house for social, recreational and civic +purposes should be encouraged. The school house belongs to all of the +people, and should be open to all the people upon equal terms,--as civic +centers for the free discussion of all matters relating to local and +city government, and for the non-partisan consideration of all civic +questions; as recreational centers, especially for the younger members +of the community, to include the use of the baths and gymnasiums for +games and sports, and other physical recreations, the use of class-rooms +and halls for music, dramatics, and other recreational activities, and +for more distinct social purposes; as educational centers in which the +more specific educational facilities and equipment may be used by +classes or groups of younger or older people, in any direction which +makes for increased intelligence, and for greater economic and +educational efficiency; as social centers in which the community may +undertake a larger social service in behalf of its members,--stations +from which groups and organizations of social workers may prosecute any +non-partisan and non-sectarian work for the improvement of the social +and economic conditions of the neighborhood, rendering any service which +may help to improve the condition of the homes, giving assistance to the +needy, disseminating information, helping to employment, and in general +affording the community in its organized capacity an opportunity to +serve in a larger measure the needs of the individual members." Here is, +indeed, a broad-gauge social school policy, to which the administrative +authorities of the Cincinnati schools are fully committed. + +The movement for social centers in the schools is to be under the +direction of a social secretary appointed by the superintendent. Until +the organization is more highly perfected, principals are free, under +certain restrictions, to open their schools for classes, groups, and all +other legitimate community activities. + +Mr. Condon's activities in the direction of socialized school buildings +finds a ready response. "There was already a large use of a number of +the schools for community meetings--for welfare associations, for boys' +and girls' study clubs, and for musical and social gatherings." The +program is a program of extension, rather than of innovation. It has +already won the approval of the citizenship. + +Spontaneity must be the soul of such a movement. "It was my strong +conviction that the development of such a social movement should come +from the people themselves, not that a ready-made program or plan should +be given them, but that they should develop their own." One by one +centers are being formed. The Board of Education furnishes the building, +the local social center organization pays the immediate expenses which +its activities incur. The movement has been started right. "I am a great +believer in democracy," Mr. Condon says. "The people can be trusted to +settle social questions as they should be settled, provided all sides +can be fully presented and time taken for deliberation. The school house +affords the one opportunity where all can meet on common ground as +American citizens and as good neighbors, where the question of wealth +and position may be forgotten, and where what a man is in himself, and +what he is willing to do for the common good, counts most." + +Such is the spirit in which Mr. Dyer, the men and women who worked with +him, and the men and women who succeeded him, have striven for the +advancement of education; such the spirit of co-operation and +progressiveism which dominates this great city school system. + + FOOTNOTES: + + [Footnote 21: Much of this material appeared originally in + Educational Foundations.] + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE OYLER SCHOOL OF CINCINNATI + + +I An Experiment in Social Education + +On the west side of Cincinnati, separated from the main part of the town +by railroad yards, waste land and stagnant water, surrounded by +factories and a myriad of little homes, stands the Oyler School. "Can +any good thing come out of Nazareth?" queried a doubter. Answers, in +bell tones, the philosopher, "If a man can build a better house or make +a better mousetrap than his neighbor, though he fix his home in the +woods, the world will find a path to his door." Because Oyler has built +a better school in a better community the world sits at Oyler's feet to +learn of its experiment in social education. + +The first time that I went to the Oyler School I encountered a Committee +of Manufacturers. A Committee of Manufacturers in a public school during +business hours! These men had met to talk with the school principal over +the location of a library, which the entire community had worked to +secure. When the time came to go before the Park Board over in the +center of the city, to secure a playground near the Oyler School, the +local bank furnished automobiles, and dozens of business men, leaving +their offices, took the opportunity to endorse the work of the school, +and to second its demands that play space be given to West End children. +The manufacturers have become interested because in less than a decade +the Oyler School has changed the face of the community, creating +harmony out of discord, and order out of chaos. + +The struggle of Oyler is the story of a man, a delivered message, a +thriving, enthusiastic school and a reborn neighborhood. Many years +ago--about twenty to be exact--a young man named Voorhes was made first +assistant in a West End school. Like other young men who go into school +work he applied himself earnestly to his tasks, but unlike most of them +he did some hard thinking at the same time. Among other things he +thought about the relation between the school and the community, +wondering why the two were so completely divorced from one another. Then +the problem was focused on one concrete example--a boy named John, +nearly sixteen years old, who had succeeded in getting only as far as +the eighth grade. John, who had never taken kindly to language or +grammar, began thinking pretty seriously toward the end of his last year +in the grammar school. He tried, he struggled, but the syntax was too +much for him. After all, it was not his fault, and he complained +bitterly against a punishment in the form of "leaving down" for +something which he could not help. His training was so inadequate that +he was entirely unable to pass the high school examinations which, in +those days, were like the laws of the Medes and the Persians. + +"I am safe in saying that he did not know the difference between a verb +and a preposition," said Mr. Voorhes, "but during the grammar lesson he +could make a drawing of the face of the teacher that was in no sense a +caricature. This phase of his ability gave me a cue to what might be +done for him. Knowing both the superintendent and the principal of the +Technical School, I talked the situation over with them, begging them, +with all the persuasive power at my command, to take the boy, +forgetting his shortcomings, and magnifying his peculiar talents, which +I felt sure were considerable along mechanical lines. They acceded to my +request, giving John a place in the school, to which he walked three +miles back and forth daily for three years. For many years John has been +superintendent of the lighting plant of a large city, and his experience +has always stood out before me as a terrible rebuke to the then dominant +educational regime, which could offer John nothing but a sneer. These +facts took such a vital hold on me, seeming to reinforce so fully the +thought that the industrial abilities which I had acquired back on the +farm proved of incalculable value to me, that the resolution to promote +industrial education became a fixed part of my educational creed. The +memory of that lesson in educational equity kept the need for industrial +training constantly in my mind, till I had opportunity to give it +expression in the Oyler School." + +John bespoke the needs of the community by which Oyler was surrounded. +It was so different from other communities. There were the ugly +straggling factory buildings, the miserable homes, their squalid +tenants, and worst of all there were the rough, boisterous, over-age, +uninterested, incorrigible boys and girls, who flitted from school to +home, to street, to jail, and then, gripped by the infirm hand of the +law, in the form of a Juvenile Court probation officer, or a truant +officer, they came back to school unwillingly enough to begin the cycle +all over again. + +"As for discipline," remarked one of the city school officials, "the +school hadn't known it for years, the probation officer couldn't keep +the children in school and the Juvenile Court couldn't keep them out of +jail. Even the majesty of the law is lost on children, you know." The +children taunted the police; the police hated the children; the home +repelled; the factory called, grimly; child labor flourished, and the +school despaired. + + +II An Appeal for Applied Education + +Such were the conditions when Mr. Voorhes became school principal. +Grinding factories, wretched homes, parental ignorance, social neglect, +educational impotence--few men could enter such a field of battle with a +light heart, but Mr. Voorhes did. + +What, think you, was his first move? He addressed to the heads of all of +the factories in the neighborhood a letter, suggesting the establishment +of a manual training department in connection with the grade work of the +Oyler School. "As I become more and more familiar with existing +conditions in our school district," he wrote, "I am convinced that a +Manual Training Department would be of vital importance to the school +and to the general welfare of the community. Such departments are being +looked upon to-day as necessary adjuncts to modern school equipment. + +"Our school is being drained constantly of its life force by the +adjacent factory demands, and if we could send pupils forth with trained +hands as well as trained minds they could render a much more useful +service, which, in time, would not only show itself in more profitable +returns to employers, but must also tend toward a higher standard of +culture in the neighborhood, and a longer continuance in school by our +pupils. + +"I know of no other section of the city where the actual need should +make a stronger appeal for support than here. Anything you may do will +be greatly appreciated." + +"You can imagine my surprise," says Mr. Voorhes, "when during the next +few days my mail brought me a hearty response of checks and pledges +amounting to nearly a thousand dollars." Manual training was assured! +No! Not yet. The Board of Education reached the conclusion that manual +training in the grades was undesirable. "With the exception of $85 which +I was told to use as I saw fit the checks and pledges were alike +returned to the donors. That $85 gave a piano to our kindergarten." + +That failure back in 1903 was the seed-ground of later success. The +community was interested to the extent of a thousand dollars at least. +The manufacturers were not only interested in education, but were +willing to support it financially. There was a change of administration. +Mr. F. B. Dyer became Superintendent of Schools and at once met the +situation by establishing a manual training center in the Oyler School. + + +III Solving a Local Problem + +The end was not yet, however. The truant officers and the Juvenile Court +were still busy keeping Oyler children out of mischief and in school. +The conventional type of manual training--one period per week in the +sixth, seventh and eighth grades--was not holding the pupils. + +"The children were not getting enough manual work to establish either +habit or efficiency," Mr. Voorhes comments, "besides, this work reached +only to the sixth grade. At this time there were in the school fifty +boys and girls below the fifth grade who were from two to five years +behind their normal classes. That is to say, they were--most of them--of +that unfortunate class that has seen more trouble in a few years than +most of us see in a lifetime. I was constantly asking myself: 'Where do +these folks come in?' 'What is our school doing to help their function +in life?' 'Are we really of any assistance to them after all?' 'Is it +worth their while to come to our school?' My sympathy for the pupils was +constantly growing, and I went at last in desperation to the +superintendent with a plan for a revolution in the organization of my +school, a revolution that I was sure would meet the needs of the +community and one upon which I was willing to stake my reputation if I +had any." + +At this point it is worth remembering, parenthetically, that Cincinnati +school men have a habit of going about their school problems in very +much that spirit, beginning by sizing up the needs of the community, +continuing by becoming imbued with an idea of the community needs and +ending by presenting this idea to the school authorities and +getting--within bounds--carte blanche to make their schools serve the +locality in which they are situated. + +This was Mr. Voorhes's experience. He was told to go ahead and make +good--a permission of which he availed himself in an astoundingly short +space of time by introducing a system of applied education, aimed to +meet the needs of the children who attended the Oyler School. + +"There is a peculiar situation," said Mr. Dyer, "and it needs peculiar +handling. You have only one problem to solve--that of the west end. Go +ahead!" Mr. Voorhes did go ahead with a plan under which all children in +the sixth and seventh grades were given three periods a week in +laboratories and shops. Subnormal pupils in the third, fourth and fifth +grades were to have four and one-half hours (one school day) for applied +work each week. In order to give special help to backward pupils they +were sent in small groups to the seventh and eighth grade teachers while +their classes were doing applied work. Below-grade children go to the +eighth grade teacher for special work in arithmetic and geography, and +the seventh grade teacher for English and history. In this way the +backward children from the lower grades have special training by the +best equipped teachers in the school. + +The eighth grade pupils give one-fifth of their time to applied work. +During the year the boys have, in addition to the shop-work, twenty +lessons in preparing and cooking plain, substantial meals. To make this +"siss" work palatable to the sterner sex much of it takes the form of +instruction in camp life--cooking in tin cans and other handy home-made +devices. In a community where boys have always been trained to regard +home work as menial, but where the absence of servants makes a "lift" +from the husband or brother such a Godsend to the wife at odd times, the +value of giving grade boys a taste for cooking can hardly be +over-estimated. + +The boys also receive twenty lessons in the simpler forms of +sewing--darning, hemming, sewing on buttons. At the same time the girls +are taught the use of simple tools. + + +IV Domestic Science Which Domesticates + +Beginning with the second grade the girls have domestic science while +the boys are at manual training. This domestic science has a truer ring +to it than most of the teaching which passes under that name. The +children at Oyler have a peculiar need for domestic science, because in +many of the homes mother works out, and even when she is not away her +knowledge of domestic arts is so rudimentary that she can impart little +to her daughters. So it comes about that the Oyler School seeks to teach +the girls all that they would have under intelligent direction in a +normal home. + +Once each week they cook and once they sew, devoting from one-eighth to +one-fifth of their entire time to these activities. By way of +preparation for both cooking and sewing they are carefully trained in +buying. They must make the dollar go a long way--buying in season the +things cheapest at that time and preparing them in a way to yield the +maximum of return. For example, they are called upon in January to buy a +50 cent dinner for six persons. Laura Wickersham's cost list is: + + Soup meat $0.20 + Can of tomatoes .10 + Spaghetti .05 + Cheese .05 + Bread .05 + Butter, etc. .08 + ---- + $0.53 + +Gus Potts, a mere boy, makes this suggestion: + + Meat $0.20 + Potatoes .05 + Cabbage .05 + Bread .05 + Milk .04 + Butter .05 + Coffee .05 + ---- + $0.49 + +In their cooking laboratory they learn to cook simple foods, one thing +at a time, until they reach the upper grades, where they must prepare +entire meals on limited allowances. + +The sewing is equally practical. The girls learn to patch, darn, hem and +make underclothing and dresses. Then, going into homes where no +intelligent needlework has ever been done--where frequently a darning +needle is unknown--they teach the mother and older sisters how to sew, +until whole families, under the influence of one school child, improve +their wardrobe and reduce their cost for clothing. Certain sewing days +in school, called darning days, are sacred to the renovation of worn-out +garments which the girls bring from home. + +The Oyler system may not turn out artists in dress design--it has no +such aim. The children who come to its class-rooms are ignorant of the +simplest devices known to civilization for the making of comfortable +homes. The domestic science courses are organized to take care of their +children by teaching them to be intelligent home-makers. + + +V Making Commercial Products in the Grades + +No less practical is the work of the boys in the shops, since the great +majority of them will enter factories. The shop-work is designed to +familiarize them with the ideas underlying shop practice. Instead of +making useless joints and surfaces the boys turn out finished, +marketable products. The eighth grade boys, with the aid of the +instructor, have built a drill-press from the scraps of machinery which +were found lying about. Now they are at work on an engine. Elaborate +products you will say, for eighth grade boys, yet these boys are likely +interested, they do their task with zest, and linger about the shop +after school hours are over--anxious to complete the jobs which the +day's work has begun. + +Boys in grades two to six made three dozen hammer handles for use in the +high school machine shops. Of forty-two pieces of rough stock there were +produced thirty-six handles, a record which some commercial shops might +envy. These same boys made a book and magazine rack, of rather elaborate +design, and an umbrella rack for each of the schools in Cincinnati. +These racks, displayed in the offices of the various principals, would +stand comparison with a high grade factory product. The boys are now +engaged in making a desk book-rack (a scroll saw exercise) for every +school teacher in Cincinnati. When they have finished there will be more +than a thousand. + +Besides these routine class exercises the Oyler boys are privileged to +make anything which appeals to them and for which they can supply the +material. The school machines are theirs, subject to their use at any +time. Taking advantage of this, the boys sharpen the home knives and +hatchets, make axe handles, umbrella racks, hall stands, stools, sleds, +cane chairs, and repair or make any product which fancy or home +necessity may dictate. + + +VI A Real Interest in School + +Let no one infer that the academic branches are neglected at Oyler. Far +from it, they are taught with consummate skill by a corps of teachers +who enjoy the work because they find the children interested. Strange to +relate, an interest in school came in at the front door with Mr. +Voorhes' new plan for applied education. The wild boys and dishevelled +girls of the West End, who had erstwhile hated school, came now to +participate in school activities with an interest seldom surpassed in +public or private schools. + +"You see," Mr. Voorhes remarked, "a day a week in the shop or +laboratories is just about enough to keep down the high spirits of the +older ones, and at the same time give them an applied education of which +they feel the value. That one day of practical work did the trick. It +made the other four days of academic work taste just as good as pie." + +Mr. Voorhes' plan arrived. It won the interest of the children and later +with the assistance of the Mothers' Club and the kindergarten it won the +sympathy of the community. + + +VII The Mothers' Club + +Like all of the other school centers in Cincinnati, Oyler has a +kindergarten and a Mothers' Club, around which the change in community +feeling has centered, until Mr. Voorhes describes them as "the most +important influence that ever came into our school." Yet the +kindergarten here, as elsewhere, has had a life and death grapple for +existence. In the West End, dominated by its conservative, German +atmosphere, the pleas for kindergartens fell on deaf ears. At last, +after much preparation, a meeting of mothers and children was held for +the purpose of forming an organization; at the meeting there were +thirteen children and five mothers, and all antagonistic, or at best +suspicious. + +"I went around and played with every one of those children," said Mr. +Voorhes, "talking to the mothers, and trying to persuade them that this +was not failure, but merely the forerunner of success. The next day I +went into every grade, saying to the children: + +"'What was the matter? Mother did not come to the Mothers' Meeting +yesterday.' + +"'Oh, she couldn't leave the baby.' + +"'Leave the baby! Why, of course not. No one expected her to leave the +baby. Tell her to come and bring the baby along.'" + +So another meeting was held, and another to which the babies were +brought--some women bringing as many as three, who were too young to go +to school. At one Mothers' Meeting, after the club had been well +organized, there were twenty women, listening, discussing and nursing +babies, all at once. + +If the beginnings of the experiment were discouraging the results have +more than offset the original disappointment. At the last meeting (in +January) seventy of the eighty-five paid up members were present, +intelligent, eager, interested, participating heartily in the +discussions. It has cost years of labor, but these mothers have reached +the point where they can talk intelligently about the children and their +needs. + +"Only yesterday," said Miss Phelps, Kindergarten Director, "one mother +said to me: 'I used to be the most impatient woman with my children--I +simply couldn't stand it when they refused to do what I told them. The +other day my mother said to me, "You're about the most patient woman I +ever saw. What's done it?" And I said to her: "Well, mother, I do not +know of anything except those folks at the kindergarten, which all +helped me to look at children in a very different way."'" + +Through the Mothers' Meetings the mothers have come to feel that they +are co-operating with the teacher and the school. Those mothers who have +children in the upper grades as well as in the kindergarten go to the +grade teachers too, seeking advice, or making suggestions. They have +learned to feel that they are an essential part of the educational +plan, and their enthusiastic interest tells of the advantages gained by +this co-operation. + +The Oyler Mothers' Club has been the center of the movement to clear up +the community. Through them and through the grades refuse has been +cleaned and kept from the streets. The club maintains, out of its fund, +a medicine chest at the school, which is used by the visiting nurse. It +has cleaned up the children, and that is no small item. + +"Back in 1904," says Mr. Voorhes, "I had five hundred of the children +vaccinated in my office, and such dirt and vermin I never saw! Nearly +every child had the high water mark on his wrist, and their clothes and +bodies were filthy. They didn't know a bathtub from a horse trough; they +don't now for the matter of that, because there are scarcely a dozen +houses in this section that have bathtubs, but the children are clean." + +Each year the old members of the Mothers' Club bring in the new mothers, +saying to Miss Phelps: "This is my mother, I brought her," "This is +mine!" with a delighted satisfaction in having added something to the +club. The kindergarten, filling two rooms, is thriving, and the +kindergarten teachers, visiting and advising in the home, are cordially +welcomed everywhere. + + +VIII The Disappearance of "Discipline" + +"Discipline," smiled Mr. Voorhes, "no, we don't mention the word any +more. Five years ago the discipline problem in this school was more +serious than in any school in town. We couldn't handle it, not even with +a club. To-day the discipline looks after itself." + +The disciplining of an undisciplined school may sound like an immensely +difficult task. Wrongly essayed it would be. Rightly directed it +becomes the merest child's play. The teachers have disciplined the +school--disciplined it through kindness--and here, again, the +inspiration may be traced to the Mothers' Club and the kindergarten, for +it was in the kindergarten that the first real attempt was made to bring +this school into closer relations with the home by home visiting. Little +by little the example told on the grade teachers, who went to see the +children when they were absent; nor was it long before a custom grew up +in the school, by virtue of which a teacher who wished to visit one +absent child, might pick her own time to make her visit. If perchance +the psychological moment was during school hours, she went then, while +another teacher or the principal took her place. + +Among the many illustrations of the efficiency of this system one stands +out strongly. A boy had been away for a week, sick with rheumatism, when +his teacher decided to call and see him. She went hesitatingly, however, +for this boy had been rough and troublesome all through school, but +particularly to her. At last her mind was made up. She visited the boy +and came away radiant, overjoyed at the cordial reception he had given +her. Again she went, and the mother, opening the door with a glad face, +said: + +"Come right in, Tom's been looking for you." + +"Is he better?" the teacher asked. + +"Yes, pretty much, but he said that he would get well right quick when +you came to see him again." + +Does anyone wonder that the boy should feel so kindly over attentions to +which he was not accustomed? Is it strange that he should have come back +to school with a firm resolve to be decent to his teacher? + +Discipline? There is no longer a problem of discipline. The teachers +are enthusiastic over the work, because they can see its results in the +changed homes and lives about them. The children engaged in occupations +which they enjoy and sensing the efforts of the school in their behalf, +discipline themselves by being frank and hearty in work or in play. + +Mr. Voorhes is not surprised at this transformation. The plan on which +he staked his reputation was a simple one, based on the idea of serving +a community which he had studied carefully, by providing for it an +education that met its needs. Though revolutionary from an educational +viewpoint, the plan succeeded because it was socially sound--because it +linked together the school and the community, of which the school is a +logical part. + + +IX The Spirit of Oyler + +Oyler has a motto, a very shibboleth, "The school for the community and +the community for the school." Not only do its principal and teachers +believe that the school must center its activities about the needs of +the community in which it is located, but they put their belief into +practice, studying the community diligently and seeking to find an +answer for every need which it manifests. Out of this spirit of service +has grown up a warmth of feeling and interest among the teachers seldom +surpassed anywhere. + +"When I came to Oyler I felt about it as Sherman felt about war," says +Mr. Voorhes. "Now I would not trade places with any school man in +Cincinnati. The teachers feel the same way. Never yet have we had a +teacher who wanted to leave. Each one has her class, that is enough. We +have no problem of discipline now. The children and their parents are +working for the school.["] + +Sometimes people get the idea that Mr. Voorhes does not do very much. +One visitor spent half a day observing, and then sitting down in his +office she said: + +"Mr. Voorhes, I have been here half a day and I haven't seen you around +at all. What do you do?" + +"Madam," answered Mr. Voorhes, "I am a man of leisure. All I do is to +sit here at this desk, ready to get behind any one of my teachers, with +two hundred and fifty pounds from the shoulder, in order to prevent +anybody or anything from getting in the way of her work." + +Small wonder that the teachers like to stay. Small wonder that the work +which the school does commands the respect of the people of Cincinnati. +In the school, as well as in the neighborhood, each person has a task +and a fair chance to do it well. + +From its position as "the worst school in Cincinnati" Oyler has risen, +first in its own esteem, and then in the esteem of the city, until it is +looked upon everywhere as a factor in the life of the west end, and an +invaluable cog in the educational machinery of the city. Its tone has +changed, too. Mr. Roberts, who came, a total stranger, to assist in the +work while Mr. Voorhes was sick, says, "I have never heard a word of +discourtesy or a bit of rudeness since I came to this school." That is +strong testimony for a new man in a new place. Splendidly done, Oyler! + +Mr. Voorhes has not stopped working. On the contrary, he is at it harder +than ever, shaping his school to the ever-changing community needs. He +has stopped disciplining, though, and he has stopped wondering about the +success of his experiment. Time was when Oyler looked upon high school +attendance much as a New York gunman looks at Sunday School. Last year +of the thirty-three children in the eighth grade, eighteen--more than +half--went to high school. The tradition against high school has been +replaced by a healthy desire for more education. "One day a week in the +shops," Mr. Voorhes says, "means interest and enthusiasm. Our children +compete in high school with the children of grammar schools from the +well-to-do sections, and with the best our boys and girls hold their +own." + +The community is interested. Parents and manufacturers alike come to the +school, consult, advise, suggest, co-operate. The school boy is no +longer sneered at by "the gang." The school has made its place in the +community, and "the gang" is enthusiastically engaged in school work. +The complexion of the neighborhood has changed, too. It is less rough, +the police have less to do. Houses are neater, children better clothed +and cared for. Oyler has won the hearts of its people, improved the food +on their tables and the clothes on their backs, sent the children to +high school, and their mothers to Mothers' Clubs; and the people who +once uttered their profanity indiscriminately in every direction now +swear by Oyler. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +VITALIZING RURAL EDUCATION + + +I The Call of the Country + +There is a call of the land just as there is a call of the city, though +the call of the city has sounded so insistently during the past century +that men innumerable, heeding it, have cast in their lot with the +throngs of city dwellers. Yet the city proves so unsatisfying that +thousands are turning from its rows of brick houses and lines of paved +streets to the fruit trees, dairy herds, market gardens and broad acres +of the countryside. The call of the city is answered by a call which is +becoming equally distinct--the call "Back to the Land." + +The ten-acre lot may not be any nearer paradise than the "Great White +Way," but there is about it a breadth of quiet wholesomeness which +cannot make its presence felt in the bustle of the clanging cars and the +rushing whirl of crowded streets. The unsmoked blue of the sky is over +the country, as are the fragrance of flowers, woods and mown grass; the +stars are brilliant by night, and by day the birds sing, and the cows +and barnyard fowls talk philosophically together. The children have room +to run and play between their periods of work, which is very near of kin +to blessedness, because, aside from being instructive, it binds the +child into the family group in a way that factory work can never do. The +country cries health and enthusiasm to the world-weary soul as it does +to the barefoot boy. Whittier was very near the heart of things when he +wrote: + + Blessings on thee, little man, + Barefoot boy, with cheek of tan! + With thy turned-up pantaloons, + And thy merry whistled tunes; + With thy red lips, redder still + Kissed by strawberries on the hill. + +Despite the loneliness, isolation and overwork in some country places, +the rural life is, on the whole, very rich in-- + + Sleep that wakes in laughing day, + Health that mocks the doctor's rules, + Knowledge never learned of schools. + +Country life holds a great promise for the future--a promise of vigorous +manhood and womanhood, and of earnest, sane living. Through the rapidly +progressing country school, more perhaps than through any other agency, +this promise may be fulfilled. There are two possibilities in the +development of the country school. On the one hand, several one-room +schools may be consolidated into one central graded school, to which the +children are transported at public expense; on the other hand, the +old-time, one-room school may be reorganized and vitalized. + + +II Making Bricks with Straw + +Even the doughtiest son of the soil must needs admit that the farmer of +the past, living secluded in his house or village, was provincial, +narrow, bigoted and individualistic. Times are rapidly changing, +however, and out of the old desolation of rural individualism there is +arising the spirit of wholesome, virile co-operation, which has +transformed the face of many a country district almost in the twinkling +of an eye. Nowhere is this co-operative spirit better expressed than in +the consolidated country schools, which are organized, like the city +school, by subjects and grades. + +Considered from any viewpoint, the consolidated school is superior, as a +form of organization, to the district school. Rather, the consolidated +school permits organization, and the district school does not. Wherever +it has been tried the testimony in favor of consolidation is +overwhelming. + +"Comparison," cried one county superintendent in consternation. +"Comparison! There is no comparison. The old one-room school, like the +one-horse plough, has seen its day. The farmers in this country, after +figuring it out, have reached the conclusion that the one-room school is +in the same class with a lot of other old-fashioned machinery--good in +its day, but not good enough for them. That is why over eighty per cent +of our schools have been consolidated. You see it's this way: The +farmers need labor badly, and rather than see their sons go to a school +where they are called on once or twice a day by a sadly overworked +teacher they would put them to work on the farm. The consolidated school +wins them with its good course of study and the boys stay in school." + +That is the first, and perhaps the most vital, advantage of the +consolidated school--it permits the enlargement of the course of study. +Sewing, cooking, agriculture, manual training, drawing and music, have +all been introduced, because the teachers have time for them. High +school work has been added, too. The consolidated school, in so far as +the course of study is concerned, is very nearly on a par with the +graded school of the city. + +Have you ever attended a one-room country school? If you have not you +can form but the faintest idea of what it means to the teacher. Her day +is so split up with little periods of class work that she can never do +anything thoroughly. Here, for example, is an average schedule of work +for a one-room class in Indiana: + + + DAILY PROGRAM + + FORENOON + + Time Class Grade + + 8:30 Opening Exercises All + 8:40 Reading Primary + 8:45 Reading First + 8:50 Reading Second + 8:55 Reading Third + 9:00 Reading Sixth + 9:10 Grammar Fourth + 9:20 Grammar Fifth + 9:30 Grammar Sixth + 9:40 Grammar Seventh + 9:50 Grammar Eighth + 10:00 Reading Fourth + 10:10 Reading Seventh + 10:20 Recess All + 10:30 Reading Primary + 10:40 Reading First + 10:50 Numbers Second + 11:00 Numbers Third + 11:05 Arithmetic Fourth + 11:15 Arithmetic Fifth + 11:25 Arithmetic Seventh + 11:35 Arithmetic Eighth + 11:50 Reading Fifth + Noon Noon All + + +Appalling, do you say? What other word describes it adequately? There +are twenty-one teaching periods in the morning; twenty-four in the +afternoon. Forty-five times each day that teacher must call up and +teach a new class. The college professor is "overloaded" with fourteen +classes a week. This woman had two hundred and twenty-five. Will any one +be so absurd as to suppose that she can do them or herself justice? + +Consolidation, among its many advantages, reduces the number of classes +per day, and increases the time which the teacher may devote to each +class. Note the contrast between that schedule of a one-room teacher and +the teaching schedule of a consolidated school teacher in the same +county: + + TEACHER'S DAILY PROGRAM + + FORENOON + + Time Class Grade + + 8:30 Opening Exercises All + 8:45 Desk 1-B + 8:50 Phonetics 1-A + 9:00 Phonetics 1-B + 9:15 Reading 1-A + 9:30 Reading Second + 9:45 Rest Exercise All + 10:00 Nature All + 10:15 Rest All + 10:30 Words 1-B + 10:50 Words 1-A + 11:10 Numbers Second + 11:30 History 1-A + + +The "district," or one-room, schools in Montgomery County, Indiana, have +twenty-three pupils per teacher, scattered over six grades. The +consolidated schools in the same county show sixteen pupils per teacher, +in three grades. While the teacher in the district school averages +twenty-seven recitations a day, the teacher in the consolidated school +has eleven; but the time per recitation is: district, thirteen minutes; +consolidated, twenty-nine minutes. The number of minutes which the +district teacher may give to each grade is fifty minutes; the +consolidated teacher has one hundred and seventeen minutes per grade. +Badly sprinkled with figures as that statement is, it gives some idea of +the increased opportunities for effective teaching in the consolidated +school. No teacher can do justice to twenty-seven classes per day, and +an average recitation period of thirteen minutes is so short as to be +almost unworthy of mention. + +Most consolidated schools, in addition to the ordinary rooms, have an +assembly room in which lectures, festivals, socials, public meetings, +and farmers' institutes are held. Acting as a center for community life, +the consolidated school takes a real place in the instruction of the +community. The big brick or stone building, well constructed and +surrounded, as it usually is, by well-kept grounds, furnishes the same +kind of local monument that the court house supplies in the county seat. +People point proudly to it as "their" public building. It is an +experience of note in traveling across an open farming country to come +suddenly upon a splendidly-equipped, two-story school, set down, at a +point of vantage, several miles away from the nearest railroad. + +The consolidated school at Linden, Montgomery County, Indiana, for +example, situated in a town of scarcely three hundred inhabitants, is +equipped with gas from its own gas-plant; with steam heat; ample toilet +accommodations; an assembly room; and halls so broad that the primary +children may play some of their games there in bad weather. + +One of the most widely discussed among consolidated schools is the John +Swaney Consolidated School, of Putnam County, Illinois.[22] The John +Swaney School occupies a twenty-four acre campus, lying a mile and a +half from the nearest village, and ten miles from the nearest town. The +agitation for consolidation in Putnam County led John Swaney and his +wife to give twenty-four acres as a campus for a local consolidated +school. Hence the name and much of the success which has attended the +work of the school. + +The school cost $15,000, equipped. It is of brick with four class-rooms, +two laboratories, a library, offices, a manual training shop, a domestic +science kitchen, and a basement play-room. The building is lighted, +heated, and ventilated in the most modern fashion. The John Swaney +School thus came into existence with an equipment adequate for any +school and elaborate for a school situated far from the channels of +trade and industry. + +The course of study organized includes all of the modern specialized +work which the effective city school is able to do. Securing good +teachers and possessing unique facilities, the school carries boys and +girls through a series of years, in which intellectual, experimental, +manual, recreational, and social activities combine to make the school +the center of community life and community influence. + +The school campus is used as a laboratory and a play ground. The trees +provide subject matter for a course in horticulture. The fertile land is +turned to agricultural use, and the broad expanse of twenty-four acres +furnishes additional space for games and sports. + +The social life of this school is no less effective than is its location +and equipment. The teachers' cottage, an old school building converted +for this purpose, furnishes a center for the life of the teaching staff, +and makes a background for the social life of the entire school. There +are two strong literary societies, including all of the pupils in the +school. Each year plays are presented on the school stage. There are +musical organizations, parents' conferences, entertainments, and +community gatherings of all descriptions. In every sense, the John +Swaney School is a community center. + +Prosperity has followed in the wake of this educational development. The +John Swaney School is known far and wide, and consequently farm renters +and farm buyers alike seek the locality because of the educational +opportunities which the school affords for their children, and because +of the social opportunities which the community around the school +affords for them. + +The movement for school consolidation, like many another good movement, +originated in Massachusetts. From that state it has spread extensively +to Indiana, Minnesota, Iowa, Kansas, Idaho, Washington, and a number of +other states,--East, West, and South. In every progressive rural +community, wherever prosperous farmers and comfortable farm homes are +found, there the consolidation movement is being discussed, agitated, or +operated. + +The movement toward consolidation has been particularly active during +the past few years in the South. The Southern States are, for the most +part, largely agricultural communities. The rural population far +outnumbers the urban population, and it is in these districts, +therefore, that the consolidated school can have its greatest influence. +By 1912, the state of Louisiana alone was able to report over 250 +consolidated county schools. Georgia, Florida, and North Carolina show +themselves almost equally active in forwarding this generally accepted +progressive educational movement. + +The difficulties involved in consolidation may be summed up under two +heads. There is, first of all, the conservatism and prejudice of those +people who believe that the things which were good enough for their +fathers, are still good enough for them. Secondly, there are the +technical difficulties involved in transporting pupils from distant +localities to the school center. Roads are bad at certain times of the +year. Wagons are costly. Desirable drivers are difficult to secure. +These factors, taken together, make the administrative difficulties of +the consolidated school far greater than those of the old-time one-room +country school. + +The forces operating to overcome these difficulties are destined +ultimately to triumph. The widespread acceptance of an agricultural +education that followed upon the work of experiment stations, +universities and high schools, has convinced even the most reactionary +of the old-time group that there are, at least, certain things in the +new generation which surpass, in their economic and social value, the +like things of the old. The inroads of scientific agriculture have +played havoc with agricultural tradition and conservatism. The obvious +merits of the new scheme are destined to overcome the prejudices which +the long continuance of the old scheme created. + +The technical difficulties of transportation are being met in a number +of ways. Wagon builders in various parts of the country are devoting +themselves to the designing and building of wagons which will be cheap +and effective. State and local authorities are actively engaged in the +improvement of roads. The near future promises a standard of +transportation facilities that will far surpass any that the +consolidation movement has thus far enjoyed. The details of +transportation administration are being worked out variously in +different communities, and always with a view to the particular needs of +the community involved. + +While the disadvantages of consolidation lie mainly in the overcoming of +prejudice and the solution of administrative problems, the advantages of +consolidation seem to be primarily educational and social. The +consolidated school is the only method thus far devised for giving +graded school and high school privileges under adequately paid teachers +to the inhabitants of rural communities. Again the consolidated school +is the only method of securing a school attendance sufficiently large to +provide the incentive arising from competition and emulation for pupils +of each grade or age. Furthermore, the consolidated school, standing out +as the most distinctive feature of a rural landscape, is readily +converted into a center of rural life and activity where young folks and +old folks alike find a common ground for social interests. + +The advantages of the rural school are thus summed up by Mabel +Carney,[23]--"For the complete and satisfying solution of the problem of +rural education and for the general reconstruction and redirection of +country life, the consolidated country school is the best agency thus +far devised." The reasons for this statement are summed up under seven +heads. In the first place, the consolidated school is a democratic, +public school, directly in the hands of the people who support it. +Secondly, it is at the door of farm houses and is wholly available, even +more available, when public transportation is provided, than the present +one-teacher school. Third, every child in the farm community is reached +by it. All children may attend because of the transportation facilities +afforded. Fourth, the cost of the school is reasonable. Fifth, it +accommodates all grades, including the high school. The country high +school, by excluding the younger children, denies modern educational +facilities to any except pupils of high school grade. Sixth, it +preserves a balanced course of study. While educating in terms of +farm-life experience, it does not force children prematurely into any +vocation, although it prepares them generally for all vocations. Lastly, +the consolidated school is the best social and educational center for +the rural community that has been thus far organized. + +However just may be the judging of a tree by its fruit, the fruit of the +consolidation movement seems uniformly good. First, because the children +get to school; and second, because after they get there they are taught +something worth while. + +When the schools of a district are consolidated, transportation must be +furnished for the students. Union Township, Montgomery County, Indiana, +covering one hundred and six square miles, has replaced thirty-seven +district schools with six consolidated schools. Some of the children are +brought as far as five miles in wagons, or on the interurban electric +cars. The wagon calls at stated hours, and the children must be ready. +Tardiness is therefore reduced, until one county reports ten hundred and +ninety-one cases of tardiness in its district schools (for 1910-11) and +ninety-two cases in consolidated schools, although in this county there +are more children in the consolidated than in the district schools. + +Then, too, the children stay later in the consolidated schools. In +Montgomery County, Indiana, the children who have not finished the +eighth grade and who are staying away from school constitute twenty-nine +per cent. of the population in the consolidated schools, as against +sixty-three per cent. in the district schools. The Vernon consolidated +school in Trumbull County, Ohio, has enrolled nearly nine-tenths of the +children of school age. Before the consolidation only three-fifths were +in school. + +Theoretically, the introduction of agriculture, manual training, and +other applied courses which are found in most consolidated schools, +should have some effect on the lives of the children. In order to show +its extent Superintendent Hall, of Montgomery County, Indiana, asked one +thousand children (five hundred in district schools and five hundred in +consolidated schools) what they proposed to do after they left school. +Arranged according to the kind of school in which the children were, the +answers showed as follows: + + + _District_ _Consolidated_ + _Chosen Profession_ _Schools_ _Schools_ + + Teaching 151 122 + Business 123 73 + Farming 92 129 + Law 55 21 + Mechanics 48 86 + Medicine 13 9 + Ministry 12 4 + Stock-breeding 3 41 + Miscellaneous 3 15 + --- --- + Total 500 500 + + +Agricultural studies--stock-breeding and farming--and mechanics show up +strongly in the consolidated schools, at the expense of teaching, +business and law in the district schools. While such figures do not +prove anything, they indicate the direction in which the minds of +consolidated school children are moving. + +Eli M. Rapp, of Berks County, Pennsylvania, voices the spirit of the +consolidation movement when he says: + +"The consolidated school furnishes the framework for a well-organized, +rural education. Its course of study is broader, its appeal is stronger, +its service to the community more pronounced, and, best of all, it holds +the children. Progressive rural communities have wakened up to the fact +that unless their children are educated together there is a strong +probability that they will be ignorant separately." + + +III Making the One-Room Country School Worth While + +The brilliant success of the consolidated schools reveals the +possibilities of team-work in rural education, but it cannot detract +from the wonderful work which has been done, and is still being done, by +the one-room rural school. Always there will be districts so sparsely +settled that the consolidated school is not feasible. In such localities +the one-room school, transformed as it may be by enlightened effort, +must still be relied upon to provide education. Nor is this outcome +undesirable. The one-room country school bristles with educational +possibilities. Under intelligent direction, even its cumbersome +organization may yield a plenteous harvest of useful knowledge and +awakened interest. + +The droning reading lesson and the sing-song multiplication table are +heard no more in the progressive country school. In their place are +English work, which reflects the spirit of rural things, and the +arithmetic of the farm. Here is a boy of thirteen, in a one-room country +school, writing an essay on "Selecting, Sowing and Testing Seed Corn," +an essay amply illustrated by pen and ink drawings of growing corn, corn +in the ear and individual corn kernels. Mabel Gorman asks, "Does it pay +the farmer to protect the birds?" After describing the services of birds +in destroying weed seeds and dangerous insects and emphasizing their +beauty and cheerfulness, she concludes: "The question is, does it pay +the farmer to protect the birds?" The only answer is that anything that +adds to the attractiveness of the farm is worthy of cultivation. Happily +a farmer who protects the birds secures a double return--increased +profit from his crop and increased pleasure of living. Viola Lawson, +writing on the subject, "How to Dust and Sweep," makes some pertinent +comments. "I think if a house is very dirty, a carpet sweeper is not a +very good thing. A broom is best, because you can't get around the +corners with a sweeper." Note this hint to the school board: "We spend +about one-third of our time in the school house, so it is very important +to keep the dust down. The directors ought to let the school have +dustless chalk. If they did there wouldn't be so much throat trouble +among teachers and children. Then so many children are so careless about +cleaning their feet, boys especially. They go out and curry the horses, +and clean out the stables, and get their feet all nasty. Then they come +to school and bring that dust into the schoolroom. Isn't that awful?" +Viola is thirteen. + +Over in eastern Wisconsin Miss Ellen B. McDonald, County Superintendent +of Oconto County, has her children engaged in contests all the year +round--growing corn, sugar beets, Alaska peas and potatoes; the boys +making axe handles and the girls weaving rag carpet. During the summer +Miss McDonald writes to the children who are taking part in the contests +suggesting methods and urging good work. One of the letters began with +the well-known lines: + + Say, how do you hoe your row, young man, + Say, how do you hoe your row, + Do you hoe it fair, do you hoe it square, + Do you hoe it the best you know? + +"How are you getting along with the contests?" continues the letter. +"Are you taking good care of your beets, peas, corn or garden? Remember +that it will pay you well for all the work you do upon it." In reply one +girl writes: "My corn is a little over five feet high. My tomatoes have +little tomatoes on, but mamma's are just beginning to blossom. My beets +are growing fine. I planted them very late. My lettuce is much better +than mamma's. We have been eating it right along." Mark the note of +exultation over the fact that her crop is ahead of her mother's. + +Sometimes the school child brings from school knowledge which materially +helps his father. Here is a Wisconsin English lesson, and a proof of the +saying, "Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings," all in one. + +These country boys and girls take an interest in English work, because +it deals with the things they know. Miss Ellen B. McDonald, County +Superintendent of Schools in Oconto County, Wisconsin, publishes a +column of school news in each of the three county newspapers. Here is +one of her contributions, in the form of an English lesson and a +counting lesson combined: (A "rag-baby tester" is a device for +determining the fertility of seed corn before it is planted.) + + "My dear Miss McDonald: + + "The rag-baby tester is causing a whole lot of excitement. We + have tested one lot and this morning started another. We notice + one thing in particular, the corn which was dried by stove heat + sprouts perfectly, while that dried in granaries, etc., is not + sprouting at all. Last fall papa saved his seed corn, selecting + it very carefully, and hung it up in the granary to dry. I + selected several ears from the same field and at the same time, + and dried them on the corn tree at school. Upon testing them + this spring papa's corn does not sprout at all, while mine is + sprouting just exactly as good as the Golden Glow sent out to + the school children. This morning I am testing some more of + papa's, and if that fails he will have to buy his seed, a thing + he has never had to do before. We tested the corn secured from + four of our interested farmers last week and one lot germinated; + the other three did not. This morning pupils from seven + different homes brought seed to be tested. We had a package of + last year's seed left and tested several kernels of that, as + well as some sent out this year, and we think last year's seed + is testing a little the better." + +The new arithmetic, like the new English, deals with the country. It +seems a little odd, just at first, to see boys and girls standing at the +board computing potato yields, milk yields, the contents of granaries, +the price of bags and the cost of barns and chicken houses; yet what +more natural than that the country child should figure out his and +perhaps his father's problems in the arithmetic class at school? + +The geography is no less pertinent. Soil formation, drainage, the +location and grouping of farm buildings, the physical characteristics of +the township and of the county are matters of universal interest and +concern. Every school in Berks County, Pennsylvania, is provided with a +fine soil survey map of the county, made by the United States Geological +Survey. What more ideal basis for rural geography? + +Here and there a country school is waking up to the physical needs of +country children. "Country boys are not symmetrically developed," +asserts Superintendent Rapp, of Berks County. "They are flat-chested and +round-shouldered." That is interesting, indeed. Mr. Rapp explains: "It +is because of the character of their work, nearly all of which tends to +flatten the chest. Whether or not that is the explanation, the fact +remains, and with it the no less evident fact that it is the business of +the school to correct the defects. In an effort to do this we have +worked out a series of fifty games which the children are taught in the +schools." In May a great "Field Day and Play Festival" is held, to which +the entire county is invited. Each school trains and sends in its teams. +Trolleys, buggies, autos and hay wagons contribute their quota, until +five thousand people have gathered in an out-of-the-way spot to help the +children enjoy themselves. + +Mr. Rapp is a great believer in activity. Tireless himself, he has fifty +teacher-farmers--men who teach in the winter and farm in the summer--an +excellent setting for country boys and girls. He believes in activity +for children, too. "If the school appealed as it ought to the motor +energies of children, instead of having to drive them in, you would have +to drive them out." To prove his point Mr. Rapp cites the instance of +one man teacher, who, before the days of manual training in the schools, +decided to have manual training in his one-room Berks County school. + +"He did the work himself," Mr. Rapp says, "dug out the cellar and set up +a shop in it. The only help he had was the help of the pupils, and the +work was done in recess time and after school. They made their own +tools, cabinets, book-cases, picture-frames, clock-frames, and anything +else they wanted. And do you know, when it got dark, that man would +send the children home from the school in order to be rid of them." + +Consolidated schools help. They make rural education broader and easier, +but the one-room country school, presided over by a live teacher, may be +made worth while. Social events, sports, contests in farm work and +domestic work, studies couched in terms of the country, may all prove +potent factors in shaping the child and the community. + + +IV Repainting the Little Red Schoolhouse + +Without, as well as within, the little red school-house may be +transformed. The course of study may establish a standard in rural +thought. The rural school-house may set a standard of rural architecture +and landscape gardening. + +How typical of old-time country schools are the lines: + + Still sits the school-house by the road, + A ragged beggar sunning. + Around it still the sumacs grow, + And blackberry vines are running. + +The unpainted, rough exterior of the little school vied with the unkempt +school grounds. Both supplied subjects for artistic treatment. To the +consternation of the poet and the romancer, the modern one-room school +is painted, and the school yard, instead of being filled with a thicket +of blackberry and sumac, is laid out for playground, flower-beds and +gardens. The up-to-date country school, while far less picturesque, is +much more architectural and more useful. + +The State Superintendent of Education in Wisconsin furnishes free to +local school boards plans of modern one-room schools. With a hall at +each end for wraps, an improved heating and ventilating device, and all +of the light coming from the north side, where there is one big window +from near the floor to the ceiling, these buildings, costing from two +thousand dollars up, provide in every way for the health and comfort of +the children. The superintendent may go farther than to suggest in +Wisconsin, however, for if a school building becomes dilapidated he may +condemn it, and then state aid to local education is refused until +suitable buildings are provided. The law has proved an excellent +deterrent to educational parsimony. + +Superintendent Kern, of Rockford, Illinois, has done particularly +effective work in beautifying his schools. Within the schools are +tastefully painted and decorated. Outside there are flower-beds, hedges, +individual garden plots, neatly-cut grass, and all of the other +necessaries for a well-kept yard. No longer crude and unsightly, the +Rockford school yards are models which any one in the neighborhood may +copy with infinite advantage. As the school becomes the center of +community life local pride makes more and more demands. Could you visit +some of the finer school buildings in Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin and +Illinois you would be better able to understand why men boast of "Our +School" in the same tone that they use when boasting of their corn +yields. + + +V A Fairyland of Rural Education + +You will perhaps be somewhat skeptical--you big folks who have ceased to +believe in little people--when you hear that out in western Iowa there +is a county which is an educational fairyland. Yet if you had traveled +up and down the country, gone into the wretched country school +buildings, seen the lack-luster teaching and the indifferent scholars, +which are so appallingly numerous; if you had read in the report of the +investigating committee which has just completed its survey of Wisconsin +rural schools the statement that in many districts the hog pens were on +a better plane of efficiency than the school houses; if you had seen the +miserable inadequacy of country schools North, East, South and West, and +had then been transported into the midst of the school system of Page +County, Iowa, you would have been sure that you had passed through the +looking-glass into the queer world beyond. Yet Page County is there--a +fairyland presided over by a really, truly fairy. + +The schools in Page County, Iowa, which, by the way, is one of the best +corn counties in Iowa, are little republics in which the children have +the fun, do the work and grow up strong and kind. Each school has its +song, its social gatherings, its clubs, and its teams. How you would +have pricked up your ears if you had driven past the Hawley School and +heard a score of lusty voices shouting the school song to the tune of +"Everybody's Doing It!" + +December was the time of the Page County contests, when each school sent +its exhibits of dressmaking, cooking, rope-splicing, barn-planning, +essay-writing and its corn-judging teams to the county seat, where they +were displayed and judged very much as they would be at a county fair. +Further, it was the time when the prizes were to be awarded to the boy +having the best acre of alfalfa, of corn and of potatoes. (Queer, isn't +it, but last year a girl got the first prize for the best crop of +potatoes.) December is a great month in Page County. This year more than +three thousand exhibits were sent into Clarinda, the county seat. Every +boy and girl is on tip-toe with expectancy, and after the awards the +successful schools are as proud as turkey cocks. + +"We have never taken the thing seriously here before," explained a +farmer who had left his work in mid-afternoon and come in to teach the +boys of a school how to judge seed corn. "This year we're going down +there to Clarinda for all that's in it." If he hadn't meant what he said +he would scarcely have been spending his hours in the school-room. If +the Hawleyville boys had not been thoroughly in earnest they would not +have been there, after school, learning how to judge corn. + +The community around each school is agog with excitement while +preparations are being made for the county contest. The men folk advise +the boys regarding their corn-judging and their models of farm +implements and farm buildings, while the women give lessons galore in +the mysteries of country cooking, for it is no small matter to be hailed +and crowned as the best fourteen-year-old cook in Page County, Iowa. + +One Page County teacher conducts her domestic science work in the +evening at the homes of the girls. On a given day of each week the +entire class visits the home of one of the girls, prepares, cooks and +eats a meal. What an opportunity to inculcate lessons in domestic +economy at first hand! What a chance to show the behind-the-time +housekeeper (for there are such even in Page County) how things are +being done! + +Because Page County is a great corn county much school time is devoted +to corn. In every school hangs a string of seed corn which is brought in +by the boys in the fall, dried during the winter, and in the spring +tested for fertility. A Babcock milk-tester, owned by the county, +circulates from school to school, enabling the children to test the +productivity of their cows. Teams of boys, under the direction of the +school, make their own road drags, and care for stretches of road--from +one to five miles. The boys doing the best work are rewarded with +substantial prizes. Do you begin to suspect the reason for the interest +which the big folks take in the doings of Page County's little folks? It +is because the little folks go to schools which are a vital part of the +community. + +Three times a year there is, in each school, a gathering of the friends +and parents of the children. Sometimes they celebrate Thanksgiving, +sometimes they have a "Parents' Day." Anyway, the boys decorate the +school, the girls cook cake and candy, and the parents come and have a +good evening. The children begin with their school song, sung, perhaps, +like this Kile School song, to the tune of "Home, Sweet Home": + + 1. What school is the dearest, + The neatest and best, + What school is more pleasant, + More dear than the rest, + Whose highways and byways + Have charms from each day, + Whose roads and alfalfa, + They have come to stay. + + _Chorus._ + Kile, Kile, our own Kile, + We love her, we'll praise her, + We'll all work for Kile. + + 2. Whose corn is so mellow, + Whose cane is so sweet, + Whose taters are so mellow, + Whose coal's hard to beat, + Whose Ma's and whose Grandpa's + Are brave, grand and true, + Their love for their children + They never do rue. + +There follows a program like the program of any other social evening, +except that very often the parents take part as well as the children. +The things are interesting, too, like this little duet, sung at the +Thanksgiving entertainment by two of the Kile girls: + + 1. If a body pays the taxes, + Surely you'll agree, + That a body earns a franchise, + Whether he or she. + + _Chorus._ + Every man now has the ballot, + None, you know, have we, + But we have brains and we can use them, + Just as well as he. + + 2. If a city's just a household, + As it is, they say, + Then every city needs housecleaning, + Needs it right away. + + 3. Every city has its fathers, + Honors them, I we'en, + But every city must have mothers, + That the house be clean. + + 4. Man now makes the laws for women, + Kindly, too, at that, + But they often seem as funny + As a man-made hat. + +The grand event of this fairyland comes in the summer, when the boys and +girls from all of the schools go to the county seat for a summer camp, +where, between attending classes and lectures, playing games and +reveling in the joys of camp life, they come to have a very much broader +view of the world and a more intense interest in one another. + +They are only one-room schools out there in Page County, but they have +adapted themselves to the needs of the community, focusing the attention +of parents and children alike on the bigger things in rural life, and +the ways in which a school may help a countryside to appreciate and +enjoy them. So the boys and girls of Page County have their fairyland, +and are devoted to the good fairy, who, in the shape of a generous, +kindly county superintendent, helps them to enjoy it. + + +VI The Task of the Country School + +The teacher of a one-room school in Berks County was quizzing a class +about Columbus. + +"Where was he born?" she queried. + +"In Genoa." + +"And where is Genoa, Ella?" + +"On the Mediterranean Sea," replied Ella promptly. + +"What was his business?" was her next question. + +"He was a sailor," ventured a bright boy. "A sailor," chorused the +class. + +"Why was he a sailor, Edith?" Edith shook her head. + +"Yes, George." + +"Why, because he lived on the sea." + +"Of course. Now think a minute. Do many of the boys from this country +become sailors?" + +"No'm," from the class. + +"What do they become?" + +"Farmers," cried the class, hissing the "f" and flattening the "a." + +Certainly, the boys in a farming community, brought up on the farm, +naturally become farmers, yet in the interim, between babyhood and +farmer life, they go to school. How absurdly easy the task of the +school--to determine that they shall be intelligent, progressive, +enthusiastic, up-to-date farmers. The girls, too, marry farmers, keep +farmers' homes and raise farmers' sons. How simple is the duty of seeing +that they are prepared to do these things well! + +The task of the city school is complex because of the vast number of +businesses, professions, industrial occupations and trades which +children enter. In comparison the country school has the plainest of +plain sailing. What are the ingredients of successful farmers and +farmers' wives? What proportion of physical education, of mental +training, of technical instruction in agriculture, of suggestions for +practical farm work, of dressmaking, sewing and cooking, enter into the +making of farmers' boys and farmers' girls who will live up to the +traditions of the American farm? To what extent must the school be a +center for social activity and social enthusiasm? How shall the school +make the farm and the small country town better living places for the +men and women of to-morrow? + +The duty of the country school is simple and clear. It must fit country +children for country life. First it must know what are the needs of the +country; then, manned by teachers whose training has prepared them to +appreciate country problems, it will become the power that a country +school ought to be in directing the thoughts and lives of the +community. + + FOOTNOTES: + + [Footnote 22: An extensive reference to this school will be found + in "Country Life and the Country School," Mabel Carney, Row, + Peterson & Company, Chicago, 1912.] + + [Footnote 23: Supra, pp. 180-181.] + + + + +CHAPTER X + +OUT OF THE MOUTHS OF BABES AND SUCKLINGS + + +I Miss Belle + +The sun shone mildly, though it was still late January, while the wind, +which occasionally rustled the dry leaves about the fence corners, had +scarcely a suggestion of winter in its soft touch. Across the white +pike, and away on either side over the rolling blue grass meadows, the +Kentucky landscape unfolded itself, lined with brown and white fences, +and dotted with venerable trees. A buggy, drawn by a carefully-stepping +bay horse, came over the knoll ahead, framing itself naturally into the +beautiful landscape. Surely, that must be Joe and Miss Belle; it was so +like her, since she always seemed at home everywhere, making herself a +natural part of her surroundings. Another moment and there was no longer +any doubt. It was Miss Belle with three youngsters crowded into her lap +and beside her in the narrow buggy seat, while a dangling leg in the +rear suggested an occupant of the axle. + +"Well, well," cried Miss Belle, cordially, as Joe stopped, glad of any +excuse not to go, "where are you bound for? You didn't come all the way +over to ride back with me?" + +"No, indeed, Miss Belle," I laughed back, "no one ever expects to ride +with you so near the school-house. I'll walk along ahead until you begin +to unload." + +"Go along, now you're casting reflections on Joe's speed. Come, Joe, +we'll show him." Joe, who did not leave his accustomed walk at once, +finally yielded to the suggestion of a gentle blow from the whip and +broke into a trot. + +"Lem'me walk with you," cried the rider on the springs, slipping from +her perch and stepping out beside the buggy. So we journeyed for half a +mile. The horse, under constant urging, jogged along, while the spring +rider and I trotted side by side over the well-made pike. Then Miss +Belle drew rein in front of a small, yellow house. + +"Now, out you go," she exclaimed to her young companions. "All out here +but one. Goodbye, dearies. All right, up you get," and in a moment we +were snugly fixed in the buggy for a half hour's ride behind Joe. + +"You see those two little girls who got off there," said Miss Belle, +pointing to the house we had just left, "well, they are two of a family +of six--two younger than those. Their mother died last winter, so +naturally I take an interest in them. Their father does his best with +them, but it is a big task for a man to handle alone." + +The last child was unloaded by this time, and Miss Belle, settling +herself back comfortably, chatted about her work in a one-room country +school in the Blue Grass belt of Kentucky. + + +II Going to Work Through the Children + +"Maybe there are thirty-five families that my school ought to draw +from," she began. "Six years ago when I took this school some of them +surely did need help. Dearie me! The things they didn't know about +comfort and decency would fix up a whole neighborhood for life. They +wore stockings till they dropped off. Some of the girls put on sweaters +in October, wore them till Christmas, washed them, and then wore them +till spring. You never saw such utterly wretched homes. There was hardly +a window shade in the neighborhood, nor a curtain either. It wasn't that +the women didn't care--they simply didn't know. + +"I saw it all," said Miss Belle, nodding her head thoughtfully, "and it +worried me a great deal at first. I just had to get hold of those people +and help them--I had made up my mind to that. Impatience wouldn't do, +though, so I said to myself, 'Now, my dear, don't you be in any hurry. +You can't do anything with the old folks, they're too proud. If you +succeed at all it's got to be through the children.' So I just waited, +keeping my eyes open, and teaching school all of the while, until, the +first thing I knew, the way opened up--you never would guess how--it was +through biscuits.["] + + +III Beginning on Muffins + +"The folks around here never had seen anything except white bread. There +wasn't a piece of cornbread or of graham anywhere. You know what their +white bread is, too--heavy, sour, badly made and only half cooked. The +old folks were satisfied, though, and there didn't seem to be any way to +go at it except through the youngsters. Day after day I saw them take +raw white biscuits and sandwiches made of salt-rising white bread out of +their baskets, wondering how they could eat them. Still I didn't say +anything, but every lunch time I ate corn muffins or graham wafers, with +all of the gusto I could master. One day a little girl up and asked me: + +"'Say, Miss Belle, what may you all be eatin'?' + +"'Corn muffins,' said I. 'Ever taste them?' + +"'Nope.' + +"'Well, wouldn't you like a taste?' + +"'Sure I would.' + +"She took it, and a great big one, too. 'Um,' says she, smacking her +lips, 'Um.' + +"'Like it?' I asked. + +"'Um,' says she again, like a baby with a full stomach. + +"'Oh, Miss Belle,' piped up Annie, 'how do you make 'em?' + +"That was the chance I had been waiting for. + +"'Would you like to know?' I asked, and to a chorus of 'Sure,' ''Deed we +would,' 'Oh, yes,' I put the recipe on the board, and it wasn't two days +before those girls brought in as good corn muffins as I ever tasted. +Little Annie is a good cook--never saw a better--and before the week was +out she says to me: + +"'Miss Belle, ma's mad with you.' + +"'What all's the matter?' I asked. + +"'She says since you taught us to make those corn muffins she'll be +eaten out of house and home. The first night I made 'em pa ate eleven. +He hasn't slackened off a bit since. He must have 'em every day.' + +"That made the going pretty easy," Miss Belle went on. "The muffins were +mighty good, they were new, and, by comparison, the white biscuits +didn't have a show. It wasn't long before I had the whole neighborhood +making corn muffins, graham wafers, black bread, graham bread and +whole-wheat bread. They sure did catch on to the idea quickly. Every +Monday I put a recipe on the board. These women knew how to cook the +fancy things. It was the plain, simple, wholesome things that they +needed to know about, so my recipes were always for them. During the +week each of the children cooks the thing and brings it to me, and the +one who gets the best result puts a recipe on the board Friday. + +"You see, after I once got started it wasn't hard to follow up any line +I liked. By the time I was putting a recipe a week on the board the +mothers got naturally interested and would come to school to ask about +this recipe and that. They wouldn't take any advice, you understand, not +they! They knew all about cooking, so they thought, but they were mighty +proud of the things their daughters did, particularly when they took the +prizes at the county fair. Besides that, it made a whole lot of +difference at home, because the things they made helped out a lot and +tasted mighty good on the table." + +Miss Belle's next move was against the cake--soggy, sticky stuff, full +of butter, that was very generally eaten by all of the families that +could afford it. Expensive and fearfully indigestible it made up, +together with bread, almost the entire contents of most lunch baskets. + +"I couldn't see quite how to go about the cake business," Miss Belle +commented, "because they were particularly proud of it. Finally, though, +I hit on an idea. One of the women in the neighborhood was sick. She was +a good cook and knew good cooking when she saw it, so I got my sister to +make an angel cake, which I took around to her. I do believe it was the +first light cake she had ever tasted--anyway, she was tickled to death. +It wasn't long after that before every one who could afford to do it was +making angel food. Of course it's expensive, but since they were bound +to make cake, that was a lot better than the other." + +Similar tactics gradually replaced the fried meats by roasts and stews. +When Miss Belle came, meat swam in fat while it cooked and came from the +stove loaded with grease. Everybody fried meat, and when by chance they +bought a roast they began by boiling all of the juice out of it before +they put it in the oven. Miss Belle's stews and roasts made better +eating, though. The men-folks liked them hugely and the old frying +process was doomed. + +"No," concluded Miss Belle, laughingly, "you can't do a thing with the +old folks. Why if I was to go into a kitchen belonging to one of those +women and tell her how to sift flour she would run me out quick, but +when Annie comes home and makes such muffins that the man of the family +eats eleven the first time, there is no way to answer back. The muffins +speak for themselves." + + +IV Taking the Boys in Hand + +While the girls were making over the diet of the neighborhood Miss Belle +was working through the boys to improve the strains of corn used by the +farmers, the methods of fertilizing and the quality of the truck +patches. A few years ago when the farmer scorned newfangled ideas it was +the boys that took home methods for numbering and testing each ear of +corn to determine whether or not the kernels on it would sprout when +they were planted. The farmer who turns a deaf ear to argument can offer +no effective reply to a corn-tester in which only one kernel in three +has sprouted. The ears are infertile, from one cause or another, and the +sooner he replaces them by fertile seed the better for his corn crop. + +Out beside a white limestone pike stands the school in which Miss Belle +has done her work. One would hardly stop to look at it, because it +differs in no way from thousands of similar country school-houses. +Modest and unassuming, like Miss Belle, it holds only one feature of +real interest--the faces of the children. Bright, eager, enthusiastic, +they labor earnestly over their lessons in order that they may get at +their "busy work," and linger over their "busy work" during recess and +after school, because it glides so swiftly from their deft fingers. In +this, as in everything else which she does, Miss Belle has a system. The +child whose lessons are not done, and done up to a certain grade, is not +taught new stitches or new designs. Even the youngest responds to the +stimulus, and the little girl in a pink frock, with pink ribbons on her +brown pig-tails, lays aside the mat she is making to write "Annie Belle +Lewis" on the board, and to tell you that she is seven; while John +Murphy, of the mature age of eleven, stops crocheting ear-mufflers for a +moment to tell you what he is doing and why he does it. + + +V "Busy Work" as an Asset + +"You never would guess what a help the 'busy work' is," smiled Miss +Belle. "You see, they never can do it until their lessons are finished, +so they are as good at arithmetic as they are at patching. Then I always +teach the little ones patterns and stitches where they have to count, +'One, two, three, four, five, and drop one,' you know, and in the +shortest time they learn their number work. It seems to go so much more +quickly when they do it in connection with some pieces that they can +see. But you never would guess the best thing the sewing has done--it +has stopped gossiping. It's hard to believe, I know, but it's true. +There used to be a lot of trouble in this neighborhood. People told +tales, there was ill feeling, and folks quarreled a great deal of the +time. It wasn't long before I found out that it was the girls who did +most of the tale-bearing. No wonder, either! They weren't very busy in +school, and they had nothing much to do at home except to listen and +talk. Really, they hadn't any decent interest in life. Of course there +was no use in saying anything, but I felt that if I could get them busy +at something they liked they would stop talking. It wasn't enough to +start them at dressmaking, either, but when I started in on hard, fancy +work designs I had them. They made pretty clothes, embroidered them; +made lace and doilies. Most of the girls can pick up a new Irish-lace +pattern from a fashion-book as easily as I can, and they are rabid for +new patterns. The same girls who did most of the tale-bearing are busy +at work, and I find them swapping patterns and recipes instead of +stories." + +While the girls patch, darn, crochet, hem, knit, weave baskets, make +garments and do the various kinds of "busy work," the boys clean the +school yard, plant walnut trees--Mrs. Faulconer, the County +Superintendent, is having the school children plant nut trees along all +the pikes--and do anything else which is not beneath their dignity. +"They have no work benches," lamented Miss Belle, "I hope they will get +them soon, although there is really no place to put them." Indeed, in a +little building packed with fifty children and the school-room furniture +the space is narrow. + +Yet this little one-room building at Locust Grove has left such a mark +on the community that when the County School Board recently decided to +transfer Miss Belle to a larger school the member from her district +promptly resigned, and refused to be placated until every other member +of the board had apologized to him and promised to leave Miss Belle in +his school. + +"We never saw the old gentleman mad before," said a neighbor. "But he +certainly was mad then. He had watched Miss Belle's work grow, and knew +what it had meant to the children; so when they proposed to take her +away he went right up in the air." + + +VI Marguerite + +What wonder? He had seen the magic workings of a hand that felt the +pulse, judged the symptoms, and prescribed a sure-to-cure remedy for a +countryside full of ignorance, drunkenness, bitter hatreds and +never-ending quarrels. Within a stone's throw of his house he had seen +the transformation in the life of a little girl named Marguerite. Since +her birth she had lived in darkness, but into her desolate home Miss +Belle had sent light. + +"You never saw a worse home," says Miss Belle. "Her mother was woefully +ignorant of everything in the way of home-making. The children were +wretchedly dressed. The house was barrenness itself--no shades, no +curtains, no decorations of any kind. It was pathetic. When she came to +school neither she nor her mother could sew a stitch." + +Marguerite, an apt girl with her fingers, eagerly learned the needlework +lessons of the school. She taught her mother to sew, while she herself +made portieres and curtains, lightening up the old home with a rare new +beauty. + +Here again is Lillie, who is very slow at needlework and arithmetic, but +who has put the family diet on a wholesome basis by learning to cook +some of the most delicious, nourishing dishes. Her bread--the best in +Fayette County--is light as a feather. Hannah comes back after leaving +school to learn how to ply her needle. Until a year ago Christmas she +could not sew a stitch; now her stitches are so neat as to be almost +invisible. Mrs. Hawly, aroused to enthusiasm by her thirteen-year-old +daughter, has come to school, learned plain and fancy sewing, and +started to make her own and her daughter's clothes. Everywhere are the +marks of a teacher's handiwork stamped indelibly on the lives of her +scholars and their families. Small wonder that the old gentleman on the +board was loath to part with Miss Belle! + + +VII Winning Over the Families + +With supreme joy Miss Belle tells of her conquest of the fathers of her +boys and girls--her family, as she calls it. "The children were very +poorly cared for," she says. "The fathers spent the money for whiskey, +and the mothers lacked the means and the knowledge to clothe the +children better. Sometimes they were pitiful in their poor shoes and +thin clothes. Well, sir, we got up a Christmas entertainment, and, +except for one or two, the children wore the same clothes they had been +coming to school in all winter--shabby, patched and dirty as some of +them were. They stood up there, though, one and all, to do their turns +and speak their pieces, and their fathers were ashamed. They saw their +children in old clothes, and the children of some of the neighbors all +fixed up, and they just couldn't stand it. + +"It surely did make a difference the next year." Miss Belle's cheery +face broadened with a satisfied smile. "The men didn't say a word--you +know our men aren't in the habit of saying very much--but they went to +town themselves the day before the entertainment and came back with new +dresses for the girls and new clothes for the boys. Of course some of +them were so small they would scarcely go on, while others were miles +big; but every one had something new and no one felt badly. + +"This Christmas," concluded Miss Belle, "our entertainment packed the +school-house, and some were turned away. Just to show you how crowded it +was--there were twenty-four babies there. I was ready for them, though, +with two pounds of stick candy; so whenever a baby squalled he got a +stick of candy quick." + +Strange, good things have followed the visits of the mothers to the +schools. They would never have come had it not been for the wonderful +things which their children were learning with such untoward enthusiasm. +One girl, who had been particularly successful with her needlework, +brought her mother to school--a hard woman who had a standing quarrel +with seven of her neighbors at that particular time. It took a little +tact, but when the right moment arrived Miss Belle suggested that she +pay a visit to a sick neighbor and offer to help. The woman went at +last, found that it was a very pleasant thing on the whole to be +friendly, and carried the glad tidings into her life, substituting +kindness for her previous rule of incivility. To her surprise her +enemies have all disappeared. + +The mothers, coming to school to talk over the work of their children, +have for the first time seen one another at their best. Sitting over a +friendly cup of tea, chatting about Jane's dress or Willie's lessons, +they have learned the art of social intercourse. Slowly the lesson has +come to them, until to-day there is not a woman in the neighborhood who +is not on speaking terms with every one else, a situation undreamed of +five years ago. + +Nine months in each year Miss Belle McCubbing holds her classes in the +Locust Grove School, which stands on the Military Pike, seven miles +outside of Lexington, Kentucky. "Angels watch over that school," says +Mrs. Faulconer. Doubtless these angels are the good angels of the +community, for in six years the bitterness of neighborhood gossip and +controversy has been replaced by a spirit of neighborly helpfulness. +Boys and girls, doing Miss Belle's "busy work," fathers and mothers +learning from their children, have heaped upon Miss Belle's deserving +head the peerless praise of a community come to itself--regenerated in +thought and act, turned from the wretchedness and desolation of the past +to the light and civilization of the future, saved and blessed by the +lives of a teacher and her children. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +WIDE-AWAKE SLEEPY EYE + + +I Fitting Schools to Needs + +This is the story of a school that was built to fit a town, and it +begins with a hypothetical case. Suppose that there was a town--a +prosperous town of some 2,247 souls, set down in the middle of a +well-to-do farming district. As for business, the town has a few +industries and some stores; the countryside is engaged in general +farming. Suppose that the school board of such a town should come to you +and say: "We are looking for a school superintendent. Are you the one?" +Suppose you said, "Yes." How would you prove your point? + +Out in Minnesota there is a town named Sleepy Eye, set down in a +well-to-do farming district. At the head of the Sleepy Eye schools there +is J. A. Cederstrom. Mr. Cederstrom has proved by a very practical +demonstration that he is "the one." + +When Mr. Cederstrom took charge of the Sleepy Eye schools he found an +excellent school plant, an intelligent community and a school system +that was like the school system of every other up-to-date +two-thousand-inhabitant town in the Middle West. Before Mr. Cederstrom +there lay a choice. He could continue the work exactly as it had always +been carried on, improve the school machinery, and make a creditable +showing at examination time. That path looked like the path of least +resistance. Mr. Cederstrom did not take it, however. Instead he made up +his mind that after measuring the community and the children he would, +to use his own words, "fit the work to their respective needs." + +"The work offered has been somewhat varied," Mr. Cederstrom explains. "I +have not attempted to follow any set course or outline of work made out +by some one else who is not familiar with our conditions and needs." + +Where does there exist a more admirable statement of the principle +underlying the new education? This man, when given charge of a school +plant, deliberately chose to make the school fit the needs of the +community upon which the school was dependent for support. Oblivious of +tradition he set about remodeling the school in the interest of its +constituency. + +Sleepy Eye is located in a farming district. Many of the boys who come +to the Sleepy Eye School will manage farms when they are grown men, and +many of the Sleepy Eye girls will marry farmers and manage them. Here +were farmer men and farmer women in the making. What more natural than +to organize a Department of Agriculture? + +A Department of Agriculture in a school? Yes, truly; and a short winter +course for farm boys and girls who could not come the year round, and a +school experiment station with school farms for the children, and a live +farmers' institute that met in the school and was fed and cared for by +the Department of Domestic Science, and all sorts of courses built up +around the needs of the children and of the community. + + +II Getting the Janitor in Line + +As a result of this method of course-making the school janitor found +himself on the instruction staff of the school. One day a couple of the +short course boys were in the engine-room while the janitor was +repairing a defective pipe in the heating plant. The boys lent a hand in +the work; and one of them, having a practical turn of mind, suggested +that he would like to learn more about pipe-fitting in order to install +a water system on the farm at home. The janitor repeated the remark to +Mr. Cederstrom, who called the boys out and had a talk with them +regarding the possibilities of the plan. + +The outlook for the course was not bright. Every instructor in the +mechanical department was working on full time. Only one way out +remained and that way led to the janitor. + +The janitor was a busy man during the day, but his evenings were +comparatively free. After some parleying he agreed to give a course in +elementary plumbing and steam-fitting on Tuesday and Thursday evenings +at seven-thirty. So the boys came to school in the evening, and under +the direction of the school janitor learned how to install a water +system in their homes. Their work for the year consisted in making a +model water system for a house, a barn and the other farm buildings. The +materials for this course were picked up from the school's scrap-heap. + +Perhaps some people will not understand the spirit of it--getting the +janitor in line to give a course in steam-fitting from the odds and ends +that are found on the scrap-heap. Such a proceeding is unconventional in +the extreme. But, on the other hand, here were boys who wished to know +how they might go back and improve their homes. Who shall say that the +imparting of such knowledge is not the business of a real school? + + +III The Department of Agriculture + +Let us go back for a moment to the organization of the Department of +Agriculture. The school at Sleepy Eye have available what every other +school should have--five acres of tillable ground. This tract at Sleepy +Eye is devoted to tests and experimental work, to flower gardens and to +individual school gardens--one for each child who applies. + +The experimental work and tests are carried on exactly as they would be +at a state experiment station. In the section of Minnesota surrounding +Sleepy Eye, corn is the great staple crop. Therefore on the +demonstration grounds of the Department of Agriculture, Independent +School District No. 24, Sleepy Eye, Minnesota, they are growing a number +of plots of corn, each plot variously planted, fertilized, cultivated, +and cared for, so that the children may learn at first-hand scientific +methods of discovering the best kinds of crop, and the best ways of +handling a crop in their own locality. + +The allotment of the school gardens carried with it instruction in +engineering and in civics at the same time that the bonds between home +and school were cemented. The part of the school land that was to be +devoted to school gardens was turned over to the older boys, who +surveyed it in exactly the same way that the United States government +surveyed the homestead tracts. The plot was laid out in towns and +ranges. The sections were staked and numbered. Then the children who +wished to take up plots went into the newly surveyed territory, picked +their plots, and filed an application with the land commissioner for a +plot, stating the section, town and range. After that a line formed and +the plots (20×20 feet) were allotted. No child was permitted to take up +an allotment unless he had the endorsement of a parent or guardian. The +form on which this endorsement was secured was as follows: + + Name____________________ Grade______________ + _______ Sec____ Town__________ Range________ + + APPLICATION FOR LAND IN PUBLIC SCHOOL GARDEN, DEPT. OF AGR., + SLEEPY EYE HIGH SCHOOL + + "It is assumed that the parent or guardian who endorses this + application will co-operate with the school authorities and have + the applicant care for and weed said land during the growing + season, and devote at least two and a half hours each week this + summer to the agricultural work as may be directed or required + by the Director of the Department of Agriculture, Mr. Haw. + + "I hereby apply for...... Sec...... Town....... Range...... in + the Public School Garden of Sleepy Eye High School, and will + cultivate and care for same as may be directed by the proper + authorities, and will keep a careful record of the returns + therefrom and report same on or before Oct. 20, 1911. I will do + the additional agricultural work that may be directed as + indicated above. + + ................................. Applicant. + + Endorsed by ........................ Parent or Guardian." + + +The form carried on its opposite side statements showing the character +of crop and its value, the amount paid for seeds and an itemized +statement of the returns. The school gardens proved an admirable +success. The children had learned the details of a great historical +event in their own state--the giving out of free land; the boys had +conducted a miniature survey; rivalry had been developed in the +competition over plots; the gardens, laid out side by side, served as a +splendid object lesson in quality of work; no boy or girl could allege a +teacher's unfairness from an untilled, weedy plot; the parents were made +to feel that the school was doing something practical for their +children; the children were taught a simple form of accounting and +cost-keeping; and, best of all, they were made to feel their citizenship +in the school. + +The Department of Agriculture has, in addition to its experimental farm, +a well-equipped laboratory, in which tests and experiments are carried +on. Sleepy Eye is located in a dairy section; therefore one of the chief +functions of this laboratory has been the testing of milk. Any farmer +may bring milk samples and have the Babcock test applied to determine +the percentage of butter fat which an individual cow is yielding. + + +IV A Short Course for Busy People + +In the neighborhood of Sleepy Eye, as in many other places, there are +many boys and girls who cannot attend school throughout the year, but +who would welcome a chance to go to school in the winter months. +Agricultural colleges have recognized this need by the organization of +"short courses" during the winter months. Only a few children can go to +college, however. Lack of preparation and lack of funds compel them to +remain at home. It was for them that the school at Sleepy Eye organized +a short course like that given in the agricultural colleges, extending +from the end of November to the middle of March. Of the pupils attending +this course, some of the boys are as old as thirty-seven, and some of +the girls as young as fifteen; yet all come, eager to find out some of +the things which the school has to teach them. + +The agricultural work of the short course centered around the +agricultural problems of the Brown County Farm. Planting, milk and cream +testing, work in seed testing and germination, and treatment of seeds +for fungus growths, corn judging, and similar topics covered the work +of the term. The short course boys had already learned many lessons in +the practical school of farm work. The school at Sleepy Eye offered them +in addition the knowledge which science has recently accumulated +regarding the work of the farm. + +As the successful farmer must be a trained mechanic, the short course +laid great stress on manual training. The boys were taught how to handle +and care for tools, how to frame a building, how to make eveners, +hayracks, watering troughs, wagon boxes, and similar useful farm +articles. In the blacksmith shop the simpler problems in forging were +covered, including the making of hooks, clevises, cold chisels and other +small tools. + +While the boys were engaged in agricultural and mechanical work the +girls took domestic science. In addition to the elementary work in +cooking and sewing there were advanced courses in dress designing, so +planned as to prepare a girl to work out her own patterns and make up +her own materials. + +Let no one suppose that the short course neglected academic work. +Indeed, it was originally intended to enable boys and girls who felt too +big for the local school, or who had no time to take the entire term +there, to review common school subjects. The courses in industrial work, +in agriculture and in domestic science were offered in addition to these +regular school studies. + +The proof of the pudding is in the eating. The boys and girls who take +the short course for the first year come back in considerable numbers to +take a second and a third year of work during the winter months. The +short course is a success, because it gives the boys and girls who take +it training and knowledge which they would not otherwise acquire. + + +V Letting the Boys Do It + +The school at Sleepy Eye needed a farm building on the school farm. The +short course boys and some of the older boys in the school were anxious +to learn. What more natural procedure than for the school to buy the +lumber and have the boys do the work? Exactly this proceeding was +followed, and the pupils erected the building which they needed to carry +on the applied work of the school. + +The mechanical work of the school is splendidly organized. First of all, +the pupils built a large part of the equipment themselves. Five simple +forges, made by the students of pineboards and concrete, form an +excellent shop equipment, besides giving the boys who did the work an +inkling of the ease with which a forge can be erected in connection with +the tool-house on the farm. The boys built a turning lathe, on which the +wood turning of the school is done. Besides the shop-work there is a +well-organized course in mechanical drawing. The whole department is +prepared to teach boys, particularly farm boys, some of the things which +they will most need in the mechanical work on the farms. + +The mechanical courses are open to the boys in the grades, as well as to +the high school and the short course pupils. The work is graded, and may +be followed through the high school course. + + +VI A Look at the Domestic Science + +While the boys are in the shops the girls are occupied with domestic +science. A well-equipped laboratory and sewing-room furnish the basis +for some thorough work. The Domestic Science Department is one to which +Mr. Cederstrom points with justifiable pride. "Of all my constructive +work since coming here," he says, "I probably take my greatest pride in +our Domestic Science Department, where elementary and advanced work is +offered in cooking and in household economy." + +Because the space in the school was small, and the demand for +instruction large, Mr. Cederstrom planned the domestic science tables +himself, and superintended their building. Again the effectiveness of +the school's work is shown by its results. With the modest equipment +which the funds and space available provided, the girls in the Domestic +Science Department each year serve a dinner to the farmers and farmers' +wives attending the annual farmers' institute held in the school in +February. On one occasion the department baked almost half a cord of +bread, roasted one hundred and forty pounds of beef, and fed five +hundred and seventeen persons at one dinner. + +The sewing work includes a complete course in dressmaking. Students are +required to make patterns from pictures selected in fashion magazines. +These patterns are then used in cutting out the garments, which the +girls themselves make up. + +Each girl in the High School is required to take at least one year each +of cooking and of sewing. These courses occupy five periods a week. An +additional year in each course is optional. Most of the girls eagerly +elect it. Mr. Cederstrom takes a very practical view of such educational +matters. "Our girls like the domestic science work," he says. "They take +as much pride in bringing to my office a good loaf of bread, or a +well-prepared dish of vegetables or meat as they do in being able to +give a perfect demonstration of a theorem in geometry, or a perfect +conjugation or declension of a Latin word. Possibly ten years from now +they may have more demand upon their ability to prepare a square meal +for a hungry life companion, or to cut out a dress or apron for a +younger member of the family than they will have need of doing some of +the other things which I have just mentioned." + +They do not teach domestic science for its own sake out in Sleepy Eye; +they see farther ahead than that. Mr. Cederstrom is making his work +practical, because, as he says, "We are anxious to do what little we can +toward making our girls more efficient and capable as housekeepers, +wives, and possibly as mothers." + + +VII How It Works Out + +There are two questions that naturally arise: First, what is the effect +of this work on the children? Second, what is its effect on the farmers? +Both questions must be answered briefly, though the answers to both +might be followed out through pages of illustrative detail. + +The children like the school at Sleepy Eye. The boys and girls come +early and stay late. The school doors open at eight o'clock and are not +closed until dark. There are always pupils there from the beginning to +the end of that period. The children are not interested in the applied +work alone. Their interest in that has led them very often to an +interest in some of the academic studies toward which they had no +particular inclination. + +The homes in Sleepy Eye are also interested in the school. As one woman +remarked: "My girls like to do work about the house now; they never did +before." School work which gives girls a new desire and a new viewpoint +on the work in the home is a step, and a long one, toward building +sounder homes and stronger family ties. There are some Sleepy Eye homes +in which the interest of the boys in the school shops has led their +parents to buy benches and tools which the children may use at home. + +The school at Sleepy Eye has interested the farmers. It has persuaded +them that high grade seed is better than mongrel seed. Consequently the +farmers are shelling more bushels of corn to the acre planted. The +school has persuaded the farmers that well-bred cattle are more +profitable than mongrel cattle. Consequently the farmers are raising the +standard of their herds. When the farmers come into Sleepy Eye they go +to the school. Perhaps they have milk to be tested; perhaps they are +looking for suggestions regarding soil or blight; perhaps they want to +know the latest facts about the scale or rust; perhaps they want some +advice about farm implements. In any case they go to the school. + +The farmers have been led to the school through the children. The boys +have gone home to their fathers with suggestions and improvements of +inestimable value in the management of the farm. The girls have gone +home to their mothers with practical ideas on the running of the +household. These demonstrations of school efficiency have done more than +argument or persuasion ever could hope to do in convincing the fathers +and mothers of the usefulness of the school. + + +VIII Theoretical and Practical + +The work in mechanics seems to interfere in no essential particular with +the regular academic work of the school. The boys and girls are +interested and enthusiastic. That counts for a great deal. Then, too, +boys and girls come to school for the mechanical work who would not come +at all if the mechanical work were not there. The academic work which +such boys take is clear gain. Through the mechanical work many pupils +become interested in the school, and the school means, for all pupils, +academic as well as applied work. + +"We do not discount those parts of an education that were once the sum +total of the work in every high school," Mr. Cederstrom says. "They are +all offered and taken by the students. We are trying to give in addition +to these academic branches the kind of education which will appeal to +the children as being of a common-sense order." There is in the high +school a Latin Course, a Scientific Course, beside the Agricultural +Course and the Industrial Course. All of the students are required to +take this academic work. Many, in addition, take the industrial and +agricultural work, even when they do not receive credit in their +academic course. Each high school student is allowed two periods a day +in laboratory work, shop-work, or some other form of applied education. +In addition to those periods, the students may work in the shops or +laboratory after school, if they please. Many of them get their applied +education in that way. + +How great is the fire that a little spark kindles! It was more than a +thousand miles away that I first heard of the school at Sleepy Eye. It +happened in this way. The clock had scarcely announced that it was high +noon when a group of men drew their chairs up to a dinner table +generously loaded with country hotel fare. There were two school +directors in this happen-so party, a carter, a salesman, a lawyer, a +farmer and two teachers, who talked with a professional twang. The +salesman listened impatiently to the educational clap-trap, watching for +an opening between phrases. When at last the loophole appeared: + +"Gentlemen," said he, "you're interested in schools? Then you ought to +see some real schools. Did you ever go to a school to listen to a +phonograph?" Then, turning to the farmers: "Did you ever go to school to +get your horses shod? You go to school for both in Sleepy Eye, +Minnesota. They're the greatest schools I have ever seen. They run from +seven in the morning till eight at night, and accommodate every kid that +wants an education. Gentlemen, if you want to see real schools go to +Sleepy Eye." + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE SOUTH FOR THE NEW EDUCATION + + +I A Dream of Empire + +A keen Atlanta business man leaned forward on his chair and spoke +eagerly. "Yes, sir," he exclaimed, "the world is ours. We have the +biggest, finest batch of undeveloped resources in the country--perhaps +on the planet. Iron, coal, stone, timber, power--our hills are full of +them, so full that we have never even inventoried our treasure-house. +Our possibilities are beyond the power of words, and we've got to live +up to them." + +This man knew Georgia and the South. He had helped, and still is helping +to convert the iron, coal, timber, and water-power into Southern +prosperity. He was still unsatisfied. + +"The trouble with us is, we can't go fast enough," he admitted. "Do you +know why? Do you know the biggest burden we have to carry--the most +determined enemy we have to fight? Well, sir, it's ignorance--the +ignorance of the common man about his farm or his trade; the ignorance +of the business man about outside things; the ignorance of the teachers +who are supposed to enlighten us." He leaned forward again. "That sounds +strong, doesn't it? But it's gospel." + +I reminded him of the rapidity with which the South was forging ahead in +its educational activities. He threw his head back proudly. "Of course," +he cried, "the experiment stations, the colleges, the high schools, the +club movement, and all that--of course we're going ahead. I'm not +speaking of that. My point is that we must wake up to two things. First +of all, we must never make the mistakes that you did in the North when +you built up your educational system. That means no pedantry, or +classical snobbery. We mustn't go that way. Our way is plain though. I +see it more clearly every time I think the matter over--we must train +the intelligence of the Southern people." + +He continued, in his enthusiastic mood. "Yes, there is a great future +for the South. Its resources make a future possible; but unless those +resources are intelligently used, our prosperity will not go very deep, +or reach very far. We must take the people with us." + +This man's view typifies the educational vision that is sweeping over +the South. "We must take the people with us," he said. There is nothing +novel in the idea; but coming as it did from a representative business +man, it carried weight and conviction. + +Another thing he said in the same connection enforced his argument. +"They talk about the race problem in the South," he said. "That is, the +old generation does. We younger men are not so much concerned about the +race problem as we are concerned about efficiency in industry and in +agriculture. The races are here to stay; we cannot change that if we +would. Meanwhile, all of us, whites as well as blacks, are slovenly in +our farming, indifferent in our business transactions, and hopelessly +behind in our methods of conducting affairs. From top to bottom we need +trained intelligence. That, more than anything else, will solve the +South's problems." + + +II Finding the Way + +The step is a short one from a vision of trained intelligence to a +demand for effective education. Throughout the South, the will to +progress is everywhere in evidence, and with unerring accuracy, one +community after another is turning to this as the way. + +There is no Southern city in which the agitation for increased +educational activity is not being pushed with vigor and intensity. On +all hands there appears the result of a conviction that the only means +by which the effectiveness of the South can be maintained and increased, +lie along the path of increased educational opportunities. The South, if +it is to fulfill the greatness of its promise, must remodel its +educational system in the interests of a larger South, as the West has +remodeled its educational system in the interest of a larger West. The +notable State universities of the Middle and Far West, the Normal +Schools, the prevalent system of education, have been felt, and are now +being felt, in the progressive, efficient, Western population. Nothing +less than a generally educated public could have made the West in the +brief years that have elapsed since it was a wilderness. Nothing save +general education can make the resources of the South yield up their +greatest advantage to the Southern people. + +The time for traditional formalism has passed in the South, as it has +passed in every other progressive community. Whatever the needs of the +community may be, those needs must be met through some form of public +education. In the South the most pressing need appears in the demand for +intelligent farming. For decades the tenant farmers, largely negroes, +cultivated their farms as their fathers had cultivated. They raised +cotton because the raising of cotton offered the path of least +resistance. Farm animals were scarce, because the farm animals only came +with surplus cash, and surplus cash was scarce indeed in districts where +the tenant farmers lived through the year on the credit obtained from +the prospective cotton crops. There was little corn raised, because the +people did not understand the need for raising corn, nor did they +realize the financial possibilities of the Southern corn crop. In a +word, the agricultural South lacked the knowledge which modern +scientific agriculture has brought. + +The past generation has seen a revolution in Southern agriculture, +because of the revolution which has occurred in Southern agricultural +education. Led by the experiment stations and universities, the South +has undertaken to reorganize its system of living from the land. + +The Atlanta banker fully realized the need for culture. He was himself a +cultured gentleman; but he also saw that before the people of the South +could have culture, they must have an economic system directed with +sufficient intelligence to supply the necessaries of life, which must +always be taken for granted before the possibilities of culture are +realized. Cultural education comes after, and not before, education for +intelligent and direct vocational activity. + +During the educational revolution of the past twenty-five years, no +section of the country has thrown itself into the foreground of +educational progress with more vigor and with greater earnestness and +zeal than that displayed in the South. In certain directions the South +has proved a leader in the inauguration and administration of new +activities. In other directions the Southern States have followed +actively and energetically. + +A traveler through the New South stumbles unavoidably upon countless +illustrations of the part which modern education is playing in Southern +life. Individuals, families, communities, are being re-made by the new +education. + + +III Jem's Father + +Jem wasn't a good boy, but he was interested in his school. He was one +of those fortunate boys who lived in a county that had been possessed by +the corn club idea, and the corn club was the thing which had given Jem +his school interest. + +Jem never took to studies. Each year he had told his mother that "there +weren't no use in goin' back to that there school again." Persistently +she had sent him back, until one year when Jem found a reason for going. + +A new teacher came to Jem's school--a young man fresh from normal +school, full of enthusiasm, energy, and new ideas. The boys felt from +the start that he was their friend, and before many weeks had elapsed, +the community began to feel his presence. This new teacher was +particularly enthusiastic over the "club idea." "We must get the boys +and girls doing something together" he kept saying to his classes. + +The year wore on, but interest in the school did not flag, because all +through the winter months there were entertainments, parents' meetings, +literary meetings, spelling bees, reading hours, and other evening +activities. In fact, the time came when there was a light in the +school-house three or four nights in each week. + +Toward spring the new teacher began to push the "club idea." He started +with the boys, and, as luck would have it, picked out Jem. "Jem," he +said one day, "I want you to stay after school, I want to speak to you a +minute." Jem stayed, not knowing exactly what was coming. When the rest +of the pupils had tumbled out of the school door, and disappeared along +the muddy road, the teacher and Jem sat down together. + +"Jem," said the teacher, "we ought to have a corn club in this school." + +Jem looked up doggedly, but gave no sign of interest or enthusiasm. + +"You see," the teacher said, "it's this way. Farming isn't all that it +might be around here. People raise things the way they have always been +raised. Our county superintendent has an idea. He proposes to teach the +farmers in this county how to raise corn." + +Jem looked skeptical. "Are you to do the teaching?" he asked. + +"No," was the answer, "you are." + +"I?" said Jem. + +"Yes," said the teacher, "you and the other boys in the school." + +Jem scratched his head. "I ain't never taught no one nothing in my +life," he commented. + +"It's this way," the teacher went on. "Up at Washington and out at the +State College they have been doing a lot of thinking and working with +corn. They found, for instance, that if you pick seed corn carefully, +you get a better crop than if you are careless in seed selection. They +have also found that if you follow certain rules about planting and +cultivation you get a better crop. For years the men at the Experiment +Station and at Washington talked about these things in Farmers' +Bulletins. They established experiment farms, and demonstration farms, +too. Lately they have been doing something more, and something which I +think is better than anything so far--they have decided to have the boys +teach their fathers how to raise corn." + +"Do you mean to say," asked Jem, "that I could teach Dad anything about +corn-raisin'?" + +"Yes," said the teacher, "you can, and, what is more, you will, won't +you?" + +"Well," said Jem, "I dunno." + +"Here is what we have to do," said the teacher. "This year the county +superintendent is going to offer prizes for the boy with the best acre +of corn. He sends out rules. You have to plough a certain way, plant a +certain way, and cultivate a certain way. If you do not follow the rules +you are not allowed to stay in the contest. Now I'll tell you what I +want to do. The boys in this school are as smart, if not smarter, than +the boys in any other school in the country; so I guess it is up to us +to get some of those prizes right here at home." + +Jem was visibly interested. "Money prizes?" he asked. + +"Yes, money prizes," said the teacher. "The first prize will be fifty +dollars." + +Jem's eyes opened wide. "I'm in for that," he said with conviction. + +That night, when Jem sat down to supper, he broached the corn +proposition to his father. + +"Shucks," his father exclaimed. "You raise an acre of corn? Why you +wouldn't get twenty-five bushels!" + +"Twenty-five," said Jem, contemptuously. "I'd get a hundred." + +"A hundred," said his father. "Here, look here, boy, I have been +farming this land for thirty odd years, and the best I ever done on an +acre of corn was seventy bushels. I'll tell you what, though," he added +conclusively, "this here talk about corn clubs makes me tired. You and +your hundred bushels! I was looking over the paper when it came in this +noon, and I saw a piece about a chap over by Southport with over a +hundred bushels to the acre. Do you know what I'm goin' to do tonight? +I'm goin' to write that editor a letter, and tell him that any paper +that publishes lies like that ain't fit for my family to see. This +year's subscription ain't run out, but they don't need to send me the +rest. I'll get a paper somewhere else." + +Despite home opposition, Jem persisted and prevailed. His father gave +him an acre grudgingly, but it was a good acre. And when, following the +rules which he and the other boys who had agreed to enter the contest +read over with the teacher, he disked his land and ploughed his narrow, +deep furrows, he listened, not without misgivings, to the remarks which +his elder brother passed at his expense. + +"Say, Jem," this brother remarked, "you have spent three times as much +time on that acre as any acre of corn raised in this county was ever +worth. Are you diggin' graves for 'possums?" + +When, later in the season, Jem cultivated with persistent regularity, he +was forced to listen to similar comments. Jem wasn't good at repartee; +so he said nothing; but, sustained by the encouragement of the new +teacher, who came to see his acre every week, Jem followed the rules to +the letter. + +He had his reward at harvest time. When the ears first set it became +apparent that Jem had a good crop. As they developed, the goodness of +the crop became more manifest; but when the acre had been harvested, +put through the sheller and bagged, and Jem had stowed in his pocket a +certificate of "ninety-six bushels on one acre," it was time for some +explanations. + +"Jem," said his father at the supper table on the evening of that +memorable day when Jem's corn went through the sheller, and his +certificate showed ninety-six bushels, "I wrote a letter to that editor, +and sent him next year's subscription in advance." + + +IV Club Life Militant + +The experience of Jem's father has been duplicated many times by parents +and communities during the past ten years of club growth in the South. +The school, working through the children, has educated fathers, mothers, +villages, and whole counties. + +All of the agencies of government,--local, State, and national,--have +cooperated to make the children's clubs one of the leading agencies in +developing that trained intelligence which is so great an asset in the +prosperity of any community. Thanks to the tireless efforts of men like +William H. Smith, the children's clubs have become one of the most +aggressive factors in educating rural communities to higher standards of +efficiency. There are many kinds of clubs--corn clubs, potato clubs, +tomato clubs, pig clubs. Anything which the children can raise is a +legitimate object of club activity. The work in the South started with +corn clubs. + +The corn-club idea in Mississippi grew out of an educational experience +of Professor William H. Smith.[24] For years Professor Smith had taught, +in a mildly progressive way, the time-honored subjects which were +included in the study-course of the rural school. Two of Professor +Smith's students, a boy of twenty and a girl of seventeen, left school; +and they left, as the boy told Professor Smith very frankly, because the +school taught them very little that would be of use later on in the work +which they would be called upon to do. This boy expected to grow cotton; +the girl expected to marry the boy, manage his domestic affairs and +attend to the many duties which fall to the lot of women on a farm. + +When he left school, the boy put it to Professor Smith in this way: "I +am goin' to be a farmer. I ain't fitted to be nothing else, and book +learnin' ain't helpin' me none. It's just a waste of time. I've got to +clear land and work it into a farm. If I was goin' to be a bookkeeper or +an engineer, or somethin', what you are teachin' me here might help; but +I can't remember that I have ever learned a thing since I got the hang +how to figure the interest on a mortgage, that will be of any account to +me on a farm. Almost all the boys has got to be a farmer like me. You +know, professor, it appears to me like these schools for the people +ought to be teachin' the children of the people how to make a livin' on +the farm--how to make life better and easier, instead of just makin' us +plum disgusted with ourselves." + +This experience, standing out among a multitude of similar experiences, +led Professor Smith to an interest in some form of educational work that +would help boys and girls in their lives on the farm. The outcome of his +thinking and experimenting, combined with the thinking and experimenting +of many another capable educational leader, is the club idea for boys +and girls alike. + +There was a real need for the corn club. For the year 1899 the total +corn area in Alabama was 2,743,060 acres. On these acres the farmers +secured an average of 12.7 bushels per acre. Ten years later, in 1909, +the total acreage had decreased to 2,572,092, and the per acre yield had +decreased to 11.9 bushels per acre. Here was a decrease of 170,968 acres +in corn; of 4,367,310 bushels in the corn crop; and of .8 of a bushel in +the average yield per acre. The boys' corn club movement was started in +Alabama in 1909. That year two hundred and sixty-five boys were +enrolled. The average per acre yield of corn in the State was 11.9 +bushels. The next year the enrollment of boys reached twenty-one +hundred; the total yield increased more than sixty per cent.; and the +average number of bushels per acre rose to eighteen. The figures for +1911 and 1912 show an increase, though less extensive, in the total +acreage and the total yield of corn for each year. + +Southern land will grow corn. Properly treated, it will better a yield +of twelve bushels per acre, five, ten, and even fifteen-fold. The +leaders of Southern agricultural education knew this. They knew, +furthermore, that the betterment could never be brought about until the +farmers were convinced that it was possible. How could they be shown? +The Farmers' Bulletin had a place; the experiment farm had a place; but +if it were only possible to make every farm an experiment farm! + +The way lay through the boys. They could be induced to organize +miniature experiments in scores of farms in every county, and then the +farmers would see! + +Backed by a carefully worked out organization, the authorities set out +with the deliberate purpose of educating the farmer through his son. If +his corn yield was low, he would learn how to get a larger yield. If he +raised no corn, he would learn of the spot-cash value of corn. Boys +were organized into clubs; directions were given; prizes were offered, +and the boys went to work with a will. For the most part they took one +acre. + +When compared to the yield on surrounding acres, the corn crops secured +by the boys are little short of phenomenal. In Pike County, Alabama, +where the number of boys engaging in corn club contests increased from +one in 1910 to two hundred and seventy in 1912, the average number of +bushels per acre grown by the boys rose from 50.5 to 85.3. In the entire +State there were one hundred and thirty-seven boys who made over a +hundred bushels per acre each in 1911. The average per acre for each of +these boys was one hundred and twenty-seven bushels, and the total +profit on their corn crop was $12,500. + +Records made by individual boys through the Southern States run very +high. Claude McDonald, of Hamer, S. C., raised 210-4/7 bushels at a cost +of 33.3¢ a bushel. Junius Hill, of Attalla, Ala., raised 212-1/2 +bushels. Ben Leath, of Kensington, Ga., raised 214-5/7 bushels. John +Bowen, of Grenada, Miss., raised 221-1/5 bushels. Eber A. Kimbrough, +Alexander City, Ala., raised 224-3/4 bushels; and Bebbie Beeson, +Monticello, Miss., raised 227-1/16 bushels.[25] These boys were all +State prize winners. + +There are several things worthy of note about these record yields. +Practically all of the high yields were made on deeply ploughed, widely +separated rows. The record made by Bennie Beeson (227-1/16 bushels, at a +cost of fourteen cents per bushel) was secured on dark, upland soil, +with a clay sub-soil, ploughing to a depth of ten inches, rows three +feet apart, hills six inches apart, with ten cultivations. Beeson used +5-1/2 tons of manure and eight dollars' worth of other fertilizer on his +acre. The seed corn was New Era. Barnie Thomas, who grew 225 bushels on +rich, sandy loam, ploughed nine inches, planted his rows three and +one-half feet apart, and kept the hills ten inches apart. He cultivated +six times, and selected his own seed from the field. Many of the boys +making the fine records developed and selected their own seed. One boy, +with an acre yield of 124.9 bushels, cleared six hundred and ninety-five +dollars, counting prizes. Another boy, with a yield of 97-4/5 bushels, +reports that his father's yield was thirty bushels. John Bowen, with a +yield of 221-1/5 bushels, reports the yield on nearby acres as forty +bushels. Arthur Hill, with 180-3/5 bushels, reports the nearby yields as +twenty bushels. + +Such figures, uncertified, would challenge the credulity of the +uninitiated. The land on which these record yields were secured had been +raising twenty, forty, and fifty bushels of corn to the acre. Over great +sections, the per acre average was well under twenty. Into this +desolation of agricultural inefficiency, a few thousand school boys +entered. Under careful supervision and proper guidance, with little +additional expenditure of money or of time, they produced results wholly +unbelievable to the old-time farmer. Yet he saw the crop, husked, and +watched it through the sheller. There was no magic and no chicanery. He +had learned a lesson. + +The records cited above are exceptionally high. There were hundreds of +others almost equally good. "Twenty-one Georgia club members from the +seventh congressional district alone grew 2,641 bushels at an average +cost of 23 cents per bushel; 19 boys in Gordon County, Georgia, average +90 bushels, 10 of them making 1,058 bushels. The 10 boys who stood +highest in Georgia averaged 169.9 bushels and made a net profit of more +than $100 each, besides prizes won. In Alabama 100 boys average 97 +bushels at an average cost of 27 cents. In Monroe County, Alabama, 25 +boys averaged 78 bushels. In Yazoo County, Mississippi, 21 boys averaged +111.6 bushels at an average cost of 19.7 cents. In Lee County, +Mississippi, 17 boys averaged 82 bushels at an average cost of 21 cents. +Sixty-five boys in Mississippi averaged 109.9 bushels at an average cost +of 25 cents. Twenty Mississippi boys averaged 140.6 bushels at an +average cost of 23 cents. Ninety-two boys in Louisiana grew 5,791 +bushels on 92 acres; 10 of these boys had above 100 bushels each, +although the weather conditions were very unfavorable in that State. In +North Carolina 100 boys averaged 99 bushels. In the same State 432 boys +averaged 63 bushels. In Buncombe County, North Carolina, 10 boys +averaged 88 bushels. In Sussex County, Virginia, 16 boys averaged 82 +bushels. Fifteen boys in the vicinity of Memphis, Tenn., where the +business men contributed about $3,000 to aid the work, averaged 127.4 +bushels at an average cost of 28 cents per bushel. Many other records in +other States were equally good in view of the fact that a drought +prevailed very generally throughout the South in 1911.["][26] + +Such returns challenge the attention of the most hidebound. These boys +got results that exceeded anything that had ever been heard of in their +communities. The old folks who had scoffed; the wise-acres whose advice +was not taken; and the "I told you so" farmers who had uttered their +predictions, all stood aside, while the boys, pointer in hand, taught +their respective communities one of the best lessons they had ever +learned. + + +V Canning Clubs + +Parallel with the boys' corn clubs are the girls' canning clubs. If the +boys could grow corn (in a number of cases the corn contests were won by +girls), why might it not be possible to have the girls do something +along parallel lines? The idea found expression in the girls' tomato +clubs and similar organizations. During 1910, three hundred and +twenty-five girls were enrolled in such clubs in Virginia and South +Carolina. Dr. Knapp and his fellow workers decided that one-tenth of an +acre would be enough for a good garden. Each girl was urged to plant +some other kind of vegetable in addition to her tomatoes, and to can +surplus fruit. In 1911, more than three thousand girls, in eight +different States, had joined clubs and planted their gardens. By 1912 +the number had grown to twenty-three thousand girls in twelve States. +Many of the girls put up more than five hundred quart cans of tomatoes +from their plots, besides ketchup, pickles, chow-chow, preserves, and +other products. Quite a number of girls put up more than a thousand +quart cans, and one girl put up fifteen hundred quart cans. Some of the +girls, in addition to the prizes, had a net profit of as much as a +hundred dollars on their gardens. + +The United States Bureau of Plant Industry sets forth the object of the +girls' demonstration work as follows: + + "(1) To encourage rural families to provide purer and better + food at a lower cost, and utilize the surplus and otherwise + waste products of the orchard and garden, and make the poultry + yard an effective part of the farm economy. + + (2) To stimulate interest and wholesome cooperation among + members of the family in the home. + + (3) To provide some means by which girls may earn money at home, + and, at the same time, get the education and viewpoint necessary + for the ideal farm life. + + (4) To open the way for practical demonstrations in home + economics. + + (5) To furnish earnest teachers a plan for aiding their pupils + and helping their communities."[27] + + +VI Recognition Day for Boys and Girls + +The most astonishing thing about the club activity is the recognition +which it has won wherever it has been worked out on an extensive basis. +The reason for this general recognition is quite obvious, and its effect +is no less stimulating. + +Public officials and business men have vied with one another in their +efforts to reward the winners of county and State club contests. The +same bulletin which records the astonishing figures on corn yields, +tells about the things that were done for the 56,840 boys who were +members of corn clubs. Fifty-two Georgia boys received diplomas signed +by the governor of the State and other officials, for producing more +than a hundred bushels per acre each, at an average cost of less than +thirty cents per bushel. Business men and citizens generally subscribed +liberally money, free railroad transportation, and trips to State +capitals. In 1911 the total value of the prizes offered in the South to +the boys' corn clubs approximated fifty thousand dollars. In Oklahoma, +one thousand dollars in gold was offered to the one hundred and twenty +boys making the best record in that State. The State prize winners were +sent to Washington for a week, where they were received at the White +House by the President, and at the Capitol by the Speaker of the House +of Representatives. They were presented with special cards of admission +to the Senate and House of Representatives, and, when visiting Congress, +they were presented to their Senators and Congressmen. By special +invitation these distinguished visitors appeared before the Committee on +Agriculture at the House of Representatives. They also visited the +office of the Secretary of Agriculture. They were photographed, and +large diplomas bearing the seal of the Department and the signature of +the Secretary were awarded to them. + +One does not wonder at the widespread recognition accorded these boys, +in view of the fact that their efforts have been responsible for an +immense increase in the business prosperity of their respective States. +Once more have educators demonstrated the possibilities of teaching +parents through the education of children. + + +VII Teaching Grown-Ups to Read + +The educational work which is being done in the uplands of the South has +already received widespread recognition. The slogan, "Down with the +moonshine still and up with the moonlight school," typifies the spirit +of the upland community. + +One might journey far before discovering a more enthusiastic people than +the teachers and the scholars of the Southern uplands. The appalling +extent of illiteracy among the descendants of Marion's men finds a +parallel in their pathetic desire for some form of education. + +The Southern hill whites love the old and fear the new. Traditionally, +they belong to a past generation; actually, they are reaching out for +the better things which the new generation can offer. The moonlight +schools are attended by old people and young alike. The struggling +colleges, the industrial and technical schools, with their record of +privation and hardship, bear eloquent testimony to the genuine efforts +which the upland population is making in these early years of its +educational awakening. + +Every sincere effort among the hill whites meets with instant response. +For the most part, they deprive themselves of the necessaries of life in +order that they may send their children to school. Boys skimp and save; +girls walk for miles along mountain trails and paths; communities give +of the scanty means of their effort for the building and maintenance of +schools. Everywhere the spirit of the new education is permeating the +Southern upland communities. + + +VIII George Washington, Junior + +One teacher, whose years of effort in the Piedmont have brought her the +confidence and co-operation of the community, tells of the success of +one of her earliest ventures with a boy of thirteen. + +The boy's father was bad; his mother slovenly and indifferent. The boy +himself was bright and active. + +When the time came for him to enter the cotton mill, the teacher +protested to his family, but without success. Still there was something +that she could do for him, still she saw an opportunity of serving him, +and she asked him to come to her home with a number of other boys, for a +couple of nights a week, when they sat together, reading, or playing +games. + +The boy had appeared sullen at first, but toward the end of his school +term he showed an active interest. It became apparent that he was +particularly clever at languages. None of his lessons troubled him, and, +with the assistance of the teacher, he learned Italian readily, and +during the evenings, when the other boys played games or talked, he +worked over his Italian sentences with vital interest. + +Just before Christmas, during the first year that this boy had spent in +the mill, a friend visited his teacher, became interested in her work, +and asked if there was any way in which she could help. + +"You may," said the teacher. "You may buy Andy an outfit." + +The friend went to the city with the order in her pocket,--a hat, a +suit, and a complete outfit, new, as a Christmas present for Andy. + +On Christmas eve, Andy alone came to the teacher's house. She had not +asked the other boys,--partly because most of them preferred to stay at +home, partly because she had no such fine present for them as she had +for Andy. + +"Never in my life," the teacher said, "had I seen Andy clean. I made up +my mind that for once he should have a clean body as well as clean +clothes." + +When Andy came that Christmas eve, the teacher took him into a room +where there were towels, soap, a basin, and a new outfit of clothes. + +"Andy," she said, "this is your Christmas present from my friend, and +now you are going to give me a Christmas present, too. You are going to +wash up and dress up." + +Andy followed directions, and when he emerged from the room in his spick +and span outfit, his hat set side-wise on his wet, newly combed hair, he +stood up very straight, surveying himself as best he could from head to +foot, and exclaimed,--"Gee! I feel just like George Washington." The +bath and the new suit were a realization of his highest ideal. + +"Andy and I were always friends after that," said the teacher, "and +since Andy was the moving spirit among the boys in the village, the boys +and I got along well together. It was my introduction to the heart of +the community, and it came with Andy's realization of an ideal which he +had long cherished." + + +IX A Step Toward Good Health + +Having won Andy over, the teacher prepared to work her way past some of +the barriers of prejudice which the community had placed between itself +and civilization. The girls offered the readiest opening. + +"The homes were wretched," the teacher said. "The people did not know +the simplest health rules. They were strangers to sanitation or +cleanliness. Their housekeeping was primitive and their cooking +miserable. I had won the boys by getting them together in something that +resembled a club. I decided that my best path to the girls, and from +them to the community, lay through housekeeping." + +The hypothesis was, at least, worthy of a try-out. The teacher began by +keeping her own house in the most approved manner, and asking the girls +to come in and help her do it. + +"You'll like to take supper with me this evening," she would say to a +group of girls at recess time. "Speak to your mothers when you go home, +and you, Sadie and Annie, will stay over night and sleep in the spare +bed." + +They were slow to respond at first. Long habit made them suspicious, but +when the first few girls had spent their night with the teacher and had +come home with the tales of her wonderful household arrangements, the +others were looking eagerly for a chance to duplicate their experiences. + +"Am I next?" a little girl asked anxiously one day, after the +invitations to a party had been given out. The assurance that she was, +made her face shine for the remainder of the afternoon. + +"The school girls all came willingly," the teacher said. "It was after I +had them so interested that one of the factory hands came in. It was +Saturday night, and she rapped on the door before coming in with a +hesitating touch, as if she was afraid. She sat down across from me, +smoothing her dress and looking unhappy." + +"You'll not understand," said the factory girl, apologetically. "But +Mame is in your school--she's my sister. You had her up last week to +spend the night. You'll remember?" + +The teacher nodded. + +"She came home, and ever since she's been telling us about the way you +did things. And I've been thinking,----" + +She stopped and looked at the teacher, half suspiciously, half +appealingly. + +"I've been thinking how nice it would be for me, if I could do them +things the same as you. You see," she spoke rapidly, "I'm gettin' +married soon now, and when Mame came a-telling that way, and our house +like it always is, and the baby crying, and nothing done exceptin' ma +a-scoldin', and I says to myself, I says, if I could do things like that +teacher can do 'em mebbe I wouldn't make mistakes like ma makes 'em." +She paused for breath, looking expectant. + +"You would like to come here to see how I do things?" the teacher asked. + +The girl nodded eagerly. + +"Come Monday after hours, and spend the night with me." + +"After that," the teacher said, "it was a great deal easier. The next +thing I wanted to do was to get the children examined for glasses and +throat trouble. There were two second-rate country doctors there who +knew little or nothing about modern medicine. The nearest man that I +could trust was forty miles away. He was a specialist, too, and high +priced. Still, I sat down and wrote him a letter, telling him how we +were fixed. He answered by return mail, making a special rate and +setting a day. I hoped to take twelve of the children, but I had car +fare for only seven. Then came our windfall. I told the railroad what I +was trying to do, and they made a special excursion rate and took the +children at less than half fare. We were all able to go, and the extra +money went for a treat to soda and the movies." + +The children went back home, singing the praises of the trip, the +teacher, and the doctor. They went back, too, with expert advice and +assistance, and with the good news that others would soon have a turn. + +Group by group, the needy children were brought down to the specialist +in the city. Some were even operated on, although at the outset the +parents would not hear of operations. In the end the children won, +however. Their enthusiasm for the teacher and their doctor carried the +day. + +"It has been slow," the teacher said, "but at the end of it all, they +see better, hear better, eat more wholesome, nourishing food, live +better, and understand themselves better. On the whole it has paid." + + +X Theory and Practice[28] + +The rural schools of the South have no monopoly on progressive +educational views. A number of Southern cities have taken up their +position in the vanguard of educational progress. Notable among these +cities is Columbus, Georgia,--a city of 20,554 people, in which +Superintendent Roland B. Daniel has undertaken a vigorous policy of +shaping the schools in the interests of the community. There were in +1913, 5,356 children of school age in Columbus. Of this number, 4,089 +were in the schools. The school population is rather unevenly divided, +racially,--3,348 of the children of school age are white, and 1,198 are +colored. About one-quarter of the white population depends for its +livelihood upon the mills. Columbus is surrounded by an agricultural +district from which come many children in search of high school +training. The city of Columbus presents an industrial problem of an +unusually complex character, and the manner in which this problem has +been handled by the schools is worthy of the highest commendation. +Superintendent Daniel has laid down three definite planks in his +educational platform for the city of Columbus. In the first place, he +aims to provide school accommodations which are fitted to the peculiar +needs of each part of the community. In the second place, he aims to +shape the school system of Columbus in terms of the local environment of +the children. In the third place, he has inaugurated a high school +policy, which makes high school training practical as well as +theoretical. + +Among the mill operatives of Columbus, Superintendent Daniel estimates +that there are approximately 800 children of school age. The situation +presented by these children was critical in the extreme. There was an +absence of compulsory education laws; few of the children attended any +school, and when they did enter a school they seldom remained long +enough to secure any marked educational advantage. Less than 5 per cent. +of the children continued in school after they were old enough to work +in the cotton mills. + +Pursuant of his intention to make the schools supply the needs of all of +the children of Columbus, Superintendent Daniel organized the North +Highlands School in the factory district. Of this school he says: "It is +not made to conform, either in course of study or hours, to the other +schools of similar rank in the system, for the board desires to meet the +conditions and convenience of the people for whom the school was +established. Classroom work begins in the morning at 8 o'clock and +continues until 11 o'clock, with a recess of 10 minutes at 9:30. The +afternoon session begins at 1 o'clock, and the school closes for the day +at 3:30 o'clock." + +The long intermission in the middle of the day is given in order to +allow the children to take hot lunches to parents, brothers, and sisters +who are working in the mill. Many of the mills are located at some +distance from the school. Some of the children are called upon to walk +as much as two miles during the noon hour, in order to carry the +lunches. These "dinner toters," when carrying lunch baskets for persons +outside of the family, receive 25 cents per week per basket. In case +several baskets are carried, the income thus earned is considerable. + +The school thus organized on the basis of local needs is further +specialized in a way that will appeal to the needs of the mill operative +group. The academic courses are similar to the courses offered in the +other schools, except that more emphasis is laid upon the "three R's." +Superintendent Daniel says that the time is very limited in which these +children will attend school, and more attention is given as to what may +be regarded as fundamental. "While the prescribed course contemplates +seven years, few continue after the fifth or sixth year, so strong is +the call of the mills. Not more than 1 per cent finish this school and +pursue their studies further." + +The three morning hours and the first hour in the afternoon are devoted +to academic studies, while the last hour and a half of the day is given +to practical work. The boys are required to take elementary courses in +woodwork and gardening, alternating these two branches on alternate +days. The girls are given work in basketry, sewing, cooking, poultry +raising, and gardening. + +The results of the introduction of this applied work are summed up by +Superintendent Daniel in this way,--"In all of these lines of work it is +now the hope of the school only to better living conditions a little +among the people for whom it was especially organized. The +transformation is necessarily slow. In the beginning, no doubt, the +advocates of this type of school thought that many might be induced to +continue in school and do more advanced work, especially along +vocational lines. In this respect the school has been a disappointment +to some. We are seldom able to induce pupils to finish even the limited +course offered in this school." + +The North Highland School, in addition to its work for the children, has +begun an organized effort to raise the standards of the local community. +Every day the principal and teachers of the school visit some of the +homes, giving helpful suggestions, caring for the sick, and in any other +possible way contributing to home life. Superintendent Daniel reports +the progress in this respect by saying,--"Confidence is now so strong +that one of the teachers every Saturday morning collects the physically +defective ones in the community and takes them to the free clinic for +operations or treatment. At first parents would see their children die +rather than permit them to be operated upon, but now they seldom decline +to permit them to be taken by a teacher to the free clinic, when in the +judgment of the teacher it is necessary." + +The school has made an effort to organize the older people of the +community. There are entertainments and school gatherings in which +parents and children alike participate. As a further help to those +parents who are compelled to work in the mills, the school grounds, +which are amply provided with a full play equipment, are open to all of +the children at all hours of the day and all days of the week. "It is +not infrequent," says Superintendent Daniel, "that, when the mother goes +to work at 6 in the morning, she sends her children to the school to +enjoy the privileges of the grounds until the opening of the school at 8 +o'clock." + +The work of the negro schools is similarly fitted to the industrial +needs of the negro children. Boys and girls alike devote a considerable +portion of their time to industrial work. The main purpose of this work +for negroes is to prepare them for the line of industrial opportunity +open to them. The school reports that it has developed a number of good +blacksmiths, carpenters, cooks, seamstresses, and laundresses. Pupils +who remain in the schools long enough to complete the course are able to +earn, upon leaving school, about twice what they would be able to earn +had no such training been provided. + +A vigorous attempt has been made to reorganize grade work in the +interests of clearness and effectiveness. As Superintendent Daniel puts +the matter,--"We undertook to place before the teachers a definite +problem, and to put suggestions into tangible form. We stated that all +subjects could be taught with the books merely as helps and means to an +end, and contend further for the doctrine that a working knowledge of +books and subjects is far more desirable than accomplishing the feat of +memorizing the printed page." Many teachers will be astonished by the +doctrine which Superintendent Daniel evolves from this statement of +educational theory. "The teachers were asked to conduct the work in such +a manner that it would not be necessary to recite or take written tests +with closed books, but that school books be used as tools with which to +work, and that the child should use text-books as adults do books of +reference, while the teacher guides and directs in the development of +thought.["] + +This attempt of Superintendent Daniel to proceed with the grammar school +work in a more natural way, and to relate all of it more closely to +life, met with some interesting results, as may be gathered from the +following test questions which were worked out by teachers in pursuance +of the instructions to make text-books incidental and thought primary in +the school work. + + + ARITHMETIC, THIRD B + + Roy shops for his mother at Kirven's. He buys 2 boxes of hair + pins at $.05 each, 6 towels at $.10 each, and 5 handkerchiefs + for $.25. What was his bill? If he hands the clerk $1.00, how + much change will he receive? + + + THIRD A + + If Isabel's 2 pair of shoes cost $4, how much will shoes for all + the girls in the class cost? + + + GEOGRAPHY THIRD B + + Turn to the map on page 65 and find and write the names of seven + different shore forms. + + + ARITHMETIC, FOURTH B + + In our room are 46 pupils. The class receives 230 tablets and + 138 pencils for the term. How many of each does each child + receive? + + + GEOGRAPHY, FOURTH B + + What products may be sent to us from New England? If they were + shipped from Portsmouth, N. H., on what bodies of water would + they travel? + + + GEOGRAPHY, FOURTH A + + Why does the United States carry on more trade with the British + Isles than with Germany? At what seaport would our vessels land + in the British Isles? What would they carry and what would they + bring back? + + + GEOGRAPHY, FIFTH A + + What highways of trade will be used for shipping oranges from + San Francisco to Columbus, Ga., by way of the Panama Canal? How + many miles is this, approximately? (Use rule and map on page + 65.) + + + GEOGRAPHY, FIFTH B + + What is the chief industry of the people of Columbus, and why? + Describe the climate of our city, tell what fruits, vegetables + and farm products find a market here. What would a boat coming + up the river bring to Columbus? What would it carry back? + +Superintendent Daniel's viewpoint is clear and sane. "It is not +sufficient," he says, "to maintain courses in domestic science and +manual training for the grades, and to teach other subjects as if they +belonged to another realm." Consequently he has made every endeavor to +bring together the forces of the community and of the school in a +sympathetic whole, around which the educational life of the town must +center. + +The industrial high school is an integral and highly important part of +the work in the Columbus schools. Side by side with the academic high +school, it affords an opportunity for the children who do not intend to +continue their educational work beyond high school grade to get some +assistance in the direction of a training for life activity. It was +originally intended to duplicate, in a measure, the conditions and hours +maintained in the industrial plants of the city. Formerly the school was +open for eleven calendar months; at the present time a vacation of six +weeks is allowed. The school hours are from 8 o'clock in the morning +until 4 o'clock in the afternoon, for five days each week. Pupils who +have not maintained the required standard during the week are compelled +to attend school on Saturday. + +All pupils of the Industrial High School are required to take academic +work of high school grade in mathematics, history, English, and +science. + +The introduction of manual training and domestic science into the grades +of all Columbus schools has pointed many children in the direction of +the Industrial High School. While it is not the intention of the school +authorities to make the work of the Industrial High School final, it is +hoped that those children who are enabled to continue with educational +work are benefited markedly by this specialized course. + +Throughout this deliberate attempt of the Columbus school administration +to make the schools fit the needs of the community there is evidence of +a scientific spirit which is in the last degree commendable. The +community need is first ascertained. The school work is then organized +in response to this community need. If, perchance, the first effort +meets with little success, additional effort is continued until some +measure of success is assured. The school authorities are not afraid to +change their opinions or their system. They are not even afraid to fail +on a given experiment. The one thing of which they are afraid is failure +to provide for the educational needs of the community. + + +XI A People Coming to Its Own + +The first great battle in the educational awakening of the South has +been won. The people realize the necessity for an intelligently active +population. + +The second battle is well under way. The people of the South are shaping +the schools to meet the peculiar educational needs which the economic +and social problems of the South present. + +A rallying-cry is ringing through the Southern States,--"The schools for +the people; the people for the schools; and a higher standard of +education and of life for the community." + +The South is in line for the New Education. School officials are +working. Superintendent Daniel writes,--"Everyone connected with the +system has been too intent on doing his work well and in establishing +and maintaining the ideals of the system to be disturbed by petty +difficulties. The teachers," he adds, "have appeared to feel that it was +rather a privilege than a burden to participate in making the Columbus +system efficient through the preparation of her children for life."[29] +The public is asking for a correlation of school with life, and the +schools are educating the South through the children. + + FOOTNOTES: + + [Footnote 24: Now State Superintendent. See an article + "'Corn-Club' Smith," P. C. Macfarlane, Collier's Weekly, May 17, + 1913, p. 19.] + + [Footnote 25: United States Department of Agriculture, Bureau of + Plant Industry, Results of Boys' Demonstration Work in Corn Clubs + in 1911, Washington, May, 1912, p. 4.] + + [Footnote 26: Op. cit., pp. 5-6.] + + [Footnote 27: U. S. Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Plant + Industry, Girls' Demonstration Work, Washington, January, 1913, + pp. 1-2.] + + [Footnote 28: For a full statement of the work of the Columbus + Schools see "Industrial Education in Columbus,["] Ga., R. B. + Daniel, U. S. Bureau of Education, Bulletin 535, Government + Printing Office, 1913. Also, The Annual Report of the Columbus + Public Schools for the Year Ending August 1, 1913.] + + [Footnote 29: Annual report of the Columbus Public Schools, 1913, + p. 18.] + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +THE SPIRIT OF THE NEW EDUCATION + + +I The Standard of Education + +The educational experiments described in the preceding chapters are +replete with the spirit of the New Education. From the virile +educational systems of the country a protest is being sounded against +traditional formalism. School men have learned that that which is is not +necessarily right. Each concept, each method, must run the gauntlet of +critical analysis. It is not sufficient to allege in support of an +educational principle that the results derived from its application have +been satisfactory in the past. Insistently the question is repeated, +"What are its effects upon the problems of to-day?" + +Educational ancestor worship is no more acceptable to the progressive +spirit of the Western World than is ancestor worship in any other form. +The past has made its contribution, and has died in making it. For the +contribution the present is grateful, but it must steadfastly refuse in +its own name, and in the name of the future, to be bound by any decree +of the past which will not stand the acid test of present experience. + +The old education was beset by traditionalism. Under its dominance, +education, defined once and for all, was established as a standard to +which men must attain; hence a preceptor, guiding his young charges +along the straight path to knowledge, might, with perfect confidence, +admonish them, "Lo here, the three R's is education," or "Lo there, +Greek and higher mathematics is education," according as his training +had been in the three R's or in Greek. In either case he felt certain of +his general ground. Once and for all the educational standard had been +set. By that standard new ideas were judged, and either justified or +condemned. + +Under this predetermined scheme there was a formula for education--a +formula as definite as that for making bread or pickling pork. The +formula was applied to each child who presented himself to the +administration. If the formula worked successfully the child was +declared educated in the same way that pork which has been successfully +treated by the proper processes is declared to be pickled. If the +formula did not work the child was not educated. He sat in school with a +dunce-cap upon his head, or else played hookey and spent his hours in +fishing, swimming or idling. + +Perhaps, in view of the recent contributions of science, it would be +more illuminating to say that the old education inoculated the child +with a predetermined educational virus. If the virus "took" the child +was declared immune to the bacteria of ignorance, illiteracy, stupidity +and other prevalent social complaints. If the virus did not take the +schoolmaster ostentatiously washed his hands of the recreant. + + +II Standardization Was a Failure + +Only one argument need be urged against this method of attacking the +educational problem--it did not work. In the first place, the most +brilliant school successes often turned out to be the most arrant life +failures, while the school derelicts frequently became life successes of +stellar magnitude. To the thinking man the inference was plain; the +formula was not an unqualified success. Not only was this true of the +children who went through school, but there were crowds of children for +whom the school held no attraction whatever. They attended a few +sessions, wasted a scant bit of energy in educational effort, and then +dropped out, hopeless of obtaining results by further "study." + +The old education read out of the school those children who could not +benefit by its teachings. How utterly different the concept which has +gripped the minds of progressive, modern educators! Under their guidance +education has become what Herbert Spencer called it--a preparation for +complete living. No longer a fixed, objective standard, education has +been recognized as an enlargement of the life horizon of each individual +boy or girl in the community. "Teach us individual needs," proclaim the +educational progressives, "and we will tell you what the character of +education must be." + +Thus has education ceased to be an objective standard, created by one +age and handed down rigidly immobile to the ages succeeding. Instead it +is accepted as a fulfilment--a complement--to child needs. Always +education has been regarded as a process of molding life and character. +The chief difference between the old and the new education is that the +old education made a mold, and then forced the child to fit the mold, +while the new education begins by determining the character of child +needs, and then fits the mold to the needs. The old education was like +the farmer who built a corn-sheller, and then attempted to find ears of +corn which would fit into the sheller; the new education is like the +farmer who first measured the corn and then built his sheller to fit the +corn. The old education selected the class which was able to conform to +its requirements; the new education serves all classes. + + +III Education as Growth + +Under the impetus given to it by modern thinkers, education has become +the direction of growth, rather than the application of a formula. The +child is a developing creature. It has become the function of education +to watch over and guide the development. + +Nor do the modern schools consider mental development as the sole object +of educational endeavor. Physical growth is an equally essential part of +child life. Therefore the direction of physical growth becomes just as +vital a part of the educational machinery. Aesthetic and spiritual +growth require like emphasis. Each phase of child life receives +independent consideration. + +The old education through mental impression is giving way before the new +education through physical, mental and spiritual expression. Expression +is the essence of growth; and since the school is to foster child growth +it must place child expression in a place of paramount importance. + +Child needs, rather than abstract standards, have thus become the basis +of school activity. The old education developed its course of study by +surveying the interests of adults, and picking from among them those, +apparently the most simple, which were fit for children. The new +education applies the laboratory method--studying children and their +interests--reports, among its other findings, the quite evident fact +that children enter into life as whole-heartedly as adults; that the +field of their interest lies, not in the left-over problems of older +people, but in their own problems and processes; and that therefore the +educator must found his philosophy and his practice on an understanding +of the child and child needs. + +There is in the world a phenomenon called adult life, with its phases, +problems and ideals. There is likewise in the world a phenomenon called +child life, with its phases, problems and ideals. A complete +understanding of either may not be derived through a study of the other. +Child needs exist separate from and different from adult needs. It is +the business of the new education to understand them and meet them. + +Two appeals are reaching the ears of the modern educator: the first, the +appeal of the child; the second, the appeal of the community. The appeal +of the child is an appeal for the opportunity of developing all of its +faculties. Physically, children grow. The school, recognizing this fact, +is making a vigorous effort to break the shell of custom, which has +confined its activities to purely intellectual pursuits, and provide a +physical training which will lead the school child to perfect normal +body growth, as well as normal growth of mind. Even in its intellectual +activity the school is recognizing the importance of making the child +mind an active machine for thought, rather than a passive storehouse for +information. Though less emphasized, the training for sensual growth is +becoming of ever increasing importance in the new education. Above all, +the aesthetic side of child life is being expanded in an effort to round +out a completed adulthood. + + +IV Child Needs and Community Needs + +The recognition of child needs, which forms so integral a part of the +new education, is paralleled by a similar recognition of the needs of +the community. The progressive educator is laying aside for a moment the +details of his task, and asking himself the pertinent question: "What +should the community expect in return for the annual expenditure of a +billion dollars on public education?" What are community needs if not +the needs for manhood and womanhood? They are well summed up in three +words--virility, efficiency, citizenship. Possessed of those attributes +a group of individuals rounds itself inevitably into a vigorous, +progressive community. They are normal qualities which a people must +demand if their social standards are to be maintained. Since they +constitute so vital an element in social life, a community lavish in its +expenditures for schools may surely expect the school product to be +virile, efficient, worthy citizens. The new education, recognizing the +justice of this demand, is crying out insistently for social, as well as +individual, training in the school. + +The new educational institutions have set themselves to meet the needs +of the child and of the community. Their success depends upon their +ability to understand these needs and to supply them. + +The old-fashioned schoolmaster asked: "How can I compel?" His answer was +the rod. The modern schoolmaster asks: "How can I direct?" His answer is +a laboratory, open-minded, scientific method, and a host of varied +courses designed to meet the needs of individual children and of +individual communities. + +Communities vary as greatly in their characteristics as do children. It +is now certain that no formula will provide education for all children. +Each new study of community needs makes it more evident that no system +will supply education for all communities. It is the business of the +educator to study the individual child and the individual community, and +then to provide an education that will assist both to grow normally and +soundly in all of their parts. + + +V The Final Test of Education + +The school is a servant, not a master. In that fact lies its +greatness--the greatness of its opportunity and of its responsibility. +As an institution its object is service--assistance in growth. +Development is the goal of education. Virility, efficiency, citizenship, +manhood, womanhood--these are its legitimate products. Its tools and +formulas are such as will most effectively serve these ends. When the +increase of knowledge leads to new methods and formulas which will prove +more effective than the old ones, then the old ones must be laid aside, +reverently, perhaps, but none the less firmly, and the new ones adopted. +Changes may not be made hastily and without due consideration; but when +experiment has shown that the new device is more advantageous in +furthering the objects of education than the old and tried formulas, a +change is inevitable. + +The first and last word on the subject is spoken when this question is +asked and answered: "Does education exist for children, or do children +exist for education?" + +If children exist for education, then it is just that an objective +educational standard should be created; it is fair that a hard and fast +course of study be mapped out in conformity with that standard; it is +right that educational machinery be constructed which automatically +turns away from the schools any child who does not conform to the school +system as it is. If children exist for education, they should either +conform to its requirements, or else, if they will not or cannot +conform, they should be mercilessly thrust aside. + +If, on the other hand, education exists for children, then the primal +consideration must be child needs. If any one child, or any group of +children, has needs which are not met by existing educational +institutions, then these institutions must be remodeled. If an adequate +congenial education is a part of the birthright of every American child, +then educational institutions must be reorganized and reshaped until +they provide that birthright in the fullest possible measure. + +Already the answer has been formulated. Already educators have +recognized the potency of the saying: "The schools were made for the +children, not the children for the schools." Hence it follows that no +school system is so sacred, no method of teaching so venerable, no +textbook so infallible, no machinery of administration so permanent, +that it must not give way before the educational needs of childhood. + +Concerning the educational problem of to-day, yesterday cannot speak +with authority. Each age has its problems--problems which may be solved +by that age, or handed on unsolved to the future. The past is dead. Only +its voice--its advice and suggestion--serves as a guide or as a warning. +Of authority it should have not an atom. + +The educational opportunities of to-day are without peer. The +educational machinery, ready at hand, is being transformed to meet the +newly understood needs of the child and of the community. The spirit of +the new education is the spirit of service, the spirit of fair dealing, +the spirit of growth for the individual and of advancement for society. +Here are individual needs. There are aligned the social obligations and +requirements of the age. In so far as it lies within the power of the +school, the children who leave its doors shall have their needs +supplied, and shall be equipped to play their part as virile, efficient +citizens in a greater community. Such is the spirit of the new +education. + + + + +INDEX + + + Age distribution, 36. + and school progress, 37. + + Ages of childhood, 35. + + American school system, Statistics of, 19, 20. + + Applied education, need for, 156. + + Applied work, Cincinnati, 136. + in the grades, 161. + + Average children and the old education, 39. + fallacy of, 34. + + + Berks County schools, manual training in, 186. + physical training in, 186. + + Boys and girls, object of educating, 42. + + Brown, E. E., quoted, 13. + + + Carney, Mabel, quoted, 179. + + Chancellor, W. R., quoted, 40, 41. + + Change, prevalence of, 24. + in social structure, 25. + + Child growth, stages of, 44. + + Child needs, recognition of, 56. + and community needs, 255. + + Childhood, ages of, 35. + + Children, needs of analyzed, 45. + social needs of, 48. + varying capacity of, 37, 38. + vs. subject matter, 39. + + Cincinnati, educational advantages of, 148. + kindergarten work in, 129. + school system of, 125. + school policy continued, 150. + special school work in, 141. + schools, co-operation in, 126. + creed of, 127. + general support of, 126. + new plans for, 149. + social centers in, 151. + social work of, 150. + + City and country, educational value of, 29. + + City home, effect of industrial changes on, 30, 31. + + City life and the new basis for education, 28, 29. + + Civic education, necessity for, 49. + + Civics teaching in the grades, Cincinnati, 135. + + Club activity in schools, recognition of, 235. + + Columbus, Ga., curriculum of schools, 244. + local needs basis of, 242, 243. + school policy of, 242, 243. + + Community and the school, 72. + education applied to a small town, 52. + life, contribution of schools to, 167. + needs and child life, 256. + + Consolidated school, advantages of, 179, 180. + course of study in, 172. + daily program in, 174. + disadvantages of, 179. + growth of in South, 177, 178. + + Continuation High School work, 109. + schools in Ohio, 76. + + Co-operation, spirit of in consolidated schools, 172. + + Country, the call of the, 170, 171. + + Country life, transformation in, 171, 172. + + Country school, daily program in a district, 173. + daily program in a consolidated, 174. + two possibilities of, 171. + the duty of, 194. + new geography, 185. + task of, 193, 194. + transformation in, 171, 172. + schools and physical training, 186. + + Courses of study, correlation in, 135. + home school, 69. + + Criticism of schools, general, 11. + significance, 17. + + Curriculum, content of, 44. + requirements of, 51. + + + Defectives, treatment of, Cincinnati, 144. + + Discipline, disappearance of, Oyler School, 165. + + Distribution of age, 36. + + District school, daily program in, 173. + + Domestic science, course in Lowville High School, 122. + course in Page County, 190. + home school movement, 68. + importance of, 51. + in the grades, 159. + in a Kentucky school, 195-200. + in Sleepy Eye schools, 213-216. + problems in, 160. + + Draper, A. S., quoted, 12, 13, 18. + + + Education and the industrial revolution, 26, 27, 30. + and the success habit, 95. + as growth, 254. + city, effect of industrial changes on, 30, 31. + creed of, Cincinnati schools, 127. + elastic system of, 127. + essentials of, 15, 16. + for home-making, 68. + for life, 43. + for the whole child, 81. + in the early home, 27, 28. + place of physical training in, 71. + public lectures and, 73. + purpose of, 15, 16. + new basis for, 24. + new studies, 74. + object of, 22, 23, 42. + social importance of, 19, 20. + specialization in, 75. + standard of, 251. + theory and practice, 242-249. + in Kentucky, reaching parents through children, 195-206. + in the South, canning clubs, 234, 235. + corn clubs, 225-228, 229-233. + effect of on corn yield, 230-233. + improving health, 241. + improving home life, 239, 241. + teaching parents through children, 225-228, 229-233. + + Educational advance in Cincinnati, 148. + + Educational formulas, danger of, 252. + + Educational needs and the small town, 52. + + Educational problems of an industrial community, 55. + + Educational work and the small town, 52. + + Elementary grades, activities of, 87. + co-operation in, 86. + special studies for, 89. + spirit of service in, 90. + + English, as a stimulus for other studies, 63. + constructive work in, 61, 62. + new methods for, 61. + organization of, Grand Rapids High School, 111. + original work, 65. + story work and, 64. + use of in other studies, 111. + + Enrollment and attendance, statistics of, 17, 18. + + + Facts, place of in education, 22. + + Fallacy of average children, 34, 35. + + Fisher, Irving, quoted, 15. + + Formalism in education, danger of, 252. + + Froebel, F., quoted, 28. + + + Gary, plan of the schools in, 81. + + Geography, new method of teaching, 59. + + Geography and arithmetic, method of teaching in + a southern school, 246-248. + + Geography in Newark, 59. + + Grade work, regeneration of, Cincinnati, 132. + + Grades, amalgamation of with high school, 99. + applied work in, 161. + + Grand Rapids High School, vocational guidance in, 110. + + Growth, and child activity, 47. + and education, 254. + through play, 46. + of children, stages in, 44. + + + Hanus, P. H., quoted, 13, 14. + + Health, importance of, 45. + + High School, amalgamation of with grades, 99. + at Lowville, 116. + course of study in Cincinnati, 138. + future of, 114. + growing importance of, 54-56. + popularization of Cincinnati, 137. + promotion to, without examinations, 94. + responsibility of, 92. + social status of, 92. + + High school children, experiments with, 92. + + High school courses, arrangement of, 108. + + High school status, Superintendent Spaulding on, 92. + + High school training, right of children to, 105. + + High schools, co-operation with elementary grades, 98. + technical development of, 106. + + Home, education in, 27, 28. + + Home making, education for, 68. + + Home school, activities of, 70. + course of work in, 69. + in Indianapolis, 68. + in Providence, 69. + + Home visiting in the grades, 166. + + Home work, disadvantages of, 79. + opportunities for in school, 79. + + Huxley, T. H., quoted, 16. + + + Industrial communities, educational problems, 55. + + Industrial High School, place of in the school system, 248. + + Industrial system, effect of on education, 27. + + Institutions, effects of change upon, 26. + + + John Swaney School, course of study, 176. + equipment of, 176. + social life in, 176, 177. + + Junior High Schools, outlook for, 98. + + + Kentucky education, teaching a community to cook, 195-200. + + Kindergartens, at Gary, Ind., 58. + progressive work in, 58. + in relation to grade work, 131. + vitalized work in, 129. + + + Linden, Ind., equipment of consolidated schools, 175. + + Locust Grove School, method of teaching a community, 195-206. + + Lowville High School, courses in, 121. + domestic science in, 122. + social service of, 123. + work in, 116. + + + Mass training, defects of, 101. + + Mathematics, and life problems, 60. + in Gary schools, 60. + in Indianapolis schools, 60. + + Mothers' clubs, organization of, 163. + work of, Cincinnati, 132, 163. + + + Needs of school children, 43. + + New basis for education, 24. + and city life, 28, 29. + + New education in the South, 220-250. + + Newark vacation school, 80. + + Newton Technical High School, success of, 96. + + North Highland School, industrial training in, 245, 246. + raising community standards, 245. + + + Oconto County, Wis., schools, agricultural work in, 183-185. + the new arithmetic, 184, 185. + the new English, 184, 185. + + Ohio, continuation schools, 76. + + Old education, spirit of, 253. + + One-room school, making it worth while, 182-187. + possibilities of, 182-187. + + Open air schools, 71. + results of, 72. + + Original work in English, 65. + + Overwork, extent in schools, 14, 15. + + Oyler School, social education in, 153. + + + Page County, Iowa, contests in schools, 189. + domestic science, 190. + ideal schools in, 188-193. + social life in, 191, 192. + training for country life, 189-190. + + Physical training and education, 71. + a part of school work, 82. + + Play, and growth, 46. + creative forms of, 48. + stages of, 47. + + Playgrounds, Cincinnati, 145. + + Popularized High Schools, Cincinnati, 137. + + Promotion for special students, 92. + + Promotion, improvements in, 85. + new methods of, 85. + + Promotion average, fetish of, 40, 41. + + Public lectures, and education, 73. + + + Rapp, Eli, quoted, 182, 186. + + Regeneration of grade work, Cincinnati, 132. + + Rural districts, needs of, 54. + + + School and community, 167. + + School and shop work in high school, 109. + + School feeding, 72. + + School children, needs of, 43. + + School equipment, educational nature of, 120. + + School houses, social uses for, 117. + + School machinery, abolition of, 84. + necessity for, 32. + new standards of, 32. + + School mortality, statistics of, 18. + + School plant, wider use of, 73. + + School progress and age distribution, 37. + + School work related to shop work, 76. + + Schools, agricultural training at Sleepy Eye, 208-211. + agricultural training in Oconto County, Wis., 183-185. + agricultural training in Page County, 189, 190. + and the community, 72. + as public servants, 257. + city, effect on children, 33, 34. + condition of, Montclair, N. J., 13, 14. + consolidated vs. district, 171, 172. + courses at Sleepy Eye, Minn., 218. + courses fitted to community needs at Sleepy Eye, 207, 208. + domestic science at Sleepy Eye, Minn., 213-216. + elementary plumbing at Sleepy Eye, Minn., 209. + equipment at Sleepy Eye, 214. + equipment of Linden, Ind., 175. + general criticism of, 11. + influence on community at Sleepy Eye, Minn., 217. + local service of, 157. + mechanical course at Sleepy Eye, Minn., 214. + Montgomery County, Ind., 180, 181. + Page County, Iowa, 189-193. + purpose of, 42, 43. + short agricultural course at Sleepy Eye, Minn., 212, 213. + size of, 33. + social uses of, Cincinnati, 158. + + Self-government in high schools, 102, 104. + + Sex hygiene, importance of, 46. + + Shop work and school work, 76. + + Sleepy Eye, Minn., course in domestic science, 213-216. + course in elementary plumbing and steam-fitting, 209. + courses given in schools, 218. + department of agriculture, 208-211. + equipment for mechanical work, 214. + fitting schools to community needs, 207, 208. + influence on community at large, 217. + mechanical course, 214. + + Sleepy Eye, Minn., short course in agriculture, 212, 213. + + Small town, educational work of, 52. + + Smith, W. H., "Corn Club," 228. + + Social centers in Cincinnati schools, 151. + + Social change, 25. + + Social education, Cincinnati, 153. + content of, 49. + + Social importance of education, 19, 20. + + Social needs of children, 48. + + Southern schools, corn clubs in, 225-228, 229-233. + + Special school for defectives, Cincinnati, 144. + + Special schools, Cincinnati, 141. + + Specialization in education, 75. + + Spencer, H., quoted, 16. + + Standard of education, 251. + + Story work and English, 64. + + Student organization in high school, 102. + + Subjects of study, summary of, 51. + + Success habits in education, 95. + + Summer schools, Cincinnati, 145. + + + Technical High Schools, development of, 106. + + Three "R's," Progressive work in, 59. + + Twelve-year schools, possibilities of, 99. + + Tyler, J. M., quoted, 16. + + + University of Cincinnati, social relations of, 140. + + + Vacation schools in Newark, 80. + + Vernon school, before and after consolidation, 181. + + Vocational guidance in high schools, 110. + + Vocational training, appeal of, 78. + Cincinnati, 142. + in elementary grades, 77. + Lowville, 117. + + + Washington Irving High School, procedure in, 102. + + Waste in education, 12, 13. + extent of, 18, 19. + + Wider use of the schools, Lowville, 117. + + William Penn High School, student organization in, 104. + + + * * * * * + +TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: + +Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as +possible, including obsolete and variant spellings. Obvious +typographical errors in punctuation (misplaced quotes and the like) have +been fixed. Corrections [in brackets] in the text are noted below: + +page 4: missing quote added + + article, will exclaim,--"[']There is something that we must + introduce into our schools.'" + +page 8: added missing word + + VIII. Breaching [the] Chinese Wall of High School Classicism + +page 9: typo corrected + + I. "Coöperation"[Co-operation] and "Progressivism" + +page 29: typo corrected + + Standing on the threshhold[threshold] of his meager dwelling, + this child of six looks forward + +page 77: typo corrected + + school district establishes part-time day schools for the + instruction of youths over fourteen years af[of] age who are + engaged in regular employment, such board of education + +page 94: typo corrected + + buying of materials and simple acounting[accounting] covered + their mathematics. Those were the things which would probably + +page 94: missing quote added + + school classes. They all brushed their hair. The boys were + neater and the girls were becomingly dressed.["] + +page 103: typo corrected + + "Yes, it was a wrench," Mr. McAndrews[McAndrew] admits. "You + see, the teachers hated to give up. They had been + +page 123: missing quote added + + will all bear directly on the work of the farm in which he is so + deeply interested.["] + +page 167: missing quote added + + that is enough. We have no problem of discipline now. The + children and their parents are working for the school.["] + +page 197: missing quote added + + first thing I knew, the way opened up--you never would guess + how--it was through biscuits.["] + +page 220: typo corrected + + biggest burden we have to carry--the most determined enemy we + have to fight? Well, sir, its's[it's] ignorance--the ignorance + of the common man about his farm or his + +page 233: missing quote added + + other States were equally good in view of the fact that a + drought prevailed very generally throughout the South in + 1911.["][26] + +Footnote 28: missing quote added + + For a full statement of the work of the Columbus Schools see + "Industrial Education in Columbus,["] Ga., R. B. Daniel, + +page 246: missing quote added + + should use text-books as adults do books of reference, while the + teacher guides and directs in the development of thought.["] + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The New Education, by Scott Nearing + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NEW EDUCATION *** + +***** This file should be named 26919-8.txt or 26919-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/6/9/1/26919/ + +Produced by Chris Curnow, Matt Mello and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/26919-8.zip b/26919-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..96e912f --- /dev/null +++ b/26919-8.zip diff --git a/26919-h.zip b/26919-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..9d9ac72 --- /dev/null +++ b/26919-h.zip diff --git a/26919-h/26919-h.htm b/26919-h/26919-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..67a68b0 --- /dev/null +++ b/26919-h/26919-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,10577 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8" /> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of The New Education, by Scott Nearing, Ph.D.. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; +} + + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; +} + +table { + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + margin-bottom: 2em; } + +.center table { margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: left; } + + .tdr {text-align: right;} /* right align cell */ + .tdc {text-align: center;} /* center align cell */ + .tdl {text-align: left;} /* left align cell */ + .tdlt {text-align: left; vertical-align: top;} /* left align cell, vertical aligned to the top */ + .tdrp {text-align: right; padding-right: 1em;} /* right align cell */ + .tdrp1 {text-align: right; padding-right: .5em;} /* right align cell */ + .tdrp2 {text-align: right; padding-right: 1.5em;} /* right align cell */ + .tdrpt {text-align: right; padding-right: 1em; vertical-align: top;} /* right align cell */ + .tdrt {text-align: right; vertical-align: top;} /* right align cell, vertical top */ + .tdlp {text-align: left; padding-left: 1.5em;} /* left align cell */ + +.pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; +} /* page numbers */ + +.blockquot { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +.blockquot2 { + margin-left: 20%; + margin-right: 20%; +} + +.bb {border-bottom: solid 2px;} + +.bl {border-left: solid 2px;} + +.bt {border-top: solid 2px;} + +.br {border-right: solid 2px;} + +.bbox {border: solid 2px;} + +.center {text-align: center;} + +.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + +.u {text-decoration: underline;} + +.caption {font-weight: bold;} + +/* Images */ +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; +} + +.trans_note {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 4em; + font-size: 0.9em; border: solid 1px; + padding-bottom: .2em; padding-top: .2em; + padding-left: .5em; padding-right: .5em;} + + +/* Footnotes */ +.footnotes {border: dashed 0px;} + +.footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + +.footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + +.fnanchor { + vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: + none; +} + +/* Poetry */ +.poem { + margin-left:10%; + margin-right:10%; + text-align: left; +} + +.poem br {display: none;} + +.poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + +.poem span.i0 { + display: block; + margin-left: 0em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + +.poem span.i2 { + display: block; + margin-left: 2em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + +.poem span.i4 { + display: block; + margin-left: 4em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + +// --> +/* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> + +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The New Education, by Scott Nearing + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The New Education + A Review of Progressive Educational Movements of the Day (1915) + +Author: Scott Nearing + +Release Date: October 14, 2008 [EBook #26919] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NEW EDUCATION *** + + + + +Produced by Chris Curnow, Matt Mello and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<div class="trans_note"><a name="top" id="top"></a> +<p class="center"><big>TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE:</big></p> +<p class="noindent"> +Every effort has been made to replicate this text as +faithfully as possible; please see <a href="#TN">list of printing issues</a> at the +end, after the Index.</p> +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1"></a></span></p> + +<h1><span class="smcap">The New Education</span></h1> + +<h3>A REVIEW OF PROGRESSIVE<br /> +EDUCATIONAL MOVEMENTS<br /> +OF THE DAY</h3> + +<h3>BY</h3> + +<h2>SCOTT NEARING, Ph.D.</h2> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania</span></p> + +<h4>AUTHOR OF “SOCIAL ADJUSTMENT,â€<br /> +“THE SUPER RACE,†“WAGES IN THE UNITED STATES,â€<br /> +“SOCIAL SANITY,†“REDUCING THE COST OF LIVING,†etc.</h4> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 111px;"> +<img src="images/logo.jpg" width="111" height="100" alt="publisher logo" title="publisher logo" /> +</div> + +<p class="center"> + <span class="smcap">Chicago</span> <span class="smcap">New York</span></p> + +<p class="center">ROW, PETERSON & COMPANY</p><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 25%;" /> +<p class="center"><small><span class="smcap">Copyright</span>, 1915<br /> +ROW, PETERSON & COMPANY</small></p><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span> +</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2>PREFACE</h2> + + +<p>During 1910, 1911, and 1912, as a part of a general plan to write a book +on education, I reread a great deal of the classical educational +literature, and carefully perused most of the current material in +magazine and book form. An interest aroused by undergraduate and +graduate work in the department of pedagogy had been whetted by the +revolutionary activity in every field of educational endeavor. The time +seemed ripe for an effective piece of constructive educational writing, +yet I could not see my way clear to begin it. Glaring faults there were; +remedies appeared ready at hand and easy of application; the will of an +aroused public opinion alone seemed to be lacking. By what method could +this wheel horse of reform best be harnessed to the car of educational +progress?</p> + +<p>I was still seeking for an answer to this riddle when the editors of +“The Ladies’ Home Journal†asked me to consider the preparation of a +series of articles. “We have done some sharp destructive work in our +criticisms of the schools,†they said. “Now we are going to do some +constructive writing. We are in search of two things:—first, a +constructive article outlining in general a possible scheme for +reorganizing the course of study; second, a series of articles +describing in a readable way the most successful public school work now +being done in the United States. We want you to visit the schools, study +them at first-hand, and bring back a report of the best that they have +to offer. When your investigation<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span> is completed, we shall expect you to +write the material up in such a form that each reader, after finishing +an article, will exclaim,—<a name="Page_4t" id="Page_4t"></a><a href="#Page_4tn">‘There</a> is something that we must introduce +into our schools.’â€</p> + +<p>That was my opportunity. Instead of writing a book to be read by a +thousand persons, I could place a number of constructive articles before +two million readers. The invitation was a godsend.</p> + +<p>The articles, when completed, formed a natural sequence. First there was +the general article (Chapter 3) suggesting the reorganization. Then +followed descriptions of the schools in which some such reorganizations +had been effected. Prepared with the same point of view, the articles +constituted an acceptable series, having a general object and a +connecting idea running throughout. What more natural than to write a +few words of introduction and conclusion, and put the whole in book +form? The style of the articles has been changed somewhat, and +considerable material has been added to them; but, in the main, they +stand as they were written—simple descriptions of some of the most +advanced school work now being done in the United States.</p> + +<p>Looked at from any standpoint, this study is a collection of articles +rather than a book, yet there is sufficient relation between the +articles to give a measure of continuity to the thought which they +convey. In no sense is the work pedagogical or theoretical. It is, on +the contrary, a record of the impressions made on a traveler by a number +of school systems and schools. The articles purported to cover the most +progressive work which is being done in the most progressive schools. +Although the selection of successful schools was made only after a +careful canvass among the leading educators of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span> country, there are +undoubtedly many instances, still at large, which are in every sense as +worthy of commendation as any here recorded. This fact does not in any +way vitiate the purpose of the original articles, which was to set down +a statement of some educational successes in such a way that the lay +reader, grasping the significance of these ventures, might see in them +immediate possibilities for the schools in his locality.</p> + +<p>Behind all of the chapters is the same idea—the idea of educating +children—an idea which has taken firm hold of the progressive educators +in every section of the community. The schoolmaster is breaking away +from the traditions of his craft. He has laid aside the birch, the three +“R’s,†the categorical imperative, and a host of other instruments +invented by ancient pedagogical inquisitors, and with an open mind is +going up and down the world seeking to reshape the schools in the +interests of childhood. The task is Herculean, but the enthusiasm and +energy which inspire his labors are sufficient to overcome even those +obstacles which are apparently insurmountable.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h2><a name="contents" id="contents"></a>CONTENTS</h2> + +<div class="center"><table summary="Table of Contents" style="width: 60%;"> +<tr> + +<th class="tdl" colspan="2"> </th> +<th class="tdrp">PAGE</th> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">Introduction. The Old Education</span></td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#Page_11">11</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + +<td class="tdr">I.</td> +<td class="tlp">The Critical Spirit and the Schools</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#Page_11">11</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">II.</td> +<td class="tlp">Some Harsh Words from the Inside</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#Intro_II">12</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">III.</td> +<td class="tlp">A Word from Huxley and Spencer</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#Intro_III">15</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">IV.</td> +<td class="tlp">Some Honest Facts</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#Intro_IV">17</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">V.</td> +<td class="tlp">Have We Fulfilled the Object of Education?</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#Intro_V">22</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + +<td class="tdl" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">Chapter I. The New Basis for Education</span></td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">24</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">I.</td> +<td class="tlp">Can There Be a New Basis?</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">24</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">II.</td> +<td class="tlp">Social Change</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#I_II">25</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">III.</td> +<td class="tlp">Keeping Up With the Times</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#I_III">26</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">IV.</td> +<td class="tlp">Education in the Early Home</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#I_IV">27</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">V.</td> +<td class="tlp">City Life and the New Basis for Education</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#I_V">28</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + +<td class="tdl" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">Chapter II. Teaching Boys and Girls</span></td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">32</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">I.</td> +<td class="tlp">The New School Machinery</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">32</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">II.</td> +<td class="tlp">Rousseau Versus a Class of Forty</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#II_II">33</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">III.</td> +<td class="tlp">The Fallacious “Average"</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#II_III">34</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">IV.</td> +<td class="tlp">The Five Ages of Childhood</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#II_IV">35</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">V.</td> +<td class="tlp">Age Distribution in One Grade</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#II_V">36</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">VI.</td> +<td class="tlp">Shall Child or Subject Matter Come First?</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#II_VI">39</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">VII.</td> +<td class="tlp">The Vicious Practices of One “Good" School</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#II_VII">40</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + +<td class="tdr">VIII.</td> +<td class="tlp">Boys and Girls—The One Object of Educational Activity</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#II_VIII">42</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + +<td class="tdl" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">Chapter III. Fitting Schools to Children</span></td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">44</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">I.</td> +<td class="tlp">Child Growth—A Primary Factor in Child Life</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">44</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">II.</td> +<td class="tlp">Children Need Health First</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#III_II">45</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">III.</td> +<td class="tlp">Play as a Means to Growth</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#III_III">46</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">IV.</td> +<td class="tlp">Some Things Which a Child Must Learn</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#III_IV">48</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">V.</td> +<td class="tlp">What Schools Must Provide to Meet Child Needs</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#III_V">51</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">VI.</td> +<td class="tlp">The Educational Work of the Small Town</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#III_VI">52</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">VII.</td> +<td class="tlp">The Educational Problems of an Industrial Community</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#III_VII">55</a></td></tr> + + <tr> +<td class="tdr">VIII.</td> +<td class="tlp">Beginning With Child Needs</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#III_VIII">56</a> +</td></tr> + + <tr> + +<td class="tdl" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">Chapter IV. Progressive Notes in Elementary Education</span></td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">58</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">I.</td> +<td class="tlp">The Kindergarten</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">58</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">II.</td> +<td class="tlp">Translating the Three R’s</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#IV_II">59</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">III.</td> +<td class="tlp">Playing at Mathematics</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#IV_III">60</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">IV.</td> +<td class="tlp">A Model English Lesson</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#IV_IV">61</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">V.</td> +<td class="tlp">An Original Fairy Story</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#IV_V">65</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">VI.</td> +<td class="tlp">The Crow and the Scarecrow</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#IV_VI">67</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">VII.</td> +<td class="tlp">School and Home</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#IV_VII">68</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + +<td class="tdr">VIII.</td> +<td class="tlp">Breaking New Ground</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#IV_VIII">71</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">IX.</td> +<td class="tlp">The School and the Community</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#IV_IX">72</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">X.</td> +<td class="tlp">New Keys for Old Locks</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#IV_X">74</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">XI.</td> +<td class="tlp">School and Shop</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#IV_XI">76</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">XII.</td> +<td class="tlp">Half a Chance to Study</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#IV_XII">79</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + +<td class="tdr">XIII.</td> +<td class="tlp">Thwarting Satan in the Summer Time</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#IV_XIII">80</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">XIV.</td> +<td class="tlp">Sending the Whole Child to School</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#IV_XIV">81</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">XV.</td> +<td class="tlp">Smashing the School Machine</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#IV_XV">84</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">XVI.</td> +<td class="tlp">All Hands Around for an Elementary School</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#IV_XVI">86</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + +<td class="tdr">XVII.</td> +<td class="tlp">From a Blazed Trail to a Paved Highway</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#IV_XVII">90</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + +<td class="tdl" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">Chapter V. Keeping the High School in Step With Life</span></td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">92</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">I.</td> +<td class="tlp">The Responsibility of the High School</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">92</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">II.</td> +<td class="tlp">An Experiment in Futures</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#V_II">92</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">III.</td> +<td class="tlp">The Success Habit</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#V_III">95</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">IV.</td> +<td class="tlp">The Help-out Spirit</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#V_IV">97</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">V.</td> +<td class="tlp">Joining Hands With the Elementary Schools</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#V_V">98</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">VI.</td> +<td class="tlp">The Abolition of “Mass Play"</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#V_VI">101</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">VII.</td> +<td class="tlp">Experimental Democracy</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#V_VII">103</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + +<td class="tdr">VIII.</td> +<td class="tlp">Breaching <a name="Page_8t" id="Page_8t"></a><a href="#Page_8tn">[the]</a> Chinese Wall of High School Classicism</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#V_VIII">105</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">IX.</td> +<td class="tlp">An Up-to-Date High School</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#V_IX">107</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">X.</td> +<td class="tlp">From School to Shop and Back Again</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#V_X">109</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">XI.</td> +<td class="tlp">Fitting the High School Graduate Into Life</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#V_XI">110</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">XII.</td> +<td class="tlp">The High School as a Public Servant</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#V_XII">114</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + +<td class="tdl" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">Chapter VI. Higher Education at Lowville</span></td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">116</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">I.</td> +<td class="tlp">Lowville and the Neighborhood</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">116</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">II.</td> +<td class="tlp">Lowville Academy</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#VI_II">117</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">III.</td> +<td class="tlp">The School’s Opportunity</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#VI_III">119</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">IV.</td> +<td class="tlp">Field Work as Education</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#VI_IV">120</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">V.</td> +<td class="tlp">Real Domestic Science</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#VI_V">122</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">VI.</td> +<td class="tlp">One Instance of Success</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#VI_VI">123</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + +<td class="tdl" colspan="2"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span><span class="smcap">Chapter VII. A Great City School System</span></td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">125</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">I.</td> +<td class="tlp">“<a name="Page_9t" id="Page_9t"></a><a href="#Page_9tn">Co-operation</a>†and “Progressivismâ€</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">125</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">II.</td> +<td class="tlp">An Educational Creed</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#VII_II">127</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">III.</td> +<td class="tlp">Vitalizing the Kindergarten</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#VII_III">129</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">IV.</td> +<td class="tlp">Regenerating the Grades</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#VII_IV">132</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">V.</td> +<td class="tlp">Popularizing High School Education</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#VII_V">137</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">VI.</td> +<td class="tlp">A City University</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#VII_VI">140</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">VII.</td> +<td class="tlp">Special Schools for Special Classes</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#VII_VII">141</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + +<td class="tdr">VIII.</td> +<td class="tlp">Special Schools for Special Children</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#VII_VIII">144</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">IX.</td> +<td class="tlp">Playground and Summer Schools</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#VII_IX">145</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">X.</td> +<td class="tlp">Mr. Dyer and the Men Who Stood With Him</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#VII_X">147</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + +<td class="tdl" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">Chapter VIII. The Oyler School of Cincinnati</span></td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">153</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">I.</td> +<td class="tlp">An Experiment in Social Education</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">153</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">II.</td> +<td class="tlp">An Appeal for Applied Education</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#VIII_II">156</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">III.</td> +<td class="tlp">Solving a Local Problem</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#VIII_III">157</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">IV.</td> +<td class="tlp">Domestic Science Which Domesticates</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#VIII_IV">159</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">V.</td> +<td class="tlp">Making Commercial Products in the Grades</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#VIII_V">161</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">VI.</td> +<td class="tlp">A Real Interest in School</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#VIII_VI">162</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">VII.</td> +<td class="tlp">The Mothers’ Club</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#VIII_VII">163</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + +<td class="tdr">VIII.</td> +<td class="tlp">The Disappearance of “Disciplineâ€</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#VIII_VIII">165</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">IX.</td> +<td class="tlp">The Spirit of Oyler</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#VIII_IX">167</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + +<td class="tdl" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">Chapter IX. Vitalizing Rural Education</span></td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">170</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">I.</td> +<td class="tlp">The Call of the Country</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">170</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">II.</td> +<td class="tlp">Making Bricks With Straw</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#IX_II">171</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">III.</td> +<td class="tlp">Making the One-Room Country School Worth While</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#IX_III">182</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">IV.</td> +<td class="tlp">Repainting the Little Red Schoolhouse</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#IX_IV">187</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">V.</td> +<td class="tlp">A Fairyland of Rural Education</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#IX_V">188</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">VI.</td> +<td class="tlp">The Task of the Country School</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#IX_VI">193</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + +<td class="tdl" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">Chapter X. Out of the Mouths of Babes and Sucklings</span></td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#CHAPTER_X">195</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">I.</td> +<td class="tlp">Miss Belle</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#CHAPTER_X">195</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">II.</td> +<td class="tlp">Going to Work Through the Children</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#X_II">196</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">III.</td> +<td class="tlp">Beginning on Muffins</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#X_III">197</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">IV.</td> +<td class="tlp">Taking the Boys in Hand</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#X_IV">200</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">V.</td> +<td class="tlp">“Busy Work†as an Asset</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#X_V">201</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">VI.</td> +<td class="tlp">Marguerite</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#X_VI">203</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">VII.</td> +<td class="tlp">Winning Over the Families</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#X_VII">204</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + +<td class="tdl" colspan="2"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span><span class="smcap">Chapter XI. Wide-Awake Sleepy Eye</span></td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">207</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">I.</td> +<td class="tlp">Fitting Schools to Needs</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">207</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">II.</td> +<td class="tlp">Getting the Janitor in Line</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#XI_II">208</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">III.</td> +<td class="tlp">The Department of Agriculture</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#XI_III">209</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">IV.</td> +<td class="tlp">A Short Course for Busy People</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#XI_IV">212</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">V.</td> +<td class="tlp">Letting the Boys Do It</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#XI_V">214</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">VI.</td> +<td class="tlp">A Look at the Domestic Science</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#XI_VI">214</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">VII.</td> +<td class="tlp">How It Works Out</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#XI_VII">216</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + +<td class="tdr">VIII.</td> +<td class="tlp">Theoretical and Practical</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#XI_VIII">217</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + +<td class="tdl" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">Chapter XII. The South for the New Education</span></td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">220</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">I.</td> +<td class="tlp">A Dream of Empire</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">220</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">II.</td> +<td class="tlp">Finding the Way</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#XII_II">222</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">III.</td> +<td class="tlp">Jem’s Father</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#XII_III">224</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">IV.</td> +<td class="tlp">Club Life Militant</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#XII_IV">228</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">V.</td> +<td class="tlp">Canning Clubs</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#XII_V">234</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">VI.</td> +<td class="tlp">Recognition Day for Boys and Girls</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#XII_VI">235</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">VII.</td> +<td class="tlp">Teaching Grown-Ups to Read</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#XII_VII">236</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + +<td class="tdr">VIII.</td> +<td class="tlp">George Washington, Junior</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#XII_VIII">237</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">IX.</td> +<td class="tlp">A Step Toward Good Health</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#XII_IX">239</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">X.</td> +<td class="tlp">Theory and Practice</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#XII_X">242</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">XI.</td> +<td class="tlp">A People Coming to Its Own</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#XII_XI">249</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + +<td class="tdl" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">Chapter XIII. The Spirit of the New Education</span></td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">251</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">I.</td> +<td class="tlp">The Standard of Education</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">251</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">II.</td> +<td class="tlp">Standardization Was a Failure</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#XIII_II">252</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">III.</td> +<td class="tlp">Education as Growth</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#XIII_III">254</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">IV.</td> +<td class="tlp">Child Needs and Community Needs</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#XIII_IV">255</a></td></tr> + + <tr> + + <td class="tdr">V.</td> +<td class="tlp">The Final Test of Education</td> +<td class="tdrp"><a href="#XIII_V">257</a></td></tr> +</table> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="THE_NEW_EDUCATION" id="THE_NEW_EDUCATION"></a>THE NEW EDUCATION<br /><br /> +</h2> +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>INTRODUCTION</h3> + +<h2>THE OLD EDUCATION</h2> + + +<h4>I The Critical Spirit and the Schools</h4> + +<p>“Everybody is doing it,†said a high school principal the other day. “I +look through the new books and I find it; it stands out prominently in +technical as well as in popular magazines; even the educational papers +are taking it up,—everybody seems to be whacking the schools. Yesterday +I picked up a funny sheet on which there were four raps at the schools. +One in particular that I remember ran something like this,—</p> + +<p>“‘James,’ said the teacher, ‘if Thomas has three red apples and William +has five yellow apples, how many apples have Thomas and William?’</p> + +<p>“James looked despondent.</p> + +<p>“‘Don’t you know?’ queried the teacher, ‘how much three plus five is?’</p> + +<p>“‘Oh, yes, ma’am, I know the answer, but the formula, ma’am,—it’s the +formula that appals me.’</p> + +<p>“Probably nine-tenths of the people who read that story enjoyed it +hugely,†continued the schoolman, “and they enjoyed it because it struck +a responsive chord in their memories. At one time or another in their +school lives, they, too, bowed in dejection before the tyranny of +formulas.â€</p> + +<p>This criticism of school formulas is not confined to popular sources. +Prominent authorities in every field<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span> which comes in contact with the +school are barbarous in their onslaughts. State and city +superintendents, principals, teachers, parents, employers,—all have +made contribution to the popular clamor. On every hand may be gleaned +evidences of an unsatisfied critical spirit.</p> + + +<h4><a name="Intro_II" id="Intro_II"></a>II Some Harsh Words from the Inside</h4> + +<p>The Commissioner of Education of New York State writes of the +schools,—<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> “A child is worse off in a graded school than in an +ungraded one, if the work of a grade is not capable of some specific +valuation, and if each added grade does not provide some added power. +The first two grades run much to entertainment and amusement. The third +and fourth grades repeat the work supposed to have been done in the +first two. Too many unimportant and unrelated facts are taught. It is +like the wearying orator who reels off stories only to amuse, seems +incapable of choosing an incident to enforce a point, and makes no +progress toward a logical conclusion.</p> + +<p>“When but one-third of the children remain to the end of the elementary +course, there is something the matter with the schools. When half of the +men who are responsible for the business activities and who are guiding +the political life of the country tell us that children from the +elementary schools are not able to do definite things required in the +world’s real affairs, there is something the matter with the schools. +When work seeks workers, and young men and women are indifferent to it +or do not know how to do it, there is something the matter with the +schools.<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span></p><p>“There is a waste of time and productivity in all of the grades of the +elementary schools.â€<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> “The things that are weighing down the schools +are the multiplicity of studies which are only informatory, the +prolongation of branches so as to require many text-books, and the +prolixity of treatment and illustration that will accommodate +psychological theory and sustain pedagogical methods which have some +basis of reason, but which have been most ingeniously overdone.â€<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a></p> + +<p>Former United States Commissioner of Education, E. E. Brown, is +responsible for the statement that,—“With all that we have done to +secure regular and continuous attendance at school, it is still a mark +of distinction when any city is able to keep even one-half of the pupils +who are enrolled in its schools until they have passed even the seventh +grade.â€<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a></p> + +<p>Here is an illustration, from the pen of a widely known educational +expert, of the character of educational facilities in the well-to-do +suburb of an Eastern city. After describing two of the newer schools +(1911) Prof. Hanus continues,—“The Maple Avenue School is too small for +its school population, without a suitable office for the principal or a +common room for the teachers, and, of course, very inadequately equipped +for the work it ought to do; it ought, therefore, to be remodeled and +added to without delay. The Chestnut Street School is old, gloomy, +crowded, badly ventilated, and badly heated, has steep and narrow +stairways, and it would be dangerous in case of fire. There are fire +escapes, to be sure, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span>but the access to some of these, though apparently +easy in a fire drill, might be seriously inadequate and dangerous in +case of haste or panic due to a real fire. In such a building sustained +good work by teachers and pupils is very difficult....</p> + +<p>“The High School is miserably housed. It is dingy, badly lighted and +badly ventilated. These defects constitute a serious menace to the +physical welfare of pupils and teachers and, of course, seriously +interfere with good work. It is crowded. Intercommunication is devious +and inconvenient. The building is quite unfit for high school uses. Some +of the school furniture is very poor; the physical and chemical +classrooms and laboratories are very unsatisfactory, and its biological +laboratory and equipment scarcely less so. The assembly room is too +small, badly arranged, and badly furnished. There are no toilet-rooms +for the teachers, and there is no common room. There is no satisfactory +or adequate lunch-room. The library is in crowded quarters; the +principal’s office space is altogether too small, and his private office +almost derisively so.â€<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a></p> + +<p>Overwork in the school is said to be alarmingly prevalent. “It is +generally recognized by physicians and educators to-day that many +children in the schools are being seriously injured through nervous +overstrain. Throughout the world there is a developing conviction that +one of the most important duties of society is to determine how +education may be carried on without depriving children of their health. +It is probable that we are not requiring too much work of our pupils, +but they are not accomplishing their tasks economically in respect to +the expenditure of nervous energy. Some <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span>experiments made at home and +abroad seem to indicate that children could accomplish as much +intellectually, with far less dissipation of nervous energy, if they +were in the schoolroom about one-half the time which they now spend +there. German educators and physicians are convinced that a fundamental +reform in this respect is needed. In fact, among school children we are +learning the same lesson as among factory employees, viz., that high +pressure and long hours are not economy but waste of time.â€<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a></p> + +<p>The school has been rendered monotonous. “We have worked for system till +the public schools have become machines. It has been insistently +proclaimed that all children must do things the same way for so long a +time, that many of us have actually come to believe it. Children unborn +are predestined to work after the same fashion that their grandparents +did.â€<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a></p> + + +<h4><a name="Intro_III" id="Intro_III"></a>III A Word from Huxley and Spencer</h4> + +<p>These are typical of a host of similar criticisms of the schools which +leading educators, men working within the school system, are directing +against it. Out of the fullness of their experience they spread the +conviction that the school often fails to prepare for life, that it +frequently distorts more effectively than it builds. The thought is not +new. Thomas Huxley asked, years ago, whether education should not be +definitely related to life. He wrote,—“If there were no such things as +industrial pursuits, a system of education which does nothing for the +faculties of observation, which trains <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span>neither the eye nor the hand, +and is compatible with utter ignorance of the commonest natural truths, +might still be reasonably regarded as strangely imperfect. And when we +consider that the instruction and training which are lacking are exactly +those which are of most importance for the great mass of our population, +the fault becomes almost a crime, the more so in that there is no +practical difficulty in making good these defects.â€<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a></p> + +<p>Approaching the matter from another side, Tyler puts a pertinent +question in his “Growth and Education,—†“In the grammar grade is +learning and mental discipline of chief importance to the girl, or is +care of the body and physical exercise absolutely essential at this +period? No one seems to know, and very few care. What would nature +say?â€<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a></p> + +<p>Herbert Spencer answers Tyler’s question in spirited fashion. “While +many years are spent by a boy in gaining knowledge, of which the chief +value is that it constitutes ‘the education of a gentleman;’ and while +many years are spent by a girl in those decorative acquirements which +fit her for evening parties; not an hour is spent by either of them in +preparation for that gravest of all responsibilities—the management of +a family.â€<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> “For shoe-making or house-building, for the management of +a ship or a locomotive-engine, a long apprenticeship is needful. It is, +then, that the unfolding of a human being in body and mind, may we +superintend and regulate it with no preparation whatever?â€<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span></p><p>One fact is self-evident,—the existence of a body of criticism and +hostility is prima facia evidence of weakness on the part of the +institution criticised, particularly when the criticism comes strong and +sharp from school-men themselves. The extent and severity of school +criticism certainly bespeaks the careful consideration of those most +interested in maintaining the efficiency of the school system.</p> + + +<h4><a name="Intro_IV" id="Intro_IV"></a>IV Some Honest Facts</h4> + +<p>Let us face the facts honestly. If you include country schools, and they +must be included in any discussion of American Education, the school +mortality,—i. e., the children who drop out of school between the first +and eighth years—is appalling. We may quarrel over percentages, but the +dropping out is there.</p> + +<p>The United States Commissioner of Education writes,—<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> “Of +twenty-five million children of school age (5 to 18), less than twenty +million are enrolled in schools of all kinds and grades, public and +private; and the average daily attendance does not exceed fourteen +million, for an average school term of less than 8 months of 20 days +each. The average daily attendance of those enrolled in the public +schools is only 113 days in the year, less than 5¾ months. The +average attendance of the entire school population is only 80½ days, +or 4 months of 20 days each. Assuming that this rate of attendance shall +continue through the 13 school years (5 to 18), the average amount of +schooling received by each child of the school population will be 1,046 +days, or a little more than 5 years of 10 school months. This <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span>bureau +has no reliable statistics on the subject, but it is quite probable that +less than half the children of the country finish successfully more than +the first 6 grades; only about one-fourth of the children ever enter +high school; and less than 8 in every 100 do the full 4 years of high +school work. Fewer than 5 in 100 receive any education above the high +school.â€</p> + +<p>Taking this dropping out into consideration, it is probable that the +majority of children who enter American schools receive no more +education than will enable them to read clumsily, to write badly, to +spell wretchedly, and to do the simplest mathematical problems +(addition, subtraction, etc.) with difficulty. In any real sense of the +word, they are neither educated nor cultured.</p> + +<p>Judge Draper, Superintendent of Public Instruction in New York State, +writes,—<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> “We cannot exculpate the schools. They are as wasteful of +child life as are the homes. From the bottom to the top of the American +educational system we take little account of the time of the child.... +We have eight or nine elementary grades for work which would be done in +six if we were working mainly for productivity and power. We have shaped +our secondary schools so that they confuse the thinking of youth and +break the equilibrium between education and vocations, and people and +industries.... In the graded elementary schools of the State of New +York, less than half of the children remain to the end of the course. +They do not start early enough. They do not attend regularly enough. The +course is too full <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span>of mere pedagogical method, exploitation and +illustration, if not of kinds and classes of work. The terms are too +short and the vacations too long.... More than half of the children drop +out by the time they are fourteen or fifteen, the limits of the +compulsory attendance age, because the work of the schools is behind the +age of the pupils, and we do not teach them the things which lead them +and their parents to think it will be worth their while to remain.â€</p> + +<p>Observe that Judge Draper writes of the graded schools only. Could you +conceive of a more stinging rebuke to an institution from a man who is +making it his business to know its innermost workings?</p> + +<p>These statements refer, not to the small percentage of children who go +to high school, but to that great mass of children who leave the school +at, or before, fourteen years of age. If you do not believe them, go +among working children and find out what their intellectual +qualifications really are.</p> + +<p>One fact must be clearly borne in mind,—the school system is a social +institution. In the schools are the people’s children. Public taxes +provide the funds for public education. Perhaps no great institution is +more generally a part of community interest and experience than the +public school system.</p> + +<p>The most surprising thing about the school figures is the overwhelming +proportion of students in the elementary grades—17,050,441 of the +18,207,803. If you draw three lines, the first representing the number +of children in the elementary schools, the second showing the number in +the high school, and the third the number of students in colleges, +professional and normal schools, the contrast is astonishing.</p> + +<p>It is perfectly evident, therefore, that the real work<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span> of education +must be done in the elementary grades. The high schools with a million +students, and the universities, colleges, professional and normal +schools with three hundred thousand more, constitute an increasingly +important factor in education; at the same time, for every seven +students in these higher schools, there are ninety-three children in the +elementary grades. The proportion is so unexpected that it staggers +us—more than nine-tenths of the children who attend school in the +United States are in the elementary grades! Can this be the school +system of which our forefathers dreamed when they established a +universal, free education nearly a hundred years ago? Did they foresee +that such an overwhelming proportion of American children would never +have an opportunity to secure more than the rudiments of an education?</p> + +<p>Be that as it may, the facts glower menacingly at us from city, town and +countryside,—the overcrowded elementary grades and the higher schools +with but a scant proportion of the students. So, if we wish to educate +the great mass of American children, we must go to the primary grades to +do it.</p> + +<p>There are, in the public schools, 533,606 teachers, four-fifths of whom +are women. These teachers are at work in 267,153 school buildings having +a total value of $1,221,695,730. Each year some four hundred and fifty +million dollars are devoted to maintaining and adding to this +educational machine.</p> + +<p>The school system is the greatest saving fund which the American people +possess. The total value of school property is greater than the entire +fortune of the richest American. Each year the people spend upon their +schools a sum sufficient to construct a Panama Canal or a +transcontinental railway system. Thus the public<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span> school is the greatest +public investment in the United States.</p> + +<p>It is one thing to invest, and quite a different matter to be assured a +fair return on the investment. Nevertheless, the individual investor +believes in his right to a fair return. From their public investments, +the people, in fairness, can demand no more; in justice to themselves, +they may accept no less. Are they receiving a fair return? The people of +the United States have invested nearly a billion dollars in the public +school system; each year they contribute nearly half a billion dollars +more toward the same end. Are they getting what they pay for?</p> + +<p>Turn to another section of the Report of the Commissioner of Education, +and note how, in mild alarm, he protests against teachers’ salaries so +low “that it is clearly impossible to hire the services of men and women +of good native ability and sufficient scholarship, training and +experience to enable them to do satisfactory work;†against the +schoolhouses, which are “cheap, insanitary, uncomfortable and +unattractive;†against “thousands of schools†in which “one teacher +teaches from twenty to thirty classes a day;†against “courses of study +ill-adapted to the interest of country children or the needs of country +life;†against “a small enrollment of the total children of school age,†+and a school attendance so low that “the average of the entire school +population is only 80½ days per year.â€<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a></p> + +<p>The tone of these statements is certainly not reassuring. Perhaps it is +high time that the citizens inquired into the status of their +educational securities—their public school system.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span></p> + + +<h4><a name="Intro_V" id="Intro_V"></a>V Have We Fulfilled the Object of Education?</h4> + +<p>The object of education is complete living. A perfect educational system +would prepare those participating in it to live every phase of their +lives, and to derive from life all possible benefit. Any educational +system which enables men to live completely is therefore fulfilling its +function. On the other hand, an educational system which does not +prepare for life is not meeting the necessary requirements.</p> + +<p>Charles Dickens, in his characteristic way, thus describes in “Hard +Times†a public school class under the title “Murdering the Innocents:â€</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“‘In this life, we want nothing but Facts, sir; nothing but +Facts.’</p> + +<p>“The speaker and the school master swept with their eyes the +inclined plane of little vessels then and there arranged in +order, ready to have imperial gallons of facts poured into them +until they were full to the brim. So Mr. M’Choakumchild (the +school master) began in his best manner. He went to work on this +preparatory lesson, not unlike Morgiana in the Forty +Thieves—looking into all the vessels ranged before him, one +after another, to see what they contained. Say, good Mr. +M’Choakumchild: when from thy store thou shalt fill each jar +brim full by and by, dost thou think thou wilt always kill +outright the robber Fancy lurking within, or sometimes only maim +him and distort him!â€</p></div> + +<p>Is the picture overdrawn? Are there grades in our large American cities +where conditions similar to those just portrayed may be found? Every +parent who has a child in the public schools, every taxpayer who +contributes to school support, has a right to a direct, impartial and +honest answer to that question.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span></p> + +<p>Among educators as well as among members of the general public a spirit +of educational unrest has developed. Everywhere there is an ill-defined +feeling of dissatisfaction with the work of the schools; everywhere an +earnest desire to see the schools do more effectively the school work +which is regarded, on every hand, as imperative.</p> + +<p>The facts of school failure are more generally known than the facts of +school success; yet there are successful schools. Indeed, some of the +school systems of the United States are doing remarkably effective work. +Emphasis has been lavished on the failure side of the educational +problem, until public opinion is fairly alive to the necessity of some +action. The time is, therefore, ripe for a positive statement of +educational policy. Many schools have succeeded. Let us read the story +of the good work. Efficient educational systems are in operation. Let us +model the less successful experiments on those more successful ones.</p> + +<p>Circumstances force people to live in one place, to see one set of +surroundings and meet one kind of folks, until they are led to believe, +almost inevitably, that their kind is <i>the</i> kind. Schools are the +victims of just such provincialism. Although the school superintendents +and principals, and some of the school teachers meet their co-workers +from other cities, the people whose children attend the schools almost +never have an opportunity to learn intelligently what other schools are +doing. This city develops one educational idea, and that city develops +another idea. Although both ideas may deserve widespread consideration, +and perhaps universal adoption, they will fail to measure up to the full +stature of their value unless the people in all communities learn about +them intelligently.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> “American Education,†Andrew S. Draper, Boston; Houghton +Mifflin Co., 1909, pp. 281-83.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> Ibid., p. 275.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> Ibid., p. 281.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> Idem.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> The Responsibility of the School, E. E. Brown, U. S. +Commissioner of Education. A pamphlet privately printed in Philadelphia, +1908, containing a series of addresses.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> Report on the Programme of Studies in the Public Schools of +Montclair, N. J., Paul H. Hanus, Cambridge, Mass., pp. 7 and 8.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> Report on National Vitality, Irving Fisher, Washington +Government Print., 1909, pp. 76-77.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> The Problem of Individualizing Instruction, W. F. Andrew, +Education, Vol. 26, p. 135 (1905).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> Evolution and Ethics, T. H. Huxley, New York, D. Appleton & +Co., 1902, p. 220.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> Growth and Education, J. M. Tyler, Houghton Mifflin Co., +New York, 1907, p. 21.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> Education, H. Spencer, New York, D. Appleton & Co., 1861, +p. 162.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> Supra, p. 63.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> Annual Report, U. S. Commissioner of Education, 1911; +Washington Government Print., 1912, Vol. I, pp. 12-13.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> Conserving Childhood, Andrew S. Draper; The Child Workers +of the Nation, Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Conference on Child +Labor, Chicago, Ill., Jan. 21-23, 1909; New York, 1909, pp. 9-10.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> Report U. S. Commissioner of Education, 1911, Vol. I, p. +12.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h3> + +<h2>THE NEW BASIS FOR EDUCATION<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor"><small>[16]</small></a></h2> + + +<h4>I Can There Be a New Basis?</h4> + +<p>Can there be a new basis for education? Does the foundation upon which +education rests really change? Is the educational system of one age +necessarily unfitted to provide for the educational needs of the next? +These, and a multitude of the similar questions which people interested +in educational progress are asking themselves, arise out of the process +of transition that is seemingly one of the fundamental propositions of +the universe. All things change, and are changing, from the smallest +cell to the most highly organized creature, the noblest mountain range, +and the vastest sun in the heavens. To-day differs from yesterday as +to-morrow must differ from to-day. All things are becoming.</p> + +<p>Test this statement with the observed facts of life. Here is a garden, +well-planted and watered. The soil is loamy and black. On all its +surface there is nothing, save a clod here and there, to relieve the +warm, moist regularity. Come to-morrow and the level surface is broken +by tiny green shoots which have appeared at intervals, thrusting through +the top crust. Next week the black earth is striped with rows of green. +Onions, beets, lettuce, and peas are coming up. Go back to the hills +which you climbed in boyhood, ascend their chasmed sides and note how +even they have changed. Each year <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span>some part of them has disappeared +into the rapid torrent. Had you been there in April, you might have seen +particles of your beloved hills in every water-course, hurrying toward +the lowlands and the sea. While you watch them, the clouds change in the +sky, the sunset wanes, and the forest covers the bared hills. Nature, +fickle mistress of our destinies, spreads a never-ending panorama before +our eyes that we may recognize the one great law of her being,—the law +of progression.</p> + + +<h4><a name="I_II" id="I_II"></a>II Social Change</h4> + +<p>How well does this principle of change apply to the organization of +society! The absolute monarchy of one age yields to the semi-democracy +of the next. Yesterday the church itself traded in men’s +bodies,—holding slaves, and accepting, without question, the proceeds +of slavery. To-day machines replace men in a thousand industries. +To-morrow slavery is called into question, until in the dim-glowering +nineteenth century, men will struggle and die by tens of thousands;—on +the one side, those who believe that the man should be the slave; on the +other, those who hold that the slavery of the machine is alone necessary +and just. Thus is every social institution altered from age to age. Thus +is effected that transformation which men have chosen to call progress.</p> + +<p>How profoundly does this truth apply to the raw material of +education,—the children who enroll in the schools! Under your very eyes +they lose their childish ways, feel their steps along the precipice of +adolescence, enter the wonderland of imagery and idealism, and pass on +into the maturity of life. How vain is our hope that the child may +remain a child; how worthless our prayer that adult life shall never lay +her heavy burden of cares and responsibilities upon his beloved +shoulders. Even<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span> while you raise your hands in supplication, the child +has passed from your life forever, leaving naught save a man to confront +you.</p> + +<p>From these mighty scythe strokes which change sweeps across the meadows +of time, naught is exempt. The petals fall from the fairest flower; the +bluest sky becomes overcast; the greatest feats of history are +surpassed; and the social machinery, adequate for the needs of one age, +sinks into the insignificance of desuetude in the age which follows. +Thus does the inevitable come to pass. Thus does the social institution, +wrought through centuries of turmoil and anguish, become useless in the +newer civilization which is arising on every hand. The educational +system in its inception was well founded, but the changes of time +invalidate the original idea. Yesterday the school fulfilled the needs +of men. To-day it fails to meet a situation which reshapes itself with +each rising and each setting of the sun.</p> + +<p>Each epoch must have its institutions. With the work of the past as a +background, the present must constantly reshape the institutions which +the past has bequeathed to it. These modified institutions, handed on in +turn by the present, must again be rebuilt to meet the needs of the +future; and so on through each succeeding age.</p> + + +<h4><a name="I_III" id="I_III"></a>III Keeping Up with the Times</h4> + +<p>At times the march of progress is so rapid that even the most advanced +grow breathless with attempts to keep abreast of the vanguard. Again, +marking time for ages, progressive movements seem wholly dead, and the +path to the future is overgrown with tradition, and blocked by oblivion +and decay. The rapid advances of the nineteenth century, challenging the +quickest to keep pace,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span> forced upon many institutions surroundings +wholly foreign to their bent and scope.</p> + +<p>Nowhere is this more true than in the case of the educational system, +which had its rise in an age of individualized industry and governmental +non-interference, and now faces a newly inaugurated socialization of +industry and an impromptu system of government control.</p> + +<p>The new basis of education lies in the changes which the nineteenth +century wrought in industry, transforming village life into city +dwelling, and substituting for the skilled mechanic, using a tool, the +machine, employing the unskilled worker. The men of the eighteenth +century made political institutions, and were content with democracy; +the men of the nineteenth century, accepting government as it stood, +built up a new industry. The society which we in the twentieth century +must erect upon the political and industrial triumphs of our +forefathers, can never be successful unless it recognizes the +fundamental character of the issues which nineteenth century industry +and eighteenth century politics have brought into twentieth century +life.</p> + +<p>Is it too much to ask that the school stand foremost in this recognition +of change, when it is in the school that the ideas of the new generation +are moulded, tempered, and burnished? May we not expect that in its +lessons to the young our educational system shall speak the language of +the twentieth century rather than that of the eighteenth?</p> + + +<h4><a name="I_IV" id="I_IV"></a>IV Education in the Early Home</h4> + +<p>Before the modern system of industry had its inception, while the old +hand trades still held sway, at a time when the household was the center +of work and pleasure, when the family made its butter, cheese, oatmeal, +ale,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span> clothing, tools, and utensils,—in such an atmosphere of domestic +industry, Froebel wrote his famous “Education of Man.†Note this +description of the way in which a father may educate his son. “The son +accompanies his father everywhere, to the field and to the garden, to +the shop and to the counting house, to the forest and to the meadow; in +the care of domestic animals and in the making of small articles of +household furniture; in the splitting, sawing, and piling up of wood; in +all the work his father’s trade or calling involves.â€<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> In another +passage he calls upon parents, “more particularly fathers (for to their +special care and guidance the child ripening into boyhood is confided),†+to contemplate “their parental duties in child guidance;"<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> and he +prefaces this exhortation with a long list of illustrations, suggesting +the methods which may be pursued by the farm laborer, the goose-herd, +the gardener, the forester, the blacksmith, and other tradesmen and +craftsmen, in the education of their sons. Any such man, Froebel points +out, may take his child at the age of two or three and teach him some of +the simple rules of his trade. How different is the position of the son +of a workman in a modern American city! An American city dweller reading +Froebel’s discussion would not conceive of it as applying in any sense +to him, or to his life.</p> + + +<h4><a name="I_V" id="I_V"></a>V City Life and the New Basis for Education</h4> + +<p>The very thought of city life precludes the possibility of home work. +The narrow house, the tenement, the great shop or factory, on the one +hand, prevent the mechanic from carrying on his trade near his family; +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span>and on the other hand, make it impossible for the father whose work +lies far from his home to give his boys the “special care and guidance†+about which Froebel writes.</p> + +<p>The system of industry which was established in England during the +closing decades of the eighteenth century, and which secured a foothold +in both Germany and the United States during the first half of the +nineteenth century, has revolutionized the basis of our lives. The +workshop has been transplanted from the home to the factory; both men +and women leave their homes for ten, eleven, or even twelve hours a day +to carry on their industrial activities; great centers of population +collect about the centers of industry; the farm, the flock of geese, the +garden, the forest, and the blacksmith shop disappear; food, clothing, +and other necessaries of life—formerly the product of home +industry—are produced in great factories; and the city home, stripped +of its industrial functions, restricted in scope, robbed of its adults, +presents little opportunity for the education of the city child. +Standing on the <a name="Page_29t" id="Page_29t"></a><a href="#Page_29tn">threshold</a> of his meager dwelling, this child of six +looks forward to a life which must be based on the instruction provided +in a public school system.</p> + +<p>The country boy still has his ten-acre lot, where he may run and play. +There are flowers and freckles in the spring; kite-flying, fishing, +hunting, and trapping in summer and autumn. The general farm is a +storehouse of useful information in rudimentary form. From day to day +and from year to year the country boy may learn and enjoy.</p> + +<p>The city boy is differently situated. His playground is the street, +where he plays under the wheels of wagons, automobiles, and trolley +cars; or else he plays in a public playground in company with hundreds, +or even<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span> thousands, of other children. Even then his activities are +restricted by city ordinances, monitors, policemen, and other exponents +of law and order.</p> + +<p>The city home, whether tenement or single house, cannot begin to supply +the opportunities for growth and development which were furnished by +life in the open. Where else, then, does the responsibility for such +growth and development rest than upon the school? On the farm the boy +learned his trade, as Froebel suggests, at the hands of his father. The +father of the city boy spends his working hours in a mill, or in an +office, where boys under fourteen or sixteen are forbidden by law to go. +The city home is unavoidably deprived of the chance to provide adequate +recreation or adequate vocational training for its children. The burden +in both cases shifts to the school.</p> + +<p>A hundred years ago practically all industries were carried on in +connection with the home. The weaver, the carpenter, the hatter, the +cobbler, the miller, lived and worked on the same premises. Then steam +was applied to industry; the machine replaced the man; semi-skilled and +unskilled labor replaced skilled labor; great numbers of men and women, +and even of children, crowded together in factories to spin thread, make +bolts and washers, weave ribbon, bake bread, manufacture machinery, or +do some one of the many hundreds of things now done in factories. The +change from home industry to factory industry is well named the +Industrial Revolution. It completely overturned the established and +accepted means of making a living.</p> + +<p>The industrial upheaval has changed every phase of modern life. Industry +itself has replaced apprenticeship by a degree of specialization +undreamed of in primitive life. From the superintendent to the office<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span> +boy, from the boss roller to the yard laborer, from the chief clerk to +the stenographer, the work of men and women is monotonous and +specialized. The city has grown up as a logical product of an industrial +system which centers thousands, or even tens of thousands, of workmen in +one place of employment. The city home differs fundamentally from the +country home as the city differs from the country.</p> + +<p>The changes now going on in farming are no less significant than those +which the nineteenth century witnessed in manufacturing. Science has +been applied to agriculture. Old methods are brought into question. +Intensive study and specialization are widespread. The time has passed +when a farmer can afford to neglect the agricultural bulletins or +papers. To be successful, he must be a trained specialist in his line, +and the school and college are called upon to provide the training.</p> + +<p>No individual is responsible for these changes. They have come as the +logical product of a long series of discoveries and inventions. New +methods, built upon the ideas and methods of the past, have created a +new civilization.</p> + +<p>The civilized world, reorganized and reconstituted, rebuilt in all of +its economic phases, demands a new teaching which shall relate men and +women to the changed conditions of life. This is the new basis for +education,—this the new foundation upon which must be erected a +superstructure of educational opportunity for succeeding generations. It +remains for education to recognize the change and to remodel the +institutions of education in such a way that they shall meet the new +needs of the new life.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> Portions of this chapter originally appeared in The +Journal of Education.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> “The Education of Man,†F. Froebel. Translated by W. N. +Halliman, New York; D. Appleton & Co. 1909, p. 103.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> Ibid., p. 187.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h3> + +<h2>TEACHING BOYS AND GIRLS</h2> + + +<h4><a name="I_The_New_School" id="I_The_New_School"></a>I The New School Machinery</h4> + +<p>The influence which the industrial changes of the past hundred years has +had on education is considerable. With the transformation of the home +workshop into the factory has come the transition from rural and village +life to life in great industrial cities and towns. The introduction of +specialized machinery has placed upon education the burden of vocational +training. More important still, it has so augmented the size of the +educational problem that an intricate system of school machinery has +been devised to keep the whole in order.</p> + +<p>The rural, or village, school was a one or two-room affair, housing a +handful of pupils. Aside from matters of discipline, the administration +of the school was scarcely a problem. General superintendents, associate +superintendents, compulsory attendance laws, card index systems, and +purchasing departments were unknown. The school was a simple, personal +business conducted by the teacher in very much the same way that the +corner grocer conducted his store—on faith and memory.</p> + +<p>The growth of cities and towns necessitated the introduction of +elaborate school machinery. In place of a score of pupils, thousands, +tens, and even hundreds of thousands were placed under the same general +authority. City life made some form of administrative machinery +inevitable.</p> + +<p>The increasing size of the school system,—and in new, growing cities +the school system increases with a rapidity equal to the rate of growth +of the population,—leads<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span> to increase in class size. A school of twenty +pupils is still common in rural districts. In the elementary grades of +American city schools, investigators find fifty, sixty, and in some +extreme cases, seventy pupils under the charge of one teacher, while the +average number, per teacher, is about forty.</p> + +<p>Recrimination is idle. The obvious fact remains that the rate of growth +in school population is greater than the rate of growth in the school +plant. The schools in many cities have not caught up with their +educational problem. The result is a multiplication of administrative +problems, not the least of which is the question of class size.</p> + + +<h4><a name="II_II" id="II_II"></a>II Rousseau Versus a Class of Forty</h4> + +<p>A toilsome journey it is from the education of an individual child by an +individual teacher (Rousseau’s Emile) to the education of forty children +by one teacher (the normal class in American elementary city schools). +Rousseau pictured an ideal; we face a reality—complex, expanding, at +times almost menacing.</p> + +<p>The difference between Rousseau’s ideal and the modern actuality is more +serious than it appears superficially. Rousseau’s idea permitted the +teacher to treat the child as an individuality, studying the traits and +peculiarities of the pupil, building up where weakness appeared, and +directing freakish notions and ideas into conventional channels. The +modern city school with one teacher and forty pupils places before the +teacher a constant temptation, which at times reaches the proportions of +an overmastering necessity, to treat the group of children as if each +child were like all the rest. A teacher who can individualize forty +children, understand the peculiarities of each child, and teach in a way +that will enable each of the children to benefit fully by her +instruction, is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span> indeed a master, perhaps it would be fairer to say a +super-master in pedagogy. A class of forty is almost inevitably taught +as a group.</p> + +<p>There is another feature about the large school system which is even +more disastrous to the welfare of the individual child. Rousseau studied +the individual to be educated, and then prescribed the course of study. +The city teacher, no matter how intimately she may be acquainted with +the needs of her children, has little or no say in deciding upon the +subjects which she is to teach her class. Such matters are for the most +part determined by a group of officials—principals, superintendents, +and boards of education,—all of whom are engaged primarily in +administrative work, and some of whom have never taught at all, nor +entered a psychological laboratory, nor engaged in any other occupation +that would give first-hand, practical, or theoretical knowledge of the +problems encountered in determining a course of study.</p> + +<p>A course of study must be devised, however, even though some of the +responsible parties have no first-hand knowledge of the points at issue. +The method by which it is devised is of peculiar importance to this +discussion. The administrative officials, having in mind an average +child, prepare a course of study which will meet that average child’s +needs. Theoretically, the plan is admirable. It suffers from one +practical defect,—there is no such thing as an average child.</p> + + +<h4><a name="II_III" id="II_III"></a>III The Fallacious “Averageâ€</h4> + +<p>Averages are peculiarly tempting to Americans. They supply the same +deeply-felt want in statistics that headlines do in newspapers. They +tell the story at a glance. In this peculiar case the story is +necessarily false.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span></p> + +<p>An average may be taken only of like things. It is possible to average +the figures 3, 4, and 8 by adding them together and dividing by 3. The +average is 5. Such a process is mathematically correct, because all of +the units comprising the 3, 4, and 8 are exactly alike. One of the +premises of mathematics is that all units are alike, hence they may be +averaged.</p> + +<p>Unlike mathematical units, all children are different. They differ in +physical, in mental, and in spiritual qualities. Their hair is different +in color and in texture. Their feet and hands vary in size. Some +children are apt at mathematics, others at drawing, and still others at +both subjects. Some children have a strong sense of moral +obligation,—an active conscience,—others have little or no moral +stamina. No two children in a family are alike, and no two children in a +school-room are alike. After an elaborate computation of hereditary +possibilities, biologists announce that the chance of any two human +creatures being exactly alike is one in five septillions. In simple +English, it is quite remote.</p> + + +<h4><a name="II_IV" id="II_IV"></a>IV The Five Ages of Childhood</h4> + +<p>A very ingenious statement of the case is made by Dr. Bird T. Baldwin. +Children, says Dr. Baldwin, have five ages,—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 35%;">1. A chronological age,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 35%;">2. A physical age,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 35%;">3. A mental age,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 35%;">4. A moral age,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 35%;">5. A school age.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Two children, born on the same day, have the same age in years. One is +bound to grow faster than the other in some physical respect. Therefore +the two children have different physical ages, or rates of development. +In the same way they have differing mental and moral ages. The school +age, a resultant of the first three, is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span> a record of progress in school. +Even when children are born on the same day, the chances that they will +grow physically, mentally, and morally at exactly the same rate, and +will make exactly the same progress in school, are remote indeed. School +children are, therefore, inevitably different.</p> + + +<h4><a name="II_V" id="II_V"></a>V Age Distribution in One Grade</h4> + +<p>A very effective illustration of the differences in chronological age, +in school age, and in the rate of progress in school is furnished in the +1911 report of the superintendent of schools for Springfield, Mass. +There are in this report a series of figures dealing with the ages, and +time in school, of fifth-grade pupils in Springfield. The first table +shows the number of years in school and the age of all the fifth-grade +pupils.</p> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Table</span> 1</p> + +<p class="center"><i>Age and Time in School, Fifth Grade, Springfield, December, 1911</i></p> + + + + +<div class="center"> +<table border="0" summary="Table 1: Age and Time in School, Fifth Grade, Springfield, December, 1911" style="width: 60%;"> + <tr> + <th class="tdl"><i>Years in</i></th> + <th class="tdc" colspan="14"><i>Ages</i></th></tr> + + <tr> + <th class="tdl" style="border-bottom: solid 1pt black;"><i>School</i></th> +<th class="tdc" style="border-bottom: solid 1pt black;">5</th> +<th class="tdc" style="border-bottom: solid 1pt black;">6</th> +<th class="tdc" style="border-bottom: solid 1pt black;">7</th> +<th class="tdc" style="border-bottom: solid 1pt black;">8</th> +<th class="tdc" style="border-bottom: solid 1pt black;">9</th> +<th class="tdc" style="border-bottom: solid 1pt black;">10</th> +<th class="tdc" style="border-bottom: solid 1pt black;">11</th> +<th class="tdc" style="border-bottom: solid 1pt black;">12</th> +<th class="tdc" style="border-bottom: solid 1pt black;">13</th> +<th class="tdc" style="border-bottom: solid 1pt black;">14</th> +<th class="tdc" style="border-bottom: solid 1pt black;">15</th> +<th class="tdc" style="border-bottom: solid 1pt black;">16</th> +<th class="tdc" style="border-bottom: solid 1pt black;">17</th> +<th class="tdc" style="border-bottom: solid 1pt black;">18</th> +<th class="tdr" style="border-bottom: solid 1pt black;">Total</th> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdrp2">1</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1" >..</td> +<td class="tdrp1" style="border-left: solid 1pt black; border-right: solid 1pt black;">1</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">1</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdrp2">2</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">2</td> +<td class="tdrp1">1</td> +<td class="tdrp1">1</td> +<td class="tdrp1" style="border-left: solid 1pt black; border-right: solid 1pt black;">1</td> +<td class="tdrp1">2</td> +<td class="tdrp1">2</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">9</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdrp2">3</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">6</td> +<td class="tdrp1">38</td> +<td class="tdrp1">25</td> +<td class="tdrp1" style="border-left: solid 1pt black; border-right: solid 1pt black;">9</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">1</td> +<td class="tdrp1">1</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">80</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdrp2" style="border-bottom: solid 1pt black;">4</td> +<td class="tdrp1" style="border-bottom: solid 1pt black;">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1" style="border-bottom: solid 1pt black;">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1" style="border-bottom: solid 1pt black;">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1" style="border-bottom: solid 1pt black;">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1" style="border-bottom: solid 1pt black;">162</td> +<td class="tdrp1" style="border-bottom: solid 1pt black;">200</td> +<td class="tdrp1" style="border-bottom: solid 1pt black; border-left: solid 1pt black; border-right: solid 1pt black;">63</td> +<td class="tdrp1" style="border-bottom: solid 1pt black;">12</td> +<td class="tdrp1" style="border-bottom: solid 1pt black;">10</td> +<td class="tdrp1" style="border-bottom: solid 1pt black;">3</td> +<td class="tdrp1" style="border-bottom: solid 1pt black;">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1" style="border-bottom: solid 1pt black;">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1" style="border-bottom: solid 1pt black;">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1" style="border-bottom: solid 1pt black;">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1" style="border-bottom: solid 1pt black;">450</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdrp2" style="border-bottom: solid 1pt black;">5</td> +<td class="tdrp1" style="border-bottom: solid 1pt black;">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1" style="border-bottom: solid 1pt black;">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1" style="border-bottom: solid 1pt black;">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1" style="border-bottom: solid 1pt black;">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1" style="border-bottom: solid 1pt black;">17</td> +<td class="tdrp1" style="border-bottom: solid 1pt black;">178</td> +<td class="tdrp1" style="border-bottom: solid 1pt black; border-left: solid 1pt black; border-right: solid 1pt black;">131</td> +<td class="tdrp1" style="border-bottom: solid 1pt black;">47</td> +<td class="tdrp1" style="border-bottom: solid 1pt black;">14</td> +<td class="tdrp1" style="border-bottom: solid 1pt black;">2</td> +<td class="tdrp1" style="border-bottom: solid 1pt black;">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1" style="border-bottom: solid 1pt black;">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1" style="border-bottom: solid 1pt black;">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1" style="border-bottom: solid 1pt black;">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1" style="border-bottom: solid 1pt black;">389</td> +</tr> + + <tr> +<td class="tdrp2">6</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">1</td> +<td class="tdrp1">11</td> +<td class="tdrp1" style="border-left: solid 1pt black; border-right: solid 1pt black;">120</td> +<td class="tdrp1">60</td> +<td class="tdrp1">29</td> +<td class="tdrp1">3</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">224</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdrp2">7</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">1</td> +<td class="tdrp1" style="border-left: solid 1pt black; border-right: solid 1pt black;">3</td> +<td class="tdrp1">46</td> +<td class="tdrp1">29</td> +<td class="tdrp1">8</td> +<td class="tdrp1">1</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">1</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">88</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdrp2">8</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1" style="border-left: solid 1pt black; border-right: solid 1pt black;">1</td> +<td class="tdrp1">4</td> +<td class="tdrp1">17</td> +<td class="tdrp1">4</td> +<td class="tdrp1">1</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">28</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdrp2">9</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1" style="border-left: solid 1pt black; border-right: solid 1pt black;">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">4</td> +<td class="tdrp1">1</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">5</td> +</tr> + + +<tr> +<td class="tdrp2">10</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1" style="border-left: solid 1pt black; border-right: solid 1pt black;">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">1</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">1</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdrp2">11</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1" style="border-left: solid 1pt black; border-right: solid 1pt black;">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdrp2">12</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1" style="border-left: solid 1pt black; border-right: solid 1pt black;">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdrp2">13</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1" style="border-left: solid 1pt black; border-right: solid 1pt black;">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1">..</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdrp2" style="border-bottom: solid 1pt black;">Total</td> +<td class="tdrp1" style="border-bottom: solid 1pt black;">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1" style="border-bottom: solid 1pt black;">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1" style="border-bottom: solid 1pt black;">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1" style="border-bottom: solid 1pt black;">8</td> +<td class="tdrp1" style="border-bottom: solid 1pt black;">219</td> +<td class="tdrp1" style="border-bottom: solid 1pt black;">416</td> +<td class="tdrp1" style="border-bottom: solid 1pt black; border-left: solid 1pt black; border-right: solid 1pt black;">329</td> +<td class="tdrp1" style="border-bottom: solid 1pt black;">171</td> +<td class="tdrp1" style="border-bottom: solid 1pt black;">102</td> +<td class="tdrp1" style="border-bottom: solid 1pt black;">26</td> +<td class="tdrp1" style="border-bottom: solid 1pt black;">3</td> +<td class="tdrp1" style="border-bottom: solid 1pt black;">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1" style="border-bottom: solid 1pt black;">1</td> +<td class="tdrp1" style="border-bottom: solid 1pt black;">..</td> +<td class="tdrp1" style="border-bottom: solid 1pt black;">1,275</td> +</tr> + +</table> +</div> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span></p> + +<p>Theoretically, children in Springfield enter the school at six, and +spend one year in each grade. If all of the children in the Springfield +schools had lived up to this theory, there would be 1,275 eleven years +of age, and 1,275 in the fifth grade. A glance at the table shows that +only 131, or about 10 per cent of the children, are both eleven years of +age and five years in the school. Among the 1,275 fifth-grade children, +389, or 31 per cent, have been in school five years, and 329, or 26 per +cent, are eleven years of age.</p> + +<p>The superintendent follows this general table with other tables giving a +more detailed analysis of over and under age pupils, and of rate of +progress in school.</p> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Table</span> 2</p> + +<p class="center"><i>Age and Progress Groups of Fifth-Grade Pupils in Springfield, December, +1911</i></p> + + +<div class="center"> +<table border="0" summary="Table 2: Age and Progress Groups of Fifth-Grade Pupils in Springfield, +December, 1911" style="width: 60%;"> + + + <tr> +<th class="tdl"> </th> + <th class="tdc" colspan="2" style="border-right: solid 1pt black;">Young</th> + <th class="tdc" colspan="2" style="border-right: solid 1pt black;">Normal</th> + <th class="tdc" colspan="2" style="border-right: solid 1pt black;">Over-age</th> + <th class="tdc" colspan="2">Total</th></tr> + +<tr> +<th class="tdl"> </th> + +<th class="tdrp1">No.</th> + +<th class="tdc" style="border-right: solid 1pt black;">Per<br /> +Cent</th> + +<th class="tdrp1">No.</th> + +<th class="tdc" style="border-right: solid 1pt black;">Per<br /> +Cent</th> + +<th class="tdrp1">No.</th> + +<th class="tdc" style="border-right: solid 1pt black;">Per<br /> +Cent</th> + +<th class="tdrp1">No.</th> + +<th class="tdc">Per<br /> +Cent</th></tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdl">Rapid</td> +<td class="tdrp1">435</td> +<td class="tdrp2" style="border-right: solid 1pt black;">34</td> +<td class="tdrp1">74</td> +<td class="tdrp2" style="border-right: solid 1pt black;">6</td> +<td class="tdrp1">31</td> +<td class="tdrp2" style="border-right: solid 1pt black;">2</td> +<td class="tdrp1">540</td> +<td class="tdrp2">42</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdl">Normal</td> +<td class="tdrp1">195</td> +<td class="tdrp2" style="border-right: solid 1pt black;">16</td> +<td class="tdrp1">131</td> +<td class="tdrp2" style="border-right: solid 1pt black;">10</td> +<td class="tdrp1">63</td> +<td class="tdrp2" style="border-right: solid 1pt black;">5</td> +<td class="tdrp1">389</td> +<td class="tdrp2">31</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdl">Slow</td> +<td class="tdrp1">13</td> +<td class="tdrp2" style="border-right: solid 1pt black;">1</td> +<td class="tdrp1">124</td> +<td class="tdrp2" style="border-right: solid 1pt black;">10</td> +<td class="tdrp1">209</td> +<td class="tdrp2" style="border-right: solid 1pt black;">16</td> +<td class="tdrp1">346</td> +<td class="tdrp2">27</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdr"> <br />Total</td> +<td class="tdrp1">——<br /> +643</td> +<td class="tdrp2" style="border-right: solid 1pt black;">——<br />51</td> +<td class="tdrp1">——<br />329</td> +<td class="tdrp2" style="border-right: solid 1pt black;">——<br />26</td> +<td class="tdrp1">——<br />303</td> +<td class="tdrp2" style="border-right: solid 1pt black;">——<br />23</td> +<td class="tdrp1">——<br />1,275</td> +<td class="tdrp2">——<br />100</td> +</tr> +</table> +</div> + + +<p>The inferences from Table 2 are very clear. Of the 1,275 fifth-grade +pupils, 435, or 34 per cent, are not only under-age for the grade, but +they have progressed at more than normal speed. They are the +exceptionally capable pupils of the grade. At the other extreme we find +209 children, or 16 per cent of all in the grade, who need special +attention because they are both over-age and slow. Feeble-minded +children rarely advance beyond the second grade; hence we know that none +of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span> these are feeble-minded, but among their number will be found many +who will be little profited by the ordinary curriculum; 110 of them are +already 12 years old, and 75 are 13 years old. A majority of them will, +in all probability, drop out of school as soon as they reach the age of +14, unless prior to that time some new element of interest is introduced +that will make a strong appeal; for example, some activity toward a +vocation.</p> + +<p>A further study of the over-age column shows that 31 pupils, 2 per cent, +are over-age, but they have reached their present position in less than +usual time; while 63 of them, also over-age, have required the full five +years to reach their present grade position. Unless by limiting the +required work of these over-age pupils to the essentials, or by some +administrative arrangement involving special grouping with relatively +small numbers in a class, so that we can in the one case maintain, and +in the other case bring about, accelerated progress, there is little +likelihood that any large number will remain in school to complete the +ninth grade, much less take a high school course; for four years hence +their ages will range from 16 to 18 years. The 124 pupils who are of +normal age, but slow, are also subjects for special attention, for they +have repeated from one to three grades, or have failed to secure from +two to six half-yearly promotions, and are in danger of acquiring the +fatal habit of failure, if they have not already acquired it.</p> + +<p>The superintendent then goes on to emphasize the imperative duty resting +on each principal, to examine and to understand the varying capacities +of individual children in his school. Without such an understanding real +educational progress cannot be made.</p> + +<p>This study is most illuminating. Nothing could more effectually show +variation in individual children than<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span> the difference in one city grade +of the most obvious of characteristics—age and progress in school. The +infinitely greater variations in the subtle characteristics that +distinguish children can be more readily guessed at than measured. Under +these circumstances, the attempt to prepare studies for an “average +child†is manifestly futile. The course may be organized, but it will +hardly meet the needs of large numbers of the individual children who +take it.</p> + + +<h4><a name="II_VI" id="II_VI"></a>VI Shall Child or Subject Matter Come First?</h4> + +<p>The old education presupposed an average child, and then prepared a +course of study which would fit his needs. The new education recognizes +the absurdity of averaging unlike quantities, and accepts the ultimate +truth that each child is an individual, differing in needs, capacity, +outlook, energy, and enthusiasm from every other child. An arithmetic +average can be struck, but when it is applied to children it is a +hypothetical and not a real quantity. There is not, and never will be, +an average child; hence, a school system planned to meet the needs of +the average child fits the needs of no child at all.</p> + +<p>Mathematics may be taught to the average child. So may history and +geography. While subject matter comes first in the minds of educators, a +course of study designed to meet average conditions is a possibility. +The moment, however, that the schools cease to teach subjects and begin +to teach boys and girls, such a proceeding is out of the question.</p> + +<p>The temptation in a complex school system, where children are grouped by +hundreds and thousands, to allow the detail of administration to overtop +the functions of education is often irresistible. The teacher with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span> +forty pupils learns to look upon her pupils as units. The superintendent +and principals, seeking ardently for an overburdened commercial ideal +named “efficiency,†sacrifice everything else to the perfection of the +mechanism. Among the smooth clicking cogs, child individuality has only +the barest chance for survival.</p> + + +<h4><a name="II_VII" id="II_VII"></a>VII The Vicious Practices of One “Good†School</h4> + +<p>There are school systems in which organization has overgrown child +welfare, in which pedagogy has usurped the place of teaching. In such +systems the teacher teaches the prescribed course of study, whether or +no. The officers of administration, aiming at some mechanical ideal, +shape the schools to meet the requirements of system.</p> + +<p>The proneness of some teachers and school administrators alike to +overemphasize mechanics, and to underemphasize the welfare of individual +children is well illustrated in a recent statement by Dr. W. E. +Chancellor, who, in writing of a first-hand investigation made in a city +in the Northeast, describes a condition which he says “I know by fairly +authoritative reports does exist in a considerable number of cities and +towns—not merely in a school here and there, but generally and +characteristically.</p> + +<p>“In the city to which I definitely refer,†Dr. Chancellor continues, “I +found that the intermediate and grammar grade teachers had +systematically, deliberately, and successfully sacrificed hundreds of +boys and girls upon the altar of examinations to the fetish of good +schools. They have been so anxious to have good schools that they have +kept an average of 20 per cent of their pupils one grade lower than they +belong. In some schools the average runs to above 35 per cent.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Some teachers and some school superintendents cannot see that the +school is simply a machine for developing boys and girls; cannot see +that the machine in itself is worthless save as it contributes to human +welfare. A school may be so good as actually to damage the souls and +bodies of human beings. It damages their souls when the machine +operators, seeking 75 per cent in every subject, keep boys and girls in +grammar schools until they average sixteen years of age.â€<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> Dr. +Chancellor continues with a stinging arraignment of school officials who +sacrifice children to systems.</p> + +<p>The article strikes an answering chord in the experiences of many men +and women. A friend came recently to our bungalow, and, with a troubled +face, spoke of his daughter’s ill-health.</p> + +<p>“She is not sick,†he said, “but just ailing. These first May days have +taken her appetite. She needs the country air.â€</p> + +<p>The daughter was a dear little girl of twelve—any one might have envied +the father of his treasure—and we offered to keep her with us for a +month in the country, and to go over her school work with her every day. +The father accepted our proposal on the spot, but two days later he came +back to say that he could not make the arrangements.</p> + +<p>“It cannot be done,†he explained, “because the school will not let her +off. I told the principal about my daughter’s health and showed him the +advantage of a month in the country with her school work carefully +supervised. Her school is rather crowded, and as I want her to go on +with her class in the autumn, I <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span>asked him if he could arrange to keep +her place for her. In reply he said,—</p> + +<p>“‘I cannot do as you wish. Such cases as yours interfere seriously with +the working of the school.’â€</p> + + +<h4><a name="II_VIII" id="II_VIII"></a>VIII Boys and Girls—The One Object of Educational Activity</h4> + +<p>Perhaps our language was not as temperate as it should have been, but we +told that father something which we would fain repeat until every +educator and every parent in the United States has heard it and written +it on the tables of his heart,—</p> + +<p class="center">THE ONE OBJECT OF EDUCATION IS TO ASSIST AND PREPARE CHILDREN TO +LIVE.</p> + +<p>Why have we established a billion-dollar school system in the United +States? Is it to pay teachers’ salaries, to build new school houses, and +to print text-books by the million? Hardly. These things are incidents +of school business, but they are no more reason for the school’s +existence than fertilizer and seed are reasons for making a garden. +Gardens are cultivated in order to secure plants and flowers; the school +organization of which Americans so often boast exists to educate +children.</p> + +<p>“Of course,†you exclaim, “we knew that before.†Did you? Then why was +my friend forced to choose between the wreck of his daughter’s health +and the disarrangement of a bit of school machinery? Why is Dr. +Chancellor able to describe a situation existing “generally and +characteristically,†in which the welfare of children is bartered away +for high promotion averages? The truth is that society still tolerates, +and often accepts, the belief that the purpose of education is the +formation of a school system. We have yet to learn that, to use Herbert +Spencer’s phrase, the object of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span> education is the preparation of +children for complete living.</p> + +<p>Education exists for the purpose of preparing and assisting children to +live. To do that work effectively, it must devote only so much effort to +school administration and to school machinery as will perform for boys +and girls that very effective service.</p> + +<p>No two children are alike, and no two children have exactly similar +needs. There are, however, certain kinds of needs which all children +have in common. It is obviously impossible to discuss in the abstract +the needs of any individual child. It is just as obviously possible to +analyze child needs, and to classify them in workable groups. It is true +that all children are different; so are all roses different, yet all +have petals and thorns in common. Similarly, there are certain needs +which are common to all children who play, who grow, who live among +their fellows, and who expect to do something in life. The matter may be +stated more concretely thus,—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>I. The school exists to assist and prepare children to live.</p> + +<p>II. Living involves three kinds of needs, which it is the duty +of the school to understand and interpret.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>1. Needs which the child has because he is a physical being.</p> + +<p>2. Needs which result from the child’s surroundings.</p> + +<p>3. Needs which arise in connection with the things which the +child hopes to do in life.</p></div></div> + +<p>A further analysis of these groups of needs constitutes the subject +matter of the next chapter.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> Sacrificing Children, W. E. Chancellor, Journal of +Education, Vol. 77, pp. 564-565 (May 22, 1913).</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h3> + +<h2>FITTING SCHOOLS TO CHILDREN</h2> + + +<h4>I Child Growth—A Primary Factor in Child Life</h4> + +<p>In the first place children have certain needs because in common with +many other living creatures they develop through spontaneous, +self-expressive activity. The growth of children is a growth in body, in +mind and in soul.</p> + +<p>During the first six years of life the bodies of children grow rapidly, +and during these years we wisely make no attempt to train their minds. +From six to twelve or thirteen body growth is slower, the mind is having +its turn at development, and during these years the children start to +school.</p> + +<p>Then, at twelve or thirteen or fourteen, differing with different races +and different individuals, all normal children enter the fairyland of +adolescence. Life takes on new meanings, human relationships are closer, +great currents of feeling run deep and strong through the child’s being, +because there is coming into his life one of the most wonderful of human +experiences—the dawning of sex consciousness.</p> + +<p>This period of sex awakening produces a profound change in the lives of +boys, but it works an even greater transformation in the lives of girls. +For both sexes it is a time of rapid physical growth and of severe +mental and spiritual strain. It is a time when the energies of the body +are so entirely devoted to the development of sex functions that great +mental stress should above all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span> things be avoided, yet it is at this +very time—think of it!—when we send our boys and girls to high school, +and force them to spend a great part of their waking hours in severe +intellectual efforts.</p> + + +<h4><a name="III_II" id="III_II"></a>II Children Need Health First</h4> + +<p>Had we set out with the deliberate intention of torturing our children +we could have devised no better method. If we had applied ourselves to +physiology, found out the time when the child needed the most energy for +physical growth and the most relief from mental strain, and had then set +out to plan a course of study which would wreck his health, we should +have built a school system which gave him the comparatively easy work of +the elementary grades until he was fourteen, and then, at the most +critical period of his life, sent him into a new system of schools to +study new, abstract subjects.</p> + +<p>What is it that our children must have before they can acquire anything +else? Health! We cry the word aloud, emphasizing and exhorting—nothing +without health! Yet, despite our protest, at a period of rapid physical +growth, at the time of severe spiritual trial, there yawns the high +school—grim for boys, ghastly for girls—with its ever-recurring +demand: “Work, study; study, work.â€</p> + +<p>Considering the child’s physical welfare, the high school is placed at +exactly the point (fourteen to eighteen years) where it is best +calculated to destroy the delicate balance of sanity, rendering its +victims unable to stand the burden and heat of life’s later day.</p> + +<p>We cannot escape the fact that children have bodies. The first duty of +the schools, therefore, is to recognize the existence of these bodies by +giving them due attention, particularly at the crucial periods of +physical<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span> growth. Therefore every school must provide as much physical +training as is necessary to insure normal body growth at each particular +age.</p> + +<p>Then there are certain rules of health—“hygiene,†they are +called—which should be taught to every child. Since bodies do not stay +normal if they are abused every child should have right ideas of body +care.</p> + +<p>Most important of all, the schools must instruct children in sex hygiene +because the growth of sex consciousness is one of the most significant +of the changes which occur in the life of a child.</p> + +<p>“But must sex hygiene be taught in the school?†you will ask.</p> + +<p>Undoubtedly it must. If it were a choice between sex instruction in the +home or in the school, there would be no hesitation about delegating it +to the home; but since most homes neglect the discussion of sex matters, +leaving the children to gain their knowledge of sex from unreliable +sources on the streets, the choice lies between the perversion of sex as +it is taught on the streets, and the science of sex as it should be +taught in the schools.</p> + + +<h4><a name="III_III" id="III_III"></a>III Play as a Means to Growth</h4> + +<p>Children’s minds grow as well as their bodies—grow in retention, in +grasp, and in power. Memory work (the learning of poems, songs, and +formulas) helps to make minds more retentive, while all studies, but +particularly number work, increase mental grasp and power.</p> + +<p>Besides body growth and mind growth all children have soul growth. They +develop human sympathy, and they are interested in esthetic things. To +supply these needs the school must give the child literature and art. +Simple these lessons must be, particularly in the elementary grades; but +there is scarcely a child who will not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span> respond to the noble in +literature or the beautiful in art if these things are presented to him +in an understandable way.</p> + +<p>The bodies, minds, and souls of children grow. They are all sacred. Each +child needs a normal body, an active mind, a healthy and a beautiful +soul. We dare not develop bodies at the expense of minds and souls, but +neither may we educate minds at the expense of souls and bodies—a +tendency which has been fearfully prevalent in American education.</p> + +<p>The most valuable means of securing this all-important growth is “play,†+which Froebel said contained the germinal leaves of all later life. +Growth comes only through expression. One does not develop muscle by +watching the strong man in the circus, but by exercising. The child’s +chief means of expression is through play, hence play is the child’s +method of securing growth.</p> + +<p>In their earliest infancy children play. Their frolics and antics are +really “puppy play,†the product of overflowing life and animal spirits. +At this “puppy play†stage, when the child plays merely to work off +surplus energy, the most essential thing is a place to play, and the +school must meet this need by providing playgrounds.</p> + +<p>As children grow older they turn to a more advanced type of play. +Instead of romping and frolicking individually they play in groups. It +is in these group plays that the child gets his first idea of the duty +which he owes to his fellows, his first glimmering of a social sense. In +the home and in the school he is in a subordinate position, but in the +“gang,†or “set,†he is as good as the next. Group play teaches +democracy. More than that, group play has a moral value. Each one must<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span> +play fair. Those who do not are ruthlessly ostracized, so children learn +to abide by the decision of the crowd. While children’s plays should be +as untrammeled as possible, it is the duty of the school to stimulate +group play by suggesting new games, organizing athletic meets, getting +up interclass sports, and in other ways supervising and directing games +and sports.</p> + +<p>In the course of the child’s life play takes another form, the form of +creative work. Boys build wagons and houses; girls cook, and make dolls. +The “puppy play†of their early childhood has evolved into a form of +creative activity that sooner or later grips every human creature. We +want to plant, to build, to plan, to make. It is the creative power +within us yearning for expression, hence the well-planned school will +provide simple forms of manual training by means of which both boys and +girls will be taught to use their hands so skillfully that they may +translate an idea into a concrete product.</p> + +<p>Civilization has been described as the art of playing. Big folks are apt +to look down on play because most of it is done by children. But listen, +big folks: When Anna plays dolls she does it in a frank, serious, +whole-souled way that you seldom imitate. There is no activity so vital +to the child as play, nor does any man succeed at his work unless he can +“play at it†with the fervor and abandon of a child.</p> + + +<h4><a name="III_IV" id="III_IV"></a>IV Some Things Which a Child Must Learn</h4> + +<p>So much for the needs which a child has because he is a living creature. +Suppose we turn now to some other needs—the needs which arise because +the child is in a great universe and surrounded by his fellowmen. +Wherever a child lives and whatever he does he must always face certain +surrounding conditions. First among his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span> surroundings are people. No one +except Robinson Crusoe can get away from people, and even Crusoe had his +man Friday.</p> + +<p>Since we are compelled, whether we like it or not, to live with people, +the school must teach language (oral and written), in order that the +children may learn to tell others what they think, and may likewise +understand the thoughts of others. The better the language the more +clearly can they understand each other.</p> + +<p>In order that children may have a proper respect for the rights of +others the school should teach ethics by means of simple stories about +people. Teachers should explain how men live in groups, and how, if +group life is to be tolerable, men must respect each other’s rights.</p> + +<p>Perhaps in the upper elementary grades, and certainly in the high +school, there should be some simple work in psychology in order that +children may know how people’s minds work.</p> + +<p>Then besides the people of the present there are the people of the past, +and, because the things which they did enable us to live as we do, +children should be taught history, particularly the history of their own +country, state, and town.</p> + +<p>The child comes into contact, in addition to people, with the +institutions which people have constructed—the home, the school, the +state, the industrial system. Every child who grows to maturity will +participate in the activity of these institutions, hence every child +should be taught about them. In the last two years of the elementary +grades civics can be successfully taught, since even at twelve years +children are interested in the things which are happening around them. +In the high schools this work can be carried much further in the form of +social and industrial problem courses.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span></p> + +<p>The most universal and by far the largest of the child’s surroundings +consist of the things about him. He lives in a world, a very little +world to be sure, but to him it is great; and a knowledge of the world +comes through a study of geography. Beginning with the geography of his +native town (not with the basin of the Ganges) he can learn successively +about the geography of the county, the state, the country, and then of +the world.</p> + +<p>Surrounding the child on every hand are plants and animals. Nature study +gives him an intelligent interest in them. As he grows older general +nature study may be subdivided into geology, botany, zoology; and the +forces of nature may be examined in astronomy, chemistry, and physics: +but most of these subjects are too specialized for the elementary +grades, and should appear, if at all, in the high schools.</p> + +<p>There is a group of courses which belongs in every school—elementary +school as well as high school—namely, the courses which prepare +children for life activity. Growth and training in the art of living +enable children to fulfill the third function of their being—that of +doing. Every man and every woman needs work in order to live, and it is +a part of the duty of education to prepare them for that work.</p> + +<p>First of all, as modern society has developed, every man and many women +need an income-producing trade or occupation; hence it is the duty of +the schools to provide trade and professional educations (really the +same thing under different names). No child should be permitted to leave +the schools until he is proficient in some income-giving work. The +character of the teaching must be altered to suit the locality, but the +principle is absolute.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span></p> + +<p>Further, since men should not devote their entire lives to the same +task, because they require a change of occupation, the school should aim +to provide an avocation, or secondary occupation, which may occupy +leisure hours. Manual training, agriculture, art work, and civics will +supply different people with occupations for spare time.</p> + +<p>Finally, since one of the chief duties of society is to insure a healthy +and increasingly valuable supply of human beings, no one should leave +the schools without a thorough domestic training, including training for +parenthood. While this training should be given in a measure to boys, it +should be intended primarily for girls, and should include biology, +hygiene, chemistry, dietetics, psychology, and nursing. Although the +elementary grades can provide only the simplest training along these +lines that training should be given to every future housekeeper and +mother.</p> + + +<h4><a name="III_V" id="III_V"></a>V What Schools Must Provide to Meet Child Needs</h4> + +<p>If, up to this point, we have rightly described child needs, the school +must be so organized as to provide for growth and play, for instructing +the child in a knowledge of people, institutions, things and ideas, and +for preparing every child to do his work in life.</p> + +<p>These subjects must be so apportioned over the grades that each child +has the benefit of them. The high school is a continuation of the +elementary school. It is in the high school that children should begin +to specialize, because specialization before the beginning of +adolescence is undesirable; but since, in many localities, almost all of +the children leave before reaching the high school, these subjects must +be taught in the elementary grades. Certain things every child must +know. If he is going to drop school at fourteen, as three-quarters of +the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span> American school children do, he must be reached in the first eight +school grades. If he goes to high school he may there be given an +opportunity to complete and intensify the education which the elementary +school has started.</p> + +<p>We believe that these fundamental principles of education are +sufficiently flexible to fit any community in the United States; they +will apply to places of the most divergent school needs.</p> + + +<h4><a name="III_VI" id="III_VI"></a>VI The Educational Work of the Small Town</h4> + +<p>Let us begin by applying the scheme to a mining village of three +thousand inhabitants, a typical industrial community.</p> + +<p>In this village more than nine-tenths of the children leave school at or +before fourteen years of age, so that whatever school training they get +must be secured between the ages of six and fourteen.</p> + +<p>The kind of activities that the children will take up in life is fixed +by the custom of the town. The great majority of the boys go into the +mines or shops, while practically all of the girls help around the home +until they marry. A small number work in stores and factories.</p> + +<p>The life is rather primitive; the houses are set far apart; the children +have an abundance of play space; they are required to do chores in homes +where they receive little home training. The town affords an +unparalleled opportunity to learn nasty things in a nasty way.</p> + +<p>Almost all of the educational work in such a town must be done in the +elementary schools. While high school facilities may be afforded they +will appeal to a vanishingly small percentage of the children.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span></p> + +<p>The elementary schools in such a village must provide organized games +for the younger children and organized sports for the older ones; a +sufficient amount of physical training to insure robust bodies; careful +instruction in physiology, body hygiene, and sex hygiene; simple manual +training for the younger children; thorough preparation in the reading +and writing of English; the fundamentals of numbers; geography with +particular reference to the geographic conditions in the immediate +locality; civics and history—particularly American history; a thorough +drill in English and American literature; a minimum amount of +instruction in fine art—drawing, painting, modeling; an extensive +system of nature study, supplemented by field trips.</p> + +<p>This course should be required of boys and girls alike. In addition to +these studies the boys in a coal-mining village should receive careful +instruction in geology, particularly in the mineralogy of the region in +which the mine is located; technical training in mining, drafting, and +shop work; and a sufficient training in agriculture to enable them to +make good kitchen gardens, since gardening is one of the chief +avocations of men in such a community.</p> + +<p>Parallel to this special training for boys the schools should provide +for girls a thorough course in domestic science, with particular +emphasis on economical purchasing, and an education for parenthood, +including hygiene, dietetics, psychology, and nursing.</p> + +<p>Such a course of study given in a typical mining village would tend to +make of the boys educated, trained workmen, and of the girls educated, +trained mothers. To be sure this course would not make of the boys +railroad presidents or United States senators; but even that is not a +drawback because, incredible as it may sound<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span> to many old-fashioned +ears, the vast majority of these boys will be miners and mechanics. The +question is, therefore, Shall they be good miners or bad ones? United +States senatorships bother them not a whit.</p> + +<p>If there are, as there always will be in such a village, a few +exceptional children who desire more advanced work, the teacher can do +exactly what he does now—namely, give them special instruction.</p> + +<p>Such an educational system as that outlined would require more training +in the teachers, and an additional outlay for tools and school-rooms, +but it would train the boys and girls of the village to live their lives +effectively.</p> + +<p>The mine-village educational problem is rendered especially easy of +solution because the community is small in size, and because there are +only two occupations, mining and homekeeping, into which the children +go.</p> + +<p>A similar situation may be found in most of the agricultural districts, +except that the boys take up farming instead of mining, while the girls +are called upon to participate in farm work to the extent of caring for +chickens and pigs, and sometimes for milk. In such an agricultural +community the same outline for study might apply, except that in +training for occupations boys should be taught the facts regarding soil +fertility, fruit culture, dairying, market gardening, and other +agricultural problems, while girls need instruction which will fit them +for domestic life and for parenthood.</p> + +<p>In New York State a number of agricultural high schools giving a course +such as the one just hinted at, have met with marked success. Most +country children do not go to high school, however—although they are +doing so in increasing numbers—and hence the necessity for shaping the +elementary course along similar lines.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span></p> + + +<h4><a name="III_VII" id="III_VII"></a>VII The Educational Problems of an Industrial Community</h4> + +<p>When the mining village and the farming district are replaced by the +industrial town and the city, the school problem is greatly complicated +by the crowding of many people into a small space and by the great +diversity of occupations which the people pursue. The larger the town +the worse the crowding and the greater the variety of jobs. Otherwise +the problem of education remains largely the same.</p> + +<p>The most apparent need of the town child is a place to play, and the +plainest duty of the town elementary school is to provide play space. In +thinly settled places there is no such need. In towns and cities there +is no more imperative duty resting on the school than the furnishing of +playgrounds and gymnasiums for children. The practice of building school +houses without gymnasiums and without play spaces cannot be too strongly +condemned. It is robbing children of the chance to grow into normal +human beings.</p> + +<p>The other side of the town problem—the question of occupations—has +been settled in Germany, and more recently in certain American cities, +by the “continuation†school, which unties the Gordian knot by cutting +it. Instead of allowing children to stop school at fourteen the +“continuation†system requires partial school attendance until they are +eighteen.</p> + +<p>Under this system, when children reach the end of the elementary schools +they may either go on with a high school course for four years, or else +they may take a “continuation†course for four years.</p> + +<p>For example, if a boy elects to be a carpenter he spends forty hours a +week as a carpenter’s apprentice. Then for fourteen hours a week he goes +to a school where he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span> is taught mechanical drawing, designing, the +testing of materials, and any other subjects which bear on carpentering. +The time he spends in school is credited on the time sheets of his +employer.</p> + +<p>So at the end of four years the boy, at eighteen, has been well trained +in the practice of carpentering by working at his job, and well schooled +in its theory by taking a “continuation†course which bore directly on +his work. Thus wage-earning and education are united to produce a +well-trained man.</p> + +<p>The school problem of the city suburb is very different from that of the +mining village, the rural community, the industrial town, or the city. +The children have space, good homes, and abundant opportunity to go +through high school and even through college. Under these conditions the +elementary grades can be directly preparatory for high school work, +since six or even seven out of ten children will go to high school.</p> + +<p>In the city suburb there need be little specialization in the elementary +grades. The high school, with a general course and two or three special +courses, can be relied upon for all necessary specific training.</p> + + +<h4><a name="III_VIII" id="III_VIII"></a>VIII Beginning with Child Needs</h4> + +<p>In the industrial town, in the city, and in the city suburb the high +school is being looked to as the place where specialized training must +be given. The trade school can succeed a little, but its effectiveness +will always be limited by the narrow technical character of its +instruction, which makes the “continuation†school generally preferable. +The high school is not a separate institution, but an integral part of +the school system. In a high school, therefore, the children should move +naturally from the studies of the elementary grades<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span> to more advanced +studies, but the purpose of both elementary and high schools is the +same—the preparation of children for living.</p> + +<p>Children have needs which the schools are here to supply. Certain of +these needs are common to all children, and to that extent all schools +must provide similar training. Other needs, varying with the size and +character of the community, call for a like variation in the course of +study.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h3> + +<h2>PROGRESSIVE NOTES IN ELEMENTARY EDUCATION</h2> + + +<h4>I The Kindergarten</h4> + +<p>No single chapter can contain all of the progressive notes that are +being sounded in American Elementary Education; yet it is possible, +after some arbitrary picking and choosing, to describe a number of the +most typical and most successful educational innovations. At the bottom +of most up-to-date elementary school systems is the kindergarten. Not so +often as it might be, but still frequently, the child begins school work +there. The games, the songs, the children’s sports of these kindergarten +years, make a joyous entry-way into the grades. In Gary the kindergarten +child sees life. The flowers, leaves, grasses, lichens, fruits, +butterflies, moths, and birds are usually brought to the classroom. The +Gary children go on expeditions to explore nature’s wonderland, besides +making excursions to squares, parks, and to the open country. The +kindergartners of Cincinnati plant tulip bulbs in the city parks, and +visit farms in order to have a chance to meet the farm animals. Singing, +visiting, playing, shaping, building, the kindergarten child sees life +on many sides. Perhaps, finally, other cities following the lead of +Cincinnati will introduce the kindergarten spirit and kindergarten +activities into the lower grades where they will clarify an atmosphere, +fetid and dank with concepts which to the six-year-old are meaningless +abstractions.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span></p> + + +<h4><a name="IV_II" id="IV_II"></a>II Translating the Three R’s</h4> + +<p>At best the kindergarten reaches but a few. Even in cities which boast +of a system of organized kindergartens, only a small portion of the +children attend them. On the other hand, since practically all school +children enter the grades, it is on them that an inquiry into elementary +education must be focused.</p> + +<p>The time has passed when reading, writing, and arithmetic made up the +entirety of a satisfactory elementary education. Like the kindergarten, +the elementary school must touch life; like the kindergarten, it must +provide for child needs. Everywhere schools are turning from the old +methods of teaching spelling, multiplication, and syntax to the new +methods of teaching children,—yes, and teaching them those things which +they need, irrespective of name. Three R’s no longer suffice. The child +requires training from the Alpha to the Omega of life.</p> + +<p>Compare, for example, the old method of teaching geography with the new. +Under the abandoned system, the child began with capes, peninsulas, +continents, meridians, trade routes, rivers, boundaries and products. +Under the new system, he begins with the town in which he lives. Each +schoolroom in Newark, for example, is provided with a large map of the +city. In addition to these complete maps, each child is given a series +of small maps, each of which centers about a familiar square, store, or +public building. Then, from this simple beginning, the child fills in +the surrounding streets and buildings. Newark geography begins in the +third grade with a description of the school yard and the surroundings +of the school lot. After all, what more simple geography could be +conceived than the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span> geography that you already know. Borneo and +Beloochistan are abstractions except to the most traveled, but what +child has not noted the red bricks and ugly iron fences surrounding his +own school yard? Charity and geography both begin logically at home.</p> + +<p>When in the later Newark grades the children are taught about Europe and +Australasia, they are taught on a background of the geography of yards, +alleys, squares, streets and playgrounds with which they are familiar. +Geography thus concretely presented, becomes comprehensible to even the +dullest mind.</p> + + +<h4><a name="IV_III" id="IV_III"></a>III Playing at Mathematics</h4> + +<p>The passing system of elementary mathematics took the innocents through +addition, subtraction and the abatis of multiplication tables, until +every child was fully convinced that</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Multiplication is vexation,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Division’s twice as bad,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The rule of three perplexes me,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And practice drives one mad.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>To-day arithmetic begins with life. The teachers at Gary organize games +in which the children are divided into two sides. Some of the children +play the game, while others keep score. Unconsciously, under the stress +of the most gripping of impulses—the desire to win—these little +scorekeepers learn addition. As they advance in the work, they take up +practical problems—measure the room for flooring and measure the school +pavement for cementing. At school No. 4, in Indianapolis, one of the +teachers wanted a cold-frame and a hot-bed for use in connection with +her nature work. The class in mathematics made the measurements; the +draw<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span>ing class provided the plans; the boys in the seventh and eighth +grades dug the pit and constructed the beds.</p> + +<p>The higher grade mathematics work in Indianapolis is extremely concrete. +Prices and descriptions of materials are supplied, and the children are +asked to compute given problems involving the buying of meats, +groceries, and other household articles; the cost of heating and +lighting the home; the cost of home furnishing; the construction of +buildings; cost-keeping in various factories; the management of the city +hospital; the taxation of Indianapolis; the estimation and construction +of pavement; and, generally, the mathematical problems involved in the +conduct of public and private business.</p> + +<p>Mathematics is alive when it is joined to the problem of life. Well +taught, it becomes a part of the real experiences of childhood and +furnishes a foundation for the knowledge of later life.</p> + + +<h4><a name="IV_IV" id="IV_IV"></a>IV A Model English Lesson</h4> + +<p>Of all subjects taught in the schools, English is the most practical, +because it is most used in life. We buy with it, sell with it, converse +with it, write with it, adore with it, and protest with it. English is +the open sesame of life in English-speaking countries. In some classes +the English period would be fascinating even for adults.</p> + +<p>What experience could be more delightful than a visit to a third or +fourth grade room in which the children were writing original poems, +fables and stories! The monotony of routine English work was completely +broken down; the children were enthusiastic,—enthusiastic to such a +degree that they had all written poetry.</p> + +<p>Just before Halloween the teacher had distributed pictures of a witch on +a broomstick, with a cat at her side,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span> riding toward the moon. Each +child was called upon for an original poem on this picture. One boy of +eight wrote:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">There was an old witch<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Who flew up in the sky,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To visit the moon<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That was shining so high.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Another child improved somewhat upon the versification—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The witch’s cat was as black as her hat,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">As black as her hat was he.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He had yellow eyes which looked very wise<br /></span> +<span class="i2">As he sailed high over the trees.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>How many of you mature men and women could have done a better piece of +work than Dorothy Hall, nine and a half years old?</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><b>THE MOONLIGHT PEOPLE</b><br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">When the stars are twinkling,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And the ground with snow is white,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And we are just awaking<br /></span> +<span class="i2">For to see the morning light;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Little moonlight people<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Are dancing here and there<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O’er a snow white carpet,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Dancing everywhere.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>This same class of little people, after learning Riley’s “Pixie People,†+were asked to write down what they believed were the circumstances under +which Riley composed the poem. Their reasons varied all the way from a +dream of butterflies, to cornfields.</p> + +<p>Seventh and eighth grade children in this same city (Newton, Mass.) +write books, the titles of which are selected by the children with the +approval of the teacher.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span> “A Boy’s Life in New York,†“Fairy Stories,†+“A Book About Airships,†“A Story of Boarding School Life,†are a few of +the titles. Having chosen his title, the child outlines the work and +then begins on it, writing it week by week, illustrating the text with +drawings, illuminating and decorating the margins with water colors, +painting a tasty cover, and at last, as the product of a year’s work in +English, taking home a book written, hand printed, hand illumined, +covered and bound by the author. Could you recognize in this fascinating +task the dreaded English composition and spelling of your childhood +days?</p> + +<p>One eighth grade lad, who had always made a rather poor showing in +school, decided to write his book on birds. As he worked into the +subject it gradually got hold of him. In the early spring he found +himself, at half past four, morning after morning, out in the squares, +the parks and the fields, watching for the birds. He became absorbed in +writing his book, but at the same time the teachers of other subjects +found him taking additional interest in them. The whole tone of his +school work improved; and when, in May, he delivered an illustrated +lecture, before one of the teachers’ meetings, on the birds of Newton, +he was triumphant. In less than a year he had vitalized his whole being +with an interest in one study.</p> + +<p>“In his talk to the teachers,†said Superintendent Spalding, “he showed +a deeper knowledge of the subject than most of the teachers present +possessed.â€</p> + +<p>Those who remember with a shiver of dread the syntax, parsing, sentence +diagramming, paragraph dissecting, machine composition construction of +the grammar grades, should have stepped with me into the class of an +Indianapolis teacher of seventh grade English. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span> teacher sat in the +back of the room. The class bent forward, attentively listening while a +roughly clad, uncouth boy, slipshod in attitude, stumbled through the +broken periods of his ungrammatical sentences.</p> + +<p>“And Esau went out after a venison,†he was saying, “and Jacob’s mother +cooked up some goat’s meat till it smelled like a venison. And then +Jacob, he took the venison—I mean the goat’s meat to Isaac, and Isaac +couldn’t tell it wasn’t Esau because‗so the story continued for two or +three minutes. When it was ended, the boy stood looking gloomily at the +class.</p> + +<p>“Well, class?†queried Miss Howes, “has any one any criticism to make?â€</p> + +<p>Instantly, three-quarters of the class was on its feet.</p> + +<p>“Well, Edward.â€</p> + +<p>Edward, a manly fellow, spoke quietly to the boy who had told the story.</p> + +<p>“Paul, you don’t talk quite loud enough. Then you should raise and lower +your voice more.â€</p> + +<p>Several of the class (having intended to make the same criticism) sat +down with Edward. The teacher turned.</p> + +<p>“Yes, Mary.â€</p> + +<p>“Paul, your grammar wasn’t very good. You didn’t make periods.â€</p> + +<p>One by one, in a spirit of kindly helpfulness, criticisms were made. +When the children had finished, Miss Howes said:</p> + +<p>“Paul, you did very well. This is your first time in this class, isn’t +it?â€</p> + +<p>“Yes’m.â€</p> + +<p>“Yes, Paul, you did very well; but, Paul‗and with care and precision +she outlined his mistakes, suggesting in each case ways of avoiding them +in the future.</p> + +<p>Throughout the grades in Indianapolis the children<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span> have some oral +English work every day. When they reach the seventh and eighth years +this oral work takes on quite pretentious forms. Beginning with Aesop’s +Fables, the children tell fairy tales, Bible stories, Greek legends, +Norse legends, animal stories, and any other stories that the teacher +thinks appropriate. Each child may select in the particular group of +stories whatever topic seems most interesting.</p> + +<p>Each day has its written English work, too. On Monday, letters are +written and criticized; Tuesday is composition day; on Wednesday each +scholar writes a description of the day in a Season Journal; Thursday is +set aside for the revision and correction of compositions; and on +Friday, the letters for the following Monday are written. Wherever +possible, the subjects for written work are selected with reference to +the other studies which the child is taking.</p> + + +<h4><a name="IV_V" id="IV_V"></a>V An Original Fairy Story</h4> + +<p>The work is arranged primarily to arouse interest. At Halloween, the +theme is timely, and one girl, Dorothy Morrison, selects as her title, +“How the Witch got the Black Cat for her Prisoner.†Read this charming +fairy tale—an original piece of work by a girl of twelve:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“Years ago, when the witch rode her broomstick, no snarling +black cat accompanied her on her midnight rides. That wicked +person was always planning and plotting how to get some nice +young girl to go with her.</p> + +<p>“At this time there lived a beautiful fairy, who was condemned +to death by a cruel magician, who had no reason to do so. This +good fairy, Eilene, finally decided to take the shape of a bird +and to fly through the tiny window of her prison to her old +friend, Mr. Moon.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span></p> + +<p>“She did so, and when she arrived at her friend’s home she +assumed the form of a fairy and entreated him to keep her safe +from the cruel clutches of the magician.</p> + +<p>“He promised to do his best.</p> + +<p>“The next Halloween, the witch, Crono, rode up to the moon and +on spying Eilene she exclaimed, ‘Aha, just what I have been +looking for—a nice young maiden.’</p> + +<p>“Eilene became frightened at first and clutched the moon’s hand. +Just then Crono grabbed at her, but she was too quick for her, +for she changed herself into a bird and flew out of the reaches +of the witch.</p> + +<p>“Shaking her fist at the girl she muttered, ‘I will get you +yet.’</p> + +<p>“Then the witch returned to her caldron and Eilene returned to +the moon. Mr. Moon then advised her to be careful for Crono +wanted her for her prisoner. She did not heed this because she +thought that she could outwit Crono with all her fairy power, +but she was mistaken, for Crono had more power than she. One +day, while sitting at the moon’s knee, listening to the story of +how he got up in the sky, Eilene’s hands and feet were tied, and +before Mr. Moon could help her, what little power that fat +personage possessed was taken from him.</p> + +<p>“Crono transformed Eilene into a snarling black cat which now +always accompanies her on her Halloween rides when she tells the +grinning Jack-o’-Lanterns of how she captured Eilene.</p> + +<p>“Because Mr. Moon loved Eilene so well, Crono gave him a picture +of the fairy, which he always keeps near him, and even to this +day, if we look up at the moon, we can see the picture of +Eilene. So let us remember that, although the black cat does +appear fierce, she is really good at heart.â€</p></div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span></p> + + +<h4><a name="IV_VI" id="IV_VI"></a>VI The Crow and the Scarecrow</h4> + +<p>When corn was sprouting, “Crows and Scarecrows†was announced as a +topic, and one Irish lad, giving rein to his imagination, wrote:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="center">THE CROW AND THE SCARECROW</p> + +<p>“Having a story to write concerning a crow, I decided to go to +the zoological gardens and seek an interview with one of the +species. Accordingly I went, and after passing numerous cages +containing all kinds of animals, I arrived at the bird cages. +Here in one cage all by himself I met Mr. Crow. He was a big +bird with coal-black feathers that glistened in the sunlight.</p> + +<p>“I made a bow, explained my errand and asked for a story. He +cocked his head to one side, looked steadily for a few seconds +and then actually winked at me. ‘Well, young man,’ he said in a +throaty voice, ‘you have certainly come to the right place. But +as it is near my lunch time I must be brief.</p> + +<p>“‘In the first place, I was the leader of as wild and +mischievous a band of crows as you ever heard tell of. There was +one particular farm in our territory we loved to visit. The +owner’s name was Silas Whimple and he was the grouchiest, most +miserly man in the county. He lived alone and what part of the +ground that was tilled, he did it himself. As much to tease as +to eat, we would pay him an occasional flying visit, digging up +his newly planted seeds, nibbling at the young green shoots, or, +later on, scratching up his potatoes. All his shouting and +screaming did not scare us a bit. One day one of my companions +came winging with the news that Silas had a farm hand. I laughed +and said, “If there is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span> another man on the farm then Silas +Whimple must be dead.†Off we flew to investigate. Sure enough, +out in a patch of potatoes was a man. Watching him quite a +while, I saw he did not move or make a noise as Silas would. He +just stood still. I came down to take a closer look, when who +should come to the doorway but Silas himself. He was laughing +and shouting, “Now I have something to keep you away. The +scarecrow shall keep you from bothering me any more.†He laughed +and laughed, but I watched my chance and flew behind this being +and scratched off his cap. Then the story was out. It was only a +straw man. I went back to my companions and explained, and +before evening we had picked the scarecrow to pieces. Next day I +was unfortunate enough to put my foot in a wire trap and then +they sent me up here for life.’</p> + +<p>“At this moment his keeper came up with something to eat, so I +bade him good-bye and left.â€</p></div> + +<p>English, in these classes, is so alive with interest that the children +write with ardor and read eagerly the literature which, improperly +handled, they learn so soon to despise.</p> + +<p>The time-honored studies of the old curriculum may be charged with +interest if they are linked to life. The most irksome task has its +pleasant aspects. Even the three R’s may be translated into current +thought.</p> + + +<h4><a name="IV_VII" id="IV_VII"></a>VII School and Home</h4> + +<p>Even more significant for the future is the work which is being done in +a few cities to train girls for their chief work in life—homemaking. +The home schools at Indianapolis and Providence are, perhaps, typical. +The Indianapolis School Board bought a number of wretched homes near one +school in a crowded district. The boys<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span> in the school renovated the +homes, converting one into a rug shop, another into a mop factory, and +still a third into a shoe-shop. In these shops the children of the +school did their trade work. Another house was made into a model +home—(model for that quarter)—in which the domestic science department +was located. Of this home the girls took entire charge, living in it by +the day. There they were taught, by practical experience, the art of +homemaking.</p> + +<p>The home school of Providence, Rhode Island, under the direction of Mrs. +Ada Wilson Trowbridge, has received nation-wide recognition. Six hundred +dollars, appropriated by the Board of Education, renovated and furnished +the flat on Willard Avenue in which the school is held.</p> + +<p>The girls who elect to take work in the home school—the work is wholly +elective—may come on Monday and Tuesday, or on Wednesday and Thursday. +The hours are 4 to 6, or 7:30 to 9:30. On Friday, anyone comes who cares +to. The day pupils are from the grammar schools and the evening pupils +come from the factories and shops. Seventy-five names on the waiting +list of day classes indicate the popularity of the school.</p> + +<p>“We try to keep the school like the homes from which these girls come,†+explained Mrs. Trowbridge, as she showed her tastefully arranged +apartment. “The girls in the Technical High School worked out the color +schemes, selected the patterns and bought the materials. We tried to get +things which were good looking and durable.â€</p> + +<p>The three kinds of work, (1) Cooking, (2) Housekeeping, and (3) Sewing, +are carried on in rotation, a girl spending one entire afternoon at +cooking, the next at sewing and a third at housework. Thus each girl<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span> +does an afternoon’s job in each subject. The cooking class studies +successively “breakfast,†“lunch†and “dinner,†in each case preparing +menus and cooking the food. A meal is served nearly every day. The +service falls to the housekeeping class, which is also responsible for +cleaning up, tending the furnace, washing, ironing and the like. +Included in this part of the work are a number of thorough discussions +of personal hygiene and home sanitation. To the sewing class, the girls +bring their home sewing problems. Certain classes darn stockings while a +teacher reads to them. Some girls make underclothing and dresses. The +beginners hem table cloths, napkins, towels, dustcloths, etc., for the +school. The classes are small (ten to fifteen) making individual work +possible.</p> + +<p>“No, no,†protested Mrs. Trowbridge, “we have no course of study, or +else, if you please, there are as many courses as there are girls. Each +girl has her problems and we aim to meet them.â€</p> + +<p>The backyard, utilized as a garden, furnishes vegetables which the girls +cook and can. These vegetables, together with canned fruits, jellies, +jams and pickles, which the girls put up, give the school such an +excellent source of revenue that last year it turned over $15 to the +Superintendent of Schools.</p> + +<p>The crowning work of the school was done in a bare upstairs room which +the girls papered and painted themselves. “Two of them have since done +the same thing with rooms at home,†declared Mrs. Trowbridge, happily. +“Isn’t that good for a start?â€</p> + +<p>The home school stays close to home problems, dealing with the facts of +life as the girls who come to school see them. It would hardly be fair +to expect more of any school.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span></p> + + +<h4><a name="IV_VIII" id="IV_VIII"></a>VIII Breaking New Ground</h4> + +<p>The regular work of the public school has been supplemented, of late +years, by a number of significant innovations, of which the most +far-reaching is, perhaps, a medical inspection of schools which involves +a thorough physical examination of all school children by experts. By +this scheme, the defect of the individual child is corrected, and the +danger of widespread contagion or infection in the schoolroom is reduced +to a minimum.</p> + +<p>Following these physical examinations, the children who are clearly +sub-normal are placed in special classes or special schools, where, +under the direction of specially fitted teachers, they do any mental +work for which they are fitted, in the interims of time between manual +activities. Weaving, woodworking, folding and similar employments hold +the attention of sub-normal children where intellectual work will not. +The special school, freed from the throttling grip of an iron-clad +course of study, studies the need of each child, and makes a course of +study to fit the need. Although the special school has been used for +incorrigibles, its real value rests in its care of the defective child.</p> + +<p>Anaemic children and those who show a tubercular tendency are treated in +open air schools. In Springfield a special school was constructed. In +Providence an old building was employed. In all cases, however, the +windows are notable by their absence. The school supplies caps and army +blankets, a milk lunch in the middle of the forenoon and the afternoon, +and a plain, wholesome dinner at noon. A few months of such treatment +works wonders with most of the children. It seems only fair that the +sick school child should be treated to fresh air<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span> and full nutrition, +even though the well child is not so favored.</p> + +<p>The open air school has borne fruit, however, in the establishment of +numerous open-window classes. Against these classes, there seems to be +only one complaint. The children are too lively. Fancy! They get a +supply of oxygen sufficient to stimulate them into life during school +hours. How tragic this must seem to the teacher who is in the habit of +calming the troubled spirits of her class by a generous administration +of closed windows and carbon dioxide.</p> + +<p>A few cities are attempting to relieve underfeeding by the provision of +wholesome school lunches at cost. Buffalo leads in the work, with +Chicago, Philadelphia and a number of other cities trailing behind. When +you remember that the Chicago School Board reported that in the Chicago +schools there were “five thousand children who were habitually hungry,†+while “ten thousand others do not have sufficient nourishing food,†you +will perhaps agree that the time has come for some action.</p> + +<p>Among the liveliest educational movements of the day is that of +providing school children with a legitimate occupation and a convenient +place to be occupied outside of school hours. Chicago, with an unequaled +system of playgrounds, and Philadelphia, with a department devoted to +school gardens, are leaders in two fields which promise great things for +the future welfare of American city school children.</p> + + +<h4><a name="IV_IX" id="IV_IX"></a>IX The School and the Community</h4> + +<p>Not content with doing those needful things involved in the education of +children of school age, the school is reaching far out into the +community. Night schools came first, as a means of education for those +who could<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span> not attend school during the daytime. Every progressive city +and town has a night school now, and the scholars who come after working +hours use the same expensive equipment that is furnished to the regular +classes. Machines, cooking apparatus, maps and blackboard all do double +duty. In the foreign quarters, particularly, the night schools attract a +large following of adults, eager to learn the language and ways of the +new land. Though many a one falls asleep over the tasks, who shall say +that the spirit is not willing?</p> + +<p>Public lectures are being used more and more as a means of public +education. There is scarcely an up-to-date city that has not some public +lectures connected with its school or library system, while in a center +like New York, the Board of Education has established an elaborate +organization for the delivery of lectures in public school buildings +throughout the city. The lecture topics—widely advertised through the +schools and elsewhere—cover every field of thought.</p> + +<p>Perhaps the whole movement of the schools to influence the community may +be summed up in the phrase, “A wider use of the school plant.†Why +should not the schools be open, as they are in Gary, day and evening, +too? Why should the mothers and fathers not be organized into “Home and +School Leagues,†meeting in the schools as they do on a large scale in +Philadelphia? Why should not the social sentiment of a community be +crystallized around its schoolhouse, as it has been in Rochester? Is it +better to have the children playing in the street in the summer time, or +in the school yards and playgrounds, as they do in Minneapolis and St. +Paul?</p> + +<p>The billion dollars invested in the school plant must be made to yield a +return in broader social service with each succeeding year.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span></p> + + +<h4><a name="IV_X" id="IV_X"></a>X New Keys for Old Locks</h4> + +<p>Nor have progressive educators been satisfied to change the methods of +teaching old subjects. More important still, they have introduced new +courses which aim to open larger fields for child experience. Hygiene, +nature study, civics, manual training and domestic science have all been +called upon to enrich the elementary school curriculum.</p> + +<p>The nineteenth century physiology—names of muscles and bones, symptoms +of diseases and the like—has been replaced in the twentieth century +schools by a physiology which aims to teach that the body is worth +caring for and developing into something of which every boy and girl may +be proud. Beginning with nature study and elementary science, the +hygiene course in Indianapolis emphasizes, first, the care of the body +and then, in the seventh and eighth grades, public health, private and +public sanitation, etc. From nature and her doings, the child is led to +see the application of the laws of physiology and hygiene to the life of +the individual and of the community.</p> + +<p>Nature study, elementary science, horticulture and school gardens have +taken their place, on a small scale, in all progressive educational +systems. There is an education in watching things grow; an education in +the sequence and significance of the seasons, which brick and cement +pavements can never afford.</p> + +<p>Scattered attempts are being made to teach children the relation between +individual and community life. All of the seventh and eighth grade +children in Indianapolis visit the city bureaus—water, light, health, +fire and police. Trips to factories teach them the relation between +industry and the individual life, while social concepts are developed by +newspaper and magazine reading, book<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span> reading and class discussions of +the articles and books which are read. At election time they discuss +politics; they take up strikes and labor troubles; woman suffrage is +occasionally touched upon; and they are even asked to suggest methods of +making a given wage cover family needs.</p> + +<p>The widespread introduction of domestic science and elementary manual +training renders any special discussion of them unnecessary. In some +instances, however, they are developed to a high degree. In Gary, +Indianapolis and Cincinnati, seventh and eighth grade girls make their +own garments, cook and serve meals to teachers or to other classes; +while in the advanced grades the boys make furniture, sleds, derricks, +bridges and telegraph instruments. Chair caning, weaving and clay +modeling are also widely used in the hand work of both boys and girls.</p> + +<p>Fitchburg, Mass., has developed a Practical Arts School, paralleling the +seventh and eighth grades in the grammar school. The school includes a +Commercial Course, a Practical Arts Course, a Household Arts Course and +a Literary Course. The regular literature, composition, spelling, +mathematics, geography, history and science of the seventh and eighth +grades is supplemented by social dancing, physical training and music in +all of these courses; and in addition for the Commercial Course by +typewriting, shorthand, bookkeeping, business arithmetic and designing; +for the Practical Arts Course, by drawing, designing, printing, making +and repairing; for the Household Arts Course, by cooking, sewing, +homekeeping and household arts; and for the Literary Course, by +half-time in modern language and the other half in manual training and +household arts.</p> + +<p>At the end of the sixth year (at about twelve years<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span> of age) children in +Fitchburg may elect to take this school of Practical Arts instead of the +regular grammar school course. The results of this election are +extraordinary. The practical course was planned for the children who +expected to leave school at fourteen, or at the end of the eighth grade. +Curiously enough, all types of children have flocked into it. Sons of +doctors, lawyers and well-to-do business men; boys and girls preparing +for college, and children who must stop school in a year or two are all +clamoring for admission. In spite of the fact that pupils are kept in +these schools six hours a day instead of five, as in the other schools, +the attendance at the end of two years has outrun the accommodations. +The children who leave this applied work and enter the high school are +apparently not a whit less able to do the high school work than those +children who have come up through the regular grades.</p> + +<p>The new education is broader than the old, because it accepts and adopts +any study which seems likely to meet the needs or wants of any class of +children or of any individual child. The storehouse of the mind is +to-day unlocked with educational keys of which educators in past +generations scarcely dreamed.</p> + + +<h4><a name="IV_XI" id="IV_XI"></a>XI School and Shop</h4> + +<p>For the present, at least, there are a great number of children who must +leave school at fourteen, whether they have completed the grammar grades +or not. With them, the problem of education shapes itself into this +question: “Shall they be well or badly prepared for their work?†The +boys enter the shops and mills; the girls marry and make homes. Are they +to be efficient workers and housekeepers? The answer rests largely with +the schools.</p> + +<p>Ohio has provided, for the solution of the problem, a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span> continuation +school law, modeled on the more extensive plans of the German +Continuation School system. The law reads: “In case the board of +education of any school district establishes part-time day schools for +the instruction of youths over fourteen years <a name="Page_77t" id="Page_77t"></a><a href="#Page_77tn">of</a> age who are engaged in +regular employment, such board of education is authorized to require all +youths who have not satisfactorily completed the eighth grade of the +elementary schools to continue their schooling until they are sixteen +years of age; provided, however, that such youths, if they have been +granted Age and Schooling Certificates and are regularly employed, shall +be required to attend school not to exceed eight hours a week between +the hours of 8:00 A. M. to 5:00 P. M. during the school term.â€</p> + +<p>Cleveland and Cincinnati, acting under this authority, have established +continuation schools. In Cleveland they are voluntary; in Cincinnati +they are compulsory. In both cities, children between fourteen and +sixteen may attend school, during factory time, for four hours each +week.</p> + +<p>Little enough, you protest. Yes, but it is a beginning.</p> + +<p>The child in such a continuation school may choose between academic +work, art, drawing and designing, shop-work, millinery, dressmaking and +domestic science. In some cases a continuation course is possible. Thus +far the system has worked admirably.</p> + +<p>Equally significant are the Massachusetts Vocational Schools, which are +intended to provide a technical training for the boys who wish to pass +directly from the grammar school into industry.</p> + +<p>Under the Massachusetts law, the state pays half of the running expenses +of any vocational school which is organized with the approval of the +State Director of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span> Vocational Training. The Springfield school, under +the supervision of E. E. MacNary, is housed on one floor of a factory +building. The boys may not come at an earlier age than fourteen and Mr. +MacNary insists, where possible, that they complete the regular seventh +grade work before coming to him. His school, which includes pattern +making, cabinet work, carpentry and machine shop work, is run on the +“job†plan. That is, a boy is assigned to a job such as making a +head-stock for a lathe. The boy makes his drawings, writes his +specifications, orders his material and tools, estimates the cost of the +job, makes the head-stock and then figures up his actual costs and +compares them with the estimated cost. Not until he has gone through all +of the operations, may he turn to a new piece of work.</p> + +<p>“We tried the half-day and half-day in shop plan,†Mr. MacNary explains, +“but it was not a success. It disturbed the boys too much. So we hit on +the plan of letting each boy divide his time as he needed to. When he +has drawing and estimating to do, he does that and when the time for +lathe work comes, he turns to that. It breaks up any system in your +school, but it gives the best chance to the individual boy.â€</p> + +<p>One day a week all of the boys meet the teachers in conference to +discuss their work and to make and receive general suggestions.</p> + +<p>The boys who come to Mr. MacNary’s school are boys who would probably +leave the regular school at fourteen. Many boys come because they are +discouraged with the grade work, and of these “grade failures,†many +succeed admirably in the new school. During the two years of this +shop-work, the boys get a training which enables them to take and hold +good positions in the trades. As one foreman said, “A boy gets more +training in the two<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span> years of that school than he gets in three years of +any shop.â€</p> + +<p>These are but an index of the myriad of attempts which cities are making +to bring school and shop together, to train for usefulness, to start +boys in life.</p> + + +<h4><a name="IV_XII" id="IV_XII"></a>XII Half a Chance to Study</h4> + +<p>There are other ways in which the school may help. For example, in the +case of homework. On the one hand, homework for the sake of homework may +be eliminated. On the other hand, children may be given half a chance to +read and study.</p> + +<p>One day in a squalid back street I glanced through the window of a +corner house. The front of the house was a grocery store. The room into +which I happened to look was a general dwelling room. On one side stood +the kitchen stove; the floor was littered with children and rubbish, and +just under the window a child sat, her book before her on the +supper-covered dining table, doing multiplication examples—her +homework. The well-to-do child, less than ten squares away, who bent +over her problems in a quiet room, could scarcely appreciate the +difficulties attached to homework, when the family lives in three rooms +and does everything possible to reduce the bill for kerosene.</p> + +<p>There is just one place in every neighborhood where the child can find +light, air and quiet—that place is the school. Why then should the +school not be open for the child? “Why, indeed,†asked the schoolmen of +Newark, N. J. Passing from thought to deed, they opened schools in the +crowded neighborhoods four nights a week from 7 to 9.</p> + +<p>Into these evening study classes, in charge of advisory teachers, any +child might come at all. The city librarian,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span> generous in co-operation, +lent library books in batches of forty, for two months at a time. +Evening after evening, the boys and girls assemble and with text-books +or library books, do those things in the school which are impossible in +the home. For what other purpose should the school exist?</p> + + +<h4><a name="IV_XIII" id="IV_XIII"></a>XIII Thwarting Satan in the Summer Time</h4> + +<p>Another project, equally effective, involves the opening of schools +during the summer time. The farmer needed his boy for the harvest, so +summer vacations became the established rule, but the city street needs +neither the boy nor the girl at any time of the year. Idleness and +mischief link hands with street children and dance away toward +delinquency. Then why not have school in the summer time? Why not?</p> + +<p>The answer takes the form of vacation schools. In most cases the work of +the vacation school is designed primarily to interest the child. Games, +stories, gardening, manual work of various sorts, excursions and similar +devices are relied upon to maintain interest.</p> + +<p>A few cities, like Indianapolis, Worcester and Gary, on the other hand, +have established vacation schools in which children may make up back +work, or pursue studies in which they are especially interested.</p> + +<p>As a means of bringing below-grade children up to the standard of +affording an opportunity for the able children to advance more rapidly +in school, and, in general, as a means of keeping city children usefully +occupied during the summer months, the vacation school has won its +place.</p> + +<p>Newark, making an even more radical departure from tradition, runs some +schools twelve months in the year. Edgar G. Pitkin, principal of a +school in an immigrant<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span> district, first put the idea into practice. At +the end of the regular session in June, he announced to his children +that school would start again on the following Monday. Fearfully he +approached the building. The streets about the school seemed unusually +deserted that Monday morning. Suppose no one should be there! When the +gong sounded, however, more than seven-tenths of the two thousand +children belonging in the school were in their places. The attendance +that summer was ninety-two per cent, and the promotion ninety-five per +cent. During the three summer months there were exactly two cases of +discipline.</p> + +<p>“You see what happened,†Mr. Pitkin explained. “All of the bright +ambitious children came back and the loafers stayed away. From that +picked crowd nothing but good work could be expected. There was no +attendance officer on duty, but the children were regular. Order was so +good that on hot days we put up the sashes between rooms, and on the +second floor, where four class-rooms were thrown into one, four classes +worked industriously under four teachers without the least friction.â€</p> + +<p>This school has been organized on a year schedule. If the children come +four terms each year instead of three, they will reduce the time between +the first and eighth grades by one-third, which means a saving to them +and to the school. Since it is the able children who come, the twelve +months’ school affords them an opportunity to go quickly through work on +which the slower classmates must hold a more moderate pace.</p> + + +<h4><a name="IV_XIV" id="IV_XIV"></a>XIV Sending the Whole Child to School</h4> + +<p>It is a long step from the school of—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Reading, and writing and ‘rithmetic,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Taught to the tune of the hickory stick,<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span></div></div> + +<p>to the school which aims at the education of the whole child; yet that +step has been attempted in Gary, Indiana. There, perhaps more +consistently than anywhere else in the United States, the school +authorities are providing for the whole child in their schools. Many +schools have manual training and domestic science; many schools have +school gardens and playgrounds; many schools have nature work in the +parks and squares; but in no school that I have visited did I find a +more conscious effort to unite mental and physical, hand and head, and +vocation and recreation, in one complete system.</p> + +<p>This result, which to some may sound unbelievably like the impossible, +is accomplished first, by engaging experts to teach such special +subjects as botany and physical training; second, by abolishing grade +promotions and permitting each child to advance in his subject when he +is ready to do so; third, by keeping the school open morning, afternoon +and evening during practically the entire year; fourth, by making the +work of interest to each individual child. Perhaps this matter of +interest sums up better than any other the spirit of the Gary schools. +The system aims to make the school so attractive that children will +prefer to be there rather than to be anywhere else.</p> + +<p>How is this done? Take the case of John Frena, who occupies a place of +no particular distinction in the fifth year of the Gary schools. John’s +school day (from 8:30 A. M. to 4:00 P. M.) is divided equally between +regular work (reading, writing, geography, etc.) and special work (play, +nature study, manual training and the like). A day of John’s school life +reads like this:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>First period</i>—Playground, games, sports and gymnastics, under +the direction of an expert.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span></p> + +<p><i>Second period</i>—Nature study, elementary science and physical +geography.</p> + +<p><i>Third and fourth periods</i>—Reading, writing, spelling and +language.</p> + +<p><i>Lunch hour.</i></p> + +<p><i>Fifth period</i>—Playground (as before).</p> + +<p><i>Sixth period</i>—Drawing and manual training.</p> + +<p><i>Seventh and eighth periods</i>—History, political geography and +arithmetic.</p></div> + +<p>During his school day, John has played, used his head and his hands, and +alternated the work in such a way that no one part of it ever became +irksome.</p> + +<p>Next week, music and literature will be substituted on John’s program +for drawing; the following week manual training will replace one period +of play. The four special subjects (drawing and manual training, music +and literature, nature study and science, and plays and games) rotate +regularly. Each day, however, includes four periods of this special work +and four periods of regular work.</p> + +<p>Such a plan sounds complicated. In reality, it is very easy. The +gymnasium teacher stays in the gymnasium, the drawing teacher in the +drawing room. In the regular work, there are forty children in each +class. For science and manual training these classes split in two. At +the end of each period, or of each two periods, depending on the +subject, the children pass from one room to another. While this system +brings them under several teachers each day, it enables them to take a +subject like art with one teacher for twelve years.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile our little friend John has shown himself bright in language, +but slow in arithmetic. Immediately he is advanced in language, and +perhaps placed in a lower arithmetic class. He may even be transferred +to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span> another teacher for special arithmetic work. The system permits this +flexibility because it allows each teacher, an expert in her own field, +to shape her work to suit her pupils.</p> + +<p>Better still, if John cannot master his arithmetic in the regular +classes, he may attend voluntary classes on Saturday, at night, or +during the summer months. The schools afford him every chance to keep up +in every subject, and if he cannot make his way in this subject or in +that, he works in the fields which are open to him, doing what he can to +make his course a success.</p> + +<p>John, in the schools of Gary, is John Frena, with all of John Frena’s +limitations and possibilities. The Gary school seeks to bridge the +limitations, expand the possibilities, and give John Frena a thousand +and one reasons for believing that if there is any place in the world +where he can grow into a complete man, that place is the Gary school.</p> + + +<h4><a name="IV_XV" id="IV_XV"></a>XV Smashing the School Machine</h4> + +<p>One of the oft-repeated complaints against the old education arose from +the iron-clad system of promotion which once in each year, with +automatic precision, separated the sheep from the goats, saying to the +sheep, “go higher,†and to the goats, “repeat the grade.â€</p> + +<p>For the sheep, the system worked fairly well, at least that once; but +for the goats, it was a tragedy. The child who had failed in one out of +six branches, side by side with the child failing in six out of six, +repeated the year.</p> + +<p>The new education affords several remedies for this situation. Of these +the most generally known is promotion twice yearly. While this affords +considerable relief, it is greatly improved upon in Springfield, Mass., +by the division of each grade into three divisions—advanced,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span> normal +and backward. These divisions the teacher handles separately so that +when promotion time comes the children who have shown special aptitude +are prepared to go into the next grade. Meantime the children have been +constantly changing from one division in the class to another.</p> + +<p>Perhaps the most generally practicable plan for relieving the mechanical +features of promotion is found in Indianapolis, and even more intensely +in Gary, where children are promoted by subjects rather than by grades. +In Indianapolis, the child entering the sixth grade, takes all English +with one teacher from that time until the end of the eighth grade. If +the child is strong in English, he advances rapidly. If he is weak in +English, the teacher gives him special attention. Learning each pupil’s +capabilities in her particular branch, the teacher is able to give the +individual child, over a series of years, the help which his special +case requires.</p> + +<p>In Gary the departmental idea is carried through the entire school +system. In the Emerson School, for instance, children may take eighth +grade work in English and high school work in nature study or history. +The departmental work is strengthened in Gary, in Indianapolis, and in a +number of other cities, by afternoon work, Saturday classes and vacation +schools. Here, a child interested in any phase of the school work or +desiring to make up work in which he is deficient, may spend his spare +time to his heart’s content.</p> + +<p>An even greater individuation of children exists in Fitchburg and +Newton, Mass., and in Providence, R. I. Children from the country and +foreign children who have difficulty with their English, together with +any other children who do not fit into any grade, are placed in an +ungraded class. A typical ungraded class of fifty<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span> pupils contained +Germans, Russians, Greeks, French, Italians and Polish children, who +were unable to speak English on entering the school. The ages of these +children varied from eight to fifteen. As soon as the ungraded children +appear to be fitted for any special grade, they are transferred.</p> + +<p>This ungraded work is supplemented by “floating teachers,†who are +located in each school for the purpose of dealing with special cases. +The case of any child who, for this reason or that, cannot keep up with +the work in a particular subject, is handed over to these teachers. Thus +individual attention is secured in individual cases.</p> + + +<h4><a name="IV_XVI" id="IV_XVI"></a>XVI All Hands Around for An Elementary School</h4> + +<p>These progressive educational steps are not isolated instances of +success in new lines, nor are they incompatible with good work. They may +be welded into a unified system, aglow with the real interests of real +life. It is possible to correlate the old standard courses and the new +fields in such a way that the child will gain in interest and in life +experience.</p> + +<p>Nowhere is this possibility better illustrated than in the elementary +schools of Indianapolis. Take as an example School No. 52, which is +located in an average district. The children, neither very rich nor very +poor, possess the advantages and disadvantages of that great mass known +as “common people.â€</p> + +<p>The children in grades one to three, inclusive, in addition to studying +the three R’s, spend thirty minutes each day learning to measure, fold, +cut and weave paper. In grades four and five, an hour and a half per +week is devoted to simple weaving, knife-work, raffia work, sewing and +basketry. Grade six has four and a half hours of similar work each week, +while in grades seven and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span> eight, the pupils are occupied for one-third +of their entire school time in art work, book-binding, pottery work, +weaving (blankets and rugs), chair caning, cooking, sewing and printing.</p> + +<p>“But how is it possible?†queries the defender of the old system. “How +can the necessary subjects be taught in two-thirds of the time now +devoted to them? Are we not already crowded to death?â€</p> + +<p>Yes, crowded with dead work, the proof of which lies in the fact that +the children who devote a third of the time to apply their knowledge get +as good or better marks in the academic work than the three-thirds +children. That, however, is not the really important point. This course +of study is valuable because it gives a rounded, unified training.</p> + +<p>This is how the course is organized. The school life is a unit, into +which each department fits and in which it works. The spelling lesson is +covered in the classroom and set in type in the print shop. The grammar +lesson consists in revising compositions with regulation proofreaders’ +corrections. The art department designs clothes which are made in the +sewing classes. The drawing room furnishes plans for the wood and iron +work and designs for basketry and pottery. In the English classes, the +problems of caning and weaving are written and discussed. The +mathematical problems are problems of the school. Children in the +sixth year keep careful accounts of personal receipts and +expenditures—accounts which are balanced semi-weekly. The boy in one +woodworking class makes out an order for materials. A boy in another +class makes the necessary computations and fills the order. All costs of +dressmaking and cooking materials are carefully kept and dealt with as +arithmetic problems. For the older boys, shop-cards are kept, show<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span>ing +the amount and price of materials used and the time devoted to a given +operation. These again form a basis for mathematical work. The whole is +knit together in a civics class, which deals with the industrial, +political and social questions, in their relations to the child and to +the community.</p> + +<p>Best of all, the things which the children talk and figure about, plan +and make, have value. The seventh and eighth year girls make clothes +which they are proud to show and wear; they cook lunch for which some of +the teachers pay a cost price. The baskets are taken home. Eighty chairs +are caned by the children each year. The bindery binds magazines, songs +and special literature. The boys make sleds and carts, hall stands, +umbrella racks, center tables and stools. They make cupboards and +shelves for the school, quilting-frames on which the girls do patchwork. +Rags are woven into rag carpets and sold. The print shop prints all of +the stationery for the school. Each can of preserves, in the ample stock +put up by the girls, is labeled thus:</p> + + +<p class="center">"<span class="smcap">Preserved Peaches</span>"<br /></p> + +<p>with labels printed by the boys.</p> + +<p>June, 1912, witnessed a triumph for the entire school. The children in +the upper class had taken up the study of book-making. They even went to +a bindery and saw a book bound and lettered. Then, to show what they had +learned, they composed, set up and printed—</p> + +<p class="center"> +<span class="smcap">A Book</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">About Books</span><br /> +by<br /> +June 8 A Class<br /> +</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span>This book of twenty-eight pages, tastefully covered and decorated, +contained three half-tone cuts which the children paid for by means of +entertainments; an essay by Hazel Almas on “The History of Books,†one +by Adele Wise on “The Printing of a Book,†and one by Ruth Kingelman on +“The Art of Bookbinding"; the program of the commencement exercises, and +a collection of poems and wise sayings.</p> + +<p>The children went further and invited Mr. Charles Bookwalter, the owner +of the bookbindery where they had learned their lesson, to come and talk +to them on Commencement Day. He came, made a splendid address and went +away filled with wonder before these achievements of fourteen-year-old +grammar school children.</p> + +<p>Each grade has a special subject of study. This year the boys in the +Eighth A are studying saws; the boys in Eighth B, lumbering; the girls +in Eighth A are investigating wool and silk; while in Eighth B the girls +are studying cotton and flax. This “study†means much. Not only do the +children discuss the topics, write about them, read books on them, and +do problems concerning them, but they visit the factories and study the +processes from beginning to end.</p> + +<p>When the problem of pins came up, the teacher desired several copies of +a description of pin-making, so she asked the class to write out a +letter to the manufacturers. The class, left to select, decided to send +this letter:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p> +<span style="margin-left: 20em;"><span class="smcap">School No.</span> 52,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 17em;">Indianapolis, Ind., Oct. 11, 1912.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">American Pin Company</span>,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Waterbury, Conn.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p><i>Dear Sirs:</i> On seeing the pamphlet on pins you have been kind +enough to send us, I have decided to write and ask you if you +would kindly send us about twenty of your pamphlets on the +making of pins.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span></p> + +<p>We are in the eighth grade, and expect to go out into the world +in January, and your process of making pins will be spread +abroad to the whole world.</p> + +<p>We are very anxious to know more about the making of pins, and +we are very much interested in your process.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 8em;">Yours sincerely,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 10em;"><span class="smcap">Ruth Harrison</span>.</span><br /><br /> +</p></div> + +<p>Need I say that the American Pin Company sent immediately twenty +duplicates of the desired pamphlet?</p> + +<p>The work in this school where thought and activity go hand in hand, is +done by the regular grade teachers—done, and done well. They are as +enthusiastic as the pupils. Four years’ trial has convinced them. On the +day that I visited the school, I walked into a classroom where twenty +girls were busy sewing. The order was perfect. Every one was busy. The +teacher was nowhere in evidence.</p> + +<p>“That teacher,†explained the principal to me later, “is off at a +teachers’ meeting. She left these girls on their honor to work. You see +the result.â€</p> + +<p>I saw and marveled. Yet why marvel? Was not this a typical product of +the system which knits thought and activity into such a harmonious, +fascinating whole as the most fortunate adults find in later life? Out +of such a school may we not well develop harmony and keen life? Never +yet have men gathered grapes from thistles, but often and often have +they plucked from fig trees the figs which they craved and sought.</p> + + +<h4><a name="IV_XVII" id="IV_XVII"></a>XVII From a Blazed Trail to a Paved Highway</h4> + +<p>Pages might be filled with descriptions of similar successes, yet I +think that my point is already sufficiently established. How can we +disagree regarding so plain a matter? The path of educational progress +has led<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span> away from the three R’s along a trail, blazed at first by a few +men and women who dreamed and stepped forward hesitatingly. Often they +retraced their steps, discouraged, and gave over the little they had +gained. By degrees, however, the trail was blazed. The way became +clearer. After all it was possible to connect education with life.</p> + +<p>Slowly the light of this truth dawned upon men’s minds. Gradually the +way opened before them. One by one they trod the path, bridging the +worst defiles, straightening the road, cutting out the thickets and +filling in the morasses, until at last, behold the way, explored by +hesitating, derided pioneers, no longer a trail, but a broad highway. +Others have gone—their name is legion—and have succeeded. The three +R’s are but the beginning of an adequate elementary curriculum. You, in +your own city, with your own teachers, can vitalize your elementary +schools. You can teach the children to use their heads and hands +together, and thus show them the way to a deeper interest in your +schools, and a larger outlook on their work in life.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h3> + +<h2>KEEPING THE HIGH SCHOOL IN STEP WITH LIFE</h2> + + +<h4>I The Responsibility of the High School</h4> + +<p>“Every pupil of high school maturity should be in high school atmosphere +whether he has completed the work of the grammar grades or not,†insists +Dr. F. E. Spaulding. “Perhaps the high school course of study is not +adapted to the needs of such children. Well, so much the worse for the +course of study. The sooner the high school suits its work to the needs +of fourteen and fifteen-year-old boys and girls, the sooner it will be +filling its true place in the community.†Such opinions, voiced in this +case by a man whose national reputation is founded on his splendid work +as superintendent of the school system of Newton Mass., bespeak the +attitude of the most progressive American high schools.</p> + +<p>The high school is not a training ground for colleges, nor is it a +repository of classical lore. As an advanced school it differs no more +from the elementary school than the six cylinder automobile differs from +the four cylinder car. Though its work is more complex, like the +elementary school it exists for the sole purpose of helping children to +live wholesome, efficient lives.</p> + + +<h4><a name="V_II" id="V_II"></a>II An Experiment in Futures</h4> + +<p>Children who get stranded in the seventh or eighth grades may have +failed in one subject or in several. Over age and out of place, they +lose interest, become dis<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span>couraged and at fourteen drop out of school to +work or to idle. In Newton, as in every other town, there were a number +of just such children whom Mr. Spaulding decided to get into the high +school.</p> + +<p>“There they will be among children of their own age,†he explained. +“They may take a new line of work and acquire a real interest.â€</p> + +<p>“But they will fail in their high school work as they have failed in +their grade work,†protested the doubters.</p> + +<p>Mr. Spaulding, smiling his quiet, genial smile, tried his experiment all +the same. From the seventh and eighth grades of the Newton schools he +picked the boys and girls who were fifteen or more at their next +birthdays. These pupils, seventy in all—forty girls and thirty +boys—were transferred, without examination, into the high school.</p> + +<p>“These youngsters were going to drop out of school for good in one year, +or two at the outside,†explained Mr. Spaulding, “so I made up my mind +that during that year at least they should have some high school +training. They went to the regular high school teachers for their +hand-work; but for their studies, I put them in charge of three capable +grade teachers, who were responsible for seeing that each child was +making good. I put it to the grade teachers this way: ‘Here are a lot of +children who have got the failure habit by failing all through their +school course. Unless we want to send them out of our school to make +similar failures in life, we must teach them to succeed. Take each child +on his own merits, give him work that he can do and let him learn +success.’</p> + +<p>“We gave these boys and girls twenty hours a week of technical work +(drawing, designing, shop-work, cook<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span>ing and sewing) and ten hours a +week of academic work (English, mathematics, civics and hygiene). Shop +costs, buying of materials and simple <a name="Page_94t" id="Page_94t"></a><a href="#Page_94tn">accounting</a> covered their +mathematics. Those were the things which would probably be most needful +in life. The boys got deeply interested in civics, and we let them go as +far and as fast as they pleased. With the girls we discussed hygiene, +dressing and a lot of other things in which they were interested.</p> + +<p>“When those children entered the school they were boisterous and rough. +The girls dressed gaudily, reveling in cheap finery. By Christmas, to +all appearances, their classes differed in no way from the other high +school classes. They all brushed their hair. The boys were neater and +the girls were becomingly dressed.<a name="Page_94t1" id="Page_94t1"></a><a href="#Page_94tn">["]</a></p> + +<p>Most of the seventy children stayed through the year. Twenty-seven of +the forty girls and seventeen of the thirty boys entered the regular +high school course the next fall. They were thus put into competition +with their former seventh and eighth grade comrades, although they had +had only two-fifths as much academic work as the regular eighth grade +pupils. There was the test.</p> + +<p>Could these derelicts, after one year of special care, take their places +in the regular freshman high school work? After the end of the first +quarter, a study made of the 800 children in the high school showed that +on the average there were fifty-four hundredths of one failure for each +scholar. Among the twenty-seven girls from the special classes, however, +there was but seventeen-hundredths of a failure for each girl, or +one-third as many failures as in the whole school. The boys made an even +better showing. Of the entire seventeen, only one boy failed, and in +only one subject.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span></p> + + +<h4><a name="V_III" id="V_III"></a>III The Success Habit</h4> + +<p>“We had given them something they liked and could do,†Mr. Spaulding +concluded. “They succeeded a few times, got the success habit, learned +to like school, went into the regular high school course and succeeded +there.â€</p> + +<p>As an illustration of the way in which the new plan works, take the case +of James Rawley. James was in a serious predicament. Time after time the +court had overlooked his truancy and misdoings, but James had taken the +pitcher once too often to the well, and the open doors of the State +Reform School stared him grimly in the face.</p> + +<p>“It will be best for him in the long run,†commented the judge. “Each +month of this wild life makes him a little less fit to keep his place in +the community. He has had his last chance.â€</p> + +<p>Yet there was one ray of hope, for James lived in and out of Boston, a +city located near the Newton Technical High School. This fact led +James’s custodians to propose to the judge that he give James one more +trial, this time in the Newton Technical High School. The judge, also of +the initiated, agreed to the suggestion, and James, a dismal eighth +grade failure, entered the Newton Technical High School in one of the +special transfer classes.</p> + +<p>Just a word about James. He began life badly. His mother died when he +was young; and his father, a rather indifferent man, boarded the boy out +during his early years with an aunt, who first spoiled him through +indulgence, and then, inconsistently enough, hated him because he was +spoiled. Growing up in this uncongenial atmosphere, James became +entirely uncontrollable. He was disagreeable in the extreme, wild and +unmanageable.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span></p> + +<p>The people with whom James was boarding grew tired of his continued +truancy and he was placed on a farm near Boston. There, too, he was +discontented, dissatisfied and disobedient. Time after time he ran away +to Boston. He went on from bad to worse, falling in with vagrants, +learning their talk and their ways, acquiring a love for wandering and a +distaste for regularity and direction. Taken into custody by the +Juvenile Court, and placed on probation with a family outside of Boston, +James again ran away to mingle with a crowd of his old associates in +Boston. It was at this point that the court decided to send him to the +Reform School. It was likewise at this time that some friendly people +took him in charge, found him a home in Newton, and started his life +anew in the Newton Technical High School, which James entered with a +special transfer class. Promoted to the regular freshman class on trial, +James has renewed his interest in education and bids fair to make his +way through the high school.</p> + +<p>James is doing well in the Newton Technical High School. Though he does +not like all of the regular high school work, he has a full course, and +is working at it persistently. Heretofore school has never appealed to +him—in fact, he hated it cordially—but the school at Newton offered +him such a variety of subjects that he was able to find some which were +attractive. Since then he has been working on those subjects.</p> + +<p>There are many cities in which every school door would have been closed +to James, because he did not fit into the school system, but the +superintendent of the Newton schools believes in making the school fit +the needs of the boy. A fantastic theory? Well, perhaps a trifle, from +one viewpoint; nevertheless, it is the soul of education.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span></p> + + +<h4><a name="V_IV" id="V_IV"></a>IV The Help-Out Spirit</h4> + +<p>As a result of this special promotion policy, there are practically no +over-age pupils in the grammar schools of Newton. Instead of square pegs +in round holes, the Newton High School can boast of sixty or seventy +children who come, each year, in search of a new opening for which they +are technically not ready, but into which they may grow. After coming to +the high school, two-thirds of them find an incentive sufficient to lead +them to continue with an education of which they had already wearied.</p> + +<p>The Newton High School, recognizing its obligation to serve the people, +strains every nerve to enable boys and girls to take high school work. +The printing teacher pointed to his class of twenty.</p> + +<p>“Only three of them do not work on Saturdays and after school. They +couldn’t come here if they didn’t work. Hiney, there, was in a bakeshop +all day at three and a half a week. We got him a job afternoons and +Saturdays that pays him three dollars. That tall fellow will send +himself through high school on the six dollars a week that he gets from +a drug store where he works outside of school hours.â€</p> + +<p>“We aim,†added Mr. Spaulding, “to do everything in our power to make it +possible for the boys to come here. If their parents cannot afford to +send them, we find work for them to do outside of school hours.â€</p> + +<p>That is virile work, is it not? And the result? During the past eight +years the number of pupils in the Newton schools who are over fourteen +has increased three times as fast as the number of pupils who are under +fourteen. The school authorities have searched the highways and byways +of the educational world until<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span> one-quarter of the school children of +Newton are in the high schools.</p> + + +<h4><a name="V_V" id="V_V"></a>V Joining Hands with the Elementary Schools</h4> + +<p>The same result which is attained informally at Newton is accomplished +more formally by the organization of the junior high schools which have +sprung up in Berkeley and Los Angeles, California; Evansville, Indiana; +Dayton, Ohio, and a number of other progressive educational centers. The +child’s school life under this plan is divided into three parts—the +elementary grades (years one to six), the junior high school (years +seven to nine) and the high school proper (years ten to twelve). The +break, if break there must be, between the elementary and the high +school, thus comes at age twelve and at age fifteen, instead of, as +formerly, coming at age fourteen, when the temptation to leave school is +so strong. Then, too, the sharp transition from work by grades to work +by departments is made easier because the junior high school combines +the two, leading the pupil gradually over from the grade method to the +department method.</p> + +<p>Though the junior high school has so great a popularity, its work is +eclipsed by the still more revolutionary program of those educators who +advocate the complete abolition of any line between the elementary and +the high school, and the establishment of a public school of twelve +school years. This plan, coupled with promotion by subjects rather than +by grades, replaces the machine method of promotion and the gap between +elementary and high schools by an easy, natural progression adaptable to +the needs of any student, from the end of the kindergarten to the +beginning of the university.</p> + +<p>Superintendent Wirt of Gary, Indiana, has estab<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span>lished such a +twelve-year course in the Emerson School. The grades, numbered from one +to twelve, are so arranged that a girl may take half of her subjects in +school year eight (last grammar grade) and the other half in school year +nine (first high school grade). In order to make the harmony more +complete, Mr. Wirt places the elementary rooms, containing the second +grade pupils, next door to the rooms which shelter high school seniors. +On this side of the hall is a kindergarten; directly across from it is a +class in high school geometry.</p> + +<p>The same plan, on a larger scale, has been adopted by I. B. Gilbert, +principal of the Union High School, Grand Rapids, Michigan, which houses +twelve hundred students.</p> + +<p>“We have obliterated the sharp line of distinction between the grades,†+declared Mr. Gilbert. “The school, which is a new one, has a very +complete equipment—physical, chemical, and biological laboratories, two +cooking rooms, dressmaking and millinery rooms, an art department, a +woodworking shop, a forge room and a machine shop; the print shop, +though not yet installed, is to be put in this year. By bringing +children of all grades to the school, we place at the disposal of grade +pupils apparatus ordinarily reserved for high school pupils only. At the +same time, our equipment is in constant use and the cost of establishing +a separate industrial department or school for the grades is eliminated.</p> + +<p>“These are merely the surface advantages, however. The real gain to the +students is in other and most significant directions. First, the +abolishing of rigid grading allows each child to follow his own bent. At +the beginning of the adolescent period, when the old interests begin to +lag, some new ideas must be furnished if the child is to be kept in +school. We provide that new stimu<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span>lus by beginning departmental work +with the seventh year (at twelve or thirteen). Then, if the child shows +any particular preference for any line of work, he may pursue it. From +the seventh grade up, promotion is by subjects entirely, and not by +grades. If a student elects art, she may follow up her art work for the +next six years; similarly, a boy may follow shop-work, or a girl +domestic science or millinery. In order to fit the school more quickly +to the pupils’ need, we make a division at the beginning of the eighth +grade of those pupils desiring to take academic work and those desiring +to take industrial work in the high school. The latter group does extra +sewing or shop-work twice each week.</p> + +<p>“Again, we take all over-age and over-size pupils from the schools in +this section of the city, and by placing them in ungraded classes, +permit them to take the work which they can do. Here is a boy who cannot +master grammar. That is no reason why he should not design jewelry, so +we give him fourth year language, and take him into the tenth year class +in jewelry design. Yes, and he makes good, doing excellent craft work +and gradually pulling up in his language. By this means we make our +twelve grade school fit the needs of any and every pupil who may come to +it.</p> + +<p>“We have a natural educational progress for twelve years,†concluded Mr. +Gilbert. “There is no break anywhere. Instead of making it hard to step +from grade eight to grade nine, we interrelate them so intimately that +the student scarcely feels the change from one to the other. The result? +Last June there were 152 pupils in our eighth grade. Of that number 118, +or more than three-quarters of them reported in the ninth grade this +fall. We have cancelled the invitation to quit school<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span> at the end of the +eighth grade and our children stay with us.â€</p> + + +<h4><a name="V_VI" id="V_VI"></a>VI The Abolition of “Mass Playâ€</h4> + +<p>Thus the dark narrow passage-way from the elementary to the higher +schools is being widened, lighted, paved and sign-posted. In some school +systems it has disappeared altogether, leaving the promotion from the +eighth year to the first year high school as easy as the step from the +seventh to the eighth grade. After the children have reached the high +school, however, the task is only begun. First they must be +individualized, second socialized, and third taught.</p> + +<p>“The trouble with the girls,†complained Wm. McAndrew, in discussing his +four thousand Washington Irvingites, “is that they have always been +taught mass play. Take singing, for instance. A class started off will +sing beautifully all together, but get one girl on her feet and she is +afraid to utter a note. The grade instruction has taught them group +acting and group thinking. I step into a class of Freshmen with a ‘Good +morning, girls’.</p> + +<p>“‘Good morning,’ they chorus.</p> + +<p>“‘Are you glad to see me, girls?’</p> + +<p>“‘Yes sir,’ again in chorus.</p> + +<p>“‘Do you wished I was hanged?’</p> + +<p>“‘Yes sir,’ generally,—</p> + +<p>“‘Oh, no sir,’ cries one girl who has begun to cerebrate. The idea +catches all over the class, and again the chorus comes,—</p> + +<p>“‘Oh, no sir, no sir.’</p> + +<p>“So it goes. The bright girl takes her cue from the teacher and the +class takes the cue from the bright girl. They must be taught to think +and do for themselves.â€<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span></p> + +<p>Everyone interested in school children should visit the Washington +Irving School (New York) and watch the truly wonderful McAndrew system +of individualization. In the office, you are cordially greeted. You wish +to see the school? By all means! But no teacher is detailed to serve +you. Instead, a messenger goes in search of the Reception Committee. Two +of the school girls, after a formal introduction, start your tour of +inspection, if you are fortunate enough to be there at nine, with a +visit to one of the assembly rooms, where, in groups of three or four +hundred, the girls enjoy three-quarters of an hour each morning. The +word “enjoy†is used advisedly, for, unlike the ordinary assembly, this +one is conducted entirely by the girls.</p> + +<p>Each morning a different chairman and secretary is selected, so that in +the course of the year every girl has had her turn. The chairman, after +calling the meeting to order and appointing two critics for the day, +reads her own scripture selection, and then calls upon some girl to lead +the salute to the flag. The minutes of the previous day’s meeting are +then read, discussed and accepted. After fifteen minutes of +singing—singing of everything from “Faust†to “Rags"—the chairman +calls on the two critics for their criticism of the conduct of that +day’s meeting. Some special event is then in order. On one Monday in +December Miss Sage, head of the Biology Department, described the +Biological Laboratory in the new school building. After she had +finished, the chairman rose.</p> + +<p>“Will anyone volunteer to tell in a few words the principal points which +Miss Sage made?â€</p> + +<p>Three girls were promptly on their feet, giving, in clear, collected +language, an analysis of the talk.</p> + +<p>After you, as a guest, have been conducted to the plat<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span>form, introduced +to the chairman, and given a seat of honor, the chairman turns to the +assembly, with the announcement,—</p> + +<p>“Girls, I wish to introduce to you our guest of this morning.â€</p> + +<p>Instantly the whole assembly rises, singing blithely, “Good morning, +honored guest, we the girls of the Washington Irving High School are +glad to welcome you.â€</p> + +<p>The proceedings having come to an end, the chairman declares the meeting +adjourned and you look about, realizing with a start that the +girls—freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors—have spent +three-quarters of an hour in charge of themselves, and have done it with +interest, and with striking efficiency. Continuing your journey, you +find the process of individualization everywhere present. Here a girl is +in front of a class, directing the calisthenics which precede each class +hour. There a girl is standing at the front of the room, leading singing +or quizzing in geometry.</p> + +<p>“Yes, it was a wrench,†Mr. <a name="Page_103t" id="Page_103t"></a><a href="#Page_103tn">McAndrew</a> admits. “You see, the teachers +hated to give up. They had been despots during all of their teaching +lives, and the idea of handing the discipline and a lot of the +responsibility of the school over to the girls hurt them dreadfully, but +they have tried it and found that it works.â€</p> + + +<h4><a name="V_VII" id="V_VII"></a>VII Experimental Democracy</h4> + +<p>The high school pupil, after discovering himself, must next determine +his relation to the community. It is one thing to break down what Mr. +McAndrew calls the W. I. (Wooden Indian) attitude. It is quite another +to relate pupils to the community in which they live. Yet this, too, can +be done. The school is a society—incomplete in certain respects, yet in +its broad outline similar to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span> the city and the state. The social work of +the school consists in showing the citizens of the school-community how +to enjoy the privileges and act up to the responsibilities of +citizenship. The Emerson School at Gary and the Union High School at +Grand Rapids, organized into complete schools from the first grade to +the end of the high school, are miniature working models of the +composite world in which all of the children will live.</p> + +<p>Particularly effective work has been done on the social side of high +school organization at the William Penn High School (Philadelphia), +where Mr. Lewis has turned the conduct of student affairs over to a +Student Government Association, directed by a Board of Governors of +eighteen, on which the faculty, represented by five members, holds an +advisory position only. The Association gives some annual event, like a +May day fete, in which all of the girls take part. It assumes charge of +the corridors, elevators, and lunch rooms; grants charters to clubs and +student societies, and assumes a general direction of student affairs.</p> + +<p>“It really doesn’t take much time,†Irene Litchman, the first term +(1912-13) President, explained. “We like it and we’re proud to do it. We +used to have teachers everywhere taking charge of things. Now we do it +all ourselves.†True enough, Madame President, and it is well done, as +any casual observer may see. Similar testimony is to be had from the +sick girls who have received letters and flowers, from the children +whose Christmas has been brightened by Association-dressed dolls, and +from the girls whose misunderstandings with members of the faculty have +been settled by the Student Association.</p> + +<p>Each class in the Washington Irving High School (New York) gives one +reception a term to one of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span> other classes. In addition, an annual +reception and play are given by the entire school. The plays for these +occasions are written, costumed and staged by the students. Last year +the reception was given to Mrs. Dix, wife of the Governor of New York, +and the play “Rip Van Winkle†was acted by eighteen hundred girls. Such +organizations and activities lead high school students to feel social +relationships, and to assume responsibilities as members of the social +group.</p> + + +<h4><a name="V_VIII" id="V_VIII"></a>VIII Breaching the Chinese Wall of High School Classicism</h4> + +<p>A high school education is included, by progressive communities, in the +birthright of every child. Since only a small part of these children are +preparing for college, the school must offer more than the traditional +high school course. The principal of a great Western high school which +housed nearly two thousand children, pointed to one room in which a tiny +class bent over their books. “That is probably the last class in Greek +that we shall ever have in the school,†he said. “They are sophomores. +Only two freshmen elected Greek this fall, and we decided not to form +the class.†Time was when Greek was one of the pillars of the high +school course of study. In this particular school, splendidly equipped +laboratories, sewing rooms, and shops have claimed the children. The +classics are still popular with a small minority, but the vast majority +come to learn some lesson which will direct their steps along the +pathway of life.</p> + +<p>Everywhere the technical high school courses are gaining by leaps and +bounds. The William Penn High School (Philadelphia), established in +1909, is to-day enrolling four-fifths of the girls who enter +Philadelphia high schools. In some cities, technical work and classical<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span> +work are done in the same building; in other cities, they are sheltered +separately, but everywhere the high school is opening its doors to that +great group of school children who, at seventeen or eighteen, must and +will enter the arena of life.</p> + +<p>The technical high school has not gained its prestige easily, however. +The bitter contests between the old and the new are well portrayed by +one dramatic episode from the history of the Los Angeles High School. +Mr. John H. Francis, now superintendent of the schools of Los Angeles, +was head of the Commercial Department in the Los Angeles High School. +Despite opposition and ridicule the department grew until it finally +emerged as a full-fledged technical high school, claiming a building of +its own,—a building which Mr. Francis insisted should contain +accommodations for two thousand students. The authorities +protested,—“Two thousand technical students? Why, Los Angeles is not a +metropolis.†Mr. Francis gained his point, however, and the building was +erected to accommodate two thousand children. When the time for opening +arrived it was discovered, to the astonishment of the doubters, that +more students wanted to come into the school than the school would hold. +When Mr. Francis announced that students up to two thousand would be +admitted in order of application, excitement in school circles ran high, +and on the day before Registration Day a line began to form which grew +in length as the day wore on, until by nightfall it extended for squares +from the school. All that night the boys and girls camped in their +places, waiting for the morning which would bring an opportunity to +attend the technical high school.</p> + +<p>Though less dramatic in form, the rush toward technical high school +courses is equally significant. It is not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span> that the old high school has +lost, but that the new high school is drawing in thousands of boys and +girls who, from lack of interest in classical education, would have gone +directly from the grammar school into the mill or the office.</p> + + +<h4><a name="V_IX" id="V_IX"></a>IX An Up-to-Date High School</h4> + +<p>The modern high school is housed in a building which contains, in +addition to the regular class rooms, gymnasiums, a swimming tank, +physics, and chemical laboratories; cooking, sewing, and millinery +rooms; wood-working, forge, and machine shops; drawing rooms; a music +room; a room devoted to arts and crafts; and an assembly room. This +arrangement of rooms presupposes Mr. Gilbert’s plan of making the high +school, like the community, an aggregation of every sort of people, +doing every sort of work.</p> + +<p>Physical training in the high school has not yet come into its own, +though it is on the road to recognition. All of the newer high schools +have gymnasiums, but the children do not use them for more than thirty, +forty, or fifty minutes a week. Sometimes the work is optional. The West +Technical of Cleveland, with its outdoor basket ball court, its athletic +grounds and grandstand, in addition to the indoor gymnasium, offers a +good example of effective preparation for physical training. William D. +Lewis of the William Penn High School sends all students who have +physical defects to the gymnasium three, four, or even five times a +week, until the defects are corrected. These exceptions merely serve to +emphasize the fact that we have not yet learned that high school +children have bodies which are as much in need of development and +training as the minds which the bodies support.</p> + +<p>Several real attempts are being made to teach high school boys and girls +to care for their bodies, as they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span> would for any other precious thing. +Hygiene is taught, positively,—the old time “don’ts†being replaced by +a series of “do’s.†In many schools, careful efforts are being made to +give a sound sex education. The program at William Penn, in addition to +the earlier work in biology and in personal and community hygiene, +includes a senior course, extending through the year, in Domestic +Sanitation and Eugenics. The course, given by the women in charge of +Physical Training, deals frankly with the domestic and personal problems +which the girls must face. The time is ripe for other schools to fall in +line behind these much-needed pioneers.</p> + +<p>The course of study in the modern high school is a broad one. Latin may +always be taken, and sometimes there is Greek. French, German and +Spanish, Mathematics, History, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, and Civics +are almost universally offered on the cultural side of the curriculum. +In addition, girls may take dress designing, sewing, millinery and home +economics; boys may take wood-working, forge work, machine-tool work, +electricity, printing, and house designing; and both boys and girls have +an opportunity to elect art, arts and crafts work and music.</p> + +<p>In some schools the combination of subjects group themselves into +definite courses, as in the Newton High School, which offers,—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">The Classical Course.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">The Scientific Course.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">The General Course.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">The Technical Course.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">The Technology-College Course.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">The Extra Technical Course.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">The Fine Arts Course.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">The Business Course.</span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span></p> + +<p>Other schools, like the Indianapolis Manual Training School, permit the +pupil, with the advice of the principal, to make his own combination of +subjects. Whether prepared by the school or by the pupil, however, the +courses lead to college, to normal schools, to advanced technical +schools, or to some definite vocation. On one subject, progressive high +schools are in absolute agreement,—the course of study must furnish +both culture and technical training in a form which meets the needs of +high school children.</p> + + +<h4><a name="V_X" id="V_X"></a>X From School to Shop and Back Again</h4> + +<p>The tendency toward vocational training finds its extreme expression in +the so-called Industrial Co-operative Course in which boys and girls +spend part of their time in school and part in the factory. Note this +legal document. “The party of the second part agrees to place, as far as +possible, the facilities of his establishment at the disposal of the +School Committee for general educational purposes along industrial +lines.†In these words, the individual manufacturers of Providence, +Rhode Island, who are co-operating with the school board for the +establishment of the industrial co-operative course in the Technical +High School, place their mills and factories at the disposal of the +school authorities. The plan instituted at the suggestion of the +manufacturers themselves has won the approval of all parties during the +two years of its operation.</p> + +<p>The Providence experiment differs from those of Cincinnati and +Fitchburg, Mass., in two respects,—in the first place, the school +authorities have a written contract with the manufacturers. In the +second place, they may decide what the character of the shop-work shall +be. The boy who elects to take the industrial co-operative<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span> course in +Providence spends ten weeks in a shop at the end of his freshman year. +Apprenticeship papers are signed, the boy gives a bond, which is +forfeited if he drops the course without a satisfactory reason, and for +three years he spends 29 weeks in the shop and 20 weeks in school, +alternating, one week in the shop, the next in the school. For their +shop-work the boys receive ten cents, twelve cents, and fourteen cents +an hour during the first, second, and third years, respectively. Though +this wage is not high, it is sufficient to enable the boys to earn +enough during the year ($175 to $250) to pay for their keep at home +during their high school course.</p> + +<p>At the present time sixty-two Providence boys are working part time in +machine shops, in drafting rooms, in machine tool construction, in +pattern making and in jewelry making. In order to keep the scheme +elastic, the school offers to form a class in any trade for which +sixteen or more boys will apply.</p> + +<p>The part-time course is primarily educational and secondarily +vocational. Since it may determine the character of the shop-work, the +school is in a position to insure its educational value. Again, the +academic training is still received in the school, while the technical +work, heretofore done in school rooms, is carried on in the fields of +real industry. As a supplement of the old time system of apprenticeship, +the part-time school is an undoubted success, because it adds to shop +apprentice work all of the essential elements of a high school +education.</p> + + +<h4><a name="V_XI" id="V_XI"></a>XI Fitting the High School Graduate Into Life</h4> + +<p>The high school has not done its full duty when it has educated the +child,—it must go a step farther and educate him for something; then it +must go a step beyond<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span> that and help him to find himself in his chosen +profession. This vocational guidance which is filling so large a place +in public discussions, may mean guidance to a job or it may include +guidance in the job. In either case children must be led to decide upon +the kind of work for which they are fitted before they leave the school.</p> + +<p>Jesse B. Davis, Principal of the Central High School at Grand Rapids, +furnishes a brilliant example of this vocational directing. Mr. Davis +begins his work through the theme writing and oral composition of the +seventh and eighth grades. The purpose of the pupils’ reading and +discussion is to arouse their vocational ambition and to lead them to +appreciate the value of further education and training for life. This +study upon the part of the pupil is supplemented by talks given by Mr. +Davis, prominent business and professional men and high school boys who +have come back to finish their education after a few years of battle +with the world.</p> + +<p>The high school classes in English are small—never more than +twenty-five, and the work is so arranged that the teacher may get a good +idea of the capability of each student. To facilitate this, the English +Department has prepared a series of essay subjects in the writing of +which the pupil gives the teacher a very definite idea of himself. +Beginning with “My Three Wishes;†the pupil next writes a story about +his ancestry; an essay on “My Church,†which explains his belief; an +essay on “The Part I’d Like to Play in High School;†a study of “My Best +Friend,†and finally an essay on “The Work of My Early School Days,†+which shows the pupil’s likes and dislikes. In addition to this, the +teacher notes any physical defects—eyesight, hearing, and the +like—which might incapacitate the pupil for particular vocations. This +data, together with reports<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span> from all departments on neatness, +sincerity, ambition and other qualities is filed in the office.</p> + +<p>During the second term of the freshman year papers are written on +approved biographies, dealing in each case with the qualities, +opportunities and education of the great one. These essays, read in +class, form the basis for a compilation of the elements necessary for +success in life.</p> + +<p>The work of the sophomore year begins with the preparation of a class +list of professions, semi-professions and trades,—a list which is +checked with the permanent list kept by the department. Succeeding +classes thus discover the breadth of the vocational field, besides +adding to the knowledge accumulated by their predecessors.</p> + +<p>After completing this list, the pupils write a letter to the teacher, +choosing a vocation and assigning reasons for the choice. When the pupil +cannot decide, the teacher assigns the vocation apparently best suited +to the pupil’s capacity. An essay on his vocation is then prepared by +each pupil, showing first, what kind of activity and what +responsibilities the vocation involves; second, its social, intellectual +and financial advantages; third, the corresponding disadvantages; +fourth, the qualifications and traits necessary to success in the +vocation; and fifth, the reasons for choosing the vocation. Then, under +the advice of the teacher, the pupil writes to some man well known in +the profession of his choice—some lawyer, mining engineer, doctor or +contractor—explaining what he is doing, and asking for advice. The +generous responses given by men in all walks of life do much to confirm +the pupil in his faith, or to make him see that his choice is an unwise +one.</p> + +<p>At the beginning of the junior year those pupils preparing for college +send for the catalogues of the colleges<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span> which stand highest in the line +of work in which they are interested, and write an essay, giving the +comparative value of the courses offered by the various institutions. By +this means judgment takes the place of sentiment in the selection of a +college. While the college preparatory pupils are engaged in writing on +their college courses, pupils who are going directly from the high +school into business write an elaborate essay on the kind of preparation +necessary for their vocation, the qualities requisite for success in it, +and the best place and means of entering it. Studies of the proper +relations between employer and employed occupy the second half of the +junior year.</p> + +<p>The work of the senior year deals, in the first half, with the relation +between a citizen and his city; the second half, with the relation +between a citizen and the state. The pupil has thus passed from the +narrower to the broader aspects of his work in life.</p> + +<p>The effectiveness of the work is enhanced by the organization of the +high school boys into a Junior Association of Commerce (in an exact +imitation of the Grand Rapids Association of Commerce), which meets in +the rooms of the latter on Saturday morning; transacts business; listens +to an address by a specialist, and then visits his works, if he is +engaged in a local industry. On the Saturday before Thanksgiving (1912), +for example, Mr. VanWallen, of the VanWallen Tannery Co., gave the boys +a talk on the tanning industry, then took them through his tannery, +where they saw the processes of manufacture. The business men of Grand +Rapids, who are highly pleased with this practical turn in education, +co-operate heartily in every way. The boys are urged, during the summer +months, to take a position in the work which they have chosen, start at +the bottom and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span> find out whether their beliefs regarding the industry +are true. Then, too, the Free Library makes a point of collecting books +and articles on various professions and vocations, and placing them +prominently before the students. The English Department (with five +periods a week) does other work, but none so vital to the pupils’ lives +as this of directing them in the thing which they hope to do when they +leave school.</p> + +<p>The school may do more than direct the pupils in the choice of their +occupations, by actually securing positions for them. The head of the +Commercial Department in the Newton (Massachusetts) High School has a +card for every student, giving on one side a record of class work for +four years, and on the other side a statement of positions and pay of +the graduate. New pupils are placed; old pupils are offered better +opportunities. Employers are interviewed in attempts to have them +promote graduates. Through this system, Mr. Maxim keeps in constant +touch with the labor market and with graduates of his school.</p> + +<p>Certainly the high school must prepare students for life. Whether, in +addition, it shall constitute itself a Public Employment Bureau, finding +positions for students, keeping in touch with their careers, and +assisting in their advancement, is a matter yet to be determined.</p> + + +<h4><a name="V_XII" id="V_XII"></a>XII The High School as a Public Servant</h4> + +<p>Will the high school retain its present form? Probably not. If the +Berkeley-Los Angeles plan prevails, there will be three steps in the +public schools,—from elementary to junior high, to high school. If the +Gary plan wins, there will be twelve years of schooling, following one +another as consecutively as day follows night. Whether the Los Angeles +or the Gary plan is adopted,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span> one thing seems reasonably certain,—the +high school will keep in close touch with life.</p> + +<p>The high school is securing a surer grip on the world with each passing +day. It is reaching out toward the grades, calling the pupils to come; +it is reaching out into the world, making places there for them to +occupy. The modern high school has ceased to be an adjunct to the +college. Instead, it is a distinctive unit in educational life, taking +boys and girls between the ages of fourteen and nineteen and relating +them to the world in which they must live.</p> + +<p>The era of the high school course is being succeeded by the era of the +high school boy and the high school girl. First, last, now and always, +the boys and girls, not the course, deserve primary consideration. +Whatever their needs, the high school must supply them if it is to +become a public servant, responsible for training children of high +school age in the noble art of living.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h3> + +<h2>HIGHER EDUCATION AT LOWVILLE<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor"><small>[20]</small></a></h2> + + +<h4>I Lowville and the Neighborhood</h4> + +<p>Away off in northwestern New York State, where the sun shines fiercely +in the summer mid-day, where the ice forms thick on the lakes, and the +snow lies on the north side of the hills from Thanksgiving well on to +Easter, there is a town of some three thousand inhabitants, called +Lowville. The comfortable homes, brick stores, wide tree-bordered +streets, smiling hills and giddy children look very much the same at +Lowville as they do in any one of a thousand similar towns east of the +Mississippi. Situated far back from the line of ordinary travel, the +town is typical of a great class.</p> + +<p>Stretching in all directions about Lowville is a fertile, prosperous, +agricultural region, farmed by good farmers, who are intelligently awake +to the problem of scientific agriculture in its multiple phases.</p> + +<p>These farmers grow fruits, raise general farm produce, breed a little +stock, cut some timber, besides all of the time-honored occupations of +the professional farmer. The boys and girls growing up in the town or +the neighboring countryside, blessed with good air, and a cheap supply +of wholesome food, look pleasantly forward toward life as something +worth living.</p> + +<p>So much for the good side of Lowville. Sad indeed is it to recall that +there is another side. Anyone who has <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span>been in close contact with +country life can readily imagine the ignorance, bigotry, prejudice, +unfairness and unsociableness of the population; the tendency to cling +to the past no matter what its shortcomings; the unwillingness to +venture into even the rosiest future which involves change. Lowville is +blessed a great deal and cursed a very little. The blessings are being +augmented and the curses minimized by means of the local high school.</p> + + +<h4><a name="VI_II" id="VI_II"></a>II Lowville Academy</h4> + +<p>Lowville Academy is an ancient private school whose usefulness was +immensely enhanced when it was converted into a public high school. When +Mr. W. F. H. Breeze took over the principalship he made no particular +objection to the old class rooms and wooden stairs, but he was very +insistent upon discovering, first, what the community needed, and +second, whether or not the school was meeting the need.</p> + +<p>More than half (at the present time sixty-five per cent.) of the pupils +at the school came from outside of the village. That is, they come from +the farms. As farmers’ boys, many of them have been brought up to all of +the unscientific crudities which have been handed down in American +agriculture since the early settlers took the land from the Indians in +grateful recognition of their instructions in fertilization. While many +agricultural anachronisms may be laid to the door of the redskins, +planting by the moon and several equally absurd customs are traceable to +the higher civilization of Western Europe.</p> + +<p>Saturated with traditional agricultural lore—some better and some +worse—the boys and girls from outside of Lowville, sixty-five in each +hundred high school stu<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span>dents, were growing up to become the owners of +promising New York farms. They needed, first of all, an education which +should equip them with all of the culture of our schools, beside giving +them a knowledge of the sciences of agriculture and of mechanics. Those +boys and girls who were planning to go to college required an advance +course in those purgatorial topics which, for some inexplicable reason, +are still regarded as necessary preliminaries to a college education. +Most of the girls in Lowville and the immediate vicinity hope to marry +sooner or later, and to preside over wholesome, clean homes. For +home-making, also, there were certain possible educational provisions.</p> + +<p>As prospective farmers, mechanics, college students, business men and +women, as prospective fathers and mothers, the boys and girls of +Lowville were looking to the schools—high as well as elementary—for an +education which should enable them to do successfully and efficiently +those things which life was holding before them.</p> + +<p>Furthermore, Lowville had no spot around which community interests and +civic ideas could center. There was intelligent interest in Lowville, +its streets, schools, trees, houses, and business interests; there was, +too, an interest, expressed among the neighboring farmers, in the +wonderful strides of agriculture; furthermore, men and women were +anxious to discuss political and social happenings in other parts of the +world.</p> + +<p>What more natural than that the school be converted into a center of +interest and education for Lowville and the surrounding territory. +Adults, as well as young folks, needed school help. Adults as well as +young folks should then be accommodated in the Lowville schools.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span></p> + + +<h4><a name="VI_III" id="VI_III"></a>III The School’s Opportunity</h4> + +<p>“There was a peculiar opportunity,†said Mr. Breeze, in his crisp direct +way. “The place needed organizing in educational lines. People were +anxious to have it done. They wanted the advantage of a modern +educational institution, but no one had provided it, so I made up my +mind that my business was to do it.â€</p> + +<p>Mr. Breeze made his first innovation in the course of study, +supplementing the old course by domestic science, several phases of +agriculture and mechanics. Then he correlated the various branches in +such a way that the subjects all harmonized with the work which any +particular student was doing.</p> + +<p>“We made up our minds,†Mr. Breeze explained, “that if we were to hold +the children and to educate them usefully, we must make our course fit +the things which they had to do in life. The work must come down to +earth. It had to be practical—that is, applicable to everyday affairs. +Some people confuse practical with pecuniary. There is no relation +between the two words. Practical means usable. We set out to make a +usable education.â€</p> + +<p>“No education is usable which has frills,†Mr. Breeze insists. “Frills +are nice for looks, but you can’t put on frills until you have a garment +to which they may be attached. Our school is providing the garment—we +will leave the frills to some one else.â€</p> + +<p>With this idea in mind, the applied courses in the school were +organized. Wood-alcohol cook stoves, such as those used in the village, +ordinary sewing machines, typewriters for the commercial course, and the +simplest tools for the machine shop, made up the equipment.</p> + +<p>“These boys have but a few tools at home,†Mr. Breeze<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span> says. “When they +go on the farm they will be compelled to use these tools. Why, then, +should they be taught mechanics with tools which they cannot duplicate +on their farms without an unjustifiable extravagance?â€</p> + + +<h4><a name="VI_IV" id="VI_IV"></a>IV Field Work as Education</h4> + +<p>Pursuant to such philosophy, the boys began their shop-work by equipping +the shop, building benches, tool-chests, cabinets, and saw horses; +putting lath and plaster on the ceiling; setting up the simple tools and +putting the shop in running order. Meanwhile, the agricultural students +set up two cream separators and a milk-tester, and arranged their +laboratory. Then the school was ready for applied work, or rather, the +students having graduated from a course in shop equipment, were ready +for shop practice.</p> + +<p>The entire class in agriculture makes inspection of nearby farms—here +to see a well-managed orchard, there a new type of cow-barn or silo. +Again they inspect the soil of a district, going carefully over it, +picking samples and testing them on return to the school. In +fruit-packing season, the students visit the packing houses, or else, in +the case of some of the boys, they take a week of employment with a good +fruit packer. In season they practice tree pruning, grafting, budding, +transplanting and spraying. Whenever possible, the applied work of the +school is done in connection with the real applied work of life.</p> + +<p>The physics and chemistry are both related to the agriculture and the +mechanics courses in the most intimate manner. From the earliest lessons +in physics through analyses of heat, light and the principles of +mechanics, the theories are constantly interpreted in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span> practical +problems which arise in the daily work of the Lowville farmer. The +physics teacher, enthusiastic over his students and his work, builds +machines and testing devices, which the boys and girls use in solving +the problems which they bring from their homes. No less close to the +life of the place is the chemical laboratory, which offers opportunity +for the analysis of soil, the chemistry of fertilizers, experiments in +testing food and milk, and a number of other matters pertaining to +agriculture and domestic life.</p> + +<p>The mechanical courses are closely related to the work in agriculture, +since most of the boys who take up the mechanical work are to go on the +farms. The course in mechanics passes quickly over the elements of the +work—most boys have learned to use saw, plane, chisel, auger, and +hammer years before. The smithing work of tempering, annealing, welding, +soldering and removing rust, all leads up to the real work of the +shops,—the making of products. The boys make pruning knives, squares +and drawing boards, grafting hooks, nail boxes, apple-boxing devices +(for this is an apple country), cement rollers, mallets, whiffle-trees, +bob-sleds, holders for saw filing, bag-holders, chicken-coops, poultry +exhibit boxes, hammer handles, greenhouse flats. Besides, they have +exercises in belt-lacing, in cement work, and reinforced concrete. Then, +too, they make models of barns and bridges, computing strains, +lumber-costs, labor-costs, floor spacing and arrangement.</p> + +<p>The agricultural course deals, in some detail, with fruit-growing, +animal husbandry, grain-growing, and related topics. Though the scope of +such a course is necessarily limited in a high school, it forms an +invaluable addition to the knowledge of the boy who cannot go to an +agricultural college before he begins his life<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span> on the farm. Taught by +an agricultural expert, the work assumes real importance to the +prospective farmer.</p> + +<p>Nor are the girls of Lowville neglected.</p> + + +<h4><a name="VI_V" id="VI_V"></a>V Real Domestic Science</h4> + +<p>The domestic science department, in charge of an expert, takes up +household economics, sewing, dietetics and cooking. The work throughout +is practical, the girls learning the principles of sanitation, and their +application to the household; domestic art and home decoration; +lighting, heating and ventilation. The sewing classes cover the usual +exercises in simple hemming and darning, making towels, hemming napkins, +and the like; then underclothes, and later dresses are made.</p> + +<p>In the cooking laboratory the girls learn food values and food +combinations, the cooking of simple dishes, the preparation of entire +meals. The girl who finishes the domestic science course in the Lowville +Academy is competent to organize a home, cook, sew, keep house and make +as efficient use of her opportunities as does her brother who has been +trained in mechanics or agriculture.</p> + +<p>It is not in the applied courses alone that an extraordinary amount of +co-operation has been attained. The academic branches, likewise, are so +adjusted as to bear directly upon the work of the remaining courses. The +Academic co-ordination is particularly noticeable in the English work, +which is required of everyone during the entire high school course. +English composition is made to serve as a connecting, co-ordinating +study—related to all of the other courses in the school.</p> + +<p>The student in agriculture writes reports on various phases of +agricultural work, collecting them in a folder and arranging them in +order, according to subject.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span> Chemistry reports, history reports, all +are made a legitimate part of the work in English.</p> + +<p>The results of this system have been more than satisfactory to Mr. +Breeze and his staff of co-workers. Students who would have left at the +end of the grammar school, are attracted by the high school program, and +“saved†by a high school course. The appeal of the school is a wide one. +There are no class of boys and girls in Lowville who cannot find +something worth while in the high school. Often a student otherwise not +brilliant will succeed remarkably in a particular line. Of one such boy +in particular Mr. Breeze spoke.</p> + + +<h4><a name="VI_VI" id="VI_VI"></a>VI One Instance of Success</h4> + +<p>“He had no taste for Greek, but his reports and analysis in agriculture +and mechanics were brilliant. The excellent drawing and sketching and +the careful work showed how much appeal the applied course had made to +his mind; yet but for the agricultural course he would never have come +to high school. A farmer’s son with little taste for the ordinary +academic studies was inspired by the idea of improved, scientific +farming and was getting a thorough insight into the principles of +agriculture, chemistry, physics, and mechanics, which will be of the +greatest service to him when he takes up farming. Such topics as judging +the age of cows, breed of cattle, cost of milk production, the cost of +cow-barn construction, grain, hay, cattle rations, silage, and nutrition +will all bear directly on the work of the farm in which he is so deeply +interested.<a name="Page_123t" id="Page_123t"></a><a href="#Page_123tn">["]</a></p> + +<p>So much for the contribution of the Lowville High School to the students +who have gone out of its class-rooms and class excursions, stronger in +body and more alert of mind. No less remarkable has been its service<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span> to +the community. At the suggestion of the school authorities acting in +co-operation with the Grange, the State, and several other agencies, +Lowville has secured an agricultural specialist, whose business it is to +travel through the countryside, advising farmers, discussing their +problems and suggesting better methods of operating the farms, or of +experimenting in new directions. Each winter for one week, a school for +adults is held, with courses in agriculture for the men and courses in +domestic science for the women. The teachers,—experts from the Cornell +School of Agriculture,—are exceptionally well prepared to deal with the +problems of New York State farmers.</p> + +<p>Higher education at Lowville is education for everyone in Lowville and +vicinity who wants it. With one eye on community needs and the other on +the best means of supplying them, the Lowville Academy is giving to the +citizens of Lowville a twentieth century higher education.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span></p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> Much of the material in this chapter appeared originally +in the Journal of Education.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h3> + +<h2>A GREAT CITY SCHOOL SYSTEM<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor"><small>[21]</small></a></h2> + + +<h4>I “Co-operation†and “Progressivism"</h4> + +<p>If any two words in the English language can express the spirit of the +Cincinnati schools, they are “co-operation†and “progressivism.†The +people of Cincinnati, high and low, have banded themselves together in +an endeavor to make good schools. Cincinnati schools are not a monument +to any individual or group of individuals, rather they are the handiwork +of the citizenship. In their eagerness for educational progress, the +people are not hypnotized by every cry of “lo here! lo there!†nor do +they live in terror of new educational ideas. Their one aim, the +education of Cincinnati’s children, takes precedence over every other +consideration. Perhaps that fact explains both the co-operation and the +progressivism.</p> + +<p>Co-operation in the educational work of Cincinnati has been developed to +a remarkable degree. “There is not a civic society in the whole town +which is not working with the schools,†says former Superintendent Dyer. +Mr. Dyer might have left out the word “civic†and still have been very +close to the truth.</p> + +<p>Mr. Frederick A. Geier, a leader among the manufacturers who have made +possible the “half time in shop, half time in school†system, says of +his activity in co-operating with the school authorities: “As a citizen +of Cincinnati, I am interested in the schools <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span>for two reasons: first, +because good schools will bring under their influence the maximum number +of pupils and parents, and it is the best agency I can conceive of for +producing a high quality of citizenship; second, as a manufacturer I +feel that the material prosperity of a community is directly related to +the mental and manual equipment of its people.†Showing his faith by his +works, Mr. Geier has labored in season and out of season to make the +schools of Cincinnati the most progressive in the country.</p> + +<p>Speaking as “a woman and mother,†Mrs. Isabella C. Pendleton, of the +Civic League, which has played an active part in building up school +sentiment, says: “I consider that the most important features of our +school system are the manual training for boys and the domestic science +for girls. I am happy to say that to-day a girl on graduating from our +schools is capable of taking care of a home.†As public schools go, that +is not an insignificant achievement. No wonder Mrs. Pendleton, a woman +and mother, is interested in schools which accomplish such vital +results.</p> + +<p>From what extraordinary sources do the schools in Cincinnati secure +their support! “All of the local dentists have been brought into close +contact with the school system by the efforts of the Dental Society to +introduce mouth hygiene into the schools,†says Dr. Sidney G. Rauh. “We +dentists,†adds Dr. Rauh, “are firm believers in general co-operation.†+No less cordial is the Board of Health in its endorsement of the +schools, and in its efforts to raise the health standard of school +children.</p> + +<p>“I do not believe there is any city in the United States which offers as +good an example of the spirit of co-operation as Cincinnati does,†+affirms Carl Dehoney,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span> of the Chamber of Commerce. “Why are we so active +in co-operating with the schools? Simply because we realize that good +schools, and especially practical schools, which will fit young men and +women for their real life work, have a tremendous bearing upon the +efficiency of the people of the city.†Mr. W. C. Cauldius, also of the +Chamber of Commerce, says: “Our school development is the result of a +few years of public support and sympathy.†In similar enthusiastic words +the leaders of every phase of Cincinnati life express their interest in +educational progress.</p> + + +<h4><a name="VII_II" id="VII_II"></a>II An Educational Creed</h4> + +<p>Let no one infer from what has been said that the people of Cincinnati +are agreed upon all of the details of educational policy, nor upon the +fundamentals either, for that matter, but they have adopted an +educational creed which runs about as follows:</p> + +<p>1. I believe in making the schools provide for the educational +necessities of every child.</p> + +<p>2. I believe that this can be done when all work together.</p> + +<p>3. I believe that new ideas are the life-blood of educational advance.</p> + +<p>That simple creed adopted by teachers, principals, mothers, +manufacturers, dentists and trade unionists has become a great motive +force in the upbuilding of the Cincinnati schools.</p> + +<p>The most evident thing about the Cincinnati school organization is its +democracy. The feudal spirit of lordship and serfdom existing in many +schools between superintendents and principals on the one hand, and +teachers on the other, is nowhere evident in the Cincinnati schools; +instead, each teacher, thrown upon her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span> own initiative, is a creative +artist, solving her particular problem as she believes that it should be +solved, and abiding by the consequence of her failure or success.</p> + +<p>Early in his work Mr. Dyer made it clear that he would not tolerate a +mechanical system of education. “Up here on the hill, in a wealthy +suburban district, is a grammar school. Its organization, administration +and course of study must necessarily differ from that other school, +located in the heart of the factory district. The principal of each of +these schools has a problem to face—each will succeed in proportion as +he grasps the significance of his own problem and the readiest means for +its solution.†Is not that a refreshing sentiment from a superintendent +of city schools? Note this other delightful touch: “My teachers soon +learned that I regard the teacher who works exactly like another teacher +as pretty poor stuff.†Before the axe of such incisive radicalism, how +the antiquated structure of the old school machinery came crashing to +the ground, to be replaced by a system which recognized each teacher as +an individual builder of manhood and womanhood, working to meet the +needs of individual children. It is not an idle boast which the English +make when they glory in the absence of a curriculum; for even the best +curriculum, if mismanaged, is speedily converted into a noose, the knot +of which adjusts itself mechanically under the left ear of teacher and +child alike. The school authorities of Cincinnati destroyed both knot +and rope by giving to their teachers and principals this injunction: +“Make your school fit the needs of your children and your community.â€</p> + +<p>The old-time, machine-minded school superintendent, filled with the +spirit of co-operative coercion, assembles his teachers. “Now let’s all +work together,†he exclaims,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span> “Here, Susie Smith, this is what you are +to teach your pupils, and this is the way in which you are to do it.†It +was in quite a different spirit that Mr. Dyer said to each one of his +teachers: “You do your work, I’ll do mine, and together we will make the +schools go.†It was in this spirit that the teachers were called +together to confer on the reorganization of the course of study. Each +teacher in each grade had her say in the matter. If the most +insignificant teacher in Cincinnati said to Mr. Dyer: “I have an idea +that I think would improve the work in my grade,†his invariable reply +was: “Then try it. There is no way to determine the value of ideas +except to try them.†By that policy Mr. Dyer surrounded himself with a +group of vitally interested people, each one suited to the task in which +he believed implicitly, and each one fully convinced that the success or +failure of that part of the Cincinnati school system with which he was +immediately concerned, depended directly upon his efforts. No wonder the +schools succeeded!</p> + + +<h4><a name="VII_III" id="VII_III"></a>III Vitalizing the Kindergarten</h4> + +<p>The kindergartens are at the basis of the educational system of +Cincinnati, and they are in charge of a woman who believes in herself +and in her work. Perhaps the people of Cincinnati are not justified in +believing that their kindergartens are the very best in the whole United +States, but Miss Julia Bothwell, who directs them, says, modestly +enough, that she has visited kindergartens in many cities, adopting +their schemes and improving in response to their suggestions, until she +is convinced that no other city in the land can show a better +kindergarten system than that of Cincinnati. In truth, her plan is +ordinarily referred to as the “Cincinnati idea.â€<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span></p> + +<p>Cincinnati children begin their kindergarten work at four and a half or +five, entering the first grade at six. While in the kindergarten they +play the games and sing the songs that all kindergartens play and sing, +but with this difference: their plays and songs are built around the +things that they do.</p> + +<p>The yellow October leaves of Cincinnati’s parks half shadow the activity +of the busy classes of little kindergarten folks who go there to work +and to learn. The Park Commissioners, like every one else in Cincinnati, +are in thorough sympathy with the work of the schools, so they allot to +each kindergarten class a plot in the park, in which the children—using +all of the tools themselves—plant tulip bulbs under the direction of +the park gardeners.</p> + +<p>“Tulips are the first thing up in the spring,†Miss Both well explained, +“so we have decided to use them. For years we tried gardens, but +children of kindergarten age are not willing to give gardens as much +attention as they require; then, too, the gardens ran wild during the +summer, so we have settled on the tulip. After the children have planted +the bulbs they sing and talk about their work. Then, early in the +spring, they begin to visit their plots, watching the first shoots of +green as they appear, looking eagerly for the buds, and then, at last, +as the reward of their interest, picking the flowers and taking them +home. Thus, each child, during his kindergarten course, sees the +complete cycle from bulb to flower.â€</p> + +<p>Besides this flower-culture in the park, the children grow hyacinths in +the school rooms, visit the woods to collect autumn leaves and spring +flowers, make excursions to the country, where they may see animals and +crops, and always, for a few days after an excursion,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span> talk about the +things which they saw, draw them, sing about them and play games about +them. In order to facilitate the work the Board of Education leases a +farm, to which the kindergartens go in succession. By these means the +life of the city kindergarten child is thoroughly linked with nature.</p> + +<p>These things are not new in kindergartening, however. They have merely +taken firm root in the fertile soil of Cincinnati’s educational +enthusiasm. The real excellence of Miss Bothwell’s experiment consists +in connecting the kindergarten with the early elementary grades on the +one hand and with the community on the other.</p> + +<p>The first grade children of Cincinnati come back to the kindergarten +teachers for an hour’s kindergartening once each week, in order to +clinch the kindergarten influence on the lives of the first graders. The +first grade teachers meet the director of kindergartening once each +week, for a discussion of kindergarten methods, and an initiation into +the kindergarten spirit. Thus the lump of first grade abstraction is +leavened with the leaven of kindergarten concretes, and the grade +teachers get the spirit of kindergarten work. In the near future Miss +Bothwell hopes to have the kindergarten work extend to the second grade, +in order that the spirit, rhythm, harmony and joy of the kindergarten +may thoroughly permeate the roots of the Cincinnati school system.</p> + +<p>Even more significant—if anything could be more significant than the +breakdown of the ironclad, first grade traditions—is the grip which the +kindergartens of Cincinnati have secured on the people. The Cincinnati +kindergartener is more than a teacher—she serves many masters. In the +morning she holds kindergarten<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span> classes. On two afternoons a week she +does kindergarten work with first grade children; on one afternoon she +holds a conference with the supervisor; on a fourth afternoon she visits +the classes of first grade teachers or confers with mothers’ clubs, and +on her remaining afternoon she visits her children in their homes. Out +of these varied duties has come: first, a group spirit among the +kindergarteners, built upon frequent interchange of plans and ideas; +second, an understanding of the relation between the problems of the +kindergarten and the problems of the grades; third, a sympathetic grasp +of the home conditions surrounding the life of many a difficult child; +and fourth, sixty-one mothers’ clubs, one organized in connection with +each kindergarten, which furnish a social gathering-place for mothers, +an opportunity to influence parental ideas, and a body of invaluable +public sentiment.</p> + +<p>The idea of a kindergarten, usually regarded as a small part of the +school program, has been evolved until, in this one city, it is a potent +influence, working on children, teachers, parents and public opinion.</p> + + +<h4><a name="VII_IV" id="VII_IV"></a>IV Regenerating the Grades</h4> + +<p>The kindergarten is not alone in its appeal to the child and in its +affiliation with the community. Traditional grade education has likewise +been modified and rehabilitated until it makes an appeal to parent and +child alike. In the first place, a consistent effort has been made to +provide accommodations for the physical education in the grades of the +fifty-seven elementary schools. Twenty-five now have fully equipped +gymnasiums in which children have two or three periods of exercise each +week. In the schools not so equipped the physical work is confined to +calisthenics. Each year the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span> Board of Education appropriates five +hundred dollars for the Public School Athletic League, which organizes +meets and games, open to all public school pupils free of charge. +Besides field days, baseball, soccer and football there is an athletic +badge awarded to all pupils who pass an “efficiency†test in athletic +activities.</p> + +<p>The academic work of the grades is alive with enthusiasm. History, so +often made a mass of dead names and dates, is taught in terms of life. +The children learn that history is in reality a record of the things +which people did, and of the forces which were at work in their lives; +furthermore, that the commonplace acts of to-day will be the history of +to-morrow. Translated into ideas and social changes, history stimulates +thought, turning the child’s mind from the purely personal side of life +to the social activities of which history is made.</p> + +<p>Arithmetic and geography begin at home, in the things which the children +know and do. Both are taught in terms of child experience. Both call to +the child mind the things of daily life.</p> + +<p>English, too, which is so important an element in education, is made to +reflect child experiences. Teaching the reading lesson of “Eyes and No +Eyes†one teacher asked her class: “Well, children, what did you see on +your way to school this morning? What did you see, Elmer?â€</p> + +<p>“Well, I saw—I saw—†and Elmer sat down.</p> + +<p>“I saw that it had been raining in the night by the mud in the streets,†+said Alice; while John had seen trolley cars, and remembered that the +number on one of them was 647.</p> + +<p>A seventh grade girl had read the Psalm beginning, “Who shall ascend +unto the hill of the Lord, or who shall stand in His holy place?†After +asking what a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span> psalm was, and who wrote the Psalms, the teacher asked:</p> + +<p>“Who was David?â€</p> + +<p>“He was the king of Palestine,†replied one boy promptly. After +straightening out the history the teacher next asked:</p> + +<p>“For what was David noted?â€</p> + +<p>“For being Solomon’s father,†ventured one little girl.</p> + +<p>“Oh, no,†protested a boy, “He was the fighter.â€</p> + +<p>“Sure enough,†said the teacher, “would the fact that he was a warrior +naturally influence his thoughts?†After an affirmative answer from the +class: “Where do we find any evidence of that in this Psalm, George?" +asked the teacher.</p> + +<p>George considered the reading a moment. “Oh, I see, it’s where he says, +‘The Lord mighty in battle.’â€</p> + +<p>After an elaboration of this idea the teacher went on to ask why David +wrote, “Lift up your heads, oh ye gates, and the King of Glory shall +come in.†By careful questioning the class was led to see that cities +had walls and gates; that David, who had won many victories, was +accustomed to have the gates thrown wide to receive him, and that his +triumphal entries had made a deep impression on his thoughts. After some +more discussion the Psalm was read again, this time with surprising +intelligence and feeling.</p> + +<p>One eighth grade class in English was engaged in preparing a catalog of +all of the pictures in the school, looking up the painters, their lives, +their principal works, and the circumstances connected with the painting +of the pictures which hung on the school wall. In the same room a girl +had written a description of a sunset, in which she had said: “The +western sky is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span> illuminated with a fiery red, and the edges of the +clouds are also tinted with a silvery hue.â€</p> + +<p>“What would Corot say about that?†asked the teacher.</p> + +<p>The girl thought a moment. “I guess he would say that there was too much +color.â€</p> + +<p>“Yes,†smiled the teacher, “he would say, ‘Let’s go home and wait for a +few moments.’â€</p> + +<p>The essay work in the upper grades is linked with all of the other +school work. The children write about civics, architecture, localities, +books and pictures. One girl of thirteen wrote on “The Reaper‗“As I +enter my bedroom one picture especially catches my gaze. It hangs on the +eastern wall. It is the picture of a large city by moonlight. The moon +is bright and the stars are out. A beautiful lake borders the far end of +the city, and the moon makes the lake look like a mirror. The church +steeple stands out clear against the sky. It is a beautiful summer +night, and while the city sleeps an angel descends and bears a little +child to the heavens above. Some mother must have given up one of her +beloved flowers.â€</p> + +<p>No less valuable are the essays describing an ideal kitchen, a location +for a house, a home, school life, and the various other things with +which the child comes in contact.</p> + +<p>Last among the academic branches, there is a carefully organized eighth +grade course in civics, which, beginning with the geography and early +history of Cincinnati, covers family relations and the tenement problem; +the protection of public health—street cleaning, sewage, water, smoke +abatement, and the activities of the Board of Health in providing for +sanitation and the suppression of disease; the protection of life and +property;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span> the business life of the community—relation of the citizen +to business life, the growth of commerce and industry in Cincinnati; +Cincinnati as a manufacturing center, the labor problem, and the +regulation of business by the government; the necessity for civic +beauty; the educational forces of the community; the care of dependents +and delinquents; the functions of government; and the collection and +expenditure of city funds. In this way the child, before he leaves the +elementary school, is given an idea of the real meaning of citizenship.</p> + +<p>Beginning in the kindergarten, the art work extends through the high +school, including in the lower elementary grades, paper-cutting and +pasting related to school work, the seasons and the holidays. From the +third grade on, the children make real products—trays, boxes, blotter +pads, calendars, booklets and folios—work which is supplemented by +object and constructive drawing and designing.</p> + +<p>Shop-work is given to boys, and domestic science to girls, in all of the +schools. The point at which these subjects are introduced and the amount +of time devoted to them depends upon—what do you think? The regulations +prescribed in the course of study? Not a bit of it! It depends upon the +needs of the community and of the child.</p> + +<p>Schools which are located in the poorer districts begin manual training +and domestic science with the second grade, though ordinarily they are +not introduced until the sixth. Normally the children are given one and +one-half or two hours a week of such work, but over-age, backward and +defective children may spend as much as half of their time upon it. For +some of the girls a five-room flat has been rented, in which they are +taught<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span> housekeeping in all of its phases. Otherwise the domestic +science consists of hand and machine sewing, the designing and making of +simple garments, the planning and preparation of food, and the +organization and care of a household. Wherever possible, the boys make +useful products in their shop-work, instead of constructing show pieces +which have no value.</p> + +<p>From top to bottom the grades are shaped to meet the needs of children. +Each class and each school is built around this central idea. The school +system, instead of taking the usual form of a cumbrous machine, is a +delicate mechanism adjusted to the wants of Cincinnati children.</p> + + +<h4><a name="VII_V" id="VII_V"></a>V Popularizing High School Education</h4> + +<p>Not content with making the grades interesting, the school authorities +of Cincinnati have made the high schools so profitable and popular that +ninety-five out of each one hundred children who complete the eighth +grade go to the Cincinnati high schools. Furthermore, during the past +six years the high school attendance in Cincinnati has doubled. These +two noteworthy conditions are the product of carefully matured and +efficiently executed plans, and of infinite labor. Yet the results have +more than repaid the labor which they cost.</p> + +<p>“Our first task,†explained Dr. E. D. Lyon, principal of the Hughes High +School, “was to persuade the community that it needed high school +training. Next we secured two fine new high school buildings. Then those +of us who are engaged in high school work faced the supreme task. We had +to prove to the people that their expenditures on high schools were +worth while, by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span> providing a high school education that would mean +something to the pupils and to the community.†Note the spirit of social +obligation—a feeling prevalent throughout the Cincinnati schools.</p> + +<p>“Most parents fail to see the importance of the high school problem,†+said Assistant Superintendent Roberts, “because they never make +consistent efforts to have their children choose their vocations +intelligently. We began our work right there, at the bottom, by telling +the parents of grade children about the high school courses, and what +they meant. Eighth grade teachers, under the guidance of Mr. F. P. +Goodwin, are expected to talk to their classes regularly on the +vocational opportunities in Cincinnati and elsewhere, and to help the +children get started right in high school careers. Besides that, we take +the grade children on trips to the high schools, showing them on each +trip some striking feature of high school work. Parents’ meetings are +held, in which the high schools are explained and discussed, and we send +circulars to the parents of sixth, seventh and eighth grade pupils, +explaining the high school work as simply as may be.â€</p> + +<p>After arousing such expectations, the high school cannot fulfill its +obligations in any way other than by the provision of a thorough course +of study adapted to the needs of all types of pupils. The preparation +for this in Cincinnati has been made with consummate skill. The pupil, +on entering the high school, may select any one of the nine general +courses, in which there are twenty-three possible combinations of +subjects.</p> + +<p>Four of the courses—General, Classical, Domestic Science and Manual +Training—prepare for various colleges and technical schools. The other +five courses—Commercial, Technical Co-operative Course for Boys;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span> +Technical Co-operative Course for Girls; Art and Music, lead to +vocations. Housed in the same high school building is this range of +work, which permits boys and girls to select a course which will bear +directly on almost any line of work that they may care to follow in +later life.</p> + +<p>Each course is shaped to give the children who select it a definite +training in the line of their interest. The General Course prepares +pupils for college; the Domestic Science Course shows girls how to make +and keep a home; the Commercial Course turns out bookkeepers; the +Technical Co-operative Courses, enabling boys and girls to spend part of +their time in the school and part in the factory, are arranged in +co-operation with the principal industries of Cincinnati. The Art and +Music Courses, like the other special work, are in the hands of experts +who are competent to give a practical direction to the activity of their +pupils.</p> + +<p>In passing, it is interesting to note that the people of Cincinnati are +getting the best possible use out of their splendid high school +equipment. In addition to the regular classes which fill the Woodward +High School from 8:30 to 3:00, the pupils in the continuation courses +occupy the building every afternoon and all day Saturday. Five nights a +week it is filled by an enthusiastic night school, three thousand +strong, and during six weeks of the summer vacation a summer school +holds its sessions there. It would be difficult to find a school plant +which comes nearer to being used one hundred per cent of its time. To be +sure, such things were not done “in father’s time,†but then the people +of Cincinnati have a theory that while a good thing is worth all it +costs, it does not pay to let even the best of things decay for lack of +use. That is why<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span> the school system tingles from end to end with vigor +and enthusiasm.</p> + + +<h4><a name="VII_VI" id="VII_VI"></a>VI A City University</h4> + +<p>Besides the kindergarten, elementary schools, and high schools, the city +of Cincinnati has a university, which, like all of the other educational +forces of the city, is tied up with the general educational program. +Those graduates of the Cincinnati high schools who desire to go to +college, may pass from the high school of Cincinnati into the University +of Cincinnati without a break in the continuity of their education.</p> + +<p>The University of Cincinnati is a municipal university. The city +appropriates one-half of one mill on the general assessment, for +university purposes. The board of education appropriates ten thousand +dollars a year toward the maintenance of the Teachers’ College, the +school in which the city teachers are trained. The training school for +kindergarteners is affiliated with the university, having the same +entrance requirements as the other university courses. In explanation of +this close connection between the city and the university, President +Dabney begins his 1911 report to the board of directors by saying: “An +effort has been made in this report to explain the service of the +university to the city and people of Cincinnati. It is therefore not +only an official report to the directors, but is also a statement for +the information of all citizens.†Begun in this spirit of public +obligation, the report details the services of the Teachers’ College in +supplying teachers; of the School of Economics and Political Science in +supplying municipal experts; and of the Engineering School for its +inauguration of the widely-known industrial co-operative courses—for be +it known to the uninitiated<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span> that the five hundred students of the +University Engineering School spend alternately two weeks in the school +and two weeks in a shop. More than that, the Engineering School +furnishes experts for municipal engineering work.</p> + +<p>That the students of the University may feel the interest of the city in +their work, preference is given to the University graduates in +appointments of teachers, of municipal engineers, and of employees on +such municipal work as testing food, inspecting construction, and the +like. University students may thus occupy their spare time in practical +municipal work.</p> + +<p>“The University should lead the progressive thought of the community,†+says President Dabney, and by way of making good his proposition he +avails himself of every opportunity to turn his students into municipal +activities, or to co-operate in any way with the forces that are making +for a greater Cincinnati.</p> + + +<h4><a name="VII_VII" id="VII_VII"></a>VII Special Schools for Special Classes</h4> + +<p>There are children in Cincinnati, as in every other city, who cannot +afford to go to the high school. The easiest answer to such children is, +“Well, then, don’t.†The fairest answer is a system of schools which +will enable them to secure an education even though they are at work. +Cincinnati in selecting the latter course has opened a school for the +education of every important group unable to attend the high schools who +wish to avail themselves of advanced educational opportunities.</p> + +<p>First there is the night school work, which, in addition to the ordinary +academic courses, offers special opportunities in machine shop practice, +blacksmithing, mechanical and architectural drawing, and domestic +science. As these courses are carried forward in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span> Woodward High +School building the students have all of the advantages of high school +equipment.</p> + +<p>Night school, coming after a day’s exertion, is so trying that only the +most robust can profit by it. No small importance therefore attaches to +the operation of the compulsory continuation schools under the Ohio law, +which empowers cities to compel working children between fourteen and +sixteen years of age to attend school for not more than eight hours a +week between the hours of 8:00 A. M. and 5:00 P. M.—hours which will +presumably be subtracted from shop time. By means of this adaptation of +the German system even those children who must leave school at fourteen +are guaranteed school work for the next two years at least. Although +this is but a minimum requirement, it represents a beginning in the +right direction.</p> + +<p>No less significant than this compulsory system are the voluntary +continuation schools for those over sixteen years of age, which have +been established for machinists’ apprentices, for printers’ apprentices, +for saleswomen, and for housewives. The first two courses are conducted +under the direction of a genius named Renshaw, who takes from the +machine shop boys of every age, nationality and experience, fits them +somewhere into his four-year course; gives them a numbered time check +from his time board; teaches them reading, writing, arithmetic, +mechanical drawing, geometry, algebra and trigonometry by means of an +ingenious series of blueprints, which constitute their sole text-book; +visits them in their shops, giving suggestions and advice about the shop +work, and finally sends them out finished craftsmen, with an excellent +foundation in the theoretical side of the trades. The work is entirely +voluntary, yet so excellent is it that a number of Cincinnati +manufac<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span>turers send their apprentices to Mr. Renshaw, paying them +regular wages for the four hours of credit which the said Renshaw +registers weekly on the boys’ time-cards. “One firm sends sixty boys +here each week,†commented Mr. Renshaw’s assistant. “That makes two +hundred and forty hours of school work each week for which they pay +regular wages. Well, sir, the superintendent there told me that they +didn’t so much as notice the loss.â€</p> + +<p>“I tried to explain my system to one superintendent,†said Mr. Renshaw, +“but he wouldn’t even listen. ‘It makes no difference how you do it,’ he +grumbled, ‘I don’t care about that. I know that the boys are neater, +more careful, more accurate, and better all-around workmen after they +have been with you for a while. That’s enough explanation for me.’â€</p> + +<p>Acting on such sentiments the manufacturer peremptorily dismisses the +boy who does not do his school tasks satisfactorily. The responsibility +is in the school, whose growing enrollment and influence tell their own +story. Firms send their boys to the school with the comment that the +hours of school time, for which they are paid, do not add to the cost of +shop management, but do add to the value of the boys to the shop. +Increased efficiency pays.</p> + +<p>A school of salesmanship for women has met with a like success. The +leading stores, glad of an opportunity to raise the standard of their +employees, grant the saleswomen a half day each week, without loss of +pay, during which they take the salesmanship course. The course has the +hearty backing of the best Cincinnati merchants, who see in it an +opportunity, as Mr. Dyer put it, “to make their employees the most +skilled and intelligent, the most obliging and trustworthy, the best +treated and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span> best paid—in short, the very best type of saleswomen in +the country.â€</p> + +<p>That this work may keep pace with the demand for it the school +authorities offer industrial instruction in any pursuit for which a +class of twenty-five can be organized.</p> + +<p>“A large number of women were born too soon to get the advantage of the +courses in domestic science now being offered in our high schools,†+comments Mr. Dyer in his dry way. Scores of such women anxious to learn +all that was known about domestic arts constituted a class for which the +school was well equipped to provide. “Then suppose we give them what +they need,†said Mr. Dyer. Just fancy—a continuous course in domestic +science! Yet there it is, in Cincinnati, with an enrollment of more than +eleven hundred women, attending the public schools to learn domestic +arts. What could be more rational than this Cincinnati system of making +a school—even though it be a continuation school—to fit the +educational needs of Cincinnati people—grown-ups and children alike?</p> + + +<h4><a name="VII_VIII" id="VII_VIII"></a>VIII Special Schools for Special Children</h4> + +<p>The Cincinnati schools provide for special children as well as for +special classes of people. First there are the unusually bright +children, who “mark-time†in the ordinary classes. These children were +placed in “rapidly moving classes.†While omitting none of the work, +they were allowed to go as fast as their mental development would allow +them, instead of as slowly as the other members of the class made it +necessary to move. At the beginning the teacher found these +exceptionally able children lacking in effort and attention, qualities +which they had not needed to keep their place in the grades.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span> “The extra +work and responsibility stimulated their mental activity, increased +their power of attention, fostered thoroughness and accuracy, developed +resourcefulness and initiative, and those other qualities necessary for +leadership.†Why should it not be so? Why should not the specially able +child be taught as thoroughly as the defective one? Yet Mr. Dyer, +speaking from experience, remarks: “Strange to say, it is harder to +establish such classes than defective and retarded ones.†Strange +indeed!</p> + +<p>For the sub-normal or retarded children Cincinnati has made ample +provision. Spending from a quarter to a half of their time in manual +work, the children are no longer tortured with the doing of things +beyond their powers. The overgrown boys have instruction in shop work. +The overgrown girls have a furnished flat in which they learn the arts +of home-making at first hand. There are in all over four hundred +children in these schools.</p> + +<p>Similar accommodations are provided for other special groups. The +anaemic and tubercular children are taught in two open-air schools; six +teachers are detailed to instruct the deaf children; one teacher devotes +her time to the blind children, and ten teachers are employed to take +charge of those children who are mentally defective. Thus, by adjusting +the schools to the needs of special groups of people, and of special +individuals, Cincinnati is providing an education which reaches the +individual members of the community.</p> + + +<h4><a name="VII_IX" id="VII_IX"></a>IX Playground and Summer Schools</h4> + +<p>The vacation school is planned to meet the needs of the children in the +crowded districts during the hot summer months. “For that reason,†says +Mr. Dyer,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span> “it provides industrial work of all kinds unassociated with +book instruction, but mingled with a great amount of recreational +activity—excursions, stories, folk-dancing, and a wide variety of +games.â€</p> + +<p>The field of industrial activity is a broad one, including cooking, +nursing, housekeeping, sewing, knitting, crocheting, weaving and +basketry; drawing and color work, brush and plastic work; bench work +with tools, making useful articles; sports and games, including +folk-dancing for girls and ball for boys. The primary and kindergarten +classes offer a delightful round of song, story, games, excursions, +paper work and other forms of construction. For the girls who have to +take care of babies there are special classes. The boys make useful +articles in the shops, and the girls, in sewing-room and cooking +laboratory, learn to do the things around which the interests of the +home always center. By co-operation with the park commissioners, the +playgrounds were made an integral part of the summer school work.</p> + +<p>Besides the recreational summer school Cincinnati has maintained for the +past five years an academic summer school, in which children might make +up back work in school, or do special work in any line which was of +particular interest to them. In these schools “the very best instructors +that can be secured†are employed, and their recommendations are +accepted by the school principals when the fall term opens. “This school +is one of the means taken to deal with the problem of repeaters in our +schools,†says Mr. Dyer. “Instead of requiring children who are behind +to fall back a year, they may, if they are not hopeless failures, but +only deficient in a few studies, remove their deficiencies in the summer +school and go on with their class. We<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span> have followed up these pupils,†+Mr. Dyer adds, “and found that a normal percentage keep up with the +class in succeeding years.â€</p> + + +<h4><a name="VII_X" id="VII_X"></a>X Mr. Dyer and the Men Who Stood With Him</h4> + +<p>A spirit of comradeship and hearty co-operation breathes from every nook +and cranny of the Cincinnati schools. Principals and teachers alike +sense the fact. Alike they aim toward the upbuilding of the schools.</p> + +<p>“Never in my life have I found such a spirit of mutual helpfulness,†+says Assistant Superintendent Roberts. “Every teacher has felt that she +had a part to play, that she counted, that her suggestions were worth +while, and she has worked earnestly toward this end.â€</p> + +<p>“Everywhere I encounter the same willingness to co-operate with the +schools,†said Superintendent Condon, after spending three months in the +place that Mr. Dyer vacated when he became superintendent of the Boston +schools. “There is a heartiness in it, too, that grips a man.â€</p> + +<p>“There is always the jolliest good-fellowship in the Schoolman’s Club,†+exclaimed a grammar school principal. “It’s always ‘Roberts’ and ‘Lyon’ +and ‘Dyer’ there. They’re as good as the rest, no better. We all go +there to work, and to work hard for the schools.â€</p> + +<p>On such a spirit is the school system of Cincinnati founded. From its +point of vantage, set upon its high hill of ministry to child needs, it +flashes like a searchlight through the storm of nineteenth century +pedagogical obscurity. The optimist sings a new, glad song; the +pessimist is confounded; the searcher after educational truth uncovers +reverently before this masterpiece of educational organization, this +practical demonstra<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span>tion of the wonders that may be accomplished where +head and heart work together through the schools, for the children.</p> + +<p>Such is the triumph, but whose the glory?</p> + +<p>“It is not mine,†protests Mr. Dyer, “I did only my part.†“Nor mine,†+“Nor mine,†echo his assistants. Truly, wisely, bravely spoken. The +glory is not to Mr. Dyer, nor to any other one man or woman—the glory +is to Mr. Dyer and the men and women who worked with him for the +Cincinnati schools.</p> + +<p>“My predecessor was an able organizer,†explained Mr. Dyer. “He left +things in splendid condition, and we took up his work. There were five +things which marked great epochs in the upbuilding of the Cincinnati +schools:</p> + +<p>“First, we established the merit system for the appointment of teachers.</p> + +<p>“Second, we improved the school buildings and equipment.</p> + +<p>“Third, we organized special courses for children who were not able to +profit by the regular work.</p> + +<p>“Fourth, by putting applied work in the grades we gave the children a +chance to use their hands as well as their heads.</p> + +<p>“Fifth, we enlarged the school system by adding buildings and courses +until there was a place in the schools for every boy and girl, man and +woman in Cincinnati who wanted an education.</p> + +<p>“That was the sum total of our work. It was a long and difficult task.†+Mr. Dyer’s tall form straightened a trifle. His earnest, determined face +relaxed. From under his bushy eyebrows flashed a gleam of triumph—the +triumph of a strong, purposeful, successful man. “But when it was all +over,†he concluded, “and when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span> the things for which we had striven were +accomplished we knew that they were worth while.â€</p> + +<p>When Mr. Dyer left his position in Cincinnati to become Superintendent +of the Boston schools, there was, on every hand, a feeling of loss and +of uncertainty among those most interested in the city’s educational +problems. During those months which elapsed between Mr. Dyer’s departure +for Boston and the election of his successor there was a feeling that, +after all, perhaps he was not replaceable.</p> + +<p>Then the successor came,—a quiet man, with a constructive imagination +that enabled him to grasp, readily and completely, Cincinnati’s +educational need. There had been an era of radical educational +adjustment in the city. The school system had been changed,—artfully +changed, it is true—but changed, nevertheless, in all of the essential +elements of its being. Some of the changes had been made with such +rapidity that their foundations had not been fully completed. The +brilliant school policy which Mr. Dyer had inaugurated needed rounding +out for fulfilment and completion. Randall J. Condon saw these things; +and he saw, furthermore, that in a community so awakened as Cincinnati, +almost any educational program was feasible, so long as it remained +reasonable.</p> + +<p>The Cincinnati school people who went to Providence for the purpose of +inviting Mr. Condon to take charge of the Cincinnati schools, felt the +constructive power of his leadership. Providence had been educationally +transformed, and Mr. Condon was the man responsible for the +transformation.</p> + +<p>The people of Cincinnati have every cause to congratulate themselves +upon the new school head. At the outset Mr. Condon said,—“I purpose, to +the best of my ability,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span> to live up to and follow out the policies +inaugurated by Mr. Dyer.†With the utmost fidelity he has kept his word.</p> + +<p>There is far more in Mr. Condon’s administration than a mere follow-up +policy. Everywhere he is building. In the face of a difficult financial +situation which compels a serious curtailment of expenses for the time +being, he is insisting upon additional kindergartens, extended high +school accommodations, a more intimate correlation of the elementary and +high school system, and an extensive system of recreation and social +centers. It is upon the latter point that Mr. Condon is laying the +greatest emphasis at the outset of his administration.</p> + +<p>The Cincinnati policy which Mr. Condon has inaugurated with regard to +civic centers is admirably summed up in his statement of the case. “A +larger use of the school house for social, recreational and civic +purposes should be encouraged. The school house belongs to all of the +people, and should be open to all the people upon equal terms,—as civic +centers for the free discussion of all matters relating to local and +city government, and for the non-partisan consideration of all civic +questions; as recreational centers, especially for the younger members +of the community, to include the use of the baths and gymnasiums for +games and sports, and other physical recreations, the use of class-rooms +and halls for music, dramatics, and other recreational activities, and +for more distinct social purposes; as educational centers in which the +more specific educational facilities and equipment may be used by +classes or groups of younger or older people, in any direction which +makes for increased intelligence, and for greater economic and +educational efficiency; as social centers in which the community may +undertake a larger social service in behalf<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span> of its members,—stations +from which groups and organizations of social workers may prosecute any +non-partisan and non-sectarian work for the improvement of the social +and economic conditions of the neighborhood, rendering any service which +may help to improve the condition of the homes, giving assistance to the +needy, disseminating information, helping to employment, and in general +affording the community in its organized capacity an opportunity to +serve in a larger measure the needs of the individual members.†Here is, +indeed, a broad-gauge social school policy, to which the administrative +authorities of the Cincinnati schools are fully committed.</p> + +<p>The movement for social centers in the schools is to be under the +direction of a social secretary appointed by the superintendent. Until +the organization is more highly perfected, principals are free, under +certain restrictions, to open their schools for classes, groups, and all +other legitimate community activities.</p> + +<p>Mr. Condon’s activities in the direction of socialized school buildings +finds a ready response. “There was already a large use of a number of +the schools for community meetings—for welfare associations, for boys’ +and girls’ study clubs, and for musical and social gatherings.†The +program is a program of extension, rather than of innovation. It has +already won the approval of the citizenship.</p> + +<p>Spontaneity must be the soul of such a movement. “It was my strong +conviction that the development of such a social movement should come +from the people themselves, not that a ready-made program or plan should +be given them, but that they should develop their own.†One by one +centers are being formed. The Board of Education furnishes the building, +the local social<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span> center organization pays the immediate expenses which +its activities incur. The movement has been started right. “I am a great +believer in democracy,†Mr. Condon says. “The people can be trusted to +settle social questions as they should be settled, provided all sides +can be fully presented and time taken for deliberation. The school house +affords the one opportunity where all can meet on common ground as +American citizens and as good neighbors, where the question of wealth +and position may be forgotten, and where what a man is in himself, and +what he is willing to do for the common good, counts most.â€</p> + +<p>Such is the spirit in which Mr. Dyer, the men and women who worked with +him, and the men and women who succeeded him, have striven for the +advancement of education; such the spirit of co-operation and +progressiveism which dominates this great city school system.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span></p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> Much of this material appeared originally in Educational +Foundations.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h3> + +<h2>THE OYLER SCHOOL OF CINCINNATI</h2> + + +<h4>I An Experiment in Social Education</h4> + +<p>On the west side of Cincinnati, separated from the main part of the town +by railroad yards, waste land and stagnant water, surrounded by +factories and a myriad of little homes, stands the Oyler School. “Can +any good thing come out of Nazareth?†queried a doubter. Answers, in +bell tones, the philosopher, “If a man can build a better house or make +a better mousetrap than his neighbor, though he fix his home in the +woods, the world will find a path to his door.†Because Oyler has built +a better school in a better community the world sits at Oyler’s feet to +learn of its experiment in social education.</p> + +<p>The first time that I went to the Oyler School I encountered a Committee +of Manufacturers. A Committee of Manufacturers in a public school during +business hours! These men had met to talk with the school principal over +the location of a library, which the entire community had worked to +secure. When the time came to go before the Park Board over in the +center of the city, to secure a playground near the Oyler School, the +local bank furnished automobiles, and dozens of business men, leaving +their offices, took the opportunity to endorse the work of the school, +and to second its demands that play space be given to West End children. +The manufacturers have become interested because in less than a decade +the Oyler School has changed the face of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span> community, creating +harmony out of discord, and order out of chaos.</p> + +<p>The struggle of Oyler is the story of a man, a delivered message, a +thriving, enthusiastic school and a reborn neighborhood. Many years +ago—about twenty to be exact—a young man named Voorhes was made first +assistant in a West End school. Like other young men who go into school +work he applied himself earnestly to his tasks, but unlike most of them +he did some hard thinking at the same time. Among other things he +thought about the relation between the school and the community, +wondering why the two were so completely divorced from one another. Then +the problem was focused on one concrete example—a boy named John, +nearly sixteen years old, who had succeeded in getting only as far as +the eighth grade. John, who had never taken kindly to language or +grammar, began thinking pretty seriously toward the end of his last year +in the grammar school. He tried, he struggled, but the syntax was too +much for him. After all, it was not his fault, and he complained +bitterly against a punishment in the form of “leaving down†for +something which he could not help. His training was so inadequate that +he was entirely unable to pass the high school examinations which, in +those days, were like the laws of the Medes and the Persians.</p> + +<p>“I am safe in saying that he did not know the difference between a verb +and a preposition,†said Mr. Voorhes, “but during the grammar lesson he +could make a drawing of the face of the teacher that was in no sense a +caricature. This phase of his ability gave me a cue to what might be +done for him. Knowing both the superintendent and the principal of the +Technical School, I talked the situation over with them, begging them, +with all the persuasive power at my command, to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span> take the boy, +forgetting his shortcomings, and magnifying his peculiar talents, which +I felt sure were considerable along mechanical lines. They acceded to my +request, giving John a place in the school, to which he walked three +miles back and forth daily for three years. For many years John has been +superintendent of the lighting plant of a large city, and his experience +has always stood out before me as a terrible rebuke to the then dominant +educational regime, which could offer John nothing but a sneer. These +facts took such a vital hold on me, seeming to reinforce so fully the +thought that the industrial abilities which I had acquired back on the +farm proved of incalculable value to me, that the resolution to promote +industrial education became a fixed part of my educational creed. The +memory of that lesson in educational equity kept the need for industrial +training constantly in my mind, till I had opportunity to give it +expression in the Oyler School.â€</p> + +<p>John bespoke the needs of the community by which Oyler was surrounded. +It was so different from other communities. There were the ugly +straggling factory buildings, the miserable homes, their squalid +tenants, and worst of all there were the rough, boisterous, over-age, +uninterested, incorrigible boys and girls, who flitted from school to +home, to street, to jail, and then, gripped by the infirm hand of the +law, in the form of a Juvenile Court probation officer, or a truant +officer, they came back to school unwillingly enough to begin the cycle +all over again.</p> + +<p>“As for discipline,†remarked one of the city school officials, “the +school hadn’t known it for years, the probation officer couldn’t keep +the children in school and the Juvenile Court couldn’t keep them out of +jail. Even the majesty of the law is lost on children, you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span> know.†The +children taunted the police; the police hated the children; the home +repelled; the factory called, grimly; child labor flourished, and the +school despaired.</p> + + +<h4><a name="VIII_II" id="VIII_II"></a>II An Appeal for Applied Education</h4> + +<p>Such were the conditions when Mr. Voorhes became school principal. +Grinding factories, wretched homes, parental ignorance, social neglect, +educational impotence—few men could enter such a field of battle with a +light heart, but Mr. Voorhes did.</p> + +<p>What, think you, was his first move? He addressed to the heads of all of +the factories in the neighborhood a letter, suggesting the establishment +of a manual training department in connection with the grade work of the +Oyler School. “As I become more and more familiar with existing +conditions in our school district,†he wrote, “I am convinced that a +Manual Training Department would be of vital importance to the school +and to the general welfare of the community. Such departments are being +looked upon to-day as necessary adjuncts to modern school equipment.</p> + +<p>“Our school is being drained constantly of its life force by the +adjacent factory demands, and if we could send pupils forth with trained +hands as well as trained minds they could render a much more useful +service, which, in time, would not only show itself in more profitable +returns to employers, but must also tend toward a higher standard of +culture in the neighborhood, and a longer continuance in school by our +pupils.</p> + +<p>“I know of no other section of the city where the actual need should +make a stronger appeal for support than here. Anything you may do will +be greatly appreciated.â€<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span></p> + +<p>“You can imagine my surprise,†says Mr. Voorhes, “when during the next +few days my mail brought me a hearty response of checks and pledges +amounting to nearly a thousand dollars.†Manual training was assured! +No! Not yet. The Board of Education reached the conclusion that manual +training in the grades was undesirable. “With the exception of $85 which +I was told to use as I saw fit the checks and pledges were alike +returned to the donors. That $85 gave a piano to our kindergarten.â€</p> + +<p>That failure back in 1903 was the seed-ground of later success. The +community was interested to the extent of a thousand dollars at least. +The manufacturers were not only interested in education, but were +willing to support it financially. There was a change of administration. +Mr. F. B. Dyer became Superintendent of Schools and at once met the +situation by establishing a manual training center in the Oyler School.</p> + + +<h4><a name="VIII_III" id="VIII_III"></a>III Solving a Local Problem</h4> + +<p>The end was not yet, however. The truant officers and the Juvenile Court +were still busy keeping Oyler children out of mischief and in school. +The conventional type of manual training—one period per week in the +sixth, seventh and eighth grades—was not holding the pupils.</p> + +<p>“The children were not getting enough manual work to establish either +habit or efficiency,†Mr. Voorhes comments, “besides, this work reached +only to the sixth grade. At this time there were in the school fifty +boys and girls below the fifth grade who were from two to five years +behind their normal classes. That is to say, they were—most of them—of +that unfortunate class that has seen more trouble in a few years than +most of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span> us see in a lifetime. I was constantly asking myself: ‘Where do +these folks come in?’ ‘What is our school doing to help their function +in life?’ ‘Are we really of any assistance to them after all?’ ‘Is it +worth their while to come to our school?’ My sympathy for the pupils was +constantly growing, and I went at last in desperation to the +superintendent with a plan for a revolution in the organization of my +school, a revolution that I was sure would meet the needs of the +community and one upon which I was willing to stake my reputation if I +had any.â€</p> + +<p>At this point it is worth remembering, parenthetically, that Cincinnati +school men have a habit of going about their school problems in very +much that spirit, beginning by sizing up the needs of the community, +continuing by becoming imbued with an idea of the community needs and +ending by presenting this idea to the school authorities and +getting—within bounds—carte blanche to make their schools serve the +locality in which they are situated.</p> + +<p>This was Mr. Voorhes’s experience. He was told to go ahead and make +good—a permission of which he availed himself in an astoundingly short +space of time by introducing a system of applied education, aimed to +meet the needs of the children who attended the Oyler School.</p> + +<p>“There is a peculiar situation,†said Mr. Dyer, “and it needs peculiar +handling. You have only one problem to solve—that of the west end. Go +ahead!†Mr. Voorhes did go ahead with a plan under which all children in +the sixth and seventh grades were given three periods a week in +laboratories and shops. Subnormal pupils in the third, fourth and fifth +grades were to have four and one-half hours (one school day) for applied +work<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span> each week. In order to give special help to backward pupils they +were sent in small groups to the seventh and eighth grade teachers while +their classes were doing applied work. Below-grade children go to the +eighth grade teacher for special work in arithmetic and geography, and +the seventh grade teacher for English and history. In this way the +backward children from the lower grades have special training by the +best equipped teachers in the school.</p> + +<p>The eighth grade pupils give one-fifth of their time to applied work. +During the year the boys have, in addition to the shop-work, twenty +lessons in preparing and cooking plain, substantial meals. To make this +“siss†work palatable to the sterner sex much of it takes the form of +instruction in camp life—cooking in tin cans and other handy home-made +devices. In a community where boys have always been trained to regard +home work as menial, but where the absence of servants makes a “lift†+from the husband or brother such a Godsend to the wife at odd times, the +value of giving grade boys a taste for cooking can hardly be +over-estimated.</p> + +<p>The boys also receive twenty lessons in the simpler forms of +sewing—darning, hemming, sewing on buttons. At the same time the girls +are taught the use of simple tools.</p> + + +<h4><a name="VIII_IV" id="VIII_IV"></a>IV Domestic Science Which Domesticates</h4> + +<p>Beginning with the second grade the girls have domestic science while +the boys are at manual training. This domestic science has a truer ring +to it than most of the teaching which passes under that name. The +children at Oyler have a peculiar need for domestic science, because in +many of the homes mother works out, and even when she is not away her +knowledge of do<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span>mestic arts is so rudimentary that she can impart little +to her daughters. So it comes about that the Oyler School seeks to teach +the girls all that they would have under intelligent direction in a +normal home.</p> + +<p>Once each week they cook and once they sew, devoting from one-eighth to +one-fifth of their entire time to these activities. By way of +preparation for both cooking and sewing they are carefully trained in +buying. They must make the dollar go a long way—buying in season the +things cheapest at that time and preparing them in a way to yield the +maximum of return. For example, they are called upon in January to buy a +50 cent dinner for six persons. Laura Wickersham’s cost list is:</p> + +<div class="center"> +<table border="0" summary="Laura Wickersham's cost list" style="width: 30%;"> + + <tr> + <td class="tdl">Soup meat</td> + <td class="tdr">$0.20</td> + </tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdl">Can of tomatoes</td> + <td class="tdr">.10</td> + </tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl">Spaghetti</td> + <td class="tdr">.05</td> + </tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl">Cheese</td> + <td class="tdr">.05</td> + </tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl">Bread</td> + <td class="tdr">.05</td> + </tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl">Butter, etc.</td> + <td class="tdr">.08</td> + </tr> + +<tr><td> </td> +<td class="tdr">——<br /> +$0.53</td> +</tr> +</table></div> + +<p>Gus Potts, a mere boy, makes this suggestion:</p> + +<div class="center"> +<table border="0" summary="Gus Potts' cost list" style="width: 30%;"> + + <tr> + <td class="tdl">Meat</td> + <td class="tdr">$0.20</td> + </tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl">Potatoes</td> + <td class="tdr">.05</td> + </tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl">Cabbage</td> + <td class="tdr">.05</td> + </tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl">Bread</td> + <td class="tdr">.05</td> + </tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl">Milk</td> + <td class="tdr">.04</td> + </tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl">Butter</td> + <td class="tdr">.05</td> + </tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdl">Coffee</td> + <td class="tdr">.05</td> + </tr> +<tr> +<td> </td> +<td class="tdr">——<br />$0.49</td> +</tr> +</table></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span></p> + +<p>In their cooking laboratory they learn to cook simple foods, one thing +at a time, until they reach the upper grades, where they must prepare +entire meals on limited allowances.</p> + +<p>The sewing is equally practical. The girls learn to patch, darn, hem and +make underclothing and dresses. Then, going into homes where no +intelligent needlework has ever been done—where frequently a darning +needle is unknown—they teach the mother and older sisters how to sew, +until whole families, under the influence of one school child, improve +their wardrobe and reduce their cost for clothing. Certain sewing days +in school, called darning days, are sacred to the renovation of worn-out +garments which the girls bring from home.</p> + +<p>The Oyler system may not turn out artists in dress design—it has no +such aim. The children who come to its class-rooms are ignorant of the +simplest devices known to civilization for the making of comfortable +homes. The domestic science courses are organized to take care of their +children by teaching them to be intelligent home-makers.</p> + + +<h4><a name="VIII_V" id="VIII_V"></a>V Making Commercial Products in the Grades</h4> + +<p>No less practical is the work of the boys in the shops, since the great +majority of them will enter factories. The shop-work is designed to +familiarize them with the ideas underlying shop practice. Instead of +making useless joints and surfaces the boys turn out finished, +marketable products. The eighth grade boys, with the aid of the +instructor, have built a drill-press from the scraps of machinery which +were found lying about. Now they are at work on an engine. Elaborate +products you will say, for eighth grade boys, yet these boys are likely +interested, they do their task with zest, and linger about<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span> the shop +after school hours are over—anxious to complete the jobs which the +day’s work has begun.</p> + +<p>Boys in grades two to six made three dozen hammer handles for use in the +high school machine shops. Of forty-two pieces of rough stock there were +produced thirty-six handles, a record which some commercial shops might +envy. These same boys made a book and magazine rack, of rather elaborate +design, and an umbrella rack for each of the schools in Cincinnati. +These racks, displayed in the offices of the various principals, would +stand comparison with a high grade factory product. The boys are now +engaged in making a desk book-rack (a scroll saw exercise) for every +school teacher in Cincinnati. When they have finished there will be more +than a thousand.</p> + +<p>Besides these routine class exercises the Oyler boys are privileged to +make anything which appeals to them and for which they can supply the +material. The school machines are theirs, subject to their use at any +time. Taking advantage of this, the boys sharpen the home knives and +hatchets, make axe handles, umbrella racks, hall stands, stools, sleds, +cane chairs, and repair or make any product which fancy or home +necessity may dictate.</p> + + +<h4><a name="VIII_VI" id="VIII_VI"></a>VI A Real Interest in School</h4> + +<p>Let no one infer that the academic branches are neglected at Oyler. Far +from it, they are taught with consummate skill by a corps of teachers +who enjoy the work because they find the children interested. Strange to +relate, an interest in school came in at the front door with Mr. +Voorhes’ new plan for applied education. The wild boys and dishevelled +girls of the West End, who had erstwhile hated school, came now to +participate in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span> school activities with an interest seldom surpassed in +public or private schools.</p> + +<p>“You see,†Mr. Voorhes remarked, “a day a week in the shop or +laboratories is just about enough to keep down the high spirits of the +older ones, and at the same time give them an applied education of which +they feel the value. That one day of practical work did the trick. It +made the other four days of academic work taste just as good as pie.â€</p> + +<p>Mr. Voorhes’ plan arrived. It won the interest of the children and later +with the assistance of the Mothers’ Club and the kindergarten it won the +sympathy of the community.</p> + + +<h4><a name="VIII_VII" id="VIII_VII"></a>VII The Mothers’ Club</h4> + +<p>Like all of the other school centers in Cincinnati, Oyler has a +kindergarten and a Mothers’ Club, around which the change in community +feeling has centered, until Mr. Voorhes describes them as “the most +important influence that ever came into our school.†Yet the +kindergarten here, as elsewhere, has had a life and death grapple for +existence. In the West End, dominated by its conservative, German +atmosphere, the pleas for kindergartens fell on deaf ears. At last, +after much preparation, a meeting of mothers and children was held for +the purpose of forming an organization; at the meeting there were +thirteen children and five mothers, and all antagonistic, or at best +suspicious.</p> + +<p>“I went around and played with every one of those children,†said Mr. +Voorhes, “talking to the mothers, and trying to persuade them that this +was not failure, but merely the forerunner of success. The next day I +went into every grade, saying to the children:</p> + +<p>“‘What was the matter? Mother did not come to the Mothers’ Meeting +yesterday.’<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span></p> + +<p>“‘Oh, she couldn’t leave the baby.’</p> + +<p>“‘Leave the baby! Why, of course not. No one expected her to leave the +baby. Tell her to come and bring the baby along.’â€</p> + +<p>So another meeting was held, and another to which the babies were +brought—some women bringing as many as three, who were too young to go +to school. At one Mothers’ Meeting, after the club had been well +organized, there were twenty women, listening, discussing and nursing +babies, all at once.</p> + +<p>If the beginnings of the experiment were discouraging the results have +more than offset the original disappointment. At the last meeting (in +January) seventy of the eighty-five paid up members were present, +intelligent, eager, interested, participating heartily in the +discussions. It has cost years of labor, but these mothers have reached +the point where they can talk intelligently about the children and their +needs.</p> + +<p>“Only yesterday,†said Miss Phelps, Kindergarten Director, “one mother +said to me: ‘I used to be the most impatient woman with my children—I +simply couldn’t stand it when they refused to do what I told them. The +other day my mother said to me, “You’re about the most patient woman I +ever saw. What’s done it?†And I said to her: “Well, mother, I do not +know of anything except those folks at the kindergarten, which all +helped me to look at children in a very different way.â€â€™â€</p> + +<p>Through the Mothers’ Meetings the mothers have come to feel that they +are co-operating with the teacher and the school. Those mothers who have +children in the upper grades as well as in the kindergarten go to the +grade teachers too, seeking advice, or making suggestions. They have +learned to feel that they are an essen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span>tial part of the educational +plan, and their enthusiastic interest tells of the advantages gained by +this co-operation.</p> + +<p>The Oyler Mothers’ Club has been the center of the movement to clear up +the community. Through them and through the grades refuse has been +cleaned and kept from the streets. The club maintains, out of its fund, +a medicine chest at the school, which is used by the visiting nurse. It +has cleaned up the children, and that is no small item.</p> + +<p>“Back in 1904,†says Mr. Voorhes, “I had five hundred of the children +vaccinated in my office, and such dirt and vermin I never saw! Nearly +every child had the high water mark on his wrist, and their clothes and +bodies were filthy. They didn’t know a bathtub from a horse trough; they +don’t now for the matter of that, because there are scarcely a dozen +houses in this section that have bathtubs, but the children are clean.â€</p> + +<p>Each year the old members of the Mothers’ Club bring in the new mothers, +saying to Miss Phelps: “This is my mother, I brought her,†“This is +mine!†with a delighted satisfaction in having added something to the +club. The kindergarten, filling two rooms, is thriving, and the +kindergarten teachers, visiting and advising in the home, are cordially +welcomed everywhere.</p> + + +<h4><a name="VIII_VIII" id="VIII_VIII"></a>VIII The Disappearance of “Discipline"</h4> + +<p>“Discipline,†smiled Mr. Voorhes, “no, we don’t mention the word any +more. Five years ago the discipline problem in this school was more +serious than in any school in town. We couldn’t handle it, not even with +a club. To-day the discipline looks after itself.â€</p> + +<p>The disciplining of an undisciplined school may sound like an immensely +difficult task. Wrongly essayed it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span> would be. Rightly directed it +becomes the merest child’s play. The teachers have disciplined the +school—disciplined it through kindness—and here, again, the +inspiration may be traced to the Mothers’ Club and the kindergarten, for +it was in the kindergarten that the first real attempt was made to bring +this school into closer relations with the home by home visiting. Little +by little the example told on the grade teachers, who went to see the +children when they were absent; nor was it long before a custom grew up +in the school, by virtue of which a teacher who wished to visit one +absent child, might pick her own time to make her visit. If perchance +the psychological moment was during school hours, she went then, while +another teacher or the principal took her place.</p> + +<p>Among the many illustrations of the efficiency of this system one stands +out strongly. A boy had been away for a week, sick with rheumatism, when +his teacher decided to call and see him. She went hesitatingly, however, +for this boy had been rough and troublesome all through school, but +particularly to her. At last her mind was made up. She visited the boy +and came away radiant, overjoyed at the cordial reception he had given +her. Again she went, and the mother, opening the door with a glad face, +said:</p> + +<p>“Come right in, Tom’s been looking for you.â€</p> + +<p>“Is he better?†the teacher asked.</p> + +<p>“Yes, pretty much, but he said that he would get well right quick when +you came to see him again.â€</p> + +<p>Does anyone wonder that the boy should feel so kindly over attentions to +which he was not accustomed? Is it strange that he should have come back +to school with a firm resolve to be decent to his teacher?</p> + +<p>Discipline? There is no longer a problem of dis<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span>cipline. The teachers +are enthusiastic over the work, because they can see its results in the +changed homes and lives about them. The children engaged in occupations +which they enjoy and sensing the efforts of the school in their behalf, +discipline themselves by being frank and hearty in work or in play.</p> + +<p>Mr. Voorhes is not surprised at this transformation. The plan on which +he staked his reputation was a simple one, based on the idea of serving +a community which he had studied carefully, by providing for it an +education that met its needs. Though revolutionary from an educational +viewpoint, the plan succeeded because it was socially sound—because it +linked together the school and the community, of which the school is a +logical part.</p> + + +<h4><a name="VIII_IX" id="VIII_IX"></a>IX The Spirit of Oyler</h4> + +<p>Oyler has a motto, a very shibboleth, “The school for the community and +the community for the school.†Not only do its principal and teachers +believe that the school must center its activities about the needs of +the community in which it is located, but they put their belief into +practice, studying the community diligently and seeking to find an +answer for every need which it manifests. Out of this spirit of service +has grown up a warmth of feeling and interest among the teachers seldom +surpassed anywhere.</p> + +<p>“When I came to Oyler I felt about it as Sherman felt about war,†says +Mr. Voorhes. “Now I would not trade places with any school man in +Cincinnati. The teachers feel the same way. Never yet have we had a +teacher who wanted to leave. Each one has her class, that is enough. We +have no problem of discipline now. The children and their parents are +working for the school.<a name="Page_167t" id="Page_167t"></a><a href="#Page_167tn">["]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span></p> + +<p>Sometimes people get the idea that Mr. Voorhes does not do very much. +One visitor spent half a day observing, and then sitting down in his +office she said:</p> + +<p>“Mr. Voorhes, I have been here half a day and I haven’t seen you around +at all. What do you do?â€</p> + +<p>“Madam,†answered Mr. Voorhes, “I am a man of leisure. All I do is to +sit here at this desk, ready to get behind any one of my teachers, with +two hundred and fifty pounds from the shoulder, in order to prevent +anybody or anything from getting in the way of her work.â€</p> + +<p>Small wonder that the teachers like to stay. Small wonder that the work +which the school does commands the respect of the people of Cincinnati. +In the school, as well as in the neighborhood, each person has a task +and a fair chance to do it well.</p> + +<p>From its position as “the worst school in Cincinnati†Oyler has risen, +first in its own esteem, and then in the esteem of the city, until it is +looked upon everywhere as a factor in the life of the west end, and an +invaluable cog in the educational machinery of the city. Its tone has +changed, too. Mr. Roberts, who came, a total stranger, to assist in the +work while Mr. Voorhes was sick, says, “I have never heard a word of +discourtesy or a bit of rudeness since I came to this school.†That is +strong testimony for a new man in a new place. Splendidly done, Oyler!</p> + +<p>Mr. Voorhes has not stopped working. On the contrary, he is at it harder +than ever, shaping his school to the ever-changing community needs. He +has stopped disciplining, though, and he has stopped wondering about the +success of his experiment. Time was when Oyler looked upon high school +attendance much as a New York gunman looks at Sunday School. Last year +of the thirty-three children in the eighth grade,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span> eighteen—more than +half—went to high school. The tradition against high school has been +replaced by a healthy desire for more education. “One day a week in the +shops,†Mr. Voorhes says, “means interest and enthusiasm. Our children +compete in high school with the children of grammar schools from the +well-to-do sections, and with the best our boys and girls hold their +own.â€</p> + +<p>The community is interested. Parents and manufacturers alike come to the +school, consult, advise, suggest, co-operate. The school boy is no +longer sneered at by “the gang.†The school has made its place in the +community, and “the gang†is enthusiastically engaged in school work. +The complexion of the neighborhood has changed, too. It is less rough, +the police have less to do. Houses are neater, children better clothed +and cared for. Oyler has won the hearts of its people, improved the food +on their tables and the clothes on their backs, sent the children to +high school, and their mothers to Mothers’ Clubs; and the people who +once uttered their profanity indiscriminately in every direction now +swear by Oyler.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h3> + +<h2>VITALIZING RURAL EDUCATION</h2> + + +<h4>I The Call of the Country</h4> + +<p>There is a call of the land just as there is a call of the city, though +the call of the city has sounded so insistently during the past century +that men innumerable, heeding it, have cast in their lot with the +throngs of city dwellers. Yet the city proves so unsatisfying that +thousands are turning from its rows of brick houses and lines of paved +streets to the fruit trees, dairy herds, market gardens and broad acres +of the countryside. The call of the city is answered by a call which is +becoming equally distinct—the call “Back to the Land.â€</p> + +<p>The ten-acre lot may not be any nearer paradise than the “Great White +Way,†but there is about it a breadth of quiet wholesomeness which +cannot make its presence felt in the bustle of the clanging cars and the +rushing whirl of crowded streets. The unsmoked blue of the sky is over +the country, as are the fragrance of flowers, woods and mown grass; the +stars are brilliant by night, and by day the birds sing, and the cows +and barnyard fowls talk philosophically together. The children have room +to run and play between their periods of work, which is very near of kin +to blessedness, because, aside from being instructive, it binds the +child into the family group in a way that factory work can never do. The +country cries health and enthusiasm to the world-weary<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span> soul as it does +to the barefoot boy. Whittier was very near the heart of things when he +wrote:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Blessings on thee, little man,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Barefoot boy, with cheek of tan!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With thy turned-up pantaloons,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And thy merry whistled tunes;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With thy red lips, redder still<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Kissed by strawberries on the hill.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Despite the loneliness, isolation and overwork in some country places, +the rural life is, on the whole, very rich in—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Sleep that wakes in laughing day,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Health that mocks the doctor’s rules,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Knowledge never learned of schools.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Country life holds a great promise for the future—a promise of vigorous +manhood and womanhood, and of earnest, sane living. Through the rapidly +progressing country school, more perhaps than through any other agency, +this promise may be fulfilled. There are two possibilities in the +development of the country school. On the one hand, several one-room +schools may be consolidated into one central graded school, to which the +children are transported at public expense; on the other hand, the +old-time, one-room school may be reorganized and vitalized.</p> + + +<h4><a name="IX_II" id="IX_II"></a>II Making Bricks with Straw</h4> + +<p>Even the doughtiest son of the soil must needs admit that the farmer of +the past, living secluded in his house or village, was provincial, +narrow, bigoted and individualistic. Times are rapidly changing, +however, and out of the old desolation of rural individualism there is +arising the spirit of wholesome, virile co-operation,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span> which has +transformed the face of many a country district almost in the twinkling +of an eye. Nowhere is this co-operative spirit better expressed than in +the consolidated country schools, which are organized, like the city +school, by subjects and grades.</p> + +<p>Considered from any viewpoint, the consolidated school is superior, as a +form of organization, to the district school. Rather, the consolidated +school permits organization, and the district school does not. Wherever +it has been tried the testimony in favor of consolidation is +overwhelming.</p> + +<p>“Comparison,†cried one county superintendent in consternation. +“Comparison! There is no comparison. The old one-room school, like the +one-horse plough, has seen its day. The farmers in this country, after +figuring it out, have reached the conclusion that the one-room school is +in the same class with a lot of other old-fashioned machinery—good in +its day, but not good enough for them. That is why over eighty per cent +of our schools have been consolidated. You see it’s this way: The +farmers need labor badly, and rather than see their sons go to a school +where they are called on once or twice a day by a sadly overworked +teacher they would put them to work on the farm. The consolidated school +wins them with its good course of study and the boys stay in school.â€</p> + +<p>That is the first, and perhaps the most vital, advantage of the +consolidated school—it permits the enlargement of the course of study. +Sewing, cooking, agriculture, manual training, drawing and music, have +all been introduced, because the teachers have time for them. High +school work has been added, too. The consolidated school, in so far as +the course of study is concerned, is very nearly on a par with the +graded school of the city.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span></p> + +<p>Have you ever attended a one-room country school? If you have not you +can form but the faintest idea of what it means to the teacher. Her day +is so split up with little periods of class work that she can never do +anything thoroughly. Here, for example, is an average schedule of work +for a one-room class in Indiana:<br /><br /></p> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Daily Program</span></p> + +<p class="center"><small>FORENOON</small></p> + +<div class="center"> +<table border="0" summary="Daily Program" style="width: 40%;"> + + + <tr> + <th class="tdrp">Time</th> + <th class="tdlp">Class</th> + <th class="tdlp">Grade</th> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">8:30</td> + <td class="tdlp">Opening Exercises</td> + <td class="tdlp">All</td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">8:40</td> + <td class="tdlp">Reading</td> + <td class="tdlp">Primary</td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">8:45</td> + <td class="tdlp">Reading</td> + <td class="tdlp">First</td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">8:50</td> + <td class="tdlp">Reading</td> + <td class="tdlp">Second</td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">8:55</td> + <td class="tdlp">Reading</td> + <td class="tdlp">Third</td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">9:00</td> + <td class="tdlp">Reading</td> + <td class="tdlp">Sixth</td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">9:10</td> + <td class="tdlp">Grammar</td> + <td class="tdlp">Fourth</td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">9:20</td> + <td class="tdlp">Grammar</td> + <td class="tdlp">Fifth</td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">9:30</td> + <td class="tdlp">Grammar</td> + <td class="tdlp">Sixth</td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">9:40</td> + <td class="tdlp">Grammar</td> + <td class="tdlp">Seventh</td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">9:50</td> + <td class="tdlp">Grammar</td> + <td class="tdlp">Eighth</td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">10:00</td> + <td class="tdlp">Reading</td> + <td class="tdlp">Fourth</td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">10:10</td> + <td class="tdlp">Reading</td> + <td class="tdlp">Seventh</td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">10:20</td> + <td class="tdlp">Recess</td> + <td class="tdlp">All</td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">10:30</td> + <td class="tdlp">Reading</td> + <td class="tdlp">Primary</td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">10:40</td> + <td class="tdlp">Reading</td> + <td class="tdlp">First</td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">10:50</td> + <td class="tdlp">Numbers</td> + <td class="tdlp">Second</td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">11:00</td> + <td class="tdlp">Numbers</td> + <td class="tdlp">Third</td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">11:05</td> + <td class="tdlp">Arithmetic</td> + <td class="tdlp">Fourth</td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">11:15</td> + <td class="tdlp">Arithmetic</td> + <td class="tdlp">Fifth</td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">11:25</td> + <td class="tdlp">Arithmetic</td> + <td class="tdlp">Seventh</td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">11:35</td> + <td class="tdlp">Arithmetic</td> + <td class="tdlp">Eighth</td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">11:50</td> + <td class="tdlp">Reading</td> + <td class="tdlp">Fifth</td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">Noon</td> + <td class="tdlp">Noon</td> + <td class="tdlp">All</td> + </tr> +</table></div> + +<p>Appalling, do you say? What other word describes it adequately? There +are twenty-one teaching periods in the morning; twenty-four in the +afternoon. Forty-five<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span> times each day that teacher must call up and +teach a new class. The college professor is “overloaded†with fourteen +classes a week. This woman had two hundred and twenty-five. Will any one +be so absurd as to suppose that she can do them or herself justice?</p> + +<p>Consolidation, among its many advantages, reduces the number of classes +per day, and increases the time which the teacher may devote to each +class. Note the contrast between that schedule of a one-room teacher and +the teaching schedule of a consolidated school teacher in the same +county:<br /></p> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Teacher’s Daily Program</span></p> + +<p class="center"><small>FORENOON</small></p> + +<div class="center"> +<table border="0" summary="Teacher’s Daily Program" style="width: 40%;"> + + <tr> + <th class="tdrp">Time</th> + <th class="tdlp">Class</th> + <th class="tdlp">Grade</th> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">8:30</td> + <td class="tdlp">Opening Exercises</td> + <td class="tdlp">All</td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">8:45</td> + <td class="tdlp">Desk</td> + <td class="tdlp">1-B</td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">8:50</td> + <td class="tdlp">Phonetics</td> + <td class="tdlp">1-A</td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">9:00</td> + <td class="tdlp">Phonetics</td> + <td class="tdlp">1-B</td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">9:15</td> + <td class="tdlp">Reading</td> + <td class="tdlp">1-A</td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">9:30</td> + <td class="tdlp">Reading</td> + <td class="tdlp">Second</td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">9:45</td> + <td class="tdlp">Rest Exercise </td> + <td class="tdlp">All</td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">10:00</td> + <td class="tdlp">Nature</td> + <td class="tdlp">All</td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">10:15</td> + <td class="tdlp">Rest</td> + <td class="tdlp">All</td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">10:30</td> + <td class="tdlp">Words</td> + <td class="tdlp">1-B</td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">10:50</td> + <td class="tdlp">Words</td> + <td class="tdlp">1-A</td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">11:10</td> + <td class="tdlp">Numbers</td> + <td class="tdlp">Second</td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">11:30</td> + <td class="tdlp">History</td> + <td class="tdlp">1-A</td> + </tr> +</table> +</div> + +<p>The “district,†or one-room, schools in Montgomery County, Indiana, have +twenty-three pupils per teacher, scattered over six grades. The +consolidated schools in the same county show sixteen pupils per teacher, +in three grades. While the teacher in the district school averages +twenty-seven recitations a day, the teacher in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span> the consolidated school +has eleven; but the time per recitation is: district, thirteen minutes; +consolidated, twenty-nine minutes. The number of minutes which the +district teacher may give to each grade is fifty minutes; the +consolidated teacher has one hundred and seventeen minutes per grade. +Badly sprinkled with figures as that statement is, it gives some idea of +the increased opportunities for effective teaching in the consolidated +school. No teacher can do justice to twenty-seven classes per day, and +an average recitation period of thirteen minutes is so short as to be +almost unworthy of mention.</p> + +<p>Most consolidated schools, in addition to the ordinary rooms, have an +assembly room in which lectures, festivals, socials, public meetings, +and farmers’ institutes are held. Acting as a center for community life, +the consolidated school takes a real place in the instruction of the +community. The big brick or stone building, well constructed and +surrounded, as it usually is, by well-kept grounds, furnishes the same +kind of local monument that the court house supplies in the county seat. +People point proudly to it as “their†public building. It is an +experience of note in traveling across an open farming country to come +suddenly upon a splendidly-equipped, two-story school, set down, at a +point of vantage, several miles away from the nearest railroad.</p> + +<p>The consolidated school at Linden, Montgomery County, Indiana, for +example, situated in a town of scarcely three hundred inhabitants, is +equipped with gas from its own gas-plant; with steam heat; ample toilet +accommodations; an assembly room; and halls so broad that the primary +children may play some of their games there in bad weather.</p> + +<p>One of the most widely discussed among consolidated schools is the John +Swaney Consolidated School, of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span> Putnam County, Illinois.<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> The John +Swaney School occupies a twenty-four acre campus, lying a mile and a +half from the nearest village, and ten miles from the nearest town. The +agitation for consolidation in Putnam County led John Swaney and his +wife to give twenty-four acres as a campus for a local consolidated +school. Hence the name and much of the success which has attended the +work of the school.</p> + +<p>The school cost $15,000, equipped. It is of brick with four class-rooms, +two laboratories, a library, offices, a manual training shop, a domestic +science kitchen, and a basement play-room. The building is lighted, +heated, and ventilated in the most modern fashion. The John Swaney +School thus came into existence with an equipment adequate for any +school and elaborate for a school situated far from the channels of +trade and industry.</p> + +<p>The course of study organized includes all of the modern specialized +work which the effective city school is able to do. Securing good +teachers and possessing unique facilities, the school carries boys and +girls through a series of years, in which intellectual, experimental, +manual, recreational, and social activities combine to make the school +the center of community life and community influence.</p> + +<p>The school campus is used as a laboratory and a play ground. The trees +provide subject matter for a course in horticulture. The fertile land is +turned to agricultural use, and the broad expanse of twenty-four acres +furnishes additional space for games and sports.</p> + +<p>The social life of this school is no less effective than is its location +and equipment. The teachers’ cottage, an <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span>old school building converted +for this purpose, furnishes a center for the life of the teaching staff, +and makes a background for the social life of the entire school. There +are two strong literary societies, including all of the pupils in the +school. Each year plays are presented on the school stage. There are +musical organizations, parents’ conferences, entertainments, and +community gatherings of all descriptions. In every sense, the John +Swaney School is a community center.</p> + +<p>Prosperity has followed in the wake of this educational development. The +John Swaney School is known far and wide, and consequently farm renters +and farm buyers alike seek the locality because of the educational +opportunities which the school affords for their children, and because +of the social opportunities which the community around the school +affords for them.</p> + +<p>The movement for school consolidation, like many another good movement, +originated in Massachusetts. From that state it has spread extensively +to Indiana, Minnesota, Iowa, Kansas, Idaho, Washington, and a number of +other states,—East, West, and South. In every progressive rural +community, wherever prosperous farmers and comfortable farm homes are +found, there the consolidation movement is being discussed, agitated, or +operated.</p> + +<p>The movement toward consolidation has been particularly active during +the past few years in the South. The Southern States are, for the most +part, largely agricultural communities. The rural population far +outnumbers the urban population, and it is in these districts, +therefore, that the consolidated school can have its greatest influence. +By 1912, the state of Louisiana alone was able to report over 250 +consolidated county schools. Georgia, Florida, and North Carolina show<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span> +themselves almost equally active in forwarding this generally accepted +progressive educational movement.</p> + +<p>The difficulties involved in consolidation may be summed up under two +heads. There is, first of all, the conservatism and prejudice of those +people who believe that the things which were good enough for their +fathers, are still good enough for them. Secondly, there are the +technical difficulties involved in transporting pupils from distant +localities to the school center. Roads are bad at certain times of the +year. Wagons are costly. Desirable drivers are difficult to secure. +These factors, taken together, make the administrative difficulties of +the consolidated school far greater than those of the old-time one-room +country school.</p> + +<p>The forces operating to overcome these difficulties are destined +ultimately to triumph. The widespread acceptance of an agricultural +education that followed upon the work of experiment stations, +universities and high schools, has convinced even the most reactionary +of the old-time group that there are, at least, certain things in the +new generation which surpass, in their economic and social value, the +like things of the old. The inroads of scientific agriculture have +played havoc with agricultural tradition and conservatism. The obvious +merits of the new scheme are destined to overcome the prejudices which +the long continuance of the old scheme created.</p> + +<p>The technical difficulties of transportation are being met in a number +of ways. Wagon builders in various parts of the country are devoting +themselves to the designing and building of wagons which will be cheap +and effective. State and local authorities are actively engaged in the +improvement of roads. The near future promises a standard of +transportation facilities that will far surpass any that the +consolidation movement has<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span> thus far enjoyed. The details of +transportation administration are being worked out variously in +different communities, and always with a view to the particular needs of +the community involved.</p> + +<p>While the disadvantages of consolidation lie mainly in the overcoming of +prejudice and the solution of administrative problems, the advantages of +consolidation seem to be primarily educational and social. The +consolidated school is the only method thus far devised for giving +graded school and high school privileges under adequately paid teachers +to the inhabitants of rural communities. Again the consolidated school +is the only method of securing a school attendance sufficiently large to +provide the incentive arising from competition and emulation for pupils +of each grade or age. Furthermore, the consolidated school, standing out +as the most distinctive feature of a rural landscape, is readily +converted into a center of rural life and activity where young folks and +old folks alike find a common ground for social interests.</p> + +<p>The advantages of the rural school are thus summed up by Mabel +Carney,<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a>—“For the complete and satisfying solution of the problem of +rural education and for the general reconstruction and redirection of +country life, the consolidated country school is the best agency thus +far devised.†The reasons for this statement are summed up under seven +heads. In the first place, the consolidated school is a democratic, +public school, directly in the hands of the people who support it. +Secondly, it is at the door of farm houses and is wholly available, even +more available, when public transportation is provided, than the present +one-teacher school. Third, every child in the farm community is reached +by it. All <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span>children may attend because of the transportation facilities +afforded. Fourth, the cost of the school is reasonable. Fifth, it +accommodates all grades, including the high school. The country high +school, by excluding the younger children, denies modern educational +facilities to any except pupils of high school grade. Sixth, it +preserves a balanced course of study. While educating in terms of +farm-life experience, it does not force children prematurely into any +vocation, although it prepares them generally for all vocations. Lastly, +the consolidated school is the best social and educational center for +the rural community that has been thus far organized.</p> + +<p>However just may be the judging of a tree by its fruit, the fruit of the +consolidation movement seems uniformly good. First, because the children +get to school; and second, because after they get there they are taught +something worth while.</p> + +<p>When the schools of a district are consolidated, transportation must be +furnished for the students. Union Township, Montgomery County, Indiana, +covering one hundred and six square miles, has replaced thirty-seven +district schools with six consolidated schools. Some of the children are +brought as far as five miles in wagons, or on the interurban electric +cars. The wagon calls at stated hours, and the children must be ready. +Tardiness is therefore reduced, until one county reports ten hundred and +ninety-one cases of tardiness in its district schools (for 1910-11) and +ninety-two cases in consolidated schools, although in this county there +are more children in the consolidated than in the district schools.</p> + +<p>Then, too, the children stay later in the consolidated schools. In +Montgomery County, Indiana, the children who have not finished the +eighth grade and who are staying away from school constitute twenty-nine +per<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span> cent. of the population in the consolidated schools, as against +sixty-three per cent. in the district schools. The Vernon consolidated +school in Trumbull County, Ohio, has enrolled nearly nine-tenths of the +children of school age. Before the consolidation only three-fifths were +in school.</p> + +<p>Theoretically, the introduction of agriculture, manual training, and +other applied courses which are found in most consolidated schools, +should have some effect on the lives of the children. In order to show +its extent Superintendent Hall, of Montgomery County, Indiana, asked one +thousand children (five hundred in district schools and five hundred in +consolidated schools) what they proposed to do after they left school. +Arranged according to the kind of school in which the children were, the +answers showed as follows:</p> + +<div class="center"> +<table border="0" summary="1000 children’s career plans" style="width: 40%;"> + +<tr> + <th class="tdl"><i>Chosen Profession</i></th> + <th class="tdc"><i>District</i><br /> + <i>Schools</i></th> + <th class="tdc"><i>Consolidated</i><br /> + <i>Schools</i></th> +</tr> + + <tr> + <td class="tdl">Teaching</td> + <td class="tdrp">151</td> + <td class="tdrp2">122</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdl">Business</td> + <td class="tdrp">123</td> + <td class="tdrp2">73</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdl">Farming</td> + <td class="tdrp">92</td> + <td class="tdrp2">129</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdl">Law</td> + <td class="tdrp">55</td> + <td class="tdrp2">21</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdl">Mechanics</td> + <td class="tdrp">48</td> + <td class="tdrp2">86</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdl">Medicine</td> + <td class="tdrp">13</td> + <td class="tdrp2">9</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdl">Ministry</td> + <td class="tdrp">12</td> + <td class="tdrp2">4</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdl">Stock-breeding</td> + <td class="tdrp">3</td> + <td class="tdrp2">41</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdlt">Miscellaneous</td> + <td class="tdrp">3<br /> +—</td> + <td class="tdrp2">15<br /> +—</td> +</tr> + + +<tr> +<td class="tdrp">Total</td> + <td class="tdrp">500</td> + <td class="tdrp2">500</td> +</tr> +</table> +</div> + +<p>Agricultural studies—stock-breeding and farming—and mechanics show up +strongly in the consolidated schools, at the expense of teaching, +business and law in the district schools. While such figures do not +prove anything, they indicate the direction in which the minds of +consolidated school children are moving.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span></p> + +<p>Eli M. Rapp, of Berks County, Pennsylvania, voices the spirit of the +consolidation movement when he says:</p> + +<p>“The consolidated school furnishes the framework for a well-organized, +rural education. Its course of study is broader, its appeal is stronger, +its service to the community more pronounced, and, best of all, it holds +the children. Progressive rural communities have wakened up to the fact +that unless their children are educated together there is a strong +probability that they will be ignorant separately.â€</p> + + +<h4><a name="IX_III" id="IX_III"></a>III Making the One-Room Country School Worth While</h4> + +<p>The brilliant success of the consolidated schools reveals the +possibilities of team-work in rural education, but it cannot detract +from the wonderful work which has been done, and is still being done, by +the one-room rural school. Always there will be districts so sparsely +settled that the consolidated school is not feasible. In such localities +the one-room school, transformed as it may be by enlightened effort, +must still be relied upon to provide education. Nor is this outcome +undesirable. The one-room country school bristles with educational +possibilities. Under intelligent direction, even its cumbersome +organization may yield a plenteous harvest of useful knowledge and +awakened interest.</p> + +<p>The droning reading lesson and the sing-song multiplication table are +heard no more in the progressive country school. In their place are +English work, which reflects the spirit of rural things, and the +arithmetic of the farm. Here is a boy of thirteen, in a one-room country +school, writing an essay on “Selecting, Sowing and Testing Seed Corn,†+an essay amply illustrated by pen and ink drawings of growing corn, corn +in the ear and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span> individual corn kernels. Mabel Gorman asks, “Does it pay +the farmer to protect the birds?†After describing the services of birds +in destroying weed seeds and dangerous insects and emphasizing their +beauty and cheerfulness, she concludes: “The question is, does it pay +the farmer to protect the birds?†The only answer is that anything that +adds to the attractiveness of the farm is worthy of cultivation. Happily +a farmer who protects the birds secures a double return—increased +profit from his crop and increased pleasure of living. Viola Lawson, +writing on the subject, “How to Dust and Sweep,†makes some pertinent +comments. “I think if a house is very dirty, a carpet sweeper is not a +very good thing. A broom is best, because you can’t get around the +corners with a sweeper.†Note this hint to the school board: “We spend +about one-third of our time in the school house, so it is very important +to keep the dust down. The directors ought to let the school have +dustless chalk. If they did there wouldn’t be so much throat trouble +among teachers and children. Then so many children are so careless about +cleaning their feet, boys especially. They go out and curry the horses, +and clean out the stables, and get their feet all nasty. Then they come +to school and bring that dust into the schoolroom. Isn’t that awful?†+Viola is thirteen.</p> + +<p>Over in eastern Wisconsin Miss Ellen B. McDonald, County Superintendent +of Oconto County, has her children engaged in contests all the year +round—growing corn, sugar beets, Alaska peas and potatoes; the boys +making axe handles and the girls weaving rag carpet. During the summer +Miss McDonald writes to the children who are taking part in the contests +suggesting methods and urging good work. One of the letters began with +the well-known lines:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Say, how do you hoe your row, young man,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Say, how do you hoe your row,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Do you hoe it fair, do you hoe it square,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Do you hoe it the best you know?<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>“How are you getting along with the contests?†continues the letter. +“Are you taking good care of your beets, peas, corn or garden? Remember +that it will pay you well for all the work you do upon it.†In reply one +girl writes: “My corn is a little over five feet high. My tomatoes have +little tomatoes on, but mamma’s are just beginning to blossom. My beets +are growing fine. I planted them very late. My lettuce is much better +than mamma’s. We have been eating it right along.†Mark the note of +exultation over the fact that her crop is ahead of her mother’s.</p> + +<p>Sometimes the school child brings from school knowledge which materially +helps his father. Here is a Wisconsin English lesson, and a proof of the +saying, “Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings,†all in one.</p> + +<p>These country boys and girls take an interest in English work, because +it deals with the things they know. Miss Ellen B. McDonald, County +Superintendent of Schools in Oconto County, Wisconsin, publishes a +column of school news in each of the three county newspapers. Here is +one of her contributions, in the form of an English lesson and a +counting lesson combined: (A “rag-baby tester†is a device for +determining the fertility of seed corn before it is planted.)<br /></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“My dear Miss McDonald:</p> + +<p>“The rag-baby tester is causing a whole lot of excitement. We +have tested one lot and this morning started another. We notice +one thing in particular, the corn which was dried by stove heat +sprouts perfectly, while<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span> that dried in granaries, etc., is not +sprouting at all. Last fall papa saved his seed corn, selecting +it very carefully, and hung it up in the granary to dry. I +selected several ears from the same field and at the same time, +and dried them on the corn tree at school. Upon testing them +this spring papa’s corn does not sprout at all, while mine is +sprouting just exactly as good as the Golden Glow sent out to +the school children. This morning I am testing some more of +papa’s, and if that fails he will have to buy his seed, a thing +he has never had to do before. We tested the corn secured from +four of our interested farmers last week and one lot germinated; +the other three did not. This morning pupils from seven +different homes brought seed to be tested. We had a package of +last year’s seed left and tested several kernels of that, as +well as some sent out this year, and we think last year’s seed +is testing a little the better.â€<br /></p></div> + +<p>The new arithmetic, like the new English, deals with the country. It +seems a little odd, just at first, to see boys and girls standing at the +board computing potato yields, milk yields, the contents of granaries, +the price of bags and the cost of barns and chicken houses; yet what +more natural than that the country child should figure out his and +perhaps his father’s problems in the arithmetic class at school?</p> + +<p>The geography is no less pertinent. Soil formation, drainage, the +location and grouping of farm buildings, the physical characteristics of +the township and of the county are matters of universal interest and +concern. Every school in Berks County, Pennsylvania, is provided with a +fine soil survey map of the county, made by the United States Geological +Survey. What more ideal basis for rural geography?</p> + +<p>Here and there a country school is waking up to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span> physical needs of +country children. “Country boys are not symmetrically developed,†+asserts Superintendent Rapp, of Berks County. “They are flat-chested and +round-shouldered.†That is interesting, indeed. Mr. Rapp explains: “It +is because of the character of their work, nearly all of which tends to +flatten the chest. Whether or not that is the explanation, the fact +remains, and with it the no less evident fact that it is the business of +the school to correct the defects. In an effort to do this we have +worked out a series of fifty games which the children are taught in the +schools.†In May a great “Field Day and Play Festival†is held, to which +the entire county is invited. Each school trains and sends in its teams. +Trolleys, buggies, autos and hay wagons contribute their quota, until +five thousand people have gathered in an out-of-the-way spot to help the +children enjoy themselves.</p> + +<p>Mr. Rapp is a great believer in activity. Tireless himself, he has fifty +teacher-farmers—men who teach in the winter and farm in the summer—an +excellent setting for country boys and girls. He believes in activity +for children, too. “If the school appealed as it ought to the motor +energies of children, instead of having to drive them in, you would have +to drive them out.†To prove his point Mr. Rapp cites the instance of +one man teacher, who, before the days of manual training in the schools, +decided to have manual training in his one-room Berks County school.</p> + +<p>“He did the work himself,†Mr. Rapp says, “dug out the cellar and set up +a shop in it. The only help he had was the help of the pupils, and the +work was done in recess time and after school. They made their own +tools, cabinets, book-cases, picture-frames, clock-frames, and anything +else they wanted. And do you know, when it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span> got dark, that man would +send the children home from the school in order to be rid of them.â€</p> + +<p>Consolidated schools help. They make rural education broader and easier, +but the one-room country school, presided over by a live teacher, may be +made worth while. Social events, sports, contests in farm work and +domestic work, studies couched in terms of the country, may all prove +potent factors in shaping the child and the community.</p> + + +<h4><a name="IX_IV" id="IX_IV"></a>IV Repainting the Little Red Schoolhouse</h4> + +<p>Without, as well as within, the little red school-house may be +transformed. The course of study may establish a standard in rural +thought. The rural school-house may set a standard of rural architecture +and landscape gardening.</p> + +<p>How typical of old-time country schools are the lines:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Still sits the school-house by the road,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">A ragged beggar sunning.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Around it still the sumacs grow,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And blackberry vines are running.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The unpainted, rough exterior of the little school vied with the unkempt +school grounds. Both supplied subjects for artistic treatment. To the +consternation of the poet and the romancer, the modern one-room school +is painted, and the school yard, instead of being filled with a thicket +of blackberry and sumac, is laid out for playground, flower-beds and +gardens. The up-to-date country school, while far less picturesque, is +much more architectural and more useful.</p> + +<p>The State Superintendent of Education in Wisconsin furnishes free to +local school boards plans of modern one-room schools. With a hall at +each end for wraps,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span> an improved heating and ventilating device, and all +of the light coming from the north side, where there is one big window +from near the floor to the ceiling, these buildings, costing from two +thousand dollars up, provide in every way for the health and comfort of +the children. The superintendent may go farther than to suggest in +Wisconsin, however, for if a school building becomes dilapidated he may +condemn it, and then state aid to local education is refused until +suitable buildings are provided. The law has proved an excellent +deterrent to educational parsimony.</p> + +<p>Superintendent Kern, of Rockford, Illinois, has done particularly +effective work in beautifying his schools. Within the schools are +tastefully painted and decorated. Outside there are flower-beds, hedges, +individual garden plots, neatly-cut grass, and all of the other +necessaries for a well-kept yard. No longer crude and unsightly, the +Rockford school yards are models which any one in the neighborhood may +copy with infinite advantage. As the school becomes the center of +community life local pride makes more and more demands. Could you visit +some of the finer school buildings in Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin and +Illinois you would be better able to understand why men boast of “Our +School†in the same tone that they use when boasting of their corn +yields.</p> + + +<h4><a name="IX_V" id="IX_V"></a>V A Fairyland of Rural Education</h4> + +<p>You will perhaps be somewhat skeptical—you big folks who have ceased to +believe in little people—when you hear that out in western Iowa there +is a county which is an educational fairyland. Yet if you had traveled +up and down the country, gone into the wretched country school +buildings, seen the lack-luster teaching and the indifferent scholars, +which are so appallingly numerous;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span> if you had read in the report of the +investigating committee which has just completed its survey of Wisconsin +rural schools the statement that in many districts the hog pens were on +a better plane of efficiency than the school houses; if you had seen the +miserable inadequacy of country schools North, East, South and West, and +had then been transported into the midst of the school system of Page +County, Iowa, you would have been sure that you had passed through the +looking-glass into the queer world beyond. Yet Page County is there—a +fairyland presided over by a really, truly fairy.</p> + +<p>The schools in Page County, Iowa, which, by the way, is one of the best +corn counties in Iowa, are little republics in which the children have +the fun, do the work and grow up strong and kind. Each school has its +song, its social gatherings, its clubs, and its teams. How you would +have pricked up your ears if you had driven past the Hawley School and +heard a score of lusty voices shouting the school song to the tune of +“Everybody’s Doing It!â€</p> + +<p>December was the time of the Page County contests, when each school sent +its exhibits of dressmaking, cooking, rope-splicing, barn-planning, +essay-writing and its corn-judging teams to the county seat, where they +were displayed and judged very much as they would be at a county fair. +Further, it was the time when the prizes were to be awarded to the boy +having the best acre of alfalfa, of corn and of potatoes. (Queer, isn’t +it, but last year a girl got the first prize for the best crop of +potatoes.) December is a great month in Page County. This year more than +three thousand exhibits were sent into Clarinda, the county seat. Every +boy and girl is on tip-toe with expectancy, and after the awards the +successful schools are as proud as turkey cocks.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span></p> + +<p>“We have never taken the thing seriously here before,†explained a +farmer who had left his work in mid-afternoon and come in to teach the +boys of a school how to judge seed corn. “This year we’re going down +there to Clarinda for all that’s in it.†If he hadn’t meant what he said +he would scarcely have been spending his hours in the school-room. If +the Hawleyville boys had not been thoroughly in earnest they would not +have been there, after school, learning how to judge corn.</p> + +<p>The community around each school is agog with excitement while +preparations are being made for the county contest. The men folk advise +the boys regarding their corn-judging and their models of farm +implements and farm buildings, while the women give lessons galore in +the mysteries of country cooking, for it is no small matter to be hailed +and crowned as the best fourteen-year-old cook in Page County, Iowa.</p> + +<p>One Page County teacher conducts her domestic science work in the +evening at the homes of the girls. On a given day of each week the +entire class visits the home of one of the girls, prepares, cooks and +eats a meal. What an opportunity to inculcate lessons in domestic +economy at first hand! What a chance to show the behind-the-time +housekeeper (for there are such even in Page County) how things are +being done!</p> + +<p>Because Page County is a great corn county much school time is devoted +to corn. In every school hangs a string of seed corn which is brought in +by the boys in the fall, dried during the winter, and in the spring +tested for fertility. A Babcock milk-tester, owned by the county, +circulates from school to school, enabling the children to test the +productivity of their cows. Teams of boys, under the direction of the +school, make their own road drags, and care for stretches of road—from +one to five<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span> miles. The boys doing the best work are rewarded with +substantial prizes. Do you begin to suspect the reason for the interest +which the big folks take in the doings of Page County’s little folks? It +is because the little folks go to schools which are a vital part of the +community.</p> + +<p>Three times a year there is, in each school, a gathering of the friends +and parents of the children. Sometimes they celebrate Thanksgiving, +sometimes they have a “Parents’ Day.†Anyway, the boys decorate the +school, the girls cook cake and candy, and the parents come and have a +good evening. The children begin with their school song, sung, perhaps, +like this Kile School song, to the tune of “Home, Sweet Home":</p> + +<p> +1. What school is the dearest,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The neatest and best,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">What school is more pleasant,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">More dear than the rest,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Whose highways and byways</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Have charms from each day,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Whose roads and alfalfa,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">They have come to stay.</span><br /> +<br /> +<i>Chorus.</i><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Kile, Kile, our own Kile,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">We love her, we’ll praise her,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">We’ll all work for Kile.</span><br /> +<br /> +2. Whose corn is so mellow,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Whose cane is so sweet,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Whose taters are so mellow,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Whose coal’s hard to beat,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Whose Ma’s and whose Grandpa’s</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Are brave, grand and true,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Their love for their children</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">They never do rue.</span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span></p> + +<p>There follows a program like the program of any other social evening, +except that very often the parents take part as well as the children. +The things are interesting, too, like this little duet, sung at the +Thanksgiving entertainment by two of the Kile girls:</p> + +<p> +1. If a body pays the taxes,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Surely you’ll agree,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">That a body earns a franchise,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Whether he or she.</span><br /> +<br /> +<i>Chorus.</i><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Every man now has the ballot,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">None, you know, have we,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">But we have brains and we can use them,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Just as well as he.</span><br /> +<br /> +2. If a city’s just a household,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">As it is, they say,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Then every city needs housecleaning,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Needs it right away.</span><br /> +<br /> +3. Every city has its fathers,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Honors them, I we’en,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">But every city must have mothers,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">That the house be clean.</span><br /> +<br /> +4. Man now makes the laws for women,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Kindly, too, at that,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">But they often seem as funny</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">As a man-made hat.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The grand event of this fairyland comes in the summer, when the boys and +girls from all of the schools go to the county seat for a summer camp, +where, between attending classes and lectures, playing games and +reveling in the joys of camp life, they come to have a very much broader +view of the world and a more intense interest in one another.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span></p> + +<p>They are only one-room schools out there in Page County, but they have +adapted themselves to the needs of the community, focusing the attention +of parents and children alike on the bigger things in rural life, and +the ways in which a school may help a countryside to appreciate and +enjoy them. So the boys and girls of Page County have their fairyland, +and are devoted to the good fairy, who, in the shape of a generous, +kindly county superintendent, helps them to enjoy it.</p> + + +<h4><a name="IX_VI" id="IX_VI"></a>VI The Task of the Country School</h4> + +<p>The teacher of a one-room school in Berks County was quizzing a class +about Columbus.</p> + +<p>“Where was he born?†she queried.</p> + +<p>“In Genoa.â€</p> + +<p>“And where is Genoa, Ella?â€</p> + +<p>“On the Mediterranean Sea,†replied Ella promptly.</p> + +<p>“What was his business?†was her next question.</p> + +<p>“He was a sailor,†ventured a bright boy. “A sailor,†chorused the +class.</p> + +<p>“Why was he a sailor, Edith?†Edith shook her head.</p> + +<p>“Yes, George.â€</p> + +<p>“Why, because he lived on the sea.â€</p> + +<p>“Of course. Now think a minute. Do many of the boys from this country +become sailors?â€</p> + +<p>“No’m,†from the class.</p> + +<p>“What do they become?â€</p> + +<p>“Farmers,†cried the class, hissing the “f†and flattening the “a.â€</p> + +<p>Certainly, the boys in a farming community, brought up on the farm, +naturally become farmers, yet in the interim, between babyhood and +farmer life, they go to school. How absurdly easy the task of the +school—to determine that they shall be intelligent, progressive, +enthusiastic, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span>up-to-date farmers. The girls, too, marry farmers, keep +farmers’ homes and raise farmers’ sons. How simple is the duty of seeing +that they are prepared to do these things well!</p> + +<p>The task of the city school is complex because of the vast number of +businesses, professions, industrial occupations and trades which +children enter. In comparison the country school has the plainest of +plain sailing. What are the ingredients of successful farmers and +farmers’ wives? What proportion of physical education, of mental +training, of technical instruction in agriculture, of suggestions for +practical farm work, of dressmaking, sewing and cooking, enter into the +making of farmers’ boys and farmers’ girls who will live up to the +traditions of the American farm? To what extent must the school be a +center for social activity and social enthusiasm? How shall the school +make the farm and the small country town better living places for the +men and women of to-morrow?</p> + +<p>The duty of the country school is simple and clear. It must fit country +children for country life. First it must know what are the needs of the +country; then, manned by teachers whose training has prepared them to +appreciate country problems, it will become the power that a country +school ought to be in directing the thoughts and lives of the +community.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span></p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> An extensive reference to this school will be found in +“Country Life and the Country School,†Mabel Carney, Row, Peterson & +Company, Chicago, 1912.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> Supra, pp. 180-181.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h3> + +<h2>OUT OF THE MOUTHS OF BABES AND SUCKLINGS</h2> + + +<h4>I Miss Belle</h4> + +<p>The sun shone mildly, though it was still late January, while the wind, +which occasionally rustled the dry leaves about the fence corners, had +scarcely a suggestion of winter in its soft touch. Across the white +pike, and away on either side over the rolling blue grass meadows, the +Kentucky landscape unfolded itself, lined with brown and white fences, +and dotted with venerable trees. A buggy, drawn by a carefully-stepping +bay horse, came over the knoll ahead, framing itself naturally into the +beautiful landscape. Surely, that must be Joe and Miss Belle; it was so +like her, since she always seemed at home everywhere, making herself a +natural part of her surroundings. Another moment and there was no longer +any doubt. It was Miss Belle with three youngsters crowded into her lap +and beside her in the narrow buggy seat, while a dangling leg in the +rear suggested an occupant of the axle.</p> + +<p>“Well, well,†cried Miss Belle, cordially, as Joe stopped, glad of any +excuse not to go, “where are you bound for? You didn’t come all the way +over to ride back with me?â€</p> + +<p>“No, indeed, Miss Belle,†I laughed back, “no one ever expects to ride +with you so near the school-house. I’ll walk along ahead until you begin +to unload.â€<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Go along, now you’re casting reflections on Joe’s speed. Come, Joe, +we’ll show him.†Joe, who did not leave his accustomed walk at once, +finally yielded to the suggestion of a gentle blow from the whip and +broke into a trot.</p> + +<p>“Lem’me walk with you,†cried the rider on the springs, slipping from +her perch and stepping out beside the buggy. So we journeyed for half a +mile. The horse, under constant urging, jogged along, while the spring +rider and I trotted side by side over the well-made pike. Then Miss +Belle drew rein in front of a small, yellow house.</p> + +<p>“Now, out you go,†she exclaimed to her young companions. “All out here +but one. Goodbye, dearies. All right, up you get,†and in a moment we +were snugly fixed in the buggy for a half hour’s ride behind Joe.</p> + +<p>“You see those two little girls who got off there,†said Miss Belle, +pointing to the house we had just left, “well, they are two of a family +of six—two younger than those. Their mother died last winter, so +naturally I take an interest in them. Their father does his best with +them, but it is a big task for a man to handle alone.â€</p> + +<p>The last child was unloaded by this time, and Miss Belle, settling +herself back comfortably, chatted about her work in a one-room country +school in the Blue Grass belt of Kentucky.</p> + + +<h4><a name="X_II" id="X_II"></a>II Going to Work Through the Children</h4> + +<p>“Maybe there are thirty-five families that my school ought to draw +from,†she began. “Six years ago when I took this school some of them +surely did need help. Dearie me! The things they didn’t know about +comfort and decency would fix up a whole neighborhood for life. They +wore stockings till they dropped off. Some of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span> girls put on sweaters +in October, wore them till Christmas, washed them, and then wore them +till spring. You never saw such utterly wretched homes. There was hardly +a window shade in the neighborhood, nor a curtain either. It wasn’t that +the women didn’t care—they simply didn’t know.</p> + +<p>“I saw it all,†said Miss Belle, nodding her head thoughtfully, “and it +worried me a great deal at first. I just had to get hold of those people +and help them—I had made up my mind to that. Impatience wouldn’t do, +though, so I said to myself, ‘Now, my dear, don’t you be in any hurry. +You can’t do anything with the old folks, they’re too proud. If you +succeed at all it’s got to be through the children.’ So I just waited, +keeping my eyes open, and teaching school all of the while, until, the +first thing I knew, the way opened up—you never would guess how—it was +through biscuits.<a name="Page_197t" id="Page_197t"></a><a href="#Page_197tn">["]</a></p> + + +<h4><a name="X_III" id="X_III"></a>III Beginning on Muffins</h4> + +<p>“The folks around here never had seen anything except white bread. There +wasn’t a piece of cornbread or of graham anywhere. You know what their +white bread is, too—heavy, sour, badly made and only half cooked. The +old folks were satisfied, though, and there didn’t seem to be any way to +go at it except through the youngsters. Day after day I saw them take +raw white biscuits and sandwiches made of salt-rising white bread out of +their baskets, wondering how they could eat them. Still I didn’t say +anything, but every lunch time I ate corn muffins or graham wafers, with +all of the gusto I could master. One day a little girl up and asked me:</p> + +<p>“‘Say, Miss Belle, what may you all be eatin’?’</p> + +<p>“‘Corn muffins,’ said I. ‘Ever taste them?’</p> + +<p>“‘Nope.’<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span></p> + +<p>“‘Well, wouldn’t you like a taste?’</p> + +<p>“‘Sure I would.’</p> + +<p>“She took it, and a great big one, too. ‘Um,’ says she, smacking her +lips, ‘Um.’</p> + +<p>“‘Like it?’ I asked.</p> + +<p>“‘Um,’ says she again, like a baby with a full stomach.</p> + +<p>“‘Oh, Miss Belle,’ piped up Annie, ‘how do you make ’em?’</p> + +<p>“That was the chance I had been waiting for.</p> + +<p>“‘Would you like to know?’ I asked, and to a chorus of ‘Sure,’ ‘’Deed we +would,’ ‘Oh, yes,’ I put the recipe on the board, and it wasn’t two days +before those girls brought in as good corn muffins as I ever tasted. +Little Annie is a good cook—never saw a better—and before the week was +out she says to me:</p> + +<p>“‘Miss Belle, ma’s mad with you.’</p> + +<p>“‘What all’s the matter?’ I asked.</p> + +<p>“‘She says since you taught us to make those corn muffins she’ll be +eaten out of house and home. The first night I made ’em pa ate eleven. +He hasn’t slackened off a bit since. He must have ’em every day.’</p> + +<p>“That made the going pretty easy,†Miss Belle went on. “The muffins were +mighty good, they were new, and, by comparison, the white biscuits +didn’t have a show. It wasn’t long before I had the whole neighborhood +making corn muffins, graham wafers, black bread, graham bread and +whole-wheat bread. They sure did catch on to the idea quickly. Every +Monday I put a recipe on the board. These women knew how to cook the +fancy things. It was the plain, simple, wholesome things that they +needed to know about, so my recipes were always for them. During the +week each of the children cooks the thing and brings it to me, and the +one who gets the best result puts a recipe on the board Friday.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span></p> + +<p>“You see, after I once got started it wasn’t hard to follow up any line +I liked. By the time I was putting a recipe a week on the board the +mothers got naturally interested and would come to school to ask about +this recipe and that. They wouldn’t take any advice, you understand, not +they! They knew all about cooking, so they thought, but they were mighty +proud of the things their daughters did, particularly when they took the +prizes at the county fair. Besides that, it made a whole lot of +difference at home, because the things they made helped out a lot and +tasted mighty good on the table.â€</p> + +<p>Miss Belle’s next move was against the cake—soggy, sticky stuff, full +of butter, that was very generally eaten by all of the families that +could afford it. Expensive and fearfully indigestible it made up, +together with bread, almost the entire contents of most lunch baskets.</p> + +<p>“I couldn’t see quite how to go about the cake business,†Miss Belle +commented, “because they were particularly proud of it. Finally, though, +I hit on an idea. One of the women in the neighborhood was sick. She was +a good cook and knew good cooking when she saw it, so I got my sister to +make an angel cake, which I took around to her. I do believe it was the +first light cake she had ever tasted—anyway, she was tickled to death. +It wasn’t long after that before every one who could afford to do it was +making angel food. Of course it’s expensive, but since they were bound +to make cake, that was a lot better than the other.â€</p> + +<p>Similar tactics gradually replaced the fried meats by roasts and stews. +When Miss Belle came, meat swam in fat while it cooked and came from the +stove loaded with grease. Everybody fried meat, and when by chance they +bought a roast they began by boiling all of the juice out of it before +they put it in the oven. Miss Belle’s<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span> stews and roasts made better +eating, though. The men-folks liked them hugely and the old frying +process was doomed.</p> + +<p>“No,†concluded Miss Belle, laughingly, “you can’t do a thing with the +old folks. Why if I was to go into a kitchen belonging to one of those +women and tell her how to sift flour she would run me out quick, but +when Annie comes home and makes such muffins that the man of the family +eats eleven the first time, there is no way to answer back. The muffins +speak for themselves.â€</p> + + +<h4><a name="X_IV" id="X_IV"></a>IV Taking the Boys in Hand</h4> + +<p>While the girls were making over the diet of the neighborhood Miss Belle +was working through the boys to improve the strains of corn used by the +farmers, the methods of fertilizing and the quality of the truck +patches. A few years ago when the farmer scorned newfangled ideas it was +the boys that took home methods for numbering and testing each ear of +corn to determine whether or not the kernels on it would sprout when +they were planted. The farmer who turns a deaf ear to argument can offer +no effective reply to a corn-tester in which only one kernel in three +has sprouted. The ears are infertile, from one cause or another, and the +sooner he replaces them by fertile seed the better for his corn crop.</p> + +<p>Out beside a white limestone pike stands the school in which Miss Belle +has done her work. One would hardly stop to look at it, because it +differs in no way from thousands of similar country school-houses. +Modest and unassuming, like Miss Belle, it holds only one feature of +real interest—the faces of the children. Bright, eager, enthusiastic, +they labor earnestly over their lessons in order that they may get at +their “busy work,†and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span> linger over their “busy work†during recess and +after school, because it glides so swiftly from their deft fingers. In +this, as in everything else which she does, Miss Belle has a system. The +child whose lessons are not done, and done up to a certain grade, is not +taught new stitches or new designs. Even the youngest responds to the +stimulus, and the little girl in a pink frock, with pink ribbons on her +brown pig-tails, lays aside the mat she is making to write “Annie Belle +Lewis†on the board, and to tell you that she is seven; while John +Murphy, of the mature age of eleven, stops crocheting ear-mufflers for a +moment to tell you what he is doing and why he does it.</p> + + +<h4><a name="X_V" id="X_V"></a>V “Busy Work†as an Asset</h4> + +<p>“You never would guess what a help the ‘busy work’ is,†smiled Miss +Belle. “You see, they never can do it until their lessons are finished, +so they are as good at arithmetic as they are at patching. Then I always +teach the little ones patterns and stitches where they have to count, +‘One, two, three, four, five, and drop one,’ you know, and in the +shortest time they learn their number work. It seems to go so much more +quickly when they do it in connection with some pieces that they can +see. But you never would guess the best thing the sewing has done—it +has stopped gossiping. It’s hard to believe, I know, but it’s true. +There used to be a lot of trouble in this neighborhood. People told +tales, there was ill feeling, and folks quarreled a great deal of the +time. It wasn’t long before I found out that it was the girls who did +most of the tale-bearing. No wonder, either! They weren’t very busy in +school, and they had nothing much to do at home except to listen and +talk. Really, they hadn’t any decent interest in life. Of course there +was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span> no use in saying anything, but I felt that if I could get them busy +at something they liked they would stop talking. It wasn’t enough to +start them at dressmaking, either, but when I started in on hard, fancy +work designs I had them. They made pretty clothes, embroidered them; +made lace and doilies. Most of the girls can pick up a new Irish-lace +pattern from a fashion-book as easily as I can, and they are rabid for +new patterns. The same girls who did most of the tale-bearing are busy +at work, and I find them swapping patterns and recipes instead of +stories.â€</p> + +<p>While the girls patch, darn, crochet, hem, knit, weave baskets, make +garments and do the various kinds of “busy work,†the boys clean the +school yard, plant walnut trees—Mrs. Faulconer, the County +Superintendent, is having the school children plant nut trees along all +the pikes—and do anything else which is not beneath their dignity. +“They have no work benches,†lamented Miss Belle, “I hope they will get +them soon, although there is really no place to put them.†Indeed, in a +little building packed with fifty children and the school-room furniture +the space is narrow.</p> + +<p>Yet this little one-room building at Locust Grove has left such a mark +on the community that when the County School Board recently decided to +transfer Miss Belle to a larger school the member from her district +promptly resigned, and refused to be placated until every other member +of the board had apologized to him and promised to leave Miss Belle in +his school.</p> + +<p>“We never saw the old gentleman mad before,†said a neighbor. “But he +certainly was mad then. He had watched Miss Belle’s work grow, and knew +what it had meant to the children; so when they proposed to take her +away he went right up in the air.â€<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span></p> + + +<h4><a name="X_VI" id="X_VI"></a>VI Marguerite</h4> + +<p>What wonder? He had seen the magic workings of a hand that felt the +pulse, judged the symptoms, and prescribed a sure-to-cure remedy for a +countryside full of ignorance, drunkenness, bitter hatreds and +never-ending quarrels. Within a stone’s throw of his house he had seen +the transformation in the life of a little girl named Marguerite. Since +her birth she had lived in darkness, but into her desolate home Miss +Belle had sent light.</p> + +<p>“You never saw a worse home,†says Miss Belle. “Her mother was woefully +ignorant of everything in the way of home-making. The children were +wretchedly dressed. The house was barrenness itself—no shades, no +curtains, no decorations of any kind. It was pathetic. When she came to +school neither she nor her mother could sew a stitch.â€</p> + +<p>Marguerite, an apt girl with her fingers, eagerly learned the needlework +lessons of the school. She taught her mother to sew, while she herself +made portieres and curtains, lightening up the old home with a rare new +beauty.</p> + +<p>Here again is Lillie, who is very slow at needlework and arithmetic, but +who has put the family diet on a wholesome basis by learning to cook +some of the most delicious, nourishing dishes. Her bread—the best in +Fayette County—is light as a feather. Hannah comes back after leaving +school to learn how to ply her needle. Until a year ago Christmas she +could not sew a stitch; now her stitches are so neat as to be almost +invisible. Mrs. Hawly, aroused to enthusiasm by her thirteen-year-old +daughter, has come to school, learned plain and fancy sewing, and +started to make her own and her daughter’s clothes. Everywhere are the +marks of a teacher’s handi<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span>work stamped indelibly on the lives of her +scholars and their families. Small wonder that the old gentleman on the +board was loath to part with Miss Belle!</p> + + +<h4><a name="X_VII" id="X_VII"></a>VII Winning Over the Families</h4> + +<p>With supreme joy Miss Belle tells of her conquest of the fathers of her +boys and girls—her family, as she calls it. “The children were very +poorly cared for,†she says. “The fathers spent the money for whiskey, +and the mothers lacked the means and the knowledge to clothe the +children better. Sometimes they were pitiful in their poor shoes and +thin clothes. Well, sir, we got up a Christmas entertainment, and, +except for one or two, the children wore the same clothes they had been +coming to school in all winter—shabby, patched and dirty as some of +them were. They stood up there, though, one and all, to do their turns +and speak their pieces, and their fathers were ashamed. They saw their +children in old clothes, and the children of some of the neighbors all +fixed up, and they just couldn’t stand it.</p> + +<p>“It surely did make a difference the next year.†Miss Belle’s cheery +face broadened with a satisfied smile. “The men didn’t say a word—you +know our men aren’t in the habit of saying very much—but they went to +town themselves the day before the entertainment and came back with new +dresses for the girls and new clothes for the boys. Of course some of +them were so small they would scarcely go on, while others were miles +big; but every one had something new and no one felt badly.</p> + +<p>“This Christmas,†concluded Miss Belle, “our entertainment packed the +school-house, and some were turned away. Just to show you how crowded it +was—there were twenty-four babies there. I was ready for them,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span> though, +with two pounds of stick candy; so whenever a baby squalled he got a +stick of candy quick.â€</p> + +<p>Strange, good things have followed the visits of the mothers to the +schools. They would never have come had it not been for the wonderful +things which their children were learning with such untoward enthusiasm. +One girl, who had been particularly successful with her needlework, +brought her mother to school—a hard woman who had a standing quarrel +with seven of her neighbors at that particular time. It took a little +tact, but when the right moment arrived Miss Belle suggested that she +pay a visit to a sick neighbor and offer to help. The woman went at +last, found that it was a very pleasant thing on the whole to be +friendly, and carried the glad tidings into her life, substituting +kindness for her previous rule of incivility. To her surprise her +enemies have all disappeared.</p> + +<p>The mothers, coming to school to talk over the work of their children, +have for the first time seen one another at their best. Sitting over a +friendly cup of tea, chatting about Jane’s dress or Willie’s lessons, +they have learned the art of social intercourse. Slowly the lesson has +come to them, until to-day there is not a woman in the neighborhood who +is not on speaking terms with every one else, a situation undreamed of +five years ago.</p> + +<p>Nine months in each year Miss Belle McCubbing holds her classes in the +Locust Grove School, which stands on the Military Pike, seven miles +outside of Lexington, Kentucky. “Angels watch over that school,†says +Mrs. Faulconer. Doubtless these angels are the good angels of the +community, for in six years the bitterness of neighborhood gossip and +controversy has been replaced by a spirit of neighborly helpfulness. +Boys and girls, doing Miss Belle’s “busy work,†fathers and mothers<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span> +learning from their children, have heaped upon Miss Belle’s deserving +head the peerless praise of a community come to itself—regenerated in +thought and act, turned from the wretchedness and desolation of the past +to the light and civilization of the future, saved and blessed by the +lives of a teacher and her children.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h3> + +<h2>WIDE-AWAKE SLEEPY EYE</h2> + + +<h4>I Fitting Schools to Needs</h4> + +<p>This is the story of a school that was built to fit a town, and it +begins with a hypothetical case. Suppose that there was a town—a +prosperous town of some 2,247 souls, set down in the middle of a +well-to-do farming district. As for business, the town has a few +industries and some stores; the countryside is engaged in general +farming. Suppose that the school board of such a town should come to you +and say: “We are looking for a school superintendent. Are you the one?†+Suppose you said, “Yes.†How would you prove your point?</p> + +<p>Out in Minnesota there is a town named Sleepy Eye, set down in a +well-to-do farming district. At the head of the Sleepy Eye schools there +is J. A. Cederstrom. Mr. Cederstrom has proved by a very practical +demonstration that he is “the one.â€</p> + +<p>When Mr. Cederstrom took charge of the Sleepy Eye schools he found an +excellent school plant, an intelligent community and a school system +that was like the school system of every other up-to-date +two-thousand-inhabitant town in the Middle West. Before Mr. Cederstrom +there lay a choice. He could continue the work exactly as it had always +been carried on, improve the school machinery, and make a creditable +showing at examination time. That path looked like the path of least +resistance. Mr. Cederstrom did not take it, however. Instead he made up +his mind that after measuring the community and the children he would, +to use his own words, “fit the work to their respective needs.â€<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span></p> + +<p>“The work offered has been somewhat varied,†Mr. Cederstrom explains. “I +have not attempted to follow any set course or outline of work made out +by some one else who is not familiar with our conditions and needs.â€</p> + +<p>Where does there exist a more admirable statement of the principle +underlying the new education? This man, when given charge of a school +plant, deliberately chose to make the school fit the needs of the +community upon which the school was dependent for support. Oblivious of +tradition he set about remodeling the school in the interest of its +constituency.</p> + +<p>Sleepy Eye is located in a farming district. Many of the boys who come +to the Sleepy Eye School will manage farms when they are grown men, and +many of the Sleepy Eye girls will marry farmers and manage them. Here +were farmer men and farmer women in the making. What more natural than +to organize a Department of Agriculture?</p> + +<p>A Department of Agriculture in a school? Yes, truly; and a short winter +course for farm boys and girls who could not come the year round, and a +school experiment station with school farms for the children, and a live +farmers’ institute that met in the school and was fed and cared for by +the Department of Domestic Science, and all sorts of courses built up +around the needs of the children and of the community.</p> + + +<h4><a name="XI_II" id="XI_II"></a>II Getting the Janitor in Line</h4> + +<p>As a result of this method of course-making the school janitor found +himself on the instruction staff of the school. One day a couple of the +short course boys were in the engine-room while the janitor was +repairing a defective pipe in the heating plant. The boys lent a hand in +the work; and one of them, having a practical<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span> turn of mind, suggested +that he would like to learn more about pipe-fitting in order to install +a water system on the farm at home. The janitor repeated the remark to +Mr. Cederstrom, who called the boys out and had a talk with them +regarding the possibilities of the plan.</p> + +<p>The outlook for the course was not bright. Every instructor in the +mechanical department was working on full time. Only one way out +remained and that way led to the janitor.</p> + +<p>The janitor was a busy man during the day, but his evenings were +comparatively free. After some parleying he agreed to give a course in +elementary plumbing and steam-fitting on Tuesday and Thursday evenings +at seven-thirty. So the boys came to school in the evening, and under +the direction of the school janitor learned how to install a water +system in their homes. Their work for the year consisted in making a +model water system for a house, a barn and the other farm buildings. The +materials for this course were picked up from the school’s scrap-heap.</p> + +<p>Perhaps some people will not understand the spirit of it—getting the +janitor in line to give a course in steam-fitting from the odds and ends +that are found on the scrap-heap. Such a proceeding is unconventional in +the extreme. But, on the other hand, here were boys who wished to know +how they might go back and improve their homes. Who shall say that the +imparting of such knowledge is not the business of a real school?</p> + + +<h4><a name="XI_III" id="XI_III"></a>III The Department of Agriculture</h4> + +<p>Let us go back for a moment to the organization of the Department of +Agriculture. The school at Sleepy Eye have available what every other +school should have—five acres of tillable ground. This tract at Sleepy +Eye<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span> is devoted to tests and experimental work, to flower gardens and to +individual school gardens—one for each child who applies.</p> + +<p>The experimental work and tests are carried on exactly as they would be +at a state experiment station. In the section of Minnesota surrounding +Sleepy Eye, corn is the great staple crop. Therefore on the +demonstration grounds of the Department of Agriculture, Independent +School District No. 24, Sleepy Eye, Minnesota, they are growing a number +of plots of corn, each plot variously planted, fertilized, cultivated, +and cared for, so that the children may learn at first-hand scientific +methods of discovering the best kinds of crop, and the best ways of +handling a crop in their own locality.</p> + +<p>The allotment of the school gardens carried with it instruction in +engineering and in civics at the same time that the bonds between home +and school were cemented. The part of the school land that was to be +devoted to school gardens was turned over to the older boys, who +surveyed it in exactly the same way that the United States government +surveyed the homestead tracts. The plot was laid out in towns and +ranges. The sections were staked and numbered. Then the children who +wished to take up plots went into the newly surveyed territory, picked +their plots, and filed an application with the land commissioner for a +plot, stating the section, town and range. After that a line formed and +the plots (20×20 feet) were allotted. No child was permitted to take up +an allotment unless he had the endorsement of a parent or guardian. The +form on which this endorsement was secured was as follows:<br /><br /></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="center"> +Name________________________ Grade__________________<br /> +_______ Sec____ Town______________ Range____________<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span></p> + + +<p class="center">APPLICATION FOR LAND IN PUBLIC SCHOOL GARDEN, DEPT. OF AGR., SLEEPY EYE +HIGH SCHOOL</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“It is assumed that the parent or guardian who endorses this +application will co-operate with the school authorities and have +the applicant care for and weed said land during the growing +season, and devote at least two and a half hours each week this +summer to the agricultural work as may be directed or required +by the Director of the Department of Agriculture, Mr. Haw.</p> + +<p>“I hereby apply for.......... Sec.......... Town........... Range.......... in +the Public School Garden of Sleepy Eye High School, and will +cultivate and care for same as may be directed by the proper +authorities, and will keep a careful record of the returns +therefrom and report same on or before Oct. 20, 1911. I will do +the additional agricultural work that may be directed as +indicated above.</p> + +<p> +..................................... Applicant.<br /> +Endorsed by ............................ Parent or Guardian.â€<br /><br /> +</p></div></div> + +<p>The form carried on its opposite side statements showing the character +of crop and its value, the amount paid for seeds and an itemized +statement of the returns. The school gardens proved an admirable +success. The children had learned the details of a great historical +event in their own state—the giving out of free land; the boys had +conducted a miniature survey; rivalry had been developed in the +competition over plots; the gardens, laid out side by side, served as a +splendid object lesson in quality of work; no boy or girl could allege a +teacher’s unfairness from an untilled, weedy plot; the parents were made +to feel that the school was doing something practical for their +children; the children were taught a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span> simple form of accounting and +cost-keeping; and, best of all, they were made to feel their citizenship +in the school.</p> + +<p>The Department of Agriculture has, in addition to its experimental farm, +a well-equipped laboratory, in which tests and experiments are carried +on. Sleepy Eye is located in a dairy section; therefore one of the chief +functions of this laboratory has been the testing of milk. Any farmer +may bring milk samples and have the Babcock test applied to determine +the percentage of butter fat which an individual cow is yielding.</p> + + +<h4><a name="XI_IV" id="XI_IV"></a>IV A Short Course for Busy People</h4> + +<p>In the neighborhood of Sleepy Eye, as in many other places, there are +many boys and girls who cannot attend school throughout the year, but +who would welcome a chance to go to school in the winter months. +Agricultural colleges have recognized this need by the organization of +“short courses†during the winter months. Only a few children can go to +college, however. Lack of preparation and lack of funds compel them to +remain at home. It was for them that the school at Sleepy Eye organized +a short course like that given in the agricultural colleges, extending +from the end of November to the middle of March. Of the pupils attending +this course, some of the boys are as old as thirty-seven, and some of +the girls as young as fifteen; yet all come, eager to find out some of +the things which the school has to teach them.</p> + +<p>The agricultural work of the short course centered around the +agricultural problems of the Brown County Farm. Planting, milk and cream +testing, work in seed testing and germination, and treatment of seeds +for fungus growths, corn judging, and similar topics covered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span> the work +of the term. The short course boys had already learned many lessons in +the practical school of farm work. The school at Sleepy Eye offered them +in addition the knowledge which science has recently accumulated +regarding the work of the farm.</p> + +<p>As the successful farmer must be a trained mechanic, the short course +laid great stress on manual training. The boys were taught how to handle +and care for tools, how to frame a building, how to make eveners, +hayracks, watering troughs, wagon boxes, and similar useful farm +articles. In the blacksmith shop the simpler problems in forging were +covered, including the making of hooks, clevises, cold chisels and other +small tools.</p> + +<p>While the boys were engaged in agricultural and mechanical work the +girls took domestic science. In addition to the elementary work in +cooking and sewing there were advanced courses in dress designing, so +planned as to prepare a girl to work out her own patterns and make up +her own materials.</p> + +<p>Let no one suppose that the short course neglected academic work. +Indeed, it was originally intended to enable boys and girls who felt too +big for the local school, or who had no time to take the entire term +there, to review common school subjects. The courses in industrial work, +in agriculture and in domestic science were offered in addition to these +regular school studies.</p> + +<p>The proof of the pudding is in the eating. The boys and girls who take +the short course for the first year come back in considerable numbers to +take a second and a third year of work during the winter months. The +short course is a success, because it gives the boys and girls who take +it training and knowledge which they would not otherwise acquire.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span></p> + + +<h4><a name="XI_V" id="XI_V"></a>V Letting the Boys Do It</h4> + +<p>The school at Sleepy Eye needed a farm building on the school farm. The +short course boys and some of the older boys in the school were anxious +to learn. What more natural procedure than for the school to buy the +lumber and have the boys do the work? Exactly this proceeding was +followed, and the pupils erected the building which they needed to carry +on the applied work of the school.</p> + +<p>The mechanical work of the school is splendidly organized. First of all, +the pupils built a large part of the equipment themselves. Five simple +forges, made by the students of pineboards and concrete, form an +excellent shop equipment, besides giving the boys who did the work an +inkling of the ease with which a forge can be erected in connection with +the tool-house on the farm. The boys built a turning lathe, on which the +wood turning of the school is done. Besides the shop-work there is a +well-organized course in mechanical drawing. The whole department is +prepared to teach boys, particularly farm boys, some of the things which +they will most need in the mechanical work on the farms.</p> + +<p>The mechanical courses are open to the boys in the grades, as well as to +the high school and the short course pupils. The work is graded, and may +be followed through the high school course.</p> + + +<h4><a name="XI_VI" id="XI_VI"></a>VI A Look at the Domestic Science</h4> + +<p>While the boys are in the shops the girls are occupied with domestic +science. A well-equipped laboratory and sewing-room furnish the basis +for some thorough work. The Domestic Science Department is one to which +Mr. Cederstrom points with justifiable pride. “Of all my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span> constructive +work since coming here,†he says, “I probably take my greatest pride in +our Domestic Science Department, where elementary and advanced work is +offered in cooking and in household economy.â€</p> + +<p>Because the space in the school was small, and the demand for +instruction large, Mr. Cederstrom planned the domestic science tables +himself, and superintended their building. Again the effectiveness of +the school’s work is shown by its results. With the modest equipment +which the funds and space available provided, the girls in the Domestic +Science Department each year serve a dinner to the farmers and farmers’ +wives attending the annual farmers’ institute held in the school in +February. On one occasion the department baked almost half a cord of +bread, roasted one hundred and forty pounds of beef, and fed five +hundred and seventeen persons at one dinner.</p> + +<p>The sewing work includes a complete course in dressmaking. Students are +required to make patterns from pictures selected in fashion magazines. +These patterns are then used in cutting out the garments, which the +girls themselves make up.</p> + +<p>Each girl in the High School is required to take at least one year each +of cooking and of sewing. These courses occupy five periods a week. An +additional year in each course is optional. Most of the girls eagerly +elect it. Mr. Cederstrom takes a very practical view of such educational +matters. “Our girls like the domestic science work,†he says. “They take +as much pride in bringing to my office a good loaf of bread, or a +well-prepared dish of vegetables or meat as they do in being able to +give a perfect demonstration of a theorem in geometry, or a perfect +conjugation or declension of a Latin word. Possibly ten years from now +they may<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span> have more demand upon their ability to prepare a square meal +for a hungry life companion, or to cut out a dress or apron for a +younger member of the family than they will have need of doing some of +the other things which I have just mentioned.â€</p> + +<p>They do not teach domestic science for its own sake out in Sleepy Eye; +they see farther ahead than that. Mr. Cederstrom is making his work +practical, because, as he says, “We are anxious to do what little we can +toward making our girls more efficient and capable as housekeepers, +wives, and possibly as mothers.â€</p> + + +<h4><a name="XI_VII" id="XI_VII"></a>VII How It Works Out</h4> + +<p>There are two questions that naturally arise: First, what is the effect +of this work on the children? Second, what is its effect on the farmers? +Both questions must be answered briefly, though the answers to both +might be followed out through pages of illustrative detail.</p> + +<p>The children like the school at Sleepy Eye. The boys and girls come +early and stay late. The school doors open at eight o’clock and are not +closed until dark. There are always pupils there from the beginning to +the end of that period. The children are not interested in the applied +work alone. Their interest in that has led them very often to an +interest in some of the academic studies toward which they had no +particular inclination.</p> + +<p>The homes in Sleepy Eye are also interested in the school. As one woman +remarked: “My girls like to do work about the house now; they never did +before.†School work which gives girls a new desire and a new viewpoint +on the work in the home is a step, and a long one, toward building +sounder homes and stronger family ties. There are some Sleepy Eye homes +in which the interest of the boys in the school shops has led their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span> +parents to buy benches and tools which the children may use at home.</p> + +<p>The school at Sleepy Eye has interested the farmers. It has persuaded +them that high grade seed is better than mongrel seed. Consequently the +farmers are shelling more bushels of corn to the acre planted. The +school has persuaded the farmers that well-bred cattle are more +profitable than mongrel cattle. Consequently the farmers are raising the +standard of their herds. When the farmers come into Sleepy Eye they go +to the school. Perhaps they have milk to be tested; perhaps they are +looking for suggestions regarding soil or blight; perhaps they want to +know the latest facts about the scale or rust; perhaps they want some +advice about farm implements. In any case they go to the school.</p> + +<p>The farmers have been led to the school through the children. The boys +have gone home to their fathers with suggestions and improvements of +inestimable value in the management of the farm. The girls have gone +home to their mothers with practical ideas on the running of the +household. These demonstrations of school efficiency have done more than +argument or persuasion ever could hope to do in convincing the fathers +and mothers of the usefulness of the school.</p> + + +<h4><a name="XI_VIII" id="XI_VIII"></a>VIII Theoretical and Practical</h4> + +<p>The work in mechanics seems to interfere in no essential particular with +the regular academic work of the school. The boys and girls are +interested and enthusiastic. That counts for a great deal. Then, too, +boys and girls come to school for the mechanical work who would not come +at all if the mechanical work were not there. The academic work which +such boys take is clear gain. Through the mechanical work many pupils +be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span>come interested in the school, and the school means, for all pupils, +academic as well as applied work.</p> + +<p>“We do not discount those parts of an education that were once the sum +total of the work in every high school,†Mr. Cederstrom says. “They are +all offered and taken by the students. We are trying to give in addition +to these academic branches the kind of education which will appeal to +the children as being of a common-sense order.†There is in the high +school a Latin Course, a Scientific Course, beside the Agricultural +Course and the Industrial Course. All of the students are required to +take this academic work. Many, in addition, take the industrial and +agricultural work, even when they do not receive credit in their +academic course. Each high school student is allowed two periods a day +in laboratory work, shop-work, or some other form of applied education. +In addition to those periods, the students may work in the shops or +laboratory after school, if they please. Many of them get their applied +education in that way.</p> + +<p>How great is the fire that a little spark kindles! It was more than a +thousand miles away that I first heard of the school at Sleepy Eye. It +happened in this way. The clock had scarcely announced that it was high +noon when a group of men drew their chairs up to a dinner table +generously loaded with country hotel fare. There were two school +directors in this happen-so party, a carter, a salesman, a lawyer, a +farmer and two teachers, who talked with a professional twang. The +salesman listened impatiently to the educational clap-trap, watching for +an opening between phrases. When at last the loophole appeared:</p> + +<p>“Gentlemen,†said he, “you’re interested in schools? Then you ought to +see some real schools. Did you ever<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span> go to a school to listen to a +phonograph?†Then, turning to the farmers: “Did you ever go to school to +get your horses shod? You go to school for both in Sleepy Eye, +Minnesota. They’re the greatest schools I have ever seen. They run from +seven in the morning till eight at night, and accommodate every kid that +wants an education. Gentlemen, if you want to see real schools go to +Sleepy Eye.â€<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h3> + +<h2>THE SOUTH FOR THE NEW EDUCATION</h2> + + +<h4>I A Dream of Empire</h4> + +<p>A keen Atlanta business man leaned forward on his chair and spoke +eagerly. “Yes, sir,†he exclaimed, “the world is ours. We have the +biggest, finest batch of undeveloped resources in the country—perhaps +on the planet. Iron, coal, stone, timber, power—our hills are full of +them, so full that we have never even inventoried our treasure-house. +Our possibilities are beyond the power of words, and we’ve got to live +up to them.â€</p> + +<p>This man knew Georgia and the South. He had helped, and still is helping +to convert the iron, coal, timber, and water-power into Southern +prosperity. He was still unsatisfied.</p> + +<p>“The trouble with us is, we can’t go fast enough,†he admitted. “Do you +know why? Do you know the biggest burden we have to carry—the most +determined enemy we have to fight? Well, sir, <a name="Page_220t" id="Page_220t"></a><a href="#Page_220tn">it’s</a> ignorance—the +ignorance of the common man about his farm or his trade; the ignorance +of the business man about outside things; the ignorance of the teachers +who are supposed to enlighten us.†He leaned forward again. “That sounds +strong, doesn’t it? But it’s gospel.â€</p> + +<p>I reminded him of the rapidity with which the South was forging ahead in +its educational activities. He threw his head back proudly. “Of course,†+he cried, “the experiment stations, the colleges, the high schools,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span> the +club movement, and all that—of course we’re going ahead. I’m not +speaking of that. My point is that we must wake up to two things. First +of all, we must never make the mistakes that you did in the North when +you built up your educational system. That means no pedantry, or +classical snobbery. We mustn’t go that way. Our way is plain though. I +see it more clearly every time I think the matter over—we must train +the intelligence of the Southern people.â€</p> + +<p>He continued, in his enthusiastic mood. “Yes, there is a great future +for the South. Its resources make a future possible; but unless those +resources are intelligently used, our prosperity will not go very deep, +or reach very far. We must take the people with us.â€</p> + +<p>This man’s view typifies the educational vision that is sweeping over +the South. “We must take the people with us,†he said. There is nothing +novel in the idea; but coming as it did from a representative business +man, it carried weight and conviction.</p> + +<p>Another thing he said in the same connection enforced his argument. +“They talk about the race problem in the South,†he said. “That is, the +old generation does. We younger men are not so much concerned about the +race problem as we are concerned about efficiency in industry and in +agriculture. The races are here to stay; we cannot change that if we +would. Meanwhile, all of us, whites as well as blacks, are slovenly in +our farming, indifferent in our business transactions, and hopelessly +behind in our methods of conducting affairs. From top to bottom we need +trained intelligence. That, more than anything else, will solve the +South’s problems.â€<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span></p> + + +<h4><a name="XII_II" id="XII_II"></a>II Finding the Way</h4> + +<p>The step is a short one from a vision of trained intelligence to a +demand for effective education. Throughout the South, the will to +progress is everywhere in evidence, and with unerring accuracy, one +community after another is turning to this as the way.</p> + +<p>There is no Southern city in which the agitation for increased +educational activity is not being pushed with vigor and intensity. On +all hands there appears the result of a conviction that the only means +by which the effectiveness of the South can be maintained and increased, +lie along the path of increased educational opportunities. The South, if +it is to fulfill the greatness of its promise, must remodel its +educational system in the interests of a larger South, as the West has +remodeled its educational system in the interest of a larger West. The +notable State universities of the Middle and Far West, the Normal +Schools, the prevalent system of education, have been felt, and are now +being felt, in the progressive, efficient, Western population. Nothing +less than a generally educated public could have made the West in the +brief years that have elapsed since it was a wilderness. Nothing save +general education can make the resources of the South yield up their +greatest advantage to the Southern people.</p> + +<p>The time for traditional formalism has passed in the South, as it has +passed in every other progressive community. Whatever the needs of the +community may be, those needs must be met through some form of public +education. In the South the most pressing need appears in the demand for +intelligent farming. For decades the tenant farmers, largely negroes, +cultivated<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span> their farms as their fathers had cultivated. They raised +cotton because the raising of cotton offered the path of least +resistance. Farm animals were scarce, because the farm animals only came +with surplus cash, and surplus cash was scarce indeed in districts where +the tenant farmers lived through the year on the credit obtained from +the prospective cotton crops. There was little corn raised, because the +people did not understand the need for raising corn, nor did they +realize the financial possibilities of the Southern corn crop. In a +word, the agricultural South lacked the knowledge which modern +scientific agriculture has brought.</p> + +<p>The past generation has seen a revolution in Southern agriculture, +because of the revolution which has occurred in Southern agricultural +education. Led by the experiment stations and universities, the South +has undertaken to reorganize its system of living from the land.</p> + +<p>The Atlanta banker fully realized the need for culture. He was himself a +cultured gentleman; but he also saw that before the people of the South +could have culture, they must have an economic system directed with +sufficient intelligence to supply the necessaries of life, which must +always be taken for granted before the possibilities of culture are +realized. Cultural education comes after, and not before, education for +intelligent and direct vocational activity.</p> + +<p>During the educational revolution of the past twenty-five years, no +section of the country has thrown itself into the foreground of +educational progress with more vigor and with greater earnestness and +zeal than that displayed in the South. In certain directions the South +has proved a leader in the inauguration and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span> administration of new +activities. In other directions the Southern States have followed +actively and energetically.</p> + +<p>A traveler through the New South stumbles unavoidably upon countless +illustrations of the part which modern education is playing in Southern +life. Individuals, families, communities, are being re-made by the new +education.</p> + + +<h4><a name="XII_III" id="XII_III"></a>III Jem’s Father</h4> + +<p>Jem wasn’t a good boy, but he was interested in his school. He was one +of those fortunate boys who lived in a county that had been possessed by +the corn club idea, and the corn club was the thing which had given Jem +his school interest.</p> + +<p>Jem never took to studies. Each year he had told his mother that “there +weren’t no use in goin’ back to that there school again.†Persistently +she had sent him back, until one year when Jem found a reason for going.</p> + +<p>A new teacher came to Jem’s school—a young man fresh from normal +school, full of enthusiasm, energy, and new ideas. The boys felt from +the start that he was their friend, and before many weeks had elapsed, +the community began to feel his presence. This new teacher was +particularly enthusiastic over the “club idea.†“We must get the boys +and girls doing something together†he kept saying to his classes.</p> + +<p>The year wore on, but interest in the school did not flag, because all +through the winter months there were entertainments, parents’ meetings, +literary meetings, spelling bees, reading hours, and other evening +activities. In fact, the time came when there was a light in the +school-house three or four nights in each week.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span></p> + +<p>Toward spring the new teacher began to push the “club idea.†He started +with the boys, and, as luck would have it, picked out Jem. “Jem,†he +said one day, “I want you to stay after school, I want to speak to you a +minute.†Jem stayed, not knowing exactly what was coming. When the rest +of the pupils had tumbled out of the school door, and disappeared along +the muddy road, the teacher and Jem sat down together.</p> + +<p>“Jem,†said the teacher, “we ought to have a corn club in this school.â€</p> + +<p>Jem looked up doggedly, but gave no sign of interest or enthusiasm.</p> + +<p>“You see,†the teacher said, “it’s this way. Farming isn’t all that it +might be around here. People raise things the way they have always been +raised. Our county superintendent has an idea. He proposes to teach the +farmers in this county how to raise corn.â€</p> + +<p>Jem looked skeptical. “Are you to do the teaching?†he asked.</p> + +<p>“No,†was the answer, “you are.â€</p> + +<p>“I?†said Jem.</p> + +<p>“Yes,†said the teacher, “you and the other boys in the school.â€</p> + +<p>Jem scratched his head. “I ain’t never taught no one nothing in my +life,†he commented.</p> + +<p>“It’s this way,†the teacher went on. “Up at Washington and out at the +State College they have been doing a lot of thinking and working with +corn. They found, for instance, that if you pick seed corn carefully, +you get a better crop than if you are careless in seed selection. They +have also found that if you follow certain rules about planting and +cultivation you get a better crop. For years the men at the Experiment +Station and at Washington talked about these things in Farmers’<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span> +Bulletins. They established experiment farms, and demonstration farms, +too. Lately they have been doing something more, and something which I +think is better than anything so far—they have decided to have the boys +teach their fathers how to raise corn.â€</p> + +<p>“Do you mean to say,†asked Jem, “that I could teach Dad anything about +corn-raisin’?â€</p> + +<p>“Yes,†said the teacher, “you can, and, what is more, you will, won’t +you?â€</p> + +<p>“Well,†said Jem, “I dunno.â€</p> + +<p>“Here is what we have to do,†said the teacher. “This year the county +superintendent is going to offer prizes for the boy with the best acre +of corn. He sends out rules. You have to plough a certain way, plant a +certain way, and cultivate a certain way. If you do not follow the rules +you are not allowed to stay in the contest. Now I’ll tell you what I +want to do. The boys in this school are as smart, if not smarter, than +the boys in any other school in the country; so I guess it is up to us +to get some of those prizes right here at home.â€</p> + +<p>Jem was visibly interested. “Money prizes?†he asked.</p> + +<p>“Yes, money prizes,†said the teacher. “The first prize will be fifty +dollars.â€</p> + +<p>Jem’s eyes opened wide. “I’m in for that,†he said with conviction.</p> + +<p>That night, when Jem sat down to supper, he broached the corn +proposition to his father.</p> + +<p>“Shucks,†his father exclaimed. “You raise an acre of corn? Why you +wouldn’t get twenty-five bushels!â€</p> + +<p>“Twenty-five,†said Jem, contemptuously. “I’d get a hundred.â€</p> + +<p>“A hundred,†said his father. “Here, look here, boy,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span> I have been +farming this land for thirty odd years, and the best I ever done on an +acre of corn was seventy bushels. I’ll tell you what, though,†he added +conclusively, “this here talk about corn clubs makes me tired. You and +your hundred bushels! I was looking over the paper when it came in this +noon, and I saw a piece about a chap over by Southport with over a +hundred bushels to the acre. Do you know what I’m goin’ to do tonight? +I’m goin’ to write that editor a letter, and tell him that any paper +that publishes lies like that ain’t fit for my family to see. This +year’s subscription ain’t run out, but they don’t need to send me the +rest. I’ll get a paper somewhere else.â€</p> + +<p>Despite home opposition, Jem persisted and prevailed. His father gave +him an acre grudgingly, but it was a good acre. And when, following the +rules which he and the other boys who had agreed to enter the contest +read over with the teacher, he disked his land and ploughed his narrow, +deep furrows, he listened, not without misgivings, to the remarks which +his elder brother passed at his expense.</p> + +<p>“Say, Jem,†this brother remarked, “you have spent three times as much +time on that acre as any acre of corn raised in this county was ever +worth. Are you diggin’ graves for ’possums?â€</p> + +<p>When, later in the season, Jem cultivated with persistent regularity, he +was forced to listen to similar comments. Jem wasn’t good at repartee; +so he said nothing; but, sustained by the encouragement of the new +teacher, who came to see his acre every week, Jem followed the rules to +the letter.</p> + +<p>He had his reward at harvest time. When the ears first set it became +apparent that Jem had a good crop. As they developed, the goodness of +the crop became<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span> more manifest; but when the acre had been harvested, +put through the sheller and bagged, and Jem had stowed in his pocket a +certificate of “ninety-six bushels on one acre,†it was time for some +explanations.</p> + +<p>“Jem,†said his father at the supper table on the evening of that +memorable day when Jem’s corn went through the sheller, and his +certificate showed ninety-six bushels, “I wrote a letter to that editor, +and sent him next year’s subscription in advance.â€</p> + + +<h4><a name="XII_IV" id="XII_IV"></a>IV Club Life Militant</h4> + +<p>The experience of Jem’s father has been duplicated many times by parents +and communities during the past ten years of club growth in the South. +The school, working through the children, has educated fathers, mothers, +villages, and whole counties.</p> + +<p>All of the agencies of government,—local, State, and national,—have +cooperated to make the children’s clubs one of the leading agencies in +developing that trained intelligence which is so great an asset in the +prosperity of any community. Thanks to the tireless efforts of men like +William H. Smith, the children’s clubs have become one of the most +aggressive factors in educating rural communities to higher standards of +efficiency. There are many kinds of clubs—corn clubs, potato clubs, +tomato clubs, pig clubs. Anything which the children can raise is a +legitimate object of club activity. The work in the South started with +corn clubs.</p> + +<p>The corn-club idea in Mississippi grew out of an educational experience +of Professor William H. Smith.<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> For years Professor Smith had taught, +in a mildly progressive way, the time-honored subjects which were +included <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span>in the study-course of the rural school. Two of Professor +Smith’s students, a boy of twenty and a girl of seventeen, left school; +and they left, as the boy told Professor Smith very frankly, because the +school taught them very little that would be of use later on in the work +which they would be called upon to do. This boy expected to grow cotton; +the girl expected to marry the boy, manage his domestic affairs and +attend to the many duties which fall to the lot of women on a farm.</p> + +<p>When he left school, the boy put it to Professor Smith in this way: “I +am goin’ to be a farmer. I ain’t fitted to be nothing else, and book +learnin’ ain’t helpin’ me none. It’s just a waste of time. I’ve got to +clear land and work it into a farm. If I was goin’ to be a bookkeeper or +an engineer, or somethin’, what you are teachin’ me here might help; but +I can’t remember that I have ever learned a thing since I got the hang +how to figure the interest on a mortgage, that will be of any account to +me on a farm. Almost all the boys has got to be a farmer like me. You +know, professor, it appears to me like these schools for the people +ought to be teachin’ the children of the people how to make a livin’ on +the farm—how to make life better and easier, instead of just makin’ us +plum disgusted with ourselves.â€</p> + +<p>This experience, standing out among a multitude of similar experiences, +led Professor Smith to an interest in some form of educational work that +would help boys and girls in their lives on the farm. The outcome of his +thinking and experimenting, combined with the thinking and experimenting +of many another capable educational leader, is the club idea for boys +and girls alike.</p> + +<p>There was a real need for the corn club. For the year<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span> 1899 the total +corn area in Alabama was 2,743,060 acres. On these acres the farmers +secured an average of 12.7 bushels per acre. Ten years later, in 1909, +the total acreage had decreased to 2,572,092, and the per acre yield had +decreased to 11.9 bushels per acre. Here was a decrease of 170,968 acres +in corn; of 4,367,310 bushels in the corn crop; and of .8 of a bushel in +the average yield per acre. The boys’ corn club movement was started in +Alabama in 1909. That year two hundred and sixty-five boys were +enrolled. The average per acre yield of corn in the State was 11.9 +bushels. The next year the enrollment of boys reached twenty-one +hundred; the total yield increased more than sixty per cent.; and the +average number of bushels per acre rose to eighteen. The figures for +1911 and 1912 show an increase, though less extensive, in the total +acreage and the total yield of corn for each year.</p> + +<p>Southern land will grow corn. Properly treated, it will better a yield +of twelve bushels per acre, five, ten, and even fifteen-fold. The +leaders of Southern agricultural education knew this. They knew, +furthermore, that the betterment could never be brought about until the +farmers were convinced that it was possible. How could they be shown? +The Farmers’ Bulletin had a place; the experiment farm had a place; but +if it were only possible to make every farm an experiment farm!</p> + +<p>The way lay through the boys. They could be induced to organize +miniature experiments in scores of farms in every county, and then the +farmers would see!</p> + +<p>Backed by a carefully worked out organization, the authorities set out +with the deliberate purpose of educating the farmer through his son. If +his corn yield was low, he would learn how to get a larger yield. If he +raised no corn, he would learn of the spot-cash value<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span> of corn. Boys +were organized into clubs; directions were given; prizes were offered, +and the boys went to work with a will. For the most part they took one +acre.</p> + +<p>When compared to the yield on surrounding acres, the corn crops secured +by the boys are little short of phenomenal. In Pike County, Alabama, +where the number of boys engaging in corn club contests increased from +one in 1910 to two hundred and seventy in 1912, the average number of +bushels per acre grown by the boys rose from 50.5 to 85.3. In the entire +State there were one hundred and thirty-seven boys who made over a +hundred bushels per acre each in 1911. The average per acre for each of +these boys was one hundred and twenty-seven bushels, and the total +profit on their corn crop was $12,500.</p> + +<p>Records made by individual boys through the Southern States run very +high. Claude McDonald, of Hamer, S. C., raised 210<small><sup>4</sup>/<sub>7</sub></small> bushels at a cost +of 33.3¢ a bushel. Junius Hill, of Attalla, Ala., raised 212<small><sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub></small> +bushels. Ben Leath, of Kensington, Ga., raised 214<small><sup>5</sup>/<sub>7</sub></small> bushels. John +Bowen, of Grenada, Miss., raised 221<small><sup>1</sup>/<sub>5</sub></small> bushels. Eber A. Kimbrough, +Alexander City, Ala., raised 224<small><sup>3</sup>/<sub>4</sub></small> bushels; and Bebbie Beeson, +Monticello, Miss., raised 227<small><sup>1</sup>/<sub>16</sub></small> bushels.<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> These boys were all +State prize winners.</p> + +<p>There are several things worthy of note about these record yields. +Practically all of the high yields were made on deeply ploughed, widely +separated rows. The record made by Bennie Beeson (227<small><sup>1</sup>/<sub>16</sub></small> bushels, at a +cost of fourteen cents per bushel) was secured on dark, upland soil, +with a clay sub-soil, ploughing to a depth of ten inches, rows three +feet apart, hills six inches apart, with <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span>ten cultivations. Beeson used +5<small><sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub></small> tons of manure and eight dollars’ worth of other fertilizer on his +acre. The seed corn was New Era. Barnie Thomas, who grew 225 bushels on +rich, sandy loam, ploughed nine inches, planted his rows three and +one-half feet apart, and kept the hills ten inches apart. He cultivated +six times, and selected his own seed from the field. Many of the boys +making the fine records developed and selected their own seed. One boy, +with an acre yield of 124.9 bushels, cleared six hundred and ninety-five +dollars, counting prizes. Another boy, with a yield of 97<small><sup>4</sup>/<sub>5</sub></small> bushels, +reports that his father’s yield was thirty bushels. John Bowen, with a +yield of 221<small><sup>1</sup>/<sub>5</sub></small> bushels, reports the yield on nearby acres as forty +bushels. Arthur Hill, with 180<small><sup>3</sup>/<sub>5</sub></small> bushels, reports the nearby yields as +twenty bushels.</p> + +<p>Such figures, uncertified, would challenge the credulity of the +uninitiated. The land on which these record yields were secured had been +raising twenty, forty, and fifty bushels of corn to the acre. Over great +sections, the per acre average was well under twenty. Into this +desolation of agricultural inefficiency, a few thousand school boys +entered. Under careful supervision and proper guidance, with little +additional expenditure of money or of time, they produced results wholly +unbelievable to the old-time farmer. Yet he saw the crop, husked, and +watched it through the sheller. There was no magic and no chicanery. He +had learned a lesson.</p> + +<p>The records cited above are exceptionally high. There were hundreds of +others almost equally good. “Twenty-one Georgia club members from the +seventh congressional district alone grew 2,641 bushels at an average +cost of 23 cents per bushel; 19 boys in Gordon County, Georgia, average +90 bushels, 10 of them making 1,058<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span> bushels. The 10 boys who stood +highest in Georgia averaged 169.9 bushels and made a net profit of more +than $100 each, besides prizes won. In Alabama 100 boys average 97 +bushels at an average cost of 27 cents. In Monroe County, Alabama, 25 +boys averaged 78 bushels. In Yazoo County, Mississippi, 21 boys averaged +111.6 bushels at an average cost of 19.7 cents. In Lee County, +Mississippi, 17 boys averaged 82 bushels at an average cost of 21 cents. +Sixty-five boys in Mississippi averaged 109.9 bushels at an average cost +of 25 cents. Twenty Mississippi boys averaged 140.6 bushels at an +average cost of 23 cents. Ninety-two boys in Louisiana grew 5,791 +bushels on 92 acres; 10 of these boys had above 100 bushels each, +although the weather conditions were very unfavorable in that State. In +North Carolina 100 boys averaged 99 bushels. In the same State 432 boys +averaged 63 bushels. In Buncombe County, North Carolina, 10 boys +averaged 88 bushels. In Sussex County, Virginia, 16 boys averaged 82 +bushels. Fifteen boys in the vicinity of Memphis, Tenn., where the +business men contributed about $3,000 to aid the work, averaged 127.4 +bushels at an average cost of 28 cents per bushel. Many other records in +other States were equally good in view of the fact that a drought +prevailed very generally throughout the South in 1911.<a name="Page_233t" id="Page_233t"></a><a href="#Page_233tn">["]</a><a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a></p> + +<p>Such returns challenge the attention of the most hidebound. These boys +got results that exceeded anything that had ever been heard of in their +communities. The old folks who had scoffed; the wise-acres whose advice +was not taken; and the “I told you so†farmers who had uttered their +predictions, all stood aside, while the boys, pointer in hand, taught +their respective communities one of the best lessons they had ever +learned.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span></p> + + +<h4><a name="XII_V" id="XII_V"></a>V Canning Clubs</h4> + +<p>Parallel with the boys’ corn clubs are the girls’ canning clubs. If the +boys could grow corn (in a number of cases the corn contests were won by +girls), why might it not be possible to have the girls do something +along parallel lines? The idea found expression in the girls’ tomato +clubs and similar organizations. During 1910, three hundred and +twenty-five girls were enrolled in such clubs in Virginia and South +Carolina. Dr. Knapp and his fellow workers decided that one-tenth of an +acre would be enough for a good garden. Each girl was urged to plant +some other kind of vegetable in addition to her tomatoes, and to can +surplus fruit. In 1911, more than three thousand girls, in eight +different States, had joined clubs and planted their gardens. By 1912 +the number had grown to twenty-three thousand girls in twelve States. +Many of the girls put up more than five hundred quart cans of tomatoes +from their plots, besides ketchup, pickles, chow-chow, preserves, and +other products. Quite a number of girls put up more than a thousand +quart cans, and one girl put up fifteen hundred quart cans. Some of the +girls, in addition to the prizes, had a net profit of as much as a +hundred dollars on their gardens.</p> + +<p>The United States Bureau of Plant Industry sets forth the object of the +girls’ demonstration work as follows:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“(1) To encourage rural families to provide purer and better +food at a lower cost, and utilize the surplus and otherwise +waste products of the orchard and garden, and make the poultry +yard an effective part of the farm economy.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span></p> + +<p>(2) To stimulate interest and wholesome cooperation among +members of the family in the home.</p> + +<p>(3) To provide some means by which girls may earn money at home, +and, at the same time, get the education and viewpoint necessary +for the ideal farm life.</p> + +<p>(4) To open the way for practical demonstrations in home +economics.</p> + +<p>(5) To furnish earnest teachers a plan for aiding their pupils +and helping their communities.â€<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a></p></div> + + +<h4><a name="XII_VI" id="XII_VI"></a>VI Recognition Day for Boys and Girls</h4> + +<p>The most astonishing thing about the club activity is the recognition +which it has won wherever it has been worked out on an extensive basis. +The reason for this general recognition is quite obvious, and its effect +is no less stimulating.</p> + +<p>Public officials and business men have vied with one another in their +efforts to reward the winners of county and State club contests. The +same bulletin which records the astonishing figures on corn yields, +tells about the things that were done for the 56,840 boys who were +members of corn clubs. Fifty-two Georgia boys received diplomas signed +by the governor of the State and other officials, for producing more +than a hundred bushels per acre each, at an average cost of less than +thirty cents per bushel. Business men and citizens generally subscribed +liberally money, free railroad transportation, and trips to State +capitals. In 1911 the total value of the prizes offered in the South to +the boys’ corn clubs approximated fifty thousand dollars. In Oklahoma, +one thousand dollars in gold was offered to the one hundred and twenty +boys making the best record in that State.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span> The State prize winners were +sent to Washington for a week, where they were received at the White +House by the President, and at the Capitol by the Speaker of the House +of Representatives. They were presented with special cards of admission +to the Senate and House of Representatives, and, when visiting Congress, +they were presented to their Senators and Congressmen. By special +invitation these distinguished visitors appeared before the Committee on +Agriculture at the House of Representatives. They also visited the +office of the Secretary of Agriculture. They were photographed, and +large diplomas bearing the seal of the Department and the signature of +the Secretary were awarded to them.</p> + +<p>One does not wonder at the widespread recognition accorded these boys, +in view of the fact that their efforts have been responsible for an +immense increase in the business prosperity of their respective States. +Once more have educators demonstrated the possibilities of teaching +parents through the education of children.</p> + + +<h4><a name="XII_VII" id="XII_VII"></a>VII Teaching Grown-Ups to Read</h4> + +<p>The educational work which is being done in the uplands of the South has +already received widespread recognition. The slogan, “Down with the +moonshine still and up with the moonlight school,†typifies the spirit +of the upland community.</p> + +<p>One might journey far before discovering a more enthusiastic people than +the teachers and the scholars of the Southern uplands. The appalling +extent of illiteracy among the descendants of Marion’s men finds a +parallel in their pathetic desire for some form of education.</p> + +<p>The Southern hill whites love the old and fear the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span> new. Traditionally, +they belong to a past generation; actually, they are reaching out for +the better things which the new generation can offer. The moonlight +schools are attended by old people and young alike. The struggling +colleges, the industrial and technical schools, with their record of +privation and hardship, bear eloquent testimony to the genuine efforts +which the upland population is making in these early years of its +educational awakening.</p> + +<p>Every sincere effort among the hill whites meets with instant response. +For the most part, they deprive themselves of the necessaries of life in +order that they may send their children to school. Boys skimp and save; +girls walk for miles along mountain trails and paths; communities give +of the scanty means of their effort for the building and maintenance of +schools. Everywhere the spirit of the new education is permeating the +Southern upland communities.</p> + + +<h4><a name="XII_VIII" id="XII_VIII"></a>VIII George Washington, Junior</h4> + +<p>One teacher, whose years of effort in the Piedmont have brought her the +confidence and co-operation of the community, tells of the success of +one of her earliest ventures with a boy of thirteen.</p> + +<p>The boy’s father was bad; his mother slovenly and indifferent. The boy +himself was bright and active.</p> + +<p>When the time came for him to enter the cotton mill, the teacher +protested to his family, but without success. Still there was something +that she could do for him, still she saw an opportunity of serving him, +and she asked him to come to her home with a number of other boys, for a +couple of nights a week, when they sat together, reading, or playing +games.</p> + +<p>The boy had appeared sullen at first, but toward the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span> end of his school +term he showed an active interest. It became apparent that he was +particularly clever at languages. None of his lessons troubled him, and, +with the assistance of the teacher, he learned Italian readily, and +during the evenings, when the other boys played games or talked, he +worked over his Italian sentences with vital interest.</p> + +<p>Just before Christmas, during the first year that this boy had spent in +the mill, a friend visited his teacher, became interested in her work, +and asked if there was any way in which she could help.</p> + +<p>“You may,†said the teacher. “You may buy Andy an outfit.â€</p> + +<p>The friend went to the city with the order in her pocket,—a hat, a +suit, and a complete outfit, new, as a Christmas present for Andy.</p> + +<p>On Christmas eve, Andy alone came to the teacher’s house. She had not +asked the other boys,—partly because most of them preferred to stay at +home, partly because she had no such fine present for them as she had +for Andy.</p> + +<p>“Never in my life,†the teacher said, “had I seen Andy clean. I made up +my mind that for once he should have a clean body as well as clean +clothes.â€</p> + +<p>When Andy came that Christmas eve, the teacher took him into a room +where there were towels, soap, a basin, and a new outfit of clothes.</p> + +<p>“Andy,†she said, “this is your Christmas present from my friend, and +now you are going to give me a Christmas present, too. You are going to +wash up and dress up.â€</p> + +<p>Andy followed directions, and when he emerged from the room in his spick +and span outfit, his hat set side-wise on his wet, newly combed hair, he +stood up very<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span> straight, surveying himself as best he could from head to +foot, and exclaimed,—“Gee! I feel just like George Washington.†The +bath and the new suit were a realization of his highest ideal.</p> + +<p>“Andy and I were always friends after that,†said the teacher, “and +since Andy was the moving spirit among the boys in the village, the boys +and I got along well together. It was my introduction to the heart of +the community, and it came with Andy’s realization of an ideal which he +had long cherished.â€</p> + + +<h4><a name="XII_IX" id="XII_IX"></a>IX A Step Toward Good Health</h4> + +<p>Having won Andy over, the teacher prepared to work her way past some of +the barriers of prejudice which the community had placed between itself +and civilization. The girls offered the readiest opening.</p> + +<p>“The homes were wretched,†the teacher said. “The people did not know +the simplest health rules. They were strangers to sanitation or +cleanliness. Their housekeeping was primitive and their cooking +miserable. I had won the boys by getting them together in something that +resembled a club. I decided that my best path to the girls, and from +them to the community, lay through housekeeping.â€</p> + +<p>The hypothesis was, at least, worthy of a try-out. The teacher began by +keeping her own house in the most approved manner, and asking the girls +to come in and help her do it.</p> + +<p>“You’ll like to take supper with me this evening,†she would say to a +group of girls at recess time. “Speak to your mothers when you go home, +and you, Sadie and Annie, will stay over night and sleep in the spare +bed.â€</p> + +<p>They were slow to respond at first. Long habit made them suspicious, but +when the first few girls had spent<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span> their night with the teacher and had +come home with the tales of her wonderful household arrangements, the +others were looking eagerly for a chance to duplicate their experiences.</p> + +<p>“Am I next?†a little girl asked anxiously one day, after the +invitations to a party had been given out. The assurance that she was, +made her face shine for the remainder of the afternoon.</p> + +<p>“The school girls all came willingly,†the teacher said. “It was after I +had them so interested that one of the factory hands came in. It was +Saturday night, and she rapped on the door before coming in with a +hesitating touch, as if she was afraid. She sat down across from me, +smoothing her dress and looking unhappy.â€</p> + +<p>“You’ll not understand,†said the factory girl, apologetically. “But +Mame is in your school—she’s my sister. You had her up last week to +spend the night. You’ll remember?â€</p> + +<p>The teacher nodded.</p> + +<p>“She came home, and ever since she’s been telling us about the way you +did things. And I’ve been thinking,——â€</p> + +<p>She stopped and looked at the teacher, half suspiciously, half +appealingly.</p> + +<p>“I’ve been thinking how nice it would be for me, if I could do them +things the same as you. You see,†she spoke rapidly, “I’m gettin’ +married soon now, and when Mame came a-telling that way, and our house +like it always is, and the baby crying, and nothing done exceptin’ ma +a-scoldin’, and I says to myself, I says, if I could do things like that +teacher can do ’em mebbe I wouldn’t make mistakes like ma makes ’em.†+She paused for breath, looking expectant.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span></p> + +<p>“You would like to come here to see how I do things?†the teacher asked.</p> + +<p>The girl nodded eagerly.</p> + +<p>“Come Monday after hours, and spend the night with me.â€</p> + +<p>“After that,†the teacher said, “it was a great deal easier. The next +thing I wanted to do was to get the children examined for glasses and +throat trouble. There were two second-rate country doctors there who +knew little or nothing about modern medicine. The nearest man that I +could trust was forty miles away. He was a specialist, too, and high +priced. Still, I sat down and wrote him a letter, telling him how we +were fixed. He answered by return mail, making a special rate and +setting a day. I hoped to take twelve of the children, but I had car +fare for only seven. Then came our windfall. I told the railroad what I +was trying to do, and they made a special excursion rate and took the +children at less than half fare. We were all able to go, and the extra +money went for a treat to soda and the movies.â€</p> + +<p>The children went back home, singing the praises of the trip, the +teacher, and the doctor. They went back, too, with expert advice and +assistance, and with the good news that others would soon have a turn.</p> + +<p>Group by group, the needy children were brought down to the specialist +in the city. Some were even operated on, although at the outset the +parents would not hear of operations. In the end the children won, +however. Their enthusiasm for the teacher and their doctor carried the +day.</p> + +<p>“It has been slow,†the teacher said, “but at the end of it all, they +see better, hear better, eat more wholesome, nourishing food, live +better, and understand themselves better. On the whole it has paid.â€<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span></p> + + +<h4><a name="XII_X" id="XII_X"></a>X Theory and Practice<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a></h4> + +<p>The rural schools of the South have no monopoly on progressive +educational views. A number of Southern cities have taken up their +position in the vanguard of educational progress. Notable among these +cities is Columbus, Georgia,—a city of 20,554 people, in which +Superintendent Roland B. Daniel has undertaken a vigorous policy of +shaping the schools in the interests of the community. There were in +1913, 5,356 children of school age in Columbus. Of this number, 4,089 +were in the schools. The school population is rather unevenly divided, +racially,—3,348 of the children of school age are white, and 1,198 are +colored. About one-quarter of the white population depends for its +livelihood upon the mills. Columbus is surrounded by an agricultural +district from which come many children in search of high school +training. The city of Columbus presents an industrial problem of an +unusually complex character, and the manner in which this problem has +been handled by the schools is worthy of the highest commendation. +Superintendent Daniel has laid down three definite planks in his +educational platform for the city of Columbus. In the first place, he +aims to provide school accommodations which are fitted to the peculiar +needs of each part of the community. In the second place, he aims to +shape the school system of Columbus in terms of the local environment of +the children. In the third place, he has inaugurated a high school +policy, which <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span>makes high school training practical as well as +theoretical.</p> + +<p>Among the mill operatives of Columbus, Superintendent Daniel estimates +that there are approximately 800 children of school age. The situation +presented by these children was critical in the extreme. There was an +absence of compulsory education laws; few of the children attended any +school, and when they did enter a school they seldom remained long +enough to secure any marked educational advantage. Less than 5 per cent. +of the children continued in school after they were old enough to work +in the cotton mills.</p> + +<p>Pursuant of his intention to make the schools supply the needs of all of +the children of Columbus, Superintendent Daniel organized the North +Highlands School in the factory district. Of this school he says: “It is +not made to conform, either in course of study or hours, to the other +schools of similar rank in the system, for the board desires to meet the +conditions and convenience of the people for whom the school was +established. Classroom work begins in the morning at 8 o’clock and +continues until 11 o’clock, with a recess of 10 minutes at 9:30. The +afternoon session begins at 1 o’clock, and the school closes for the day +at 3:30 o’clock.â€</p> + +<p>The long intermission in the middle of the day is given in order to +allow the children to take hot lunches to parents, brothers, and sisters +who are working in the mill. Many of the mills are located at some +distance from the school. Some of the children are called upon to walk +as much as two miles during the noon hour, in order to carry the +lunches. These “dinner toters,†when carrying lunch baskets for persons +outside of the family, receive 25 cents per week per basket. In case +several<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span> baskets are carried, the income thus earned is considerable.</p> + +<p>The school thus organized on the basis of local needs is further +specialized in a way that will appeal to the needs of the mill operative +group. The academic courses are similar to the courses offered in the +other schools, except that more emphasis is laid upon the “three R’s.†+Superintendent Daniel says that the time is very limited in which these +children will attend school, and more attention is given as to what may +be regarded as fundamental. “While the prescribed course contemplates +seven years, few continue after the fifth or sixth year, so strong is +the call of the mills. Not more than 1 per cent finish this school and +pursue their studies further.â€</p> + +<p>The three morning hours and the first hour in the afternoon are devoted +to academic studies, while the last hour and a half of the day is given +to practical work. The boys are required to take elementary courses in +woodwork and gardening, alternating these two branches on alternate +days. The girls are given work in basketry, sewing, cooking, poultry +raising, and gardening.</p> + +<p>The results of the introduction of this applied work are summed up by +Superintendent Daniel in this way,—“In all of these lines of work it is +now the hope of the school only to better living conditions a little +among the people for whom it was especially organized. The +transformation is necessarily slow. In the beginning, no doubt, the +advocates of this type of school thought that many might be induced to +continue in school and do more advanced work, especially along +vocational lines. In this respect the school has been a disappointment +to some. We are seldom able to induce pupils to finish even the limited +course offered in this school.â€<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span></p> + +<p>The North Highland School, in addition to its work for the children, has +begun an organized effort to raise the standards of the local community. +Every day the principal and teachers of the school visit some of the +homes, giving helpful suggestions, caring for the sick, and in any other +possible way contributing to home life. Superintendent Daniel reports +the progress in this respect by saying,—“Confidence is now so strong +that one of the teachers every Saturday morning collects the physically +defective ones in the community and takes them to the free clinic for +operations or treatment. At first parents would see their children die +rather than permit them to be operated upon, but now they seldom decline +to permit them to be taken by a teacher to the free clinic, when in the +judgment of the teacher it is necessary.â€</p> + +<p>The school has made an effort to organize the older people of the +community. There are entertainments and school gatherings in which +parents and children alike participate. As a further help to those +parents who are compelled to work in the mills, the school grounds, +which are amply provided with a full play equipment, are open to all of +the children at all hours of the day and all days of the week. “It is +not infrequent,†says Superintendent Daniel, “that, when the mother goes +to work at 6 in the morning, she sends her children to the school to +enjoy the privileges of the grounds until the opening of the school at 8 +o’clock.â€</p> + +<p>The work of the negro schools is similarly fitted to the industrial +needs of the negro children. Boys and girls alike devote a considerable +portion of their time to industrial work. The main purpose of this work +for negroes is to prepare them for the line of industrial opportunity +open to them. The school reports that it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span> has developed a number of good +blacksmiths, carpenters, cooks, seamstresses, and laundresses. Pupils +who remain in the schools long enough to complete the course are able to +earn, upon leaving school, about twice what they would be able to earn +had no such training been provided.</p> + +<p>A vigorous attempt has been made to reorganize grade work in the +interests of clearness and effectiveness. As Superintendent Daniel puts +the matter,—“We undertook to place before the teachers a definite +problem, and to put suggestions into tangible form. We stated that all +subjects could be taught with the books merely as helps and means to an +end, and contend further for the doctrine that a working knowledge of +books and subjects is far more desirable than accomplishing the feat of +memorizing the printed page.†Many teachers will be astonished by the +doctrine which Superintendent Daniel evolves from this statement of +educational theory. “The teachers were asked to conduct the work in such +a manner that it would not be necessary to recite or take written tests +with closed books, but that school books be used as tools with which to +work, and that the child should use text-books as adults do books of +reference, while the teacher guides and directs in the development of +thought.<a name="Page_246t" id="Page_246t"></a><a href="#Page_246tn">["]</a></p> + +<p>This attempt of Superintendent Daniel to proceed with the grammar school +work in a more natural way, and to relate all of it more closely to +life, met with some interesting results, as may be gathered from the +following test questions which were worked out by teachers in pursuance +of the instructions to make text-books incidental and thought primary in +the school work.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</a></span></p> + + +<div class="blockquot2"><p class="center">ARITHMETIC, THIRD B</p> + +<p>Roy shops for his mother at Kirven’s. He buys 2 boxes of hair +pins at $.05 each, 6 towels at $.10 each, and 5 handkerchiefs +for $.25. What was his bill? If he hands the clerk $1.00, how +much change will he receive?</p> + + +<p class="center">THIRD A</p> + +<p>If Isabel’s 2 pair of shoes cost $4, how much will shoes for all +the girls in the class cost?</p> + + +<p class="center">GEOGRAPHY THIRD B</p> + +<p>Turn to the map on page 65 and find and write the names of seven +different shore forms.</p> + + +<p class="center">ARITHMETIC, FOURTH B</p> + +<p>In our room are 46 pupils. The class receives 230 tablets and +138 pencils for the term. How many of each does each child +receive?</p> + + +<p class="center">GEOGRAPHY, FOURTH B</p> + +<p>What products may be sent to us from New England? If they were +shipped from Portsmouth, N. H., on what bodies of water would +they travel?</p> + + +<p class="center">GEOGRAPHY, FOURTH A</p> + +<p>Why does the United States carry on more trade with the British +Isles than with Germany? At what seaport would our vessels land +in the British Isles? What would they carry and what would they +bring back?</p> + + +<p class="center">GEOGRAPHY, FIFTH A</p> + +<p>What highways of trade will be used for shipping oranges from +San Francisco to Columbus, Ga., by way of the Panama Canal? How +many miles is this, approximately? (Use rule and map on page +65.)<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[248]</a></span></p> + + +<p class="center">GEOGRAPHY, FIFTH B</p> + +<p>What is the chief industry of the people of Columbus, and why? +Describe the climate of our city, tell what fruits, vegetables +and farm products find a market here. What would a boat coming +up the river bring to Columbus? What would it carry back?</p></div> + +<p>Superintendent Daniel’s viewpoint is clear and sane. “It is not +sufficient,†he says, “to maintain courses in domestic science and +manual training for the grades, and to teach other subjects as if they +belonged to another realm.†Consequently he has made every endeavor to +bring together the forces of the community and of the school in a +sympathetic whole, around which the educational life of the town must +center.</p> + +<p>The industrial high school is an integral and highly important part of +the work in the Columbus schools. Side by side with the academic high +school, it affords an opportunity for the children who do not intend to +continue their educational work beyond high school grade to get some +assistance in the direction of a training for life activity. It was +originally intended to duplicate, in a measure, the conditions and hours +maintained in the industrial plants of the city. Formerly the school was +open for eleven calendar months; at the present time a vacation of six +weeks is allowed. The school hours are from 8 o’clock in the morning +until 4 o’clock in the afternoon, for five days each week. Pupils who +have not maintained the required standard during the week are compelled +to attend school on Saturday.</p> + +<p>All pupils of the Industrial High School are required to take academic +work of high school grade in mathematics, history, English, and +science.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[249]</a></span></p> + +<p>The introduction of manual training and domestic science into the grades +of all Columbus schools has pointed many children in the direction of +the Industrial High School. While it is not the intention of the school +authorities to make the work of the Industrial High School final, it is +hoped that those children who are enabled to continue with educational +work are benefited markedly by this specialized course.</p> + +<p>Throughout this deliberate attempt of the Columbus school administration +to make the schools fit the needs of the community there is evidence of +a scientific spirit which is in the last degree commendable. The +community need is first ascertained. The school work is then organized +in response to this community need. If, perchance, the first effort +meets with little success, additional effort is continued until some +measure of success is assured. The school authorities are not afraid to +change their opinions or their system. They are not even afraid to fail +on a given experiment. The one thing of which they are afraid is failure +to provide for the educational needs of the community.</p> + + +<h4><a name="XII_XI" id="XII_XI"></a>XI A People Coming to Its Own</h4> + +<p>The first great battle in the educational awakening of the South has +been won. The people realize the necessity for an intelligently active +population.</p> + +<p>The second battle is well under way. The people of the South are shaping +the schools to meet the peculiar educational needs which the economic +and social problems of the South present.</p> + +<p>A rallying-cry is ringing through the Southern States,—“The schools for +the people; the people for the schools; and a higher standard of +education and of life for the community.â€<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[250]</a></span></p> + +<p>The South is in line for the New Education. School officials are +working. Superintendent Daniel writes,—“Everyone connected with the +system has been too intent on doing his work well and in establishing +and maintaining the ideals of the system to be disturbed by petty +difficulties. The teachers,†he adds, “have appeared to feel that it was +rather a privilege than a burden to participate in making the Columbus +system efficient through the preparation of her children for life.â€<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> +The public is asking for a correlation of school with life, and the +schools are educating the South through the children.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[251]</a></span></p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> Now State Superintendent. See an article “‘Corn-Club’ +Smith,†P. C. Macfarlane, Collier’s Weekly, May 17, 1913, p. 19.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> United States Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Plant +Industry, Results of Boys’ Demonstration Work in Corn Clubs in 1911, +Washington, May, 1912, p. 4.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> Op. cit., pp. 5-6.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> U. S. Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Plant Industry, +Girls’ Demonstration Work, Washington, January, 1913, pp. 1-2.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> For a full statement of the work of the Columbus Schools +see “Industrial Education in Columbus,<a href="#Page_F28tn">["]</a> Ga., R. B. Daniel, U. S. +Bureau of Education, Bulletin 535, Government Printing Office, 1913. +Also, The Annual Report of the Columbus Public Schools for the Year +Ending August 1, 1913.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> Annual report of the Columbus Public Schools, 1913, p. +18.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h3> + +<h3>THE SPIRIT OF THE NEW EDUCATION</h3> + + +<h4>I The Standard of Education</h4> + +<p>The educational experiments described in the preceding chapters are +replete with the spirit of the New Education. From the virile +educational systems of the country a protest is being sounded against +traditional formalism. School men have learned that that which is is not +necessarily right. Each concept, each method, must run the gauntlet of +critical analysis. It is not sufficient to allege in support of an +educational principle that the results derived from its application have +been satisfactory in the past. Insistently the question is repeated, +“What are its effects upon the problems of to-day?â€</p> + +<p>Educational ancestor worship is no more acceptable to the progressive +spirit of the Western World than is ancestor worship in any other form. +The past has made its contribution, and has died in making it. For the +contribution the present is grateful, but it must steadfastly refuse in +its own name, and in the name of the future, to be bound by any decree +of the past which will not stand the acid test of present experience.</p> + +<p>The old education was beset by traditionalism. Under its dominance, +education, defined once and for all, was established as a standard to +which men must attain; hence a preceptor, guiding his young charges +along the straight path to knowledge, might, with perfect confidence, +admonish them, “Lo here, the three R’s is educa<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[252]</a></span>tion,†or “Lo there, +Greek and higher mathematics is education,†according as his training +had been in the three R’s or in Greek. In either case he felt certain of +his general ground. Once and for all the educational standard had been +set. By that standard new ideas were judged, and either justified or +condemned.</p> + +<p>Under this predetermined scheme there was a formula for education—a +formula as definite as that for making bread or pickling pork. The +formula was applied to each child who presented himself to the +administration. If the formula worked successfully the child was +declared educated in the same way that pork which has been successfully +treated by the proper processes is declared to be pickled. If the +formula did not work the child was not educated. He sat in school with a +dunce-cap upon his head, or else played hookey and spent his hours in +fishing, swimming or idling.</p> + +<p>Perhaps, in view of the recent contributions of science, it would be +more illuminating to say that the old education inoculated the child +with a predetermined educational virus. If the virus “took†the child +was declared immune to the bacteria of ignorance, illiteracy, stupidity +and other prevalent social complaints. If the virus did not take the +schoolmaster ostentatiously washed his hands of the recreant.</p> + + +<h4><a name="XIII_II" id="XIII_II"></a>II Standardization Was a Failure</h4> + +<p>Only one argument need be urged against this method of attacking the +educational problem—it did not work. In the first place, the most +brilliant school successes often turned out to be the most arrant life +failures, while the school derelicts frequently became life successes of +stellar magnitude. To the thinking man the inference was plain; the +formula was not an unqualified success.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[253]</a></span> Not only was this true of the +children who went through school, but there were crowds of children for +whom the school held no attraction whatever. They attended a few +sessions, wasted a scant bit of energy in educational effort, and then +dropped out, hopeless of obtaining results by further “study.â€</p> + +<p>The old education read out of the school those children who could not +benefit by its teachings. How utterly different the concept which has +gripped the minds of progressive, modern educators! Under their guidance +education has become what Herbert Spencer called it—a preparation for +complete living. No longer a fixed, objective standard, education has +been recognized as an enlargement of the life horizon of each individual +boy or girl in the community. “Teach us individual needs,†proclaim the +educational progressives, “and we will tell you what the character of +education must be.â€</p> + +<p>Thus has education ceased to be an objective standard, created by one +age and handed down rigidly immobile to the ages succeeding. Instead it +is accepted as a fulfilment—a complement—to child needs. Always +education has been regarded as a process of molding life and character. +The chief difference between the old and the new education is that the +old education made a mold, and then forced the child to fit the mold, +while the new education begins by determining the character of child +needs, and then fits the mold to the needs. The old education was like +the farmer who built a corn-sheller, and then attempted to find ears of +corn which would fit into the sheller; the new education is like the +farmer who first measured the corn and then built his sheller to fit the +corn. The old education selected the class which was able to conform to +its requirements; the new education serves all classes.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[254]</a></span></p> + + +<h4><a name="XIII_III" id="XIII_III"></a>III Education as Growth</h4> + +<p>Under the impetus given to it by modern thinkers, education has become +the direction of growth, rather than the application of a formula. The +child is a developing creature. It has become the function of education +to watch over and guide the development.</p> + +<p>Nor do the modern schools consider mental development as the sole object +of educational endeavor. Physical growth is an equally essential part of +child life. Therefore the direction of physical growth becomes just as +vital a part of the educational machinery. Aesthetic and spiritual +growth require like emphasis. Each phase of child life receives +independent consideration.</p> + +<p>The old education through mental impression is giving way before the new +education through physical, mental and spiritual expression. Expression +is the essence of growth; and since the school is to foster child growth +it must place child expression in a place of paramount importance.</p> + +<p>Child needs, rather than abstract standards, have thus become the basis +of school activity. The old education developed its course of study by +surveying the interests of adults, and picking from among them those, +apparently the most simple, which were fit for children. The new +education applies the laboratory method—studying children and their +interests—reports, among its other findings, the quite evident fact +that children enter into life as whole-heartedly as adults; that the +field of their interest lies, not in the left-over problems of older +people, but in their own problems and processes; and that therefore the +educator must found his philosophy and his practice on an understanding +of the child and child needs.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[255]</a></span></p> + +<p>There is in the world a phenomenon called adult life, with its phases, +problems and ideals. There is likewise in the world a phenomenon called +child life, with its phases, problems and ideals. A complete +understanding of either may not be derived through a study of the other. +Child needs exist separate from and different from adult needs. It is +the business of the new education to understand them and meet them.</p> + +<p>Two appeals are reaching the ears of the modern educator: the first, the +appeal of the child; the second, the appeal of the community. The appeal +of the child is an appeal for the opportunity of developing all of its +faculties. Physically, children grow. The school, recognizing this fact, +is making a vigorous effort to break the shell of custom, which has +confined its activities to purely intellectual pursuits, and provide a +physical training which will lead the school child to perfect normal +body growth, as well as normal growth of mind. Even in its intellectual +activity the school is recognizing the importance of making the child +mind an active machine for thought, rather than a passive storehouse for +information. Though less emphasized, the training for sensual growth is +becoming of ever increasing importance in the new education. Above all, +the aesthetic side of child life is being expanded in an effort to round +out a completed adulthood.</p> + + +<h4><a name="XIII_IV" id="XIII_IV"></a>IV Child Needs and Community Needs</h4> + +<p>The recognition of child needs, which forms so integral a part of the +new education, is paralleled by a similar recognition of the needs of +the community. The progressive educator is laying aside for a moment the +details of his task, and asking himself the pertinent question: “What +should the community expect in re<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[256]</a></span>turn for the annual expenditure of a +billion dollars on public education?†What are community needs if not +the needs for manhood and womanhood? They are well summed up in three +words—virility, efficiency, citizenship. Possessed of those attributes +a group of individuals rounds itself inevitably into a vigorous, +progressive community. They are normal qualities which a people must +demand if their social standards are to be maintained. Since they +constitute so vital an element in social life, a community lavish in its +expenditures for schools may surely expect the school product to be +virile, efficient, worthy citizens. The new education, recognizing the +justice of this demand, is crying out insistently for social, as well as +individual, training in the school.</p> + +<p>The new educational institutions have set themselves to meet the needs +of the child and of the community. Their success depends upon their +ability to understand these needs and to supply them.</p> + +<p>The old-fashioned schoolmaster asked: “How can I compel?†His answer was +the rod. The modern schoolmaster asks: “How can I direct?†His answer is +a laboratory, open-minded, scientific method, and a host of varied +courses designed to meet the needs of individual children and of +individual communities.</p> + +<p>Communities vary as greatly in their characteristics as do children. It +is now certain that no formula will provide education for all children. +Each new study of community needs makes it more evident that no system +will supply education for all communities. It is the business of the +educator to study the individual child and the individual community, and +then to provide an education that will assist both to grow normally and +soundly in all of their parts.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[257]</a></span></p> + + +<h4><a name="XIII_V" id="XIII_V"></a>V The Final Test of Education</h4> + +<p>The school is a servant, not a master. In that fact lies its +greatness—the greatness of its opportunity and of its responsibility. +As an institution its object is service—assistance in growth. +Development is the goal of education. Virility, efficiency, citizenship, +manhood, womanhood—these are its legitimate products. Its tools and +formulas are such as will most effectively serve these ends. When the +increase of knowledge leads to new methods and formulas which will prove +more effective than the old ones, then the old ones must be laid aside, +reverently, perhaps, but none the less firmly, and the new ones adopted. +Changes may not be made hastily and without due consideration; but when +experiment has shown that the new device is more advantageous in +furthering the objects of education than the old and tried formulas, a +change is inevitable.</p> + +<p>The first and last word on the subject is spoken when this question is +asked and answered: “Does education exist for children, or do children +exist for education?â€</p> + +<p>If children exist for education, then it is just that an objective +educational standard should be created; it is fair that a hard and fast +course of study be mapped out in conformity with that standard; it is +right that educational machinery be constructed which automatically +turns away from the schools any child who does not conform to the school +system as it is. If children exist for education, they should either +conform to its requirements, or else, if they will not or cannot +conform, they should be mercilessly thrust aside.</p> + +<p>If, on the other hand, education exists for children, then the primal +consideration must be child needs. If any one child, or any group of +children, has needs which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[258]</a></span> are not met by existing educational +institutions, then these institutions must be remodeled. If an adequate +congenial education is a part of the birthright of every American child, +then educational institutions must be reorganized and reshaped until +they provide that birthright in the fullest possible measure.</p> + +<p>Already the answer has been formulated. Already educators have +recognized the potency of the saying: “The schools were made for the +children, not the children for the schools.†Hence it follows that no +school system is so sacred, no method of teaching so venerable, no +textbook so infallible, no machinery of administration so permanent, +that it must not give way before the educational needs of childhood.</p> + +<p>Concerning the educational problem of to-day, yesterday cannot speak +with authority. Each age has its problems—problems which may be solved +by that age, or handed on unsolved to the future. The past is dead. Only +its voice—its advice and suggestion—serves as a guide or as a warning. +Of authority it should have not an atom.</p> + +<p>The educational opportunities of to-day are without peer. The +educational machinery, ready at hand, is being transformed to meet the +newly understood needs of the child and of the community. The spirit of +the new education is the spirit of service, the spirit of fair dealing, +the spirit of growth for the individual and of advancement for society. +Here are individual needs. There are aligned the social obligations and +requirements of the age. In so far as it lies within the power of the +school, the children who leave its doors shall have their needs +supplied, and shall be equipped to play their part as virile, efficient +citizens in a greater community. Such is the spirit of the new +education.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[259]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="INDEX" id="INDEX"></a>INDEX</h2> + + +<p> +Age distribution, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and school progress, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Ages of childhood, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>.<br /> +<br /> +American school system, Statistics of, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Applied education, need for, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Applied work, Cincinnati, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in the grades, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Average children and the old education, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">fallacy of, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Berks County schools, manual training in, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">physical training in, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Boys and girls, object of educating, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Brown, E. E., quoted, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Carney, Mabel, quoted, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Chancellor, W. R., quoted, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Change, prevalence of, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in social structure, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Child growth, stages of, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Child needs, recognition of, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and community needs, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Childhood, ages of, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Children, needs of analyzed, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">social needs of, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">varying capacity of, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">vs. subject matter, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Cincinnati, educational advantages of, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">kindergarten work in, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">school system of, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">school policy continued, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">special school work in, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">schools, co-operation in, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">creed of, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">general support of, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">new plans for, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">social centers in, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">social work of, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +City and country, educational value of, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>.<br /> +<br /> +City home, effect of industrial changes on, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>.<br /> +<br /> +City life and the new basis for education, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Civic education, necessity for, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Civics teaching in the grades, Cincinnati, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Club activity in schools, recognition of, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Columbus, Ga., curriculum of schools, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">local needs basis of, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">school policy of, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Community and the school, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">education applied to a small town, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">life, contribution of schools to, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">needs and child life, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Consolidated school, advantages of, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">course of study in, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">daily program in, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">disadvantages of, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">growth of in South, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Continuation High School work, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">schools in Ohio, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Co-operation, spirit of in consolidated schools, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Country, the call of the, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Country life, transformation in, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Country school, daily program in a district, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[260]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">daily program in a consolidated, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">two possibilities of, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">the duty of, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">new geography, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">task of, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">transformation in, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">schools and physical training, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Courses of study, correlation in, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">home school, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Criticism of schools, general, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">significance, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Curriculum, content of, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">requirements of, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Defectives, treatment of, Cincinnati, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Discipline, disappearance of, Oyler School, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Distribution of age, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>.<br /> +<br /> +District school, daily program in, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Domestic science, course in Lowville High School, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">course in Page County, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">home school movement, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">importance of, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in the grades, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in a Kentucky school, <a href="#Page_195">195-200</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in Sleepy Eye schools, <a href="#Page_213">213-216</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">problems in, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Draper, A. S., quoted, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Education and the industrial revolution, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and the success habit, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">as growth, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">city, effect of industrial changes on, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">creed of, Cincinnati schools, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">elastic system of, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">essentials of, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">for home-making, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">for life, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">for the whole child, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in the early home, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">place of physical training in, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">public lectures and, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">purpose of, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">new basis for, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">new studies, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">object of, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">social importance of, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">specialization in, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">standard of, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">theory and practice, <a href="#Page_242">242-249</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in Kentucky, reaching parents through children, <a href="#Page_195">195-206</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in the South, canning clubs, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">corn clubs, <a href="#Page_225">225-228</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229-233</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">effect of on corn yield, <a href="#Page_230">230-233</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">improving health, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">improving home life, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">teaching parents through children, <a href="#Page_225">225-228</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229-233</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Educational advance in Cincinnati, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Educational formulas, danger of, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Educational needs and the small town, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Educational problems of an industrial community, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Educational work and the small town, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Elementary grades, activities of, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">co-operation in, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">special studies for, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">spirit of service in, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +English, as a stimulus for other studies, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">constructive work in, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">new methods for, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">organization of, Grand Rapids High School, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">original work, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">story work and, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">use of in other studies, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[261]</a></span>Enrollment and attendance, statistics of, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Facts, place of in education, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Fallacy of average children, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Fisher, Irving, quoted, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Formalism in education, danger of, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Froebel, F., quoted, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Gary, plan of the schools in, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Geography, new method of teaching, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Geography and arithmetic, method of teaching in a southern school, <a href="#Page_246">246-248</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Geography in Newark, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Grade work, regeneration of, Cincinnati, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Grades, amalgamation of with high school, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">applied work in, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Grand Rapids High School, vocational guidance in, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Growth, and child activity, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and education, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">through play, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">of children, stages in, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Hanus, P. H., quoted, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Health, importance of, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>.<br /> +<br /> +High School, amalgamation of with grades, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">at Lowville, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">course of study in Cincinnati, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">future of, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">growing importance of, <a href="#Page_54">54-56</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">popularization of Cincinnati, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">promotion to, without examinations, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">responsibility of, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">social status of, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +High school children, experiments with, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>.<br /> +<br /> +High school courses, arrangement of, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>.<br /> +<br /> +High school status, Superintendent Spaulding on, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>.<br /> +<br /> +High school training, right of children to, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>.<br /> +<br /> +High schools, co-operation with elementary grades, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">technical development of, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Home, education in, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Home making, education for, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Home school, activities of, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">course of work in, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in Indianapolis, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in Providence, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Home visiting in the grades, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Home work, disadvantages of, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">opportunities for in school, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Huxley, T. H., quoted, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Industrial communities, educational problems, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Industrial High School, place of in the school system, <a href="#Page_248">248</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Industrial system, effect of on education, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Institutions, effects of change upon, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +John Swaney School, course of study, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">equipment of, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">social life in, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Junior High Schools, outlook for, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Kentucky education, teaching a community to cook, <a href="#Page_195">195-200</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Kindergartens, at Gary, Ind., <a href="#Page_58">58</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">progressive work in, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in relation to grade work, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">vitalized work in, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Linden, Ind., equipment of consolidated schools, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[262]</a></span>Locust Grove School, method of teaching a community, <a href="#Page_195">195-206</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Lowville High School, courses in, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">domestic science in, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">social service of, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">work in, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Mass training, defects of, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Mathematics, and life problems, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in Gary schools, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in Indianapolis schools, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Mothers’ clubs, organization of, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">work of, Cincinnati, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Needs of school children, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>.<br /> +<br /> +New basis for education, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and city life, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +New education in the South, <a href="#Page_220">220-250</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Newark vacation school, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Newton Technical High School, success of, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>.<br /> +<br /> +North Highland School, industrial training in, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">raising community standards, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Oconto County, Wis., schools, agricultural work in, <a href="#Page_183">183-185</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">the new arithmetic, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">the new English, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Ohio, continuation schools, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Old education, spirit of, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>.<br /> +<br /> +One-room school, making it worth while, <a href="#Page_182">182-187</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">possibilities of, <a href="#Page_182">182-187</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Open air schools, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">results of, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Original work in English, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Overwork, extent in schools, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Oyler School, social education in, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Page County, Iowa, contests in schools, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">domestic science, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">ideal schools in, <a href="#Page_188">188-193</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">social life in, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">training for country life, <a href="#Page_189">189-190</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Physical training and education, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">a part of school work, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Play, and growth, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">creative forms of, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">stages of, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Playgrounds, Cincinnati, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Popularized High Schools, Cincinnati, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Promotion for special students, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Promotion, improvements in, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">new methods of, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Promotion average, fetish of, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Public lectures, and education, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Rapp, Eli, quoted, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Regeneration of grade work, Cincinnati, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Rural districts, needs of, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +School and community, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>.<br /> +<br /> +School and shop work in high school, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>.<br /> +<br /> +School feeding, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>.<br /> +<br /> +School children, needs of, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>.<br /> +<br /> +School equipment, educational nature of, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>.<br /> +<br /> +School houses, social uses for, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>.<br /> +<br /> +School machinery, abolition of, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">necessity for, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">new standards of, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +School mortality, statistics of, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>.<br /> +<br /> +School plant, wider use of, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>.<br /> +<br /> +School progress and age distribution, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>.<br /> +<br /> +School work related to shop work, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Schools, agricultural training at Sleepy Eye, <a href="#Page_208">208-211</a>.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[263]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">agricultural training in Oconto County, Wis., <a href="#Page_183">183-185</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">agricultural training in Page County, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and the community, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">as public servants, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">city, effect on children, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">condition of, Montclair, N. J., <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">consolidated vs. district, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">courses at Sleepy Eye, Minn., <a href="#Page_218">218</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">courses fitted to community needs at Sleepy Eye, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">domestic science at Sleepy Eye, Minn., <a href="#Page_213">213-216</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">elementary plumbing at Sleepy Eye, Minn., <a href="#Page_209">209</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">equipment at Sleepy Eye, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">equipment of Linden, Ind., <a href="#Page_175">175</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">general criticism of, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">influence on community at Sleepy Eye, Minn., <a href="#Page_217">217</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">local service of, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">mechanical course at Sleepy Eye, Minn., <a href="#Page_214">214</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Montgomery County, Ind., <a href="#Page_180">180</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Page County, Iowa, <a href="#Page_189">189-193</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">purpose of, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">short agricultural course at Sleepy Eye, Minn., <a href="#Page_212">212</a>, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">size of, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">social uses of, Cincinnati, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Self-government in high schools, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Sex hygiene, importance of, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Shop work and school work, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Sleepy Eye, Minn., course in domestic science, <a href="#Page_213">213-216</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">course in elementary plumbing and steam-fitting, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">courses given in schools, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">department of agriculture, <a href="#Page_208">208-211</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">equipment for mechanical work, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">fitting schools to community needs, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">influence on community at large, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">mechanical course, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Sleepy Eye, Minn., short course in agriculture, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Small town, educational work of, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Smith, W. H., “Corn Club,†<a href="#Page_228">228</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Social centers in Cincinnati schools, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Social change, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Social education, Cincinnati, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">content of, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Social importance of education, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Social needs of children, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Southern schools, corn clubs in, <a href="#Page_225">225-228</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229-233</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Special school for defectives, Cincinnati, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Special schools, Cincinnati, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Specialization in education, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Spencer, H., quoted, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Standard of education, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Story work and English, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Student organization in high school, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Subjects of study, summary of, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Success habits in education, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Summer schools, Cincinnati, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Technical High Schools, development of, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Three “R’s,†Progressive work in, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Twelve-year schools, possibilities of, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Tyler, J. M., quoted, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +University of Cincinnati, social relations of, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[264]</a></span>Vacation schools in Newark, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Vernon school, before and after consolidation, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Vocational guidance in high schools, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Vocational training, appeal of, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cincinnati, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in elementary grades, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lowville, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Washington Irving High School, procedure in, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Waste in education, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">extent of, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Wider use of the schools, Lowville, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>.<br /> +<br /> +William Penn High School, student organization in, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>.<br /> +</p> + +<div class="trans_note"> +<p class="center"><a name="TN" id="TN"></a><big>TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE:</big></p> + +<p>Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as +possible, including obsolete and variant spellings. Obvious +typographical errors in punctuation (misplaced quotes and the like) have +been fixed. Corrections [in brackets] in the text are noted below:</p> + +<p><a name="Page_4tn" id="Page_4tn"></a>page 4: missing quote added<br /> + +article, will exclaim,—“<a href="#Page_4t">[‘]</a>There is something that we must +introduce into our schools.’â€<br /><br /> + +<a name="Page_8tn" id="Page_8tn"></a>page 8: added missing word<br /> + +VIII. Breaching <a href="#Page_8t">[the]</a> Chinese Wall of High School Classicism<br /><br /> + +<a name="Page_9tn" id="Page_9tn"></a>page 9: typo corrected<br /> + +I. “<a href="#Page_9t">Coöperationâ€[Co-operation]</a> and “Progressivismâ€<br /><br /> + +<a name="Page_29tn" id="Page_29tn"></a>page 29: typo corrected<br /> + +education of the city child. Standing on the <a href="#Page_29t">threshhold[threshold]</a> +of his meager dwelling, this child of six looks forward<br /><br /> + +<a name="Page_77tn" id="Page_77tn"></a>page 77: typo corrected<br /> + +school district establishes part-time day schools for the +instruction of youths over fourteen years <a href="#Page_77t">af[of]</a> age who +are engaged in regular employment, such board of education<br /><br /> + +<a name="Page_94tn" id="Page_94tn"></a>page 94: typo corrected<br /> + +buying of materials and simple <a href="#Page_94t">acounting[accounting]</a> covered their +mathematics. Those were the things which would probably<br /><br /> + +missing quote added<br /> + +school classes. They all brushed their hair. The boys +were neater and the girls were becomingly dressed.<a href="#Page_94t1">["]</a><br /><br /> + + +<a name="Page_103tn" id="Page_103tn"></a>page 103: typo corrected<br /> + +“Yes, it was a wrench,†Mr. <a href="#Page_103t">McAndrews[McAndrew]</a> admits. +“You see, the teachers hated to give up. They had been<br /><br /> + + +<a name="Page_123tn" id="Page_123tn"></a>page 123: missing quote added<br /> + +will all bear directly on the work of the farm in +which he is so deeply interested.<a href="#Page_123t">["]</a><br /><br /> + + +<a name="Page_167tn" id="Page_167tn"></a>page 167: missing quote added<br /> + +that is enough. We have no problem of discipline now. +The children and their parents are working for the +school.<a href="#Page_167t">["]</a><br /><br /> + + +<a name="Page_197tn" id="Page_197tn"></a>page 197: missing quote added<br /> + +first thing I knew, the way opened up—you never would guess how—it was +through biscuits.<a href="#Page_197t">["]</a><br /><br /> + + +<a name="Page_220tn" id="Page_220tn"></a>page 220: typo corrected<br /> + +biggest burden we have to carry—the most determined +enemy we have to fight? Well, sir, <a href="#Page_220t">its’s[it’s]</a> ignorance—the +ignorance of the common man about his farm or his<br /><br /> + +<a name="Page_233tn" id="Page_233tn"></a>page 233: missing quote added<br /> + +other States were equally good in view of the fact that a drought +prevailed very generally throughout the South in 1911.<a href="#Page_233t">["]</a><br /><br /> + + +<a name="Page_F28tn" id="Page_F28tn"></a>Footnote 28: missing quote added<br /> + +For a full statement of the work of the Columbus Schools +see “Industrial Education in Columbus,<a href="#Footnote_28_28">["]</a> Ga., R. B. Daniel, U. S.<br /><br /> + + +<a name="Page_246tn" id="Page_246tn"></a>page 246: missing quote added<br /> + +should use text-books as adults do books of reference, +while the teacher guides and directs in the development +of thought.<a href="#Page_246t">["]</a><br /> +</p> +</div> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The New Education, by Scott Nearing + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NEW EDUCATION *** + +***** This file should be named 26919-h.htm or 26919-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/6/9/1/26919/ + +Produced by Chris Curnow, Matt Mello and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + + +</pre> + +</body> +</html> diff --git a/26919-h/images/logo.jpg b/26919-h/images/logo.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..985ef12 --- /dev/null +++ b/26919-h/images/logo.jpg diff --git a/26919.txt b/26919.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..278050e --- /dev/null +++ b/26919.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9177 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The New Education, by Scott Nearing + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The New Education + A Review of Progressive Educational Movements of the Day (1915) + +Author: Scott Nearing + +Release Date: October 14, 2008 [EBook #26919] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NEW EDUCATION *** + + + + +Produced by Chris Curnow, Matt Mello and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + * * * * * + +TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: Every effort has been made to replicate this text as +faithfully as possible; please see detailed list of printing issues at +the end of the text, after the Index. + + * * * * * + + + + +THE NEW EDUCATION + +A REVIEW OF PROGRESSIVE +EDUCATIONAL MOVEMENTS +OF THE DAY + + +BY + +SCOTT NEARING, Ph.D. + +Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania + +AUTHOR OF "SOCIAL ADJUSTMENT," +"THE SUPER RACE," "WAGES IN THE UNITED STATES," +"SOCIAL SANITY," "REDUCING THE COST OF LIVING," etc. + + + CHICAGO NEW YORK + ROW, PETERSON & COMPANY + + Copyright, 1915 + ROW, PETERSON & COMPANY + + + * * * * * + + + + +PREFACE + + +During 1910, 1911, and 1912, as a part of a general plan to write a book +on education, I reread a great deal of the classical educational +literature, and carefully perused most of the current material in +magazine and book form. An interest aroused by undergraduate and +graduate work in the department of pedagogy had been whetted by the +revolutionary activity in every field of educational endeavor. The time +seemed ripe for an effective piece of constructive educational writing, +yet I could not see my way clear to begin it. Glaring faults there were; +remedies appeared ready at hand and easy of application; the will of an +aroused public opinion alone seemed to be lacking. By what method could +this wheel horse of reform best be harnessed to the car of educational +progress? + +I was still seeking for an answer to this riddle when the editors of +"The Ladies' Home Journal" asked me to consider the preparation of a +series of articles. "We have done some sharp destructive work in our +criticisms of the schools," they said. "Now we are going to do some +constructive writing. We are in search of two things:--first, a +constructive article outlining in general a possible scheme for +reorganizing the course of study; second, a series of articles +describing in a readable way the most successful public school work now +being done in the United States. We want you to visit the schools, study +them at first-hand, and bring back a report of the best that they have +to offer. When your investigation is completed, we shall expect you to +write the material up in such a form that each reader, after finishing +an article, will exclaim,--'There is something that we must introduce +into our schools.'" + +That was my opportunity. Instead of writing a book to be read by a +thousand persons, I could place a number of constructive articles before +two million readers. The invitation was a godsend. + +The articles, when completed, formed a natural sequence. First there was +the general article (Chapter 3) suggesting the reorganization. Then +followed descriptions of the schools in which some such reorganizations +had been effected. Prepared with the same point of view, the articles +constituted an acceptable series, having a general object and a +connecting idea running throughout. What more natural than to write a +few words of introduction and conclusion, and put the whole in book +form? The style of the articles has been changed somewhat, and +considerable material has been added to them; but, in the main, they +stand as they were written--simple descriptions of some of the most +advanced school work now being done in the United States. + +Looked at from any standpoint, this study is a collection of articles +rather than a book, yet there is sufficient relation between the +articles to give a measure of continuity to the thought which they +convey. In no sense is the work pedagogical or theoretical. It is, on +the contrary, a record of the impressions made on a traveler by a number +of school systems and schools. The articles purported to cover the most +progressive work which is being done in the most progressive schools. +Although the selection of successful schools was made only after a +careful canvass among the leading educators of the country, there are +undoubtedly many instances, still at large, which are in every sense as +worthy of commendation as any here recorded. This fact does not in any +way vitiate the purpose of the original articles, which was to set down +a statement of some educational successes in such a way that the lay +reader, grasping the significance of these ventures, might see in them +immediate possibilities for the schools in his locality. + +Behind all of the chapters is the same idea--the idea of educating +children--an idea which has taken firm hold of the progressive educators +in every section of the community. The schoolmaster is breaking away +from the traditions of his craft. He has laid aside the birch, the three +"R's," the categorical imperative, and a host of other instruments +invented by ancient pedagogical inquisitors, and with an open mind is +going up and down the world seeking to reshape the schools in the +interests of childhood. The task is Herculean, but the enthusiasm and +energy which inspire his labors are sufficient to overcome even those +obstacles which are apparently insurmountable. + + + + +CONTENTS + + PAGE + +INTRODUCTION. THE OLD EDUCATION 11 + + I. The Critical Spirit and the Schools 11 + + II. Some Harsh Words from the Inside 12 + + III. A Word from Huxley and Spencer 15 + + IV. Some Honest Facts 17 + + V. Have We Fulfilled the Object of Education? 22 + + +CHAPTER I. THE NEW BASIS FOR EDUCATION 24 + + I. Can There Be a New Basis? 24 + + II. Social Change 25 + + III. Keeping Up With the Times 26 + + IV. Education in the Early Home 27 + + V. City Life and the New Basis for Education 28 + + +CHAPTER II. TEACHING BOYS AND GIRLS 32 + + I. The New School Machinery 32 + + II. Rousseau Versus a Class of Forty 33 + + III. The Fallacious "Average" 34 + + IV. The Five Ages of Childhood 35 + + V. Age Distribution in One Grade 36 + + VI. Shall Child or Subject Matter Come First? 39 + + VII. The Vicious Practices of One "Good" School 40 + +VIII. Boys and Girls--The One Object of Educational Activity 42 + + +CHAPTER III. FITTING SCHOOLS TO CHILDREN 44 + + I. Child Growth--A Primary Factor in Child Life 44 + + II. Children Need Health First 45 + + III. Play as a Means to Growth 46 + + IV. Some Things Which a Child Must Learn 48 + + V. What Schools Must Provide to Meet Child Needs 51 + + VI. The Educational Work of the Small Town 52 + + VII. The Educational Problems of an Industrial Community 55 + +VIII. Beginning With Child Needs 56 + + +CHAPTER IV. PROGRESSIVE NOTES IN ELEMENTARY EDUCATION 58 + + I. The Kindergarten 58 + + II. Translating the Three R's 59 + + III. Playing at Mathematics 60 + + IV. A Model English Lesson 61 + + V. An Original Fairy Story 65 + + VI. The Crow and the Scarecrow 67 + + VII. School and Home 68 + +VIII. Breaking New Ground 71 + + IX. The School and the Community 72 + + X. New Keys for Old Locks 74 + + XI. School and Shop 76 + + XII. Half a Chance to Study 79 + +XIII. Thwarting Satan in the Summer Time 80 + + XIV. Sending the Whole Child to School 81 + + XV. Smashing the School Machine 84 + + XVI. All Hands Around for an Elementary School 86 + +XVII. From a Blazed Trail to a Paved Highway 90 + + +CHAPTER V. KEEPING THE HIGH SCHOOL IN STEP WITH LIFE 92 + + I. The Responsibility of the High School 92 + + II. An Experiment in Futures 92 + + III. The Success Habit 95 + + IV. The Help-out Spirit 97 + + V. Joining Hands With the Elementary Schools 98 + + VI. The Abolition of "Mass Play" 101 + + VII. Experimental Democracy 103 + +VIII. Breaching [the] Chinese Wall of High School Classicism 105 + + IX. An Up-to-Date High School 107 + + X. From School to Shop and Back Again 109 + + XI. Fitting the High School Graduate Into Life 110 + + XII. The High School as a Public Servant 114 + + +CHAPTER VI. HIGHER EDUCATION AT LOWVILLE 116 + + I. Lowville and the Neighborhood 116 + + II. Lowville Academy 117 + + III. The School's Opportunity 119 + + IV. Field Work as Education 120 + + V. Real Domestic Science 122 + + VI. One Instance of Success 123 + +CHAPTER VII. A GREAT CITY SCHOOL SYSTEM 125 + + I. "Co-operation" and "Progressivism" 125 + + II. An Educational Creed 127 + + III. Vitalizing the Kindergarten 129 + + IV. Regenerating the Grades 132 + + V. Popularizing High School Education 137 + + VI. A City University 140 + + VII. Special Schools for Special Classes 141 + +VIII. Special Schools for Special Children 144 + + IX. Playground and Summer Schools 145 + + X. Mr. Dyer and the Men Who Stood With Him 147 + + +CHAPTER VIII. THE OYLER SCHOOL OF CINCINNATI 153 + + I. An Experiment in Social Education 153 + + II. An Appeal for Applied Education 156 + + III. Solving a Local Problem 157 + + IV. Domestic Science Which Domesticates 159 + + V. Making Commercial Products in the Grades 161 + + VI. A Real Interest in School 162 + + VII. The Mothers' Club 163 + +VIII. The Disappearance of "Discipline" 165 + + IX. The Spirit of Oyler 167 + + +CHAPTER IX. VITALIZING RURAL EDUCATION 170 + + I. The Call of the Country 170 + + II. Making Bricks With Straw 171 + + III. Making the One-Room Country School Worth While 182 + + IV. Repainting the Little Red Schoolhouse 187 + + V. A Fairyland of Rural Education 188 + + VI. The Task of the Country School 193 + + +CHAPTER X. OUT OF THE MOUTHS OF BABES AND SUCKLINGS 195 + + I. Miss Belle 195 + + II. Going to Work Through the Children 196 + + III. Beginning on Muffins 197 + + IV. Taking the Boys in Hand 200 + + V. "Busy Work" as an Asset 201 + + VI. Marguerite 203 + + VII. Winning Over the Families 204 + +CHAPTER XI. WIDE-AWAKE SLEEPY EYE 207 + + I. Fitting Schools to Needs 207 + + II. Getting the Janitor in Line 208 + + III. The Department of Agriculture 209 + + IV. A Short Course for Busy People 212 + + V. Letting the Boys Do It 214 + + VI. A Look at the Domestic Science 214 + + VII. How It Works Out 216 + +VIII. Theoretical and Practical 217 + + +CHAPTER XII. THE SOUTH FOR THE NEW EDUCATION 220 + + I. A Dream of Empire 220 + + II. Finding the Way 222 + + III. Jem's Father 224 + + IV. Club Life Militant 228 + + V. Canning Clubs 234 + + VI. Recognition Day for Boys and Girls 235 + + VII. Teaching Grown-Ups to Read 236 + +VIII. George Washington, Junior 237 + + IX. A Step Toward Good Health 239 + + X. Theory and Practice 242 + + XI. A People Coming to Its Own 249 + + +CHAPTER XIII. THE SPIRIT OF THE NEW EDUCATION 251 + + I. The Standard of Education 251 + + II. Standardization Was a Failure 252 + + III. Education as Growth 254 + + IV. Child Needs and Community Needs 255 + + V. The Final Test of Education 257 + + + + +THE NEW EDUCATION + +INTRODUCTION + +THE OLD EDUCATION + + +I The Critical Spirit and the Schools + +"Everybody is doing it," said a high school principal the other day. "I +look through the new books and I find it; it stands out prominently in +technical as well as in popular magazines; even the educational papers +are taking it up,--everybody seems to be whacking the schools. Yesterday +I picked up a funny sheet on which there were four raps at the schools. +One in particular that I remember ran something like this,-- + +"'James,' said the teacher, 'if Thomas has three red apples and William +has five yellow apples, how many apples have Thomas and William?' + +"James looked despondent. + +"'Don't you know?' queried the teacher, 'how much three plus five is?' + +"'Oh, yes, ma'am, I know the answer, but the formula, ma'am,--it's the +formula that appals me.' + +"Probably nine-tenths of the people who read that story enjoyed it +hugely," continued the schoolman, "and they enjoyed it because it struck +a responsive chord in their memories. At one time or another in their +school lives, they, too, bowed in dejection before the tyranny of +formulas." + +This criticism of school formulas is not confined to popular sources. +Prominent authorities in every field which comes in contact with the +school are barbarous in their onslaughts. State and city +superintendents, principals, teachers, parents, employers,--all have +made contribution to the popular clamor. On every hand may be gleaned +evidences of an unsatisfied critical spirit. + + +II Some Harsh Words from the Inside + +The Commissioner of Education of New York State writes of the +schools,--[1] "A child is worse off in a graded school than in an +ungraded one, if the work of a grade is not capable of some specific +valuation, and if each added grade does not provide some added power. +The first two grades run much to entertainment and amusement. The third +and fourth grades repeat the work supposed to have been done in the +first two. Too many unimportant and unrelated facts are taught. It is +like the wearying orator who reels off stories only to amuse, seems +incapable of choosing an incident to enforce a point, and makes no +progress toward a logical conclusion. + +"When but one-third of the children remain to the end of the elementary +course, there is something the matter with the schools. When half of the +men who are responsible for the business activities and who are guiding +the political life of the country tell us that children from the +elementary schools are not able to do definite things required in the +world's real affairs, there is something the matter with the schools. +When work seeks workers, and young men and women are indifferent to it +or do not know how to do it, there is something the matter with the +schools.[2] + +"There is a waste of time and productivity in all of the grades of the +elementary schools."[3] "The things that are weighing down the schools +are the multiplicity of studies which are only informatory, the +prolongation of branches so as to require many text-books, and the +prolixity of treatment and illustration that will accommodate +psychological theory and sustain pedagogical methods which have some +basis of reason, but which have been most ingeniously overdone."[4] + +Former United States Commissioner of Education, E. E. Brown, is +responsible for the statement that,--"With all that we have done to +secure regular and continuous attendance at school, it is still a mark +of distinction when any city is able to keep even one-half of the pupils +who are enrolled in its schools until they have passed even the seventh +grade."[5] + +Here is an illustration, from the pen of a widely known educational +expert, of the character of educational facilities in the well-to-do +suburb of an Eastern city. After describing two of the newer schools +(1911) Prof. Hanus continues,--"The Maple Avenue School is too small for +its school population, without a suitable office for the principal or a +common room for the teachers, and, of course, very inadequately equipped +for the work it ought to do; it ought, therefore, to be remodeled and +added to without delay. The Chestnut Street School is old, gloomy, +crowded, badly ventilated, and badly heated, has steep and narrow +stairways, and it would be dangerous in case of fire. There are fire +escapes, to be sure, but the access to some of these, though apparently +easy in a fire drill, might be seriously inadequate and dangerous in +case of haste or panic due to a real fire. In such a building sustained +good work by teachers and pupils is very difficult.... + +"The High School is miserably housed. It is dingy, badly lighted and +badly ventilated. These defects constitute a serious menace to the +physical welfare of pupils and teachers and, of course, seriously +interfere with good work. It is crowded. Intercommunication is devious +and inconvenient. The building is quite unfit for high school uses. Some +of the school furniture is very poor; the physical and chemical +classrooms and laboratories are very unsatisfactory, and its biological +laboratory and equipment scarcely less so. The assembly room is too +small, badly arranged, and badly furnished. There are no toilet-rooms +for the teachers, and there is no common room. There is no satisfactory +or adequate lunch-room. The library is in crowded quarters; the +principal's office space is altogether too small, and his private office +almost derisively so."[6] + +Overwork in the school is said to be alarmingly prevalent. "It is +generally recognized by physicians and educators to-day that many +children in the schools are being seriously injured through nervous +overstrain. Throughout the world there is a developing conviction that +one of the most important duties of society is to determine how +education may be carried on without depriving children of their health. +It is probable that we are not requiring too much work of our pupils, +but they are not accomplishing their tasks economically in respect to +the expenditure of nervous energy. Some experiments made at home and +abroad seem to indicate that children could accomplish as much +intellectually, with far less dissipation of nervous energy, if they +were in the schoolroom about one-half the time which they now spend +there. German educators and physicians are convinced that a fundamental +reform in this respect is needed. In fact, among school children we are +learning the same lesson as among factory employees, viz., that high +pressure and long hours are not economy but waste of time."[7] + +The school has been rendered monotonous. "We have worked for system till +the public schools have become machines. It has been insistently +proclaimed that all children must do things the same way for so long a +time, that many of us have actually come to believe it. Children unborn +are predestined to work after the same fashion that their grandparents +did."[8] + + +III A Word from Huxley and Spencer + +These are typical of a host of similar criticisms of the schools which +leading educators, men working within the school system, are directing +against it. Out of the fullness of their experience they spread the +conviction that the school often fails to prepare for life, that it +frequently distorts more effectively than it builds. The thought is not +new. Thomas Huxley asked, years ago, whether education should not be +definitely related to life. He wrote,--"If there were no such things as +industrial pursuits, a system of education which does nothing for the +faculties of observation, which trains neither the eye nor the hand, +and is compatible with utter ignorance of the commonest natural truths, +might still be reasonably regarded as strangely imperfect. And when we +consider that the instruction and training which are lacking are exactly +those which are of most importance for the great mass of our population, +the fault becomes almost a crime, the more so in that there is no +practical difficulty in making good these defects."[9] + +Approaching the matter from another side, Tyler puts a pertinent +question in his "Growth and Education,--" "In the grammar grade is +learning and mental discipline of chief importance to the girl, or is +care of the body and physical exercise absolutely essential at this +period? No one seems to know, and very few care. What would nature +say?"[10] + +Herbert Spencer answers Tyler's question in spirited fashion. "While +many years are spent by a boy in gaining knowledge, of which the chief +value is that it constitutes 'the education of a gentleman;' and while +many years are spent by a girl in those decorative acquirements which +fit her for evening parties; not an hour is spent by either of them in +preparation for that gravest of all responsibilities--the management of +a family."[11] "For shoe-making or house-building, for the management of +a ship or a locomotive-engine, a long apprenticeship is needful. It is, +then, that the unfolding of a human being in body and mind, may we +superintend and regulate it with no preparation whatever?"[12] + +One fact is self-evident,--the existence of a body of criticism and +hostility is prima facia evidence of weakness on the part of the +institution criticised, particularly when the criticism comes strong and +sharp from school-men themselves. The extent and severity of school +criticism certainly bespeaks the careful consideration of those most +interested in maintaining the efficiency of the school system. + + +IV Some Honest Facts + +Let us face the facts honestly. If you include country schools, and they +must be included in any discussion of American Education, the school +mortality,--i. e., the children who drop out of school between the first +and eighth years--is appalling. We may quarrel over percentages, but the +dropping out is there. + +The United States Commissioner of Education writes,--[13] "Of +twenty-five million children of school age (5 to 18), less than twenty +million are enrolled in schools of all kinds and grades, public and +private; and the average daily attendance does not exceed fourteen +million, for an average school term of less than 8 months of 20 days +each. The average daily attendance of those enrolled in the public +schools is only 113 days in the year, less than 5-3/4 months. The +average attendance of the entire school population is only 80-1/2 days, +or 4 months of 20 days each. Assuming that this rate of attendance shall +continue through the 13 school years (5 to 18), the average amount of +schooling received by each child of the school population will be 1,046 +days, or a little more than 5 years of 10 school months. This bureau +has no reliable statistics on the subject, but it is quite probable that +less than half the children of the country finish successfully more than +the first 6 grades; only about one-fourth of the children ever enter +high school; and less than 8 in every 100 do the full 4 years of high +school work. Fewer than 5 in 100 receive any education above the high +school." + +Taking this dropping out into consideration, it is probable that the +majority of children who enter American schools receive no more +education than will enable them to read clumsily, to write badly, to +spell wretchedly, and to do the simplest mathematical problems +(addition, subtraction, etc.) with difficulty. In any real sense of the +word, they are neither educated nor cultured. + +Judge Draper, Superintendent of Public Instruction in New York State, +writes,--[14] "We cannot exculpate the schools. They are as wasteful of +child life as are the homes. From the bottom to the top of the American +educational system we take little account of the time of the child.... +We have eight or nine elementary grades for work which would be done in +six if we were working mainly for productivity and power. We have shaped +our secondary schools so that they confuse the thinking of youth and +break the equilibrium between education and vocations, and people and +industries.... In the graded elementary schools of the State of New +York, less than half of the children remain to the end of the course. +They do not start early enough. They do not attend regularly enough. The +course is too full of mere pedagogical method, exploitation and +illustration, if not of kinds and classes of work. The terms are too +short and the vacations too long.... More than half of the children drop +out by the time they are fourteen or fifteen, the limits of the +compulsory attendance age, because the work of the schools is behind the +age of the pupils, and we do not teach them the things which lead them +and their parents to think it will be worth their while to remain." + +Observe that Judge Draper writes of the graded schools only. Could you +conceive of a more stinging rebuke to an institution from a man who is +making it his business to know its innermost workings? + +These statements refer, not to the small percentage of children who go +to high school, but to that great mass of children who leave the school +at, or before, fourteen years of age. If you do not believe them, go +among working children and find out what their intellectual +qualifications really are. + +One fact must be clearly borne in mind,--the school system is a social +institution. In the schools are the people's children. Public taxes +provide the funds for public education. Perhaps no great institution is +more generally a part of community interest and experience than the +public school system. + +The most surprising thing about the school figures is the overwhelming +proportion of students in the elementary grades--17,050,441 of the +18,207,803. If you draw three lines, the first representing the number +of children in the elementary schools, the second showing the number in +the high school, and the third the number of students in colleges, +professional and normal schools, the contrast is astonishing. + +It is perfectly evident, therefore, that the real work of education +must be done in the elementary grades. The high schools with a million +students, and the universities, colleges, professional and normal +schools with three hundred thousand more, constitute an increasingly +important factor in education; at the same time, for every seven +students in these higher schools, there are ninety-three children in the +elementary grades. The proportion is so unexpected that it staggers +us--more than nine-tenths of the children who attend school in the +United States are in the elementary grades! Can this be the school +system of which our forefathers dreamed when they established a +universal, free education nearly a hundred years ago? Did they foresee +that such an overwhelming proportion of American children would never +have an opportunity to secure more than the rudiments of an education? + +Be that as it may, the facts glower menacingly at us from city, town and +countryside,--the overcrowded elementary grades and the higher schools +with but a scant proportion of the students. So, if we wish to educate +the great mass of American children, we must go to the primary grades to +do it. + +There are, in the public schools, 533,606 teachers, four-fifths of whom +are women. These teachers are at work in 267,153 school buildings having +a total value of $1,221,695,730. Each year some four hundred and fifty +million dollars are devoted to maintaining and adding to this +educational machine. + +The school system is the greatest saving fund which the American people +possess. The total value of school property is greater than the entire +fortune of the richest American. Each year the people spend upon their +schools a sum sufficient to construct a Panama Canal or a +transcontinental railway system. Thus the public school is the greatest +public investment in the United States. + +It is one thing to invest, and quite a different matter to be assured a +fair return on the investment. Nevertheless, the individual investor +believes in his right to a fair return. From their public investments, +the people, in fairness, can demand no more; in justice to themselves, +they may accept no less. Are they receiving a fair return? The people of +the United States have invested nearly a billion dollars in the public +school system; each year they contribute nearly half a billion dollars +more toward the same end. Are they getting what they pay for? + +Turn to another section of the Report of the Commissioner of Education, +and note how, in mild alarm, he protests against teachers' salaries so +low "that it is clearly impossible to hire the services of men and women +of good native ability and sufficient scholarship, training and +experience to enable them to do satisfactory work;" against the +schoolhouses, which are "cheap, insanitary, uncomfortable and +unattractive;" against "thousands of schools" in which "one teacher +teaches from twenty to thirty classes a day;" against "courses of study +ill-adapted to the interest of country children or the needs of country +life;" against "a small enrollment of the total children of school age," +and a school attendance so low that "the average of the entire school +population is only 80-1/2 days per year."[15] + +The tone of these statements is certainly not reassuring. Perhaps it is +high time that the citizens inquired into the status of their +educational securities--their public school system. + + +V Have We Fulfilled the Object of Education? + +The object of education is complete living. A perfect educational system +would prepare those participating in it to live every phase of their +lives, and to derive from life all possible benefit. Any educational +system which enables men to live completely is therefore fulfilling its +function. On the other hand, an educational system which does not +prepare for life is not meeting the necessary requirements. + +Charles Dickens, in his characteristic way, thus describes in "Hard +Times" a public school class under the title "Murdering the Innocents:" + + "'In this life, we want nothing but Facts, sir; nothing but + Facts.' + + "The speaker and the school master swept with their eyes the + inclined plane of little vessels then and there arranged in + order, ready to have imperial gallons of facts poured into them + until they were full to the brim. So Mr. M'Choakumchild (the + school master) began in his best manner. He went to work on this + preparatory lesson, not unlike Morgiana in the Forty + Thieves--looking into all the vessels ranged before him, one + after another, to see what they contained. Say, good Mr. + M'Choakumchild: when from thy store thou shalt fill each jar + brim full by and by, dost thou think thou wilt always kill + outright the robber Fancy lurking within, or sometimes only maim + him and distort him!" + +Is the picture overdrawn? Are there grades in our large American cities +where conditions similar to those just portrayed may be found? Every +parent who has a child in the public schools, every taxpayer who +contributes to school support, has a right to a direct, impartial and +honest answer to that question. + +Among educators as well as among members of the general public a spirit +of educational unrest has developed. Everywhere there is an ill-defined +feeling of dissatisfaction with the work of the schools; everywhere an +earnest desire to see the schools do more effectively the school work +which is regarded, on every hand, as imperative. + +The facts of school failure are more generally known than the facts of +school success; yet there are successful schools. Indeed, some of the +school systems of the United States are doing remarkably effective work. +Emphasis has been lavished on the failure side of the educational +problem, until public opinion is fairly alive to the necessity of some +action. The time is, therefore, ripe for a positive statement of +educational policy. Many schools have succeeded. Let us read the story +of the good work. Efficient educational systems are in operation. Let us +model the less successful experiments on those more successful ones. + +Circumstances force people to live in one place, to see one set of +surroundings and meet one kind of folks, until they are led to believe, +almost inevitably, that their kind is _the_ kind. Schools are the +victims of just such provincialism. Although the school superintendents +and principals, and some of the school teachers meet their co-workers +from other cities, the people whose children attend the schools almost +never have an opportunity to learn intelligently what other schools are +doing. This city develops one educational idea, and that city develops +another idea. Although both ideas may deserve widespread consideration, +and perhaps universal adoption, they will fail to measure up to the full +stature of their value unless the people in all communities learn about +them intelligently. + + FOOTNOTES: + + [Footnote 1: "American Education," Andrew S. Draper, Boston; + Houghton Mifflin Co., 1909, pp. 281-83.] + + [Footnote 2: Ibid., p. 275.] + + [Footnote 3: Ibid., p. 281.] + + [Footnote 4: Idem.] + + [Footnote 5: The Responsibility of the School, E. E. Brown, U. S. + Commissioner of Education. A pamphlet privately printed in + Philadelphia, 1908, containing a series of addresses.] + + [Footnote 6: Report on the Programme of Studies in the Public + Schools of Montclair, N. J., Paul H. Hanus, Cambridge, Mass., pp. + 7 and 8.] + + [Footnote 7: Report on National Vitality, Irving Fisher, + Washington Government Print., 1909, pp. 76-77.] + + [Footnote 8: The Problem of Individualizing Instruction, W. F. + Andrew, Education, Vol. 26, p. 135 (1905).] + + [Footnote 9: Evolution and Ethics, T. H. Huxley, New York, D. + Appleton & Co., 1902, p. 220.] + + [Footnote 10: Growth and Education, J. M. Tyler, Houghton Mifflin + Co., New York, 1907, p. 21.] + + [Footnote 11: Education, H. Spencer, New York, D. Appleton & Co., + 1861, p. 162.] + + [Footnote 12: Supra, p. 63.] + + [Footnote 13: Annual Report, U. S. Commissioner of Education, + 1911; Washington Government Print., 1912, Vol. I, pp. 12-13.] + + [Footnote 14: Conserving Childhood, Andrew S. Draper; The Child + Workers of the Nation, Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Conference + on Child Labor, Chicago, Ill., Jan. 21-23, 1909; New York, 1909, + pp. 9-10.] + + [Footnote 15: Report U. S. Commissioner of Education, 1911, Vol. + I, p. 12.] + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE NEW BASIS FOR EDUCATION[16] + + +I Can There Be a New Basis? + +Can there be a new basis for education? Does the foundation upon which +education rests really change? Is the educational system of one age +necessarily unfitted to provide for the educational needs of the next? +These, and a multitude of the similar questions which people interested +in educational progress are asking themselves, arise out of the process +of transition that is seemingly one of the fundamental propositions of +the universe. All things change, and are changing, from the smallest +cell to the most highly organized creature, the noblest mountain range, +and the vastest sun in the heavens. To-day differs from yesterday as +to-morrow must differ from to-day. All things are becoming. + +Test this statement with the observed facts of life. Here is a garden, +well-planted and watered. The soil is loamy and black. On all its +surface there is nothing, save a clod here and there, to relieve the +warm, moist regularity. Come to-morrow and the level surface is broken +by tiny green shoots which have appeared at intervals, thrusting through +the top crust. Next week the black earth is striped with rows of green. +Onions, beets, lettuce, and peas are coming up. Go back to the hills +which you climbed in boyhood, ascend their chasmed sides and note how +even they have changed. Each year some part of them has disappeared +into the rapid torrent. Had you been there in April, you might have seen +particles of your beloved hills in every water-course, hurrying toward +the lowlands and the sea. While you watch them, the clouds change in the +sky, the sunset wanes, and the forest covers the bared hills. Nature, +fickle mistress of our destinies, spreads a never-ending panorama before +our eyes that we may recognize the one great law of her being,--the law +of progression. + + +II Social Change + +How well does this principle of change apply to the organization of +society! The absolute monarchy of one age yields to the semi-democracy +of the next. Yesterday the church itself traded in men's +bodies,--holding slaves, and accepting, without question, the proceeds +of slavery. To-day machines replace men in a thousand industries. +To-morrow slavery is called into question, until in the dim-glowering +nineteenth century, men will struggle and die by tens of thousands;--on +the one side, those who believe that the man should be the slave; on the +other, those who hold that the slavery of the machine is alone necessary +and just. Thus is every social institution altered from age to age. Thus +is effected that transformation which men have chosen to call progress. + +How profoundly does this truth apply to the raw material of +education,--the children who enroll in the schools! Under your very eyes +they lose their childish ways, feel their steps along the precipice of +adolescence, enter the wonderland of imagery and idealism, and pass on +into the maturity of life. How vain is our hope that the child may +remain a child; how worthless our prayer that adult life shall never lay +her heavy burden of cares and responsibilities upon his beloved +shoulders. Even while you raise your hands in supplication, the child +has passed from your life forever, leaving naught save a man to confront +you. + +From these mighty scythe strokes which change sweeps across the meadows +of time, naught is exempt. The petals fall from the fairest flower; the +bluest sky becomes overcast; the greatest feats of history are +surpassed; and the social machinery, adequate for the needs of one age, +sinks into the insignificance of desuetude in the age which follows. +Thus does the inevitable come to pass. Thus does the social institution, +wrought through centuries of turmoil and anguish, become useless in the +newer civilization which is arising on every hand. The educational +system in its inception was well founded, but the changes of time +invalidate the original idea. Yesterday the school fulfilled the needs +of men. To-day it fails to meet a situation which reshapes itself with +each rising and each setting of the sun. + +Each epoch must have its institutions. With the work of the past as a +background, the present must constantly reshape the institutions which +the past has bequeathed to it. These modified institutions, handed on in +turn by the present, must again be rebuilt to meet the needs of the +future; and so on through each succeeding age. + + +III Keeping Up with the Times + +At times the march of progress is so rapid that even the most advanced +grow breathless with attempts to keep abreast of the vanguard. Again, +marking time for ages, progressive movements seem wholly dead, and the +path to the future is overgrown with tradition, and blocked by oblivion +and decay. The rapid advances of the nineteenth century, challenging the +quickest to keep pace, forced upon many institutions surroundings +wholly foreign to their bent and scope. + +Nowhere is this more true than in the case of the educational system, +which had its rise in an age of individualized industry and governmental +non-interference, and now faces a newly inaugurated socialization of +industry and an impromptu system of government control. + +The new basis of education lies in the changes which the nineteenth +century wrought in industry, transforming village life into city +dwelling, and substituting for the skilled mechanic, using a tool, the +machine, employing the unskilled worker. The men of the eighteenth +century made political institutions, and were content with democracy; +the men of the nineteenth century, accepting government as it stood, +built up a new industry. The society which we in the twentieth century +must erect upon the political and industrial triumphs of our +forefathers, can never be successful unless it recognizes the +fundamental character of the issues which nineteenth century industry +and eighteenth century politics have brought into twentieth century +life. + +Is it too much to ask that the school stand foremost in this recognition +of change, when it is in the school that the ideas of the new generation +are moulded, tempered, and burnished? May we not expect that in its +lessons to the young our educational system shall speak the language of +the twentieth century rather than that of the eighteenth? + + +IV Education in the Early Home + +Before the modern system of industry had its inception, while the old +hand trades still held sway, at a time when the household was the center +of work and pleasure, when the family made its butter, cheese, oatmeal, +ale, clothing, tools, and utensils,--in such an atmosphere of domestic +industry, Froebel wrote his famous "Education of Man." Note this +description of the way in which a father may educate his son. "The son +accompanies his father everywhere, to the field and to the garden, to +the shop and to the counting house, to the forest and to the meadow; in +the care of domestic animals and in the making of small articles of +household furniture; in the splitting, sawing, and piling up of wood; in +all the work his father's trade or calling involves."[17] In another +passage he calls upon parents, "more particularly fathers (for to their +special care and guidance the child ripening into boyhood is confided)," +to contemplate "their parental duties in child guidance;"[18] and he +prefaces this exhortation with a long list of illustrations, suggesting +the methods which may be pursued by the farm laborer, the goose-herd, +the gardener, the forester, the blacksmith, and other tradesmen and +craftsmen, in the education of their sons. Any such man, Froebel points +out, may take his child at the age of two or three and teach him some of +the simple rules of his trade. How different is the position of the son +of a workman in a modern American city! An American city dweller reading +Froebel's discussion would not conceive of it as applying in any sense +to him, or to his life. + + +V City Life and the New Basis for Education + +The very thought of city life precludes the possibility of home work. +The narrow house, the tenement, the great shop or factory, on the one +hand, prevent the mechanic from carrying on his trade near his family; +and on the other hand, make it impossible for the father whose work +lies far from his home to give his boys the "special care and guidance" +about which Froebel writes. + +The system of industry which was established in England during the +closing decades of the eighteenth century, and which secured a foothold +in both Germany and the United States during the first half of the +nineteenth century, has revolutionized the basis of our lives. The +workshop has been transplanted from the home to the factory; both men +and women leave their homes for ten, eleven, or even twelve hours a day +to carry on their industrial activities; great centers of population +collect about the centers of industry; the farm, the flock of geese, the +garden, the forest, and the blacksmith shop disappear; food, clothing, +and other necessaries of life--formerly the product of home +industry--are produced in great factories; and the city home, stripped +of its industrial functions, restricted in scope, robbed of its adults, +presents little opportunity for the education of the city child. +Standing on the threshold of his meager dwelling, this child of six +looks forward to a life which must be based on the instruction provided +in a public school system. + +The country boy still has his ten-acre lot, where he may run and play. +There are flowers and freckles in the spring; kite-flying, fishing, +hunting, and trapping in summer and autumn. The general farm is a +storehouse of useful information in rudimentary form. From day to day +and from year to year the country boy may learn and enjoy. + +The city boy is differently situated. His playground is the street, +where he plays under the wheels of wagons, automobiles, and trolley +cars; or else he plays in a public playground in company with hundreds, +or even thousands, of other children. Even then his activities are +restricted by city ordinances, monitors, policemen, and other exponents +of law and order. + +The city home, whether tenement or single house, cannot begin to supply +the opportunities for growth and development which were furnished by +life in the open. Where else, then, does the responsibility for such +growth and development rest than upon the school? On the farm the boy +learned his trade, as Froebel suggests, at the hands of his father. The +father of the city boy spends his working hours in a mill, or in an +office, where boys under fourteen or sixteen are forbidden by law to go. +The city home is unavoidably deprived of the chance to provide adequate +recreation or adequate vocational training for its children. The burden +in both cases shifts to the school. + +A hundred years ago practically all industries were carried on in +connection with the home. The weaver, the carpenter, the hatter, the +cobbler, the miller, lived and worked on the same premises. Then steam +was applied to industry; the machine replaced the man; semi-skilled and +unskilled labor replaced skilled labor; great numbers of men and women, +and even of children, crowded together in factories to spin thread, make +bolts and washers, weave ribbon, bake bread, manufacture machinery, or +do some one of the many hundreds of things now done in factories. The +change from home industry to factory industry is well named the +Industrial Revolution. It completely overturned the established and +accepted means of making a living. + +The industrial upheaval has changed every phase of modern life. Industry +itself has replaced apprenticeship by a degree of specialization +undreamed of in primitive life. From the superintendent to the office +boy, from the boss roller to the yard laborer, from the chief clerk to +the stenographer, the work of men and women is monotonous and +specialized. The city has grown up as a logical product of an industrial +system which centers thousands, or even tens of thousands, of workmen in +one place of employment. The city home differs fundamentally from the +country home as the city differs from the country. + +The changes now going on in farming are no less significant than those +which the nineteenth century witnessed in manufacturing. Science has +been applied to agriculture. Old methods are brought into question. +Intensive study and specialization are widespread. The time has passed +when a farmer can afford to neglect the agricultural bulletins or +papers. To be successful, he must be a trained specialist in his line, +and the school and college are called upon to provide the training. + +No individual is responsible for these changes. They have come as the +logical product of a long series of discoveries and inventions. New +methods, built upon the ideas and methods of the past, have created a +new civilization. + +The civilized world, reorganized and reconstituted, rebuilt in all of +its economic phases, demands a new teaching which shall relate men and +women to the changed conditions of life. This is the new basis for +education,--this the new foundation upon which must be erected a +superstructure of educational opportunity for succeeding generations. It +remains for education to recognize the change and to remodel the +institutions of education in such a way that they shall meet the new +needs of the new life. + + FOOTNOTES: + + [Footnote 16: Portions of this chapter originally appeared in The + Journal of Education.] + + [Footnote 17: "The Education of Man," F. Froebel. Translated by + W. N. Halliman, New York; D. Appleton & Co. 1909, p. 103.] + + [Footnote 18: Ibid., p. 187.] + + + + +CHAPTER II + +TEACHING BOYS AND GIRLS + + +I The New School Machinery + +The influence which the industrial changes of the past hundred years has +had on education is considerable. With the transformation of the home +workshop into the factory has come the transition from rural and village +life to life in great industrial cities and towns. The introduction of +specialized machinery has placed upon education the burden of vocational +training. More important still, it has so augmented the size of the +educational problem that an intricate system of school machinery has +been devised to keep the whole in order. + +The rural, or village, school was a one or two-room affair, housing a +handful of pupils. Aside from matters of discipline, the administration +of the school was scarcely a problem. General superintendents, associate +superintendents, compulsory attendance laws, card index systems, and +purchasing departments were unknown. The school was a simple, personal +business conducted by the teacher in very much the same way that the +corner grocer conducted his store--on faith and memory. + +The growth of cities and towns necessitated the introduction of +elaborate school machinery. In place of a score of pupils, thousands, +tens, and even hundreds of thousands were placed under the same general +authority. City life made some form of administrative machinery +inevitable. + +The increasing size of the school system,--and in new, growing cities +the school system increases with a rapidity equal to the rate of growth +of the population,--leads to increase in class size. A school of twenty +pupils is still common in rural districts. In the elementary grades of +American city schools, investigators find fifty, sixty, and in some +extreme cases, seventy pupils under the charge of one teacher, while the +average number, per teacher, is about forty. + +Recrimination is idle. The obvious fact remains that the rate of growth +in school population is greater than the rate of growth in the school +plant. The schools in many cities have not caught up with their +educational problem. The result is a multiplication of administrative +problems, not the least of which is the question of class size. + + +II Rousseau Versus a Class of Forty + +A toilsome journey it is from the education of an individual child by an +individual teacher (Rousseau's Emile) to the education of forty children +by one teacher (the normal class in American elementary city schools). +Rousseau pictured an ideal; we face a reality--complex, expanding, at +times almost menacing. + +The difference between Rousseau's ideal and the modern actuality is more +serious than it appears superficially. Rousseau's idea permitted the +teacher to treat the child as an individuality, studying the traits and +peculiarities of the pupil, building up where weakness appeared, and +directing freakish notions and ideas into conventional channels. The +modern city school with one teacher and forty pupils places before the +teacher a constant temptation, which at times reaches the proportions of +an overmastering necessity, to treat the group of children as if each +child were like all the rest. A teacher who can individualize forty +children, understand the peculiarities of each child, and teach in a way +that will enable each of the children to benefit fully by her +instruction, is indeed a master, perhaps it would be fairer to say a +super-master in pedagogy. A class of forty is almost inevitably taught +as a group. + +There is another feature about the large school system which is even +more disastrous to the welfare of the individual child. Rousseau studied +the individual to be educated, and then prescribed the course of study. +The city teacher, no matter how intimately she may be acquainted with +the needs of her children, has little or no say in deciding upon the +subjects which she is to teach her class. Such matters are for the most +part determined by a group of officials--principals, superintendents, +and boards of education,--all of whom are engaged primarily in +administrative work, and some of whom have never taught at all, nor +entered a psychological laboratory, nor engaged in any other occupation +that would give first-hand, practical, or theoretical knowledge of the +problems encountered in determining a course of study. + +A course of study must be devised, however, even though some of the +responsible parties have no first-hand knowledge of the points at issue. +The method by which it is devised is of peculiar importance to this +discussion. The administrative officials, having in mind an average +child, prepare a course of study which will meet that average child's +needs. Theoretically, the plan is admirable. It suffers from one +practical defect,--there is no such thing as an average child. + + +III The Fallacious "Average" + +Averages are peculiarly tempting to Americans. They supply the same +deeply-felt want in statistics that headlines do in newspapers. They +tell the story at a glance. In this peculiar case the story is +necessarily false. + +An average may be taken only of like things. It is possible to average +the figures 3, 4, and 8 by adding them together and dividing by 3. The +average is 5. Such a process is mathematically correct, because all of +the units comprising the 3, 4, and 8 are exactly alike. One of the +premises of mathematics is that all units are alike, hence they may be +averaged. + +Unlike mathematical units, all children are different. They differ in +physical, in mental, and in spiritual qualities. Their hair is different +in color and in texture. Their feet and hands vary in size. Some +children are apt at mathematics, others at drawing, and still others at +both subjects. Some children have a strong sense of moral +obligation,--an active conscience,--others have little or no moral +stamina. No two children in a family are alike, and no two children in a +school-room are alike. After an elaborate computation of hereditary +possibilities, biologists announce that the chance of any two human +creatures being exactly alike is one in five septillions. In simple +English, it is quite remote. + + +IV The Five Ages of Childhood + +A very ingenious statement of the case is made by Dr. Bird T. Baldwin. +Children, says Dr. Baldwin, have five ages,-- + + 1. A chronological age, + 2. A physical age, + 3. A mental age, + 4. A moral age, + 5. A school age. + +Two children, born on the same day, have the same age in years. One is +bound to grow faster than the other in some physical respect. Therefore +the two children have different physical ages, or rates of development. +In the same way they have differing mental and moral ages. The school +age, a resultant of the first three, is a record of progress in school. +Even when children are born on the same day, the chances that they will +grow physically, mentally, and morally at exactly the same rate, and +will make exactly the same progress in school, are remote indeed. School +children are, therefore, inevitably different. + + +V Age Distribution in One Grade + +A very effective illustration of the differences in chronological age, +in school age, and in the rate of progress in school is furnished in the +1911 report of the superintendent of schools for Springfield, Mass. +There are in this report a series of figures dealing with the ages, and +time in school, of fifth-grade pupils in Springfield. The first table +shows the number of years in school and the age of all the fifth-grade +pupils. + + +TABLE 1 + +_Age and Time in School, Fifth Grade, Springfield, December, 1911_ + + Years in Ages + School 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 Total + -----------------------------+---+----------------------------------- + 1 .. .. .. .. .. ..| 1| .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 1 + 2 .. .. .. 2 1 1| 1| 2 2 .. .. .. .. .. 9 + 3 .. .. .. 6 38 25| 9| .. 1 1 .. .. .. .. 80 + 4 .. .. .. .. 162 200| 63| 12 10 3 .. .. .. .. 450 + -----------------------------+---+----------------------------------- + 5 .. .. .. .. 17 178|131| 47 14 2 .. .. .. .. 389 + -----------------------------+---+----------------------------------- + 6 .. .. .. .. 1 11|120| 60 29 3 .. .. .. .. 224 + 7 .. .. .. .. .. 1| 3| 46 29 8 1 .. 1 .. 88 + 8 .. .. .. .. .. ..| 1| 4 17 4 1 .. .. .. 28 + 9 .. .. .. .. .. ..| ..| .. .. 4 1 .. .. .. 5 + 10 .. .. .. .. .. ..| ..| .. .. 1 .. .. .. .. 1 + 11 .. .. .. .. .. ..| ..| .. .. .. .. .. .. .. + 12 .. .. .. .. .. ..| ..| .. .. .. .. .. .. .. + 13 .. .. .. .. .. ..| ..| .. .. .. .. .. .. .. + Total .. .. .. 8 219 416|329| 171 102 26 3 .. 1 .. 1,275 + -----------------------------+---+----------------------------------- + + +Theoretically, children in Springfield enter the school at six, and +spend one year in each grade. If all of the children in the Springfield +schools had lived up to this theory, there would be 1,275 eleven years +of age, and 1,275 in the fifth grade. A glance at the table shows that +only 131, or about 10 per cent of the children, are both eleven years of +age and five years in the school. Among the 1,275 fifth-grade children, +389, or 31 per cent, have been in school five years, and 329, or 26 per +cent, are eleven years of age. + +The superintendent follows this general table with other tables giving a +more detailed analysis of over and under age pupils, and of rate of +progress in school. + + +TABLE 2 + +_Age and Progress Groups of Fifth-Grade Pupils in Springfield, +December, 1911_ + + Young | Normal | Over-age | Total + | | | + Per | Per | Per | Per + No. Cent | No. Cent | No. Cent | No. Cent + + Rapid 435 34 | 74 6 | 31 2 | 540 42 + Normal 195 16 | 131 10 | 63 5 | 389 31 + Slow 13 1 | 124 10 | 209 16 | 346 27 + --- -- | --- -- | --- -- | ----- --- + Total 643 51 | 329 26 | 303 23 | 1,275 100 + + +The inferences from Table 2 are very clear. Of the 1,275 fifth-grade +pupils, 435, or 34 per cent, are not only under-age for the grade, but +they have progressed at more than normal speed. They are the +exceptionally capable pupils of the grade. At the other extreme we find +209 children, or 16 per cent of all in the grade, who need special +attention because they are both over-age and slow. Feeble-minded +children rarely advance beyond the second grade; hence we know that none +of these are feeble-minded, but among their number will be found many +who will be little profited by the ordinary curriculum; 110 of them are +already 12 years old, and 75 are 13 years old. A majority of them will, +in all probability, drop out of school as soon as they reach the age of +14, unless prior to that time some new element of interest is introduced +that will make a strong appeal; for example, some activity toward a +vocation. + +A further study of the over-age column shows that 31 pupils, 2 per cent, +are over-age, but they have reached their present position in less than +usual time; while 63 of them, also over-age, have required the full five +years to reach their present grade position. Unless by limiting the +required work of these over-age pupils to the essentials, or by some +administrative arrangement involving special grouping with relatively +small numbers in a class, so that we can in the one case maintain, and +in the other case bring about, accelerated progress, there is little +likelihood that any large number will remain in school to complete the +ninth grade, much less take a high school course; for four years hence +their ages will range from 16 to 18 years. The 124 pupils who are of +normal age, but slow, are also subjects for special attention, for they +have repeated from one to three grades, or have failed to secure from +two to six half-yearly promotions, and are in danger of acquiring the +fatal habit of failure, if they have not already acquired it. + +The superintendent then goes on to emphasize the imperative duty resting +on each principal, to examine and to understand the varying capacities +of individual children in his school. Without such an understanding real +educational progress cannot be made. + +This study is most illuminating. Nothing could more effectually show +variation in individual children than the difference in one city grade +of the most obvious of characteristics--age and progress in school. The +infinitely greater variations in the subtle characteristics that +distinguish children can be more readily guessed at than measured. Under +these circumstances, the attempt to prepare studies for an "average +child" is manifestly futile. The course may be organized, but it will +hardly meet the needs of large numbers of the individual children who +take it. + + +VI Shall Child or Subject Matter Come First? + +The old education presupposed an average child, and then prepared a +course of study which would fit his needs. The new education recognizes +the absurdity of averaging unlike quantities, and accepts the ultimate +truth that each child is an individual, differing in needs, capacity, +outlook, energy, and enthusiasm from every other child. An arithmetic +average can be struck, but when it is applied to children it is a +hypothetical and not a real quantity. There is not, and never will be, +an average child; hence, a school system planned to meet the needs of +the average child fits the needs of no child at all. + +Mathematics may be taught to the average child. So may history and +geography. While subject matter comes first in the minds of educators, a +course of study designed to meet average conditions is a possibility. +The moment, however, that the schools cease to teach subjects and begin +to teach boys and girls, such a proceeding is out of the question. + +The temptation in a complex school system, where children are grouped by +hundreds and thousands, to allow the detail of administration to overtop +the functions of education is often irresistible. The teacher with +forty pupils learns to look upon her pupils as units. The superintendent +and principals, seeking ardently for an overburdened commercial ideal +named "efficiency," sacrifice everything else to the perfection of the +mechanism. Among the smooth clicking cogs, child individuality has only +the barest chance for survival. + + +VII The Vicious Practices of One "Good" School + +There are school systems in which organization has overgrown child +welfare, in which pedagogy has usurped the place of teaching. In such +systems the teacher teaches the prescribed course of study, whether or +no. The officers of administration, aiming at some mechanical ideal, +shape the schools to meet the requirements of system. + +The proneness of some teachers and school administrators alike to +overemphasize mechanics, and to underemphasize the welfare of individual +children is well illustrated in a recent statement by Dr. W. E. +Chancellor, who, in writing of a first-hand investigation made in a city +in the Northeast, describes a condition which he says "I know by fairly +authoritative reports does exist in a considerable number of cities and +towns--not merely in a school here and there, but generally and +characteristically. + +"In the city to which I definitely refer," Dr. Chancellor continues, "I +found that the intermediate and grammar grade teachers had +systematically, deliberately, and successfully sacrificed hundreds of +boys and girls upon the altar of examinations to the fetish of good +schools. They have been so anxious to have good schools that they have +kept an average of 20 per cent of their pupils one grade lower than they +belong. In some schools the average runs to above 35 per cent. + +"Some teachers and some school superintendents cannot see that the +school is simply a machine for developing boys and girls; cannot see +that the machine in itself is worthless save as it contributes to human +welfare. A school may be so good as actually to damage the souls and +bodies of human beings. It damages their souls when the machine +operators, seeking 75 per cent in every subject, keep boys and girls in +grammar schools until they average sixteen years of age."[19] Dr. +Chancellor continues with a stinging arraignment of school officials who +sacrifice children to systems. + +The article strikes an answering chord in the experiences of many men +and women. A friend came recently to our bungalow, and, with a troubled +face, spoke of his daughter's ill-health. + +"She is not sick," he said, "but just ailing. These first May days have +taken her appetite. She needs the country air." + +The daughter was a dear little girl of twelve--any one might have envied +the father of his treasure--and we offered to keep her with us for a +month in the country, and to go over her school work with her every day. +The father accepted our proposal on the spot, but two days later he came +back to say that he could not make the arrangements. + +"It cannot be done," he explained, "because the school will not let her +off. I told the principal about my daughter's health and showed him the +advantage of a month in the country with her school work carefully +supervised. Her school is rather crowded, and as I want her to go on +with her class in the autumn, I asked him if he could arrange to keep +her place for her. In reply he said,-- + +"'I cannot do as you wish. Such cases as yours interfere seriously with +the working of the school.'" + + +VIII Boys and Girls--The One Object of Educational Activity + +Perhaps our language was not as temperate as it should have been, but we +told that father something which we would fain repeat until every +educator and every parent in the United States has heard it and written +it on the tables of his heart,-- + + THE ONE OBJECT OF EDUCATION IS TO ASSIST AND PREPARE + CHILDREN TO LIVE. + +Why have we established a billion-dollar school system in the United +States? Is it to pay teachers' salaries, to build new school houses, and +to print text-books by the million? Hardly. These things are incidents +of school business, but they are no more reason for the school's +existence than fertilizer and seed are reasons for making a garden. +Gardens are cultivated in order to secure plants and flowers; the school +organization of which Americans so often boast exists to educate +children. + +"Of course," you exclaim, "we knew that before." Did you? Then why was +my friend forced to choose between the wreck of his daughter's health +and the disarrangement of a bit of school machinery? Why is Dr. +Chancellor able to describe a situation existing "generally and +characteristically," in which the welfare of children is bartered away +for high promotion averages? The truth is that society still tolerates, +and often accepts, the belief that the purpose of education is the +formation of a school system. We have yet to learn that, to use Herbert +Spencer's phrase, the object of education is the preparation of +children for complete living. + +Education exists for the purpose of preparing and assisting children to +live. To do that work effectively, it must devote only so much effort to +school administration and to school machinery as will perform for boys +and girls that very effective service. + +No two children are alike, and no two children have exactly similar +needs. There are, however, certain kinds of needs which all children +have in common. It is obviously impossible to discuss in the abstract +the needs of any individual child. It is just as obviously possible to +analyze child needs, and to classify them in workable groups. It is true +that all children are different; so are all roses different, yet all +have petals and thorns in common. Similarly, there are certain needs +which are common to all children who play, who grow, who live among +their fellows, and who expect to do something in life. The matter may be +stated more concretely thus,-- + + I. The school exists to assist and prepare children to live. + + II. Living involves three kinds of needs, which it is the duty + of the school to understand and interpret. + + 1. Needs which the child has because he is a physical being. + + 2. Needs which result from the child's surroundings. + + 3. Needs which arise in connection with the things which the + child hopes to do in life. + +A further analysis of these groups of needs constitutes the subject +matter of the next chapter. + + FOOTNOTES: + + [Footnote 19: Sacrificing Children, W. E. Chancellor, Journal of + Education, Vol. 77, pp. 564-565 (May 22, 1913).] + + + + +CHAPTER III + +FITTING SCHOOLS TO CHILDREN + + +I Child Growth--A Primary Factor in Child Life + +In the first place children have certain needs because in common with +many other living creatures they develop through spontaneous, +self-expressive activity. The growth of children is a growth in body, in +mind and in soul. + +During the first six years of life the bodies of children grow rapidly, +and during these years we wisely make no attempt to train their minds. +From six to twelve or thirteen body growth is slower, the mind is having +its turn at development, and during these years the children start to +school. + +Then, at twelve or thirteen or fourteen, differing with different races +and different individuals, all normal children enter the fairyland of +adolescence. Life takes on new meanings, human relationships are closer, +great currents of feeling run deep and strong through the child's being, +because there is coming into his life one of the most wonderful of human +experiences--the dawning of sex consciousness. + +This period of sex awakening produces a profound change in the lives of +boys, but it works an even greater transformation in the lives of girls. +For both sexes it is a time of rapid physical growth and of severe +mental and spiritual strain. It is a time when the energies of the body +are so entirely devoted to the development of sex functions that great +mental stress should above all things be avoided, yet it is at this +very time--think of it!--when we send our boys and girls to high school, +and force them to spend a great part of their waking hours in severe +intellectual efforts. + + +II Children Need Health First + +Had we set out with the deliberate intention of torturing our children +we could have devised no better method. If we had applied ourselves to +physiology, found out the time when the child needed the most energy for +physical growth and the most relief from mental strain, and had then set +out to plan a course of study which would wreck his health, we should +have built a school system which gave him the comparatively easy work of +the elementary grades until he was fourteen, and then, at the most +critical period of his life, sent him into a new system of schools to +study new, abstract subjects. + +What is it that our children must have before they can acquire anything +else? Health! We cry the word aloud, emphasizing and exhorting--nothing +without health! Yet, despite our protest, at a period of rapid physical +growth, at the time of severe spiritual trial, there yawns the high +school--grim for boys, ghastly for girls--with its ever-recurring +demand: "Work, study; study, work." + +Considering the child's physical welfare, the high school is placed at +exactly the point (fourteen to eighteen years) where it is best +calculated to destroy the delicate balance of sanity, rendering its +victims unable to stand the burden and heat of life's later day. + +We cannot escape the fact that children have bodies. The first duty of +the schools, therefore, is to recognize the existence of these bodies by +giving them due attention, particularly at the crucial periods of +physical growth. Therefore every school must provide as much physical +training as is necessary to insure normal body growth at each particular +age. + +Then there are certain rules of health--"hygiene," they are +called--which should be taught to every child. Since bodies do not stay +normal if they are abused every child should have right ideas of body +care. + +Most important of all, the schools must instruct children in sex hygiene +because the growth of sex consciousness is one of the most significant +of the changes which occur in the life of a child. + +"But must sex hygiene be taught in the school?" you will ask. + +Undoubtedly it must. If it were a choice between sex instruction in the +home or in the school, there would be no hesitation about delegating it +to the home; but since most homes neglect the discussion of sex matters, +leaving the children to gain their knowledge of sex from unreliable +sources on the streets, the choice lies between the perversion of sex as +it is taught on the streets, and the science of sex as it should be +taught in the schools. + + +III Play as a Means to Growth + +Children's minds grow as well as their bodies--grow in retention, in +grasp, and in power. Memory work (the learning of poems, songs, and +formulas) helps to make minds more retentive, while all studies, but +particularly number work, increase mental grasp and power. + +Besides body growth and mind growth all children have soul growth. They +develop human sympathy, and they are interested in esthetic things. To +supply these needs the school must give the child literature and art. +Simple these lessons must be, particularly in the elementary grades; but +there is scarcely a child who will not respond to the noble in +literature or the beautiful in art if these things are presented to him +in an understandable way. + +The bodies, minds, and souls of children grow. They are all sacred. Each +child needs a normal body, an active mind, a healthy and a beautiful +soul. We dare not develop bodies at the expense of minds and souls, but +neither may we educate minds at the expense of souls and bodies--a +tendency which has been fearfully prevalent in American education. + +The most valuable means of securing this all-important growth is "play," +which Froebel said contained the germinal leaves of all later life. +Growth comes only through expression. One does not develop muscle by +watching the strong man in the circus, but by exercising. The child's +chief means of expression is through play, hence play is the child's +method of securing growth. + +In their earliest infancy children play. Their frolics and antics are +really "puppy play," the product of overflowing life and animal spirits. +At this "puppy play" stage, when the child plays merely to work off +surplus energy, the most essential thing is a place to play, and the +school must meet this need by providing playgrounds. + +As children grow older they turn to a more advanced type of play. +Instead of romping and frolicking individually they play in groups. It +is in these group plays that the child gets his first idea of the duty +which he owes to his fellows, his first glimmering of a social sense. In +the home and in the school he is in a subordinate position, but in the +"gang," or "set," he is as good as the next. Group play teaches +democracy. More than that, group play has a moral value. Each one must +play fair. Those who do not are ruthlessly ostracized, so children learn +to abide by the decision of the crowd. While children's plays should be +as untrammeled as possible, it is the duty of the school to stimulate +group play by suggesting new games, organizing athletic meets, getting +up interclass sports, and in other ways supervising and directing games +and sports. + +In the course of the child's life play takes another form, the form of +creative work. Boys build wagons and houses; girls cook, and make dolls. +The "puppy play" of their early childhood has evolved into a form of +creative activity that sooner or later grips every human creature. We +want to plant, to build, to plan, to make. It is the creative power +within us yearning for expression, hence the well-planned school will +provide simple forms of manual training by means of which both boys and +girls will be taught to use their hands so skillfully that they may +translate an idea into a concrete product. + +Civilization has been described as the art of playing. Big folks are apt +to look down on play because most of it is done by children. But listen, +big folks: When Anna plays dolls she does it in a frank, serious, +whole-souled way that you seldom imitate. There is no activity so vital +to the child as play, nor does any man succeed at his work unless he can +"play at it" with the fervor and abandon of a child. + + +IV Some Things Which a Child Must Learn + +So much for the needs which a child has because he is a living creature. +Suppose we turn now to some other needs--the needs which arise because +the child is in a great universe and surrounded by his fellowmen. +Wherever a child lives and whatever he does he must always face certain +surrounding conditions. First among his surroundings are people. No one +except Robinson Crusoe can get away from people, and even Crusoe had his +man Friday. + +Since we are compelled, whether we like it or not, to live with people, +the school must teach language (oral and written), in order that the +children may learn to tell others what they think, and may likewise +understand the thoughts of others. The better the language the more +clearly can they understand each other. + +In order that children may have a proper respect for the rights of +others the school should teach ethics by means of simple stories about +people. Teachers should explain how men live in groups, and how, if +group life is to be tolerable, men must respect each other's rights. + +Perhaps in the upper elementary grades, and certainly in the high +school, there should be some simple work in psychology in order that +children may know how people's minds work. + +Then besides the people of the present there are the people of the past, +and, because the things which they did enable us to live as we do, +children should be taught history, particularly the history of their own +country, state, and town. + +The child comes into contact, in addition to people, with the +institutions which people have constructed--the home, the school, the +state, the industrial system. Every child who grows to maturity will +participate in the activity of these institutions, hence every child +should be taught about them. In the last two years of the elementary +grades civics can be successfully taught, since even at twelve years +children are interested in the things which are happening around them. +In the high schools this work can be carried much further in the form of +social and industrial problem courses. + +The most universal and by far the largest of the child's surroundings +consist of the things about him. He lives in a world, a very little +world to be sure, but to him it is great; and a knowledge of the world +comes through a study of geography. Beginning with the geography of his +native town (not with the basin of the Ganges) he can learn successively +about the geography of the county, the state, the country, and then of +the world. + +Surrounding the child on every hand are plants and animals. Nature study +gives him an intelligent interest in them. As he grows older general +nature study may be subdivided into geology, botany, zoology; and the +forces of nature may be examined in astronomy, chemistry, and physics: +but most of these subjects are too specialized for the elementary +grades, and should appear, if at all, in the high schools. + +There is a group of courses which belongs in every school--elementary +school as well as high school--namely, the courses which prepare +children for life activity. Growth and training in the art of living +enable children to fulfill the third function of their being--that of +doing. Every man and every woman needs work in order to live, and it is +a part of the duty of education to prepare them for that work. + +First of all, as modern society has developed, every man and many women +need an income-producing trade or occupation; hence it is the duty of +the schools to provide trade and professional educations (really the +same thing under different names). No child should be permitted to leave +the schools until he is proficient in some income-giving work. The +character of the teaching must be altered to suit the locality, but the +principle is absolute. + +Further, since men should not devote their entire lives to the same +task, because they require a change of occupation, the school should aim +to provide an avocation, or secondary occupation, which may occupy +leisure hours. Manual training, agriculture, art work, and civics will +supply different people with occupations for spare time. + +Finally, since one of the chief duties of society is to insure a healthy +and increasingly valuable supply of human beings, no one should leave +the schools without a thorough domestic training, including training for +parenthood. While this training should be given in a measure to boys, it +should be intended primarily for girls, and should include biology, +hygiene, chemistry, dietetics, psychology, and nursing. Although the +elementary grades can provide only the simplest training along these +lines that training should be given to every future housekeeper and +mother. + + +V What Schools Must Provide to Meet Child Needs + +If, up to this point, we have rightly described child needs, the school +must be so organized as to provide for growth and play, for instructing +the child in a knowledge of people, institutions, things and ideas, and +for preparing every child to do his work in life. + +These subjects must be so apportioned over the grades that each child +has the benefit of them. The high school is a continuation of the +elementary school. It is in the high school that children should begin +to specialize, because specialization before the beginning of +adolescence is undesirable; but since, in many localities, almost all of +the children leave before reaching the high school, these subjects must +be taught in the elementary grades. Certain things every child must +know. If he is going to drop school at fourteen, as three-quarters of +the American school children do, he must be reached in the first eight +school grades. If he goes to high school he may there be given an +opportunity to complete and intensify the education which the elementary +school has started. + +We believe that these fundamental principles of education are +sufficiently flexible to fit any community in the United States; they +will apply to places of the most divergent school needs. + + +VI The Educational Work of the Small Town + +Let us begin by applying the scheme to a mining village of three +thousand inhabitants, a typical industrial community. + +In this village more than nine-tenths of the children leave school at or +before fourteen years of age, so that whatever school training they get +must be secured between the ages of six and fourteen. + +The kind of activities that the children will take up in life is fixed +by the custom of the town. The great majority of the boys go into the +mines or shops, while practically all of the girls help around the home +until they marry. A small number work in stores and factories. + +The life is rather primitive; the houses are set far apart; the children +have an abundance of play space; they are required to do chores in homes +where they receive little home training. The town affords an +unparalleled opportunity to learn nasty things in a nasty way. + +Almost all of the educational work in such a town must be done in the +elementary schools. While high school facilities may be afforded they +will appeal to a vanishingly small percentage of the children. + +The elementary schools in such a village must provide organized games +for the younger children and organized sports for the older ones; a +sufficient amount of physical training to insure robust bodies; careful +instruction in physiology, body hygiene, and sex hygiene; simple manual +training for the younger children; thorough preparation in the reading +and writing of English; the fundamentals of numbers; geography with +particular reference to the geographic conditions in the immediate +locality; civics and history--particularly American history; a thorough +drill in English and American literature; a minimum amount of +instruction in fine art--drawing, painting, modeling; an extensive +system of nature study, supplemented by field trips. + +This course should be required of boys and girls alike. In addition to +these studies the boys in a coal-mining village should receive careful +instruction in geology, particularly in the mineralogy of the region in +which the mine is located; technical training in mining, drafting, and +shop work; and a sufficient training in agriculture to enable them to +make good kitchen gardens, since gardening is one of the chief +avocations of men in such a community. + +Parallel to this special training for boys the schools should provide +for girls a thorough course in domestic science, with particular +emphasis on economical purchasing, and an education for parenthood, +including hygiene, dietetics, psychology, and nursing. + +Such a course of study given in a typical mining village would tend to +make of the boys educated, trained workmen, and of the girls educated, +trained mothers. To be sure this course would not make of the boys +railroad presidents or United States senators; but even that is not a +drawback because, incredible as it may sound to many old-fashioned +ears, the vast majority of these boys will be miners and mechanics. The +question is, therefore, Shall they be good miners or bad ones? United +States senatorships bother them not a whit. + +If there are, as there always will be in such a village, a few +exceptional children who desire more advanced work, the teacher can do +exactly what he does now--namely, give them special instruction. + +Such an educational system as that outlined would require more training +in the teachers, and an additional outlay for tools and school-rooms, +but it would train the boys and girls of the village to live their lives +effectively. + +The mine-village educational problem is rendered especially easy of +solution because the community is small in size, and because there are +only two occupations, mining and homekeeping, into which the children +go. + +A similar situation may be found in most of the agricultural districts, +except that the boys take up farming instead of mining, while the girls +are called upon to participate in farm work to the extent of caring for +chickens and pigs, and sometimes for milk. In such an agricultural +community the same outline for study might apply, except that in +training for occupations boys should be taught the facts regarding soil +fertility, fruit culture, dairying, market gardening, and other +agricultural problems, while girls need instruction which will fit them +for domestic life and for parenthood. + +In New York State a number of agricultural high schools giving a course +such as the one just hinted at, have met with marked success. Most +country children do not go to high school, however--although they are +doing so in increasing numbers--and hence the necessity for shaping the +elementary course along similar lines. + + +VII The Educational Problems of an Industrial Community + +When the mining village and the farming district are replaced by the +industrial town and the city, the school problem is greatly complicated +by the crowding of many people into a small space and by the great +diversity of occupations which the people pursue. The larger the town +the worse the crowding and the greater the variety of jobs. Otherwise +the problem of education remains largely the same. + +The most apparent need of the town child is a place to play, and the +plainest duty of the town elementary school is to provide play space. In +thinly settled places there is no such need. In towns and cities there +is no more imperative duty resting on the school than the furnishing of +playgrounds and gymnasiums for children. The practice of building school +houses without gymnasiums and without play spaces cannot be too strongly +condemned. It is robbing children of the chance to grow into normal +human beings. + +The other side of the town problem--the question of occupations--has +been settled in Germany, and more recently in certain American cities, +by the "continuation" school, which unties the Gordian knot by cutting +it. Instead of allowing children to stop school at fourteen the +"continuation" system requires partial school attendance until they are +eighteen. + +Under this system, when children reach the end of the elementary schools +they may either go on with a high school course for four years, or else +they may take a "continuation" course for four years. + +For example, if a boy elects to be a carpenter he spends forty hours a +week as a carpenter's apprentice. Then for fourteen hours a week he goes +to a school where he is taught mechanical drawing, designing, the +testing of materials, and any other subjects which bear on carpentering. +The time he spends in school is credited on the time sheets of his +employer. + +So at the end of four years the boy, at eighteen, has been well trained +in the practice of carpentering by working at his job, and well schooled +in its theory by taking a "continuation" course which bore directly on +his work. Thus wage-earning and education are united to produce a +well-trained man. + +The school problem of the city suburb is very different from that of the +mining village, the rural community, the industrial town, or the city. +The children have space, good homes, and abundant opportunity to go +through high school and even through college. Under these conditions the +elementary grades can be directly preparatory for high school work, +since six or even seven out of ten children will go to high school. + +In the city suburb there need be little specialization in the elementary +grades. The high school, with a general course and two or three special +courses, can be relied upon for all necessary specific training. + + +VIII Beginning with Child Needs + +In the industrial town, in the city, and in the city suburb the high +school is being looked to as the place where specialized training must +be given. The trade school can succeed a little, but its effectiveness +will always be limited by the narrow technical character of its +instruction, which makes the "continuation" school generally preferable. +The high school is not a separate institution, but an integral part of +the school system. In a high school, therefore, the children should move +naturally from the studies of the elementary grades to more advanced +studies, but the purpose of both elementary and high schools is the +same--the preparation of children for living. + +Children have needs which the schools are here to supply. Certain of +these needs are common to all children, and to that extent all schools +must provide similar training. Other needs, varying with the size and +character of the community, call for a like variation in the course of +study. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +PROGRESSIVE NOTES IN ELEMENTARY EDUCATION + + +I The Kindergarten + +No single chapter can contain all of the progressive notes that are +being sounded in American Elementary Education; yet it is possible, +after some arbitrary picking and choosing, to describe a number of the +most typical and most successful educational innovations. At the bottom +of most up-to-date elementary school systems is the kindergarten. Not so +often as it might be, but still frequently, the child begins school work +there. The games, the songs, the children's sports of these kindergarten +years, make a joyous entry-way into the grades. In Gary the kindergarten +child sees life. The flowers, leaves, grasses, lichens, fruits, +butterflies, moths, and birds are usually brought to the classroom. The +Gary children go on expeditions to explore nature's wonderland, besides +making excursions to squares, parks, and to the open country. The +kindergartners of Cincinnati plant tulip bulbs in the city parks, and +visit farms in order to have a chance to meet the farm animals. Singing, +visiting, playing, shaping, building, the kindergarten child sees life +on many sides. Perhaps, finally, other cities following the lead of +Cincinnati will introduce the kindergarten spirit and kindergarten +activities into the lower grades where they will clarify an atmosphere, +fetid and dank with concepts which to the six-year-old are meaningless +abstractions. + + +II Translating the Three R's + +At best the kindergarten reaches but a few. Even in cities which boast +of a system of organized kindergartens, only a small portion of the +children attend them. On the other hand, since practically all school +children enter the grades, it is on them that an inquiry into elementary +education must be focused. + +The time has passed when reading, writing, and arithmetic made up the +entirety of a satisfactory elementary education. Like the kindergarten, +the elementary school must touch life; like the kindergarten, it must +provide for child needs. Everywhere schools are turning from the old +methods of teaching spelling, multiplication, and syntax to the new +methods of teaching children,--yes, and teaching them those things which +they need, irrespective of name. Three R's no longer suffice. The child +requires training from the Alpha to the Omega of life. + +Compare, for example, the old method of teaching geography with the new. +Under the abandoned system, the child began with capes, peninsulas, +continents, meridians, trade routes, rivers, boundaries and products. +Under the new system, he begins with the town in which he lives. Each +schoolroom in Newark, for example, is provided with a large map of the +city. In addition to these complete maps, each child is given a series +of small maps, each of which centers about a familiar square, store, or +public building. Then, from this simple beginning, the child fills in +the surrounding streets and buildings. Newark geography begins in the +third grade with a description of the school yard and the surroundings +of the school lot. After all, what more simple geography could be +conceived than the geography that you already know. Borneo and +Beloochistan are abstractions except to the most traveled, but what +child has not noted the red bricks and ugly iron fences surrounding his +own school yard? Charity and geography both begin logically at home. + +When in the later Newark grades the children are taught about Europe and +Australasia, they are taught on a background of the geography of yards, +alleys, squares, streets and playgrounds with which they are familiar. +Geography thus concretely presented, becomes comprehensible to even the +dullest mind. + + +III Playing at Mathematics + +The passing system of elementary mathematics took the innocents through +addition, subtraction and the abatis of multiplication tables, until +every child was fully convinced that + + Multiplication is vexation, + Division's twice as bad, + The rule of three perplexes me, + And practice drives one mad. + +To-day arithmetic begins with life. The teachers at Gary organize games +in which the children are divided into two sides. Some of the children +play the game, while others keep score. Unconsciously, under the stress +of the most gripping of impulses--the desire to win--these little +scorekeepers learn addition. As they advance in the work, they take up +practical problems--measure the room for flooring and measure the school +pavement for cementing. At school No. 4, in Indianapolis, one of the +teachers wanted a cold-frame and a hot-bed for use in connection with +her nature work. The class in mathematics made the measurements; the +drawing class provided the plans; the boys in the seventh and eighth +grades dug the pit and constructed the beds. + +The higher grade mathematics work in Indianapolis is extremely concrete. +Prices and descriptions of materials are supplied, and the children are +asked to compute given problems involving the buying of meats, +groceries, and other household articles; the cost of heating and +lighting the home; the cost of home furnishing; the construction of +buildings; cost-keeping in various factories; the management of the city +hospital; the taxation of Indianapolis; the estimation and construction +of pavement; and, generally, the mathematical problems involved in the +conduct of public and private business. + +Mathematics is alive when it is joined to the problem of life. Well +taught, it becomes a part of the real experiences of childhood and +furnishes a foundation for the knowledge of later life. + + +IV A Model English Lesson + +Of all subjects taught in the schools, English is the most practical, +because it is most used in life. We buy with it, sell with it, converse +with it, write with it, adore with it, and protest with it. English is +the open sesame of life in English-speaking countries. In some classes +the English period would be fascinating even for adults. + +What experience could be more delightful than a visit to a third or +fourth grade room in which the children were writing original poems, +fables and stories! The monotony of routine English work was completely +broken down; the children were enthusiastic,--enthusiastic to such a +degree that they had all written poetry. + +Just before Halloween the teacher had distributed pictures of a witch on +a broomstick, with a cat at her side, riding toward the moon. Each +child was called upon for an original poem on this picture. One boy of +eight wrote:-- + + There was an old witch + Who flew up in the sky, + To visit the moon + That was shining so high. + +Another child improved somewhat upon the versification-- + + The witch's cat was as black as her hat, + As black as her hat was he. + He had yellow eyes which looked very wise + As he sailed high over the trees. + +How many of you mature men and women could have done a better piece of +work than Dorothy Hall, nine and a half years old? + + THE MOONLIGHT PEOPLE + + When the stars are twinkling, + And the ground with snow is white, + And we are just awaking + For to see the morning light; + Little moonlight people + Are dancing here and there + O'er a snow white carpet, + Dancing everywhere. + +This same class of little people, after learning Riley's "Pixie People," +were asked to write down what they believed were the circumstances under +which Riley composed the poem. Their reasons varied all the way from a +dream of butterflies, to cornfields. + +Seventh and eighth grade children in this same city (Newton, Mass.) +write books, the titles of which are selected by the children with the +approval of the teacher. "A Boy's Life in New York," "Fairy Stories," +"A Book About Airships," "A Story of Boarding School Life," are a few of +the titles. Having chosen his title, the child outlines the work and +then begins on it, writing it week by week, illustrating the text with +drawings, illuminating and decorating the margins with water colors, +painting a tasty cover, and at last, as the product of a year's work in +English, taking home a book written, hand printed, hand illumined, +covered and bound by the author. Could you recognize in this fascinating +task the dreaded English composition and spelling of your childhood +days? + +One eighth grade lad, who had always made a rather poor showing in +school, decided to write his book on birds. As he worked into the +subject it gradually got hold of him. In the early spring he found +himself, at half past four, morning after morning, out in the squares, +the parks and the fields, watching for the birds. He became absorbed in +writing his book, but at the same time the teachers of other subjects +found him taking additional interest in them. The whole tone of his +school work improved; and when, in May, he delivered an illustrated +lecture, before one of the teachers' meetings, on the birds of Newton, +he was triumphant. In less than a year he had vitalized his whole being +with an interest in one study. + +"In his talk to the teachers," said Superintendent Spalding, "he showed +a deeper knowledge of the subject than most of the teachers present +possessed." + +Those who remember with a shiver of dread the syntax, parsing, sentence +diagramming, paragraph dissecting, machine composition construction of +the grammar grades, should have stepped with me into the class of an +Indianapolis teacher of seventh grade English. The teacher sat in the +back of the room. The class bent forward, attentively listening while a +roughly clad, uncouth boy, slipshod in attitude, stumbled through the +broken periods of his ungrammatical sentences. + +"And Esau went out after a venison," he was saying, "and Jacob's mother +cooked up some goat's meat till it smelled like a venison. And then +Jacob, he took the venison--I mean the goat's meat to Isaac, and Isaac +couldn't tell it wasn't Esau because"--so the story continued for two or +three minutes. When it was ended, the boy stood looking gloomily at the +class. + +"Well, class?" queried Miss Howes, "has any one any criticism to make?" + +Instantly, three-quarters of the class was on its feet. + +"Well, Edward." + +Edward, a manly fellow, spoke quietly to the boy who had told the story. + +"Paul, you don't talk quite loud enough. Then you should raise and lower +your voice more." + +Several of the class (having intended to make the same criticism) sat +down with Edward. The teacher turned. + +"Yes, Mary." + +"Paul, your grammar wasn't very good. You didn't make periods." + +One by one, in a spirit of kindly helpfulness, criticisms were made. +When the children had finished, Miss Howes said: + +"Paul, you did very well. This is your first time in this class, isn't +it?" + +"Yes'm." + +"Yes, Paul, you did very well; but, Paul"--and with care and precision +she outlined his mistakes, suggesting in each case ways of avoiding them +in the future. + +Throughout the grades in Indianapolis the children have some oral +English work every day. When they reach the seventh and eighth years +this oral work takes on quite pretentious forms. Beginning with Aesop's +Fables, the children tell fairy tales, Bible stories, Greek legends, +Norse legends, animal stories, and any other stories that the teacher +thinks appropriate. Each child may select in the particular group of +stories whatever topic seems most interesting. + +Each day has its written English work, too. On Monday, letters are +written and criticized; Tuesday is composition day; on Wednesday each +scholar writes a description of the day in a Season Journal; Thursday is +set aside for the revision and correction of compositions; and on +Friday, the letters for the following Monday are written. Wherever +possible, the subjects for written work are selected with reference to +the other studies which the child is taking. + + +V An Original Fairy Story + +The work is arranged primarily to arouse interest. At Halloween, the +theme is timely, and one girl, Dorothy Morrison, selects as her title, +"How the Witch got the Black Cat for her Prisoner." Read this charming +fairy tale--an original piece of work by a girl of twelve: + + "Years ago, when the witch rode her broomstick, no snarling + black cat accompanied her on her midnight rides. That wicked + person was always planning and plotting how to get some nice + young girl to go with her. + + "At this time there lived a beautiful fairy, who was condemned + to death by a cruel magician, who had no reason to do so. This + good fairy, Eilene, finally decided to take the shape of a bird + and to fly through the tiny window of her prison to her old + friend, Mr. Moon. + + "She did so, and when she arrived at her friend's home she + assumed the form of a fairy and entreated him to keep her safe + from the cruel clutches of the magician. + + "He promised to do his best. + + "The next Halloween, the witch, Crono, rode up to the moon and + on spying Eilene she exclaimed, 'Aha, just what I have been + looking for--a nice young maiden.' + + "Eilene became frightened at first and clutched the moon's hand. + Just then Crono grabbed at her, but she was too quick for her, + for she changed herself into a bird and flew out of the reaches + of the witch. + + "Shaking her fist at the girl she muttered, 'I will get you + yet.' + + "Then the witch returned to her caldron and Eilene returned to + the moon. Mr. Moon then advised her to be careful for Crono + wanted her for her prisoner. She did not heed this because she + thought that she could outwit Crono with all her fairy power, + but she was mistaken, for Crono had more power than she. One + day, while sitting at the moon's knee, listening to the story of + how he got up in the sky, Eilene's hands and feet were tied, and + before Mr. Moon could help her, what little power that fat + personage possessed was taken from him. + + "Crono transformed Eilene into a snarling black cat which now + always accompanies her on her Halloween rides when she tells the + grinning Jack-o'-Lanterns of how she captured Eilene. + + "Because Mr. Moon loved Eilene so well, Crono gave him a picture + of the fairy, which he always keeps near him, and even to this + day, if we look up at the moon, we can see the picture of + Eilene. So let us remember that, although the black cat does + appear fierce, she is really good at heart." + + +VI The Crow and the Scarecrow + +When corn was sprouting, "Crows and Scarecrows" was announced as a +topic, and one Irish lad, giving rein to his imagination, wrote:-- + + THE CROW AND THE SCARECROW + + "Having a story to write concerning a crow, I decided to go to + the zoological gardens and seek an interview with one of the + species. Accordingly I went, and after passing numerous cages + containing all kinds of animals, I arrived at the bird cages. + Here in one cage all by himself I met Mr. Crow. He was a big + bird with coal-black feathers that glistened in the sunlight. + + "I made a bow, explained my errand and asked for a story. He + cocked his head to one side, looked steadily for a few seconds + and then actually winked at me. 'Well, young man,' he said in a + throaty voice, 'you have certainly come to the right place. But + as it is near my lunch time I must be brief. + + "'In the first place, I was the leader of as wild and + mischievous a band of crows as you ever heard tell of. There was + one particular farm in our territory we loved to visit. The + owner's name was Silas Whimple and he was the grouchiest, most + miserly man in the county. He lived alone and what part of the + ground that was tilled, he did it himself. As much to tease as + to eat, we would pay him an occasional flying visit, digging up + his newly planted seeds, nibbling at the young green shoots, or, + later on, scratching up his potatoes. All his shouting and + screaming did not scare us a bit. One day one of my companions + came winging with the news that Silas had a farm hand. I laughed + and said, "If there is another man on the farm then Silas + Whimple must be dead." Off we flew to investigate. Sure enough, + out in a patch of potatoes was a man. Watching him quite a + while, I saw he did not move or make a noise as Silas would. He + just stood still. I came down to take a closer look, when who + should come to the doorway but Silas himself. He was laughing + and shouting, "Now I have something to keep you away. The + scarecrow shall keep you from bothering me any more." He laughed + and laughed, but I watched my chance and flew behind this being + and scratched off his cap. Then the story was out. It was only a + straw man. I went back to my companions and explained, and + before evening we had picked the scarecrow to pieces. Next day I + was unfortunate enough to put my foot in a wire trap and then + they sent me up here for life.' + + "At this moment his keeper came up with something to eat, so I + bade him good-bye and left." + +English, in these classes, is so alive with interest that the children +write with ardor and read eagerly the literature which, improperly +handled, they learn so soon to despise. + +The time-honored studies of the old curriculum may be charged with +interest if they are linked to life. The most irksome task has its +pleasant aspects. Even the three R's may be translated into current +thought. + + +VII School and Home + +Even more significant for the future is the work which is being done in +a few cities to train girls for their chief work in life--homemaking. +The home schools at Indianapolis and Providence are, perhaps, typical. +The Indianapolis School Board bought a number of wretched homes near one +school in a crowded district. The boys in the school renovated the +homes, converting one into a rug shop, another into a mop factory, and +still a third into a shoe-shop. In these shops the children of the +school did their trade work. Another house was made into a model +home--(model for that quarter)--in which the domestic science department +was located. Of this home the girls took entire charge, living in it by +the day. There they were taught, by practical experience, the art of +homemaking. + +The home school of Providence, Rhode Island, under the direction of Mrs. +Ada Wilson Trowbridge, has received nation-wide recognition. Six hundred +dollars, appropriated by the Board of Education, renovated and furnished +the flat on Willard Avenue in which the school is held. + +The girls who elect to take work in the home school--the work is wholly +elective--may come on Monday and Tuesday, or on Wednesday and Thursday. +The hours are 4 to 6, or 7:30 to 9:30. On Friday, anyone comes who cares +to. The day pupils are from the grammar schools and the evening pupils +come from the factories and shops. Seventy-five names on the waiting +list of day classes indicate the popularity of the school. + +"We try to keep the school like the homes from which these girls come," +explained Mrs. Trowbridge, as she showed her tastefully arranged +apartment. "The girls in the Technical High School worked out the color +schemes, selected the patterns and bought the materials. We tried to get +things which were good looking and durable." + +The three kinds of work, (1) Cooking, (2) Housekeeping, and (3) Sewing, +are carried on in rotation, a girl spending one entire afternoon at +cooking, the next at sewing and a third at housework. Thus each girl +does an afternoon's job in each subject. The cooking class studies +successively "breakfast," "lunch" and "dinner," in each case preparing +menus and cooking the food. A meal is served nearly every day. The +service falls to the housekeeping class, which is also responsible for +cleaning up, tending the furnace, washing, ironing and the like. +Included in this part of the work are a number of thorough discussions +of personal hygiene and home sanitation. To the sewing class, the girls +bring their home sewing problems. Certain classes darn stockings while a +teacher reads to them. Some girls make underclothing and dresses. The +beginners hem table cloths, napkins, towels, dustcloths, etc., for the +school. The classes are small (ten to fifteen) making individual work +possible. + +"No, no," protested Mrs. Trowbridge, "we have no course of study, or +else, if you please, there are as many courses as there are girls. Each +girl has her problems and we aim to meet them." + +The backyard, utilized as a garden, furnishes vegetables which the girls +cook and can. These vegetables, together with canned fruits, jellies, +jams and pickles, which the girls put up, give the school such an +excellent source of revenue that last year it turned over $15 to the +Superintendent of Schools. + +The crowning work of the school was done in a bare upstairs room which +the girls papered and painted themselves. "Two of them have since done +the same thing with rooms at home," declared Mrs. Trowbridge, happily. +"Isn't that good for a start?" + +The home school stays close to home problems, dealing with the facts of +life as the girls who come to school see them. It would hardly be fair +to expect more of any school. + + +VIII Breaking New Ground + +The regular work of the public school has been supplemented, of late +years, by a number of significant innovations, of which the most +far-reaching is, perhaps, a medical inspection of schools which involves +a thorough physical examination of all school children by experts. By +this scheme, the defect of the individual child is corrected, and the +danger of widespread contagion or infection in the schoolroom is reduced +to a minimum. + +Following these physical examinations, the children who are clearly +sub-normal are placed in special classes or special schools, where, +under the direction of specially fitted teachers, they do any mental +work for which they are fitted, in the interims of time between manual +activities. Weaving, woodworking, folding and similar employments hold +the attention of sub-normal children where intellectual work will not. +The special school, freed from the throttling grip of an iron-clad +course of study, studies the need of each child, and makes a course of +study to fit the need. Although the special school has been used for +incorrigibles, its real value rests in its care of the defective child. + +Anaemic children and those who show a tubercular tendency are treated in +open air schools. In Springfield a special school was constructed. In +Providence an old building was employed. In all cases, however, the +windows are notable by their absence. The school supplies caps and army +blankets, a milk lunch in the middle of the forenoon and the afternoon, +and a plain, wholesome dinner at noon. A few months of such treatment +works wonders with most of the children. It seems only fair that the +sick school child should be treated to fresh air and full nutrition, +even though the well child is not so favored. + +The open air school has borne fruit, however, in the establishment of +numerous open-window classes. Against these classes, there seems to be +only one complaint. The children are too lively. Fancy! They get a +supply of oxygen sufficient to stimulate them into life during school +hours. How tragic this must seem to the teacher who is in the habit of +calming the troubled spirits of her class by a generous administration +of closed windows and carbon dioxide. + +A few cities are attempting to relieve underfeeding by the provision of +wholesome school lunches at cost. Buffalo leads in the work, with +Chicago, Philadelphia and a number of other cities trailing behind. When +you remember that the Chicago School Board reported that in the Chicago +schools there were "five thousand children who were habitually hungry," +while "ten thousand others do not have sufficient nourishing food," you +will perhaps agree that the time has come for some action. + +Among the liveliest educational movements of the day is that of +providing school children with a legitimate occupation and a convenient +place to be occupied outside of school hours. Chicago, with an unequaled +system of playgrounds, and Philadelphia, with a department devoted to +school gardens, are leaders in two fields which promise great things for +the future welfare of American city school children. + + +IX The School and the Community + +Not content with doing those needful things involved in the education of +children of school age, the school is reaching far out into the +community. Night schools came first, as a means of education for those +who could not attend school during the daytime. Every progressive city +and town has a night school now, and the scholars who come after working +hours use the same expensive equipment that is furnished to the regular +classes. Machines, cooking apparatus, maps and blackboard all do double +duty. In the foreign quarters, particularly, the night schools attract a +large following of adults, eager to learn the language and ways of the +new land. Though many a one falls asleep over the tasks, who shall say +that the spirit is not willing? + +Public lectures are being used more and more as a means of public +education. There is scarcely an up-to-date city that has not some public +lectures connected with its school or library system, while in a center +like New York, the Board of Education has established an elaborate +organization for the delivery of lectures in public school buildings +throughout the city. The lecture topics--widely advertised through the +schools and elsewhere--cover every field of thought. + +Perhaps the whole movement of the schools to influence the community may +be summed up in the phrase, "A wider use of the school plant." Why +should not the schools be open, as they are in Gary, day and evening, +too? Why should the mothers and fathers not be organized into "Home and +School Leagues," meeting in the schools as they do on a large scale in +Philadelphia? Why should not the social sentiment of a community be +crystallized around its schoolhouse, as it has been in Rochester? Is it +better to have the children playing in the street in the summer time, or +in the school yards and playgrounds, as they do in Minneapolis and St. +Paul? + +The billion dollars invested in the school plant must be made to yield a +return in broader social service with each succeeding year. + + +X New Keys for Old Locks + +Nor have progressive educators been satisfied to change the methods of +teaching old subjects. More important still, they have introduced new +courses which aim to open larger fields for child experience. Hygiene, +nature study, civics, manual training and domestic science have all been +called upon to enrich the elementary school curriculum. + +The nineteenth century physiology--names of muscles and bones, symptoms +of diseases and the like--has been replaced in the twentieth century +schools by a physiology which aims to teach that the body is worth +caring for and developing into something of which every boy and girl may +be proud. Beginning with nature study and elementary science, the +hygiene course in Indianapolis emphasizes, first, the care of the body +and then, in the seventh and eighth grades, public health, private and +public sanitation, etc. From nature and her doings, the child is led to +see the application of the laws of physiology and hygiene to the life of +the individual and of the community. + +Nature study, elementary science, horticulture and school gardens have +taken their place, on a small scale, in all progressive educational +systems. There is an education in watching things grow; an education in +the sequence and significance of the seasons, which brick and cement +pavements can never afford. + +Scattered attempts are being made to teach children the relation between +individual and community life. All of the seventh and eighth grade +children in Indianapolis visit the city bureaus--water, light, health, +fire and police. Trips to factories teach them the relation between +industry and the individual life, while social concepts are developed by +newspaper and magazine reading, book reading and class discussions of +the articles and books which are read. At election time they discuss +politics; they take up strikes and labor troubles; woman suffrage is +occasionally touched upon; and they are even asked to suggest methods of +making a given wage cover family needs. + +The widespread introduction of domestic science and elementary manual +training renders any special discussion of them unnecessary. In some +instances, however, they are developed to a high degree. In Gary, +Indianapolis and Cincinnati, seventh and eighth grade girls make their +own garments, cook and serve meals to teachers or to other classes; +while in the advanced grades the boys make furniture, sleds, derricks, +bridges and telegraph instruments. Chair caning, weaving and clay +modeling are also widely used in the hand work of both boys and girls. + +Fitchburg, Mass., has developed a Practical Arts School, paralleling the +seventh and eighth grades in the grammar school. The school includes a +Commercial Course, a Practical Arts Course, a Household Arts Course and +a Literary Course. The regular literature, composition, spelling, +mathematics, geography, history and science of the seventh and eighth +grades is supplemented by social dancing, physical training and music in +all of these courses; and in addition for the Commercial Course by +typewriting, shorthand, bookkeeping, business arithmetic and designing; +for the Practical Arts Course, by drawing, designing, printing, making +and repairing; for the Household Arts Course, by cooking, sewing, +homekeeping and household arts; and for the Literary Course, by +half-time in modern language and the other half in manual training and +household arts. + +At the end of the sixth year (at about twelve years of age) children in +Fitchburg may elect to take this school of Practical Arts instead of the +regular grammar school course. The results of this election are +extraordinary. The practical course was planned for the children who +expected to leave school at fourteen, or at the end of the eighth grade. +Curiously enough, all types of children have flocked into it. Sons of +doctors, lawyers and well-to-do business men; boys and girls preparing +for college, and children who must stop school in a year or two are all +clamoring for admission. In spite of the fact that pupils are kept in +these schools six hours a day instead of five, as in the other schools, +the attendance at the end of two years has outrun the accommodations. +The children who leave this applied work and enter the high school are +apparently not a whit less able to do the high school work than those +children who have come up through the regular grades. + +The new education is broader than the old, because it accepts and adopts +any study which seems likely to meet the needs or wants of any class of +children or of any individual child. The storehouse of the mind is +to-day unlocked with educational keys of which educators in past +generations scarcely dreamed. + + +XI School and Shop + +For the present, at least, there are a great number of children who must +leave school at fourteen, whether they have completed the grammar grades +or not. With them, the problem of education shapes itself into this +question: "Shall they be well or badly prepared for their work?" The +boys enter the shops and mills; the girls marry and make homes. Are they +to be efficient workers and housekeepers? The answer rests largely with +the schools. + +Ohio has provided, for the solution of the problem, a continuation +school law, modeled on the more extensive plans of the German +Continuation School system. The law reads: "In case the board of +education of any school district establishes part-time day schools for +the instruction of youths over fourteen years of age who are engaged in +regular employment, such board of education is authorized to require all +youths who have not satisfactorily completed the eighth grade of the +elementary schools to continue their schooling until they are sixteen +years of age; provided, however, that such youths, if they have been +granted Age and Schooling Certificates and are regularly employed, shall +be required to attend school not to exceed eight hours a week between +the hours of 8:00 A. M. to 5:00 P. M. during the school term." + +Cleveland and Cincinnati, acting under this authority, have established +continuation schools. In Cleveland they are voluntary; in Cincinnati +they are compulsory. In both cities, children between fourteen and +sixteen may attend school, during factory time, for four hours each +week. + +Little enough, you protest. Yes, but it is a beginning. + +The child in such a continuation school may choose between academic +work, art, drawing and designing, shop-work, millinery, dressmaking and +domestic science. In some cases a continuation course is possible. Thus +far the system has worked admirably. + +Equally significant are the Massachusetts Vocational Schools, which are +intended to provide a technical training for the boys who wish to pass +directly from the grammar school into industry. + +Under the Massachusetts law, the state pays half of the running expenses +of any vocational school which is organized with the approval of the +State Director of Vocational Training. The Springfield school, under +the supervision of E. E. MacNary, is housed on one floor of a factory +building. The boys may not come at an earlier age than fourteen and Mr. +MacNary insists, where possible, that they complete the regular seventh +grade work before coming to him. His school, which includes pattern +making, cabinet work, carpentry and machine shop work, is run on the +"job" plan. That is, a boy is assigned to a job such as making a +head-stock for a lathe. The boy makes his drawings, writes his +specifications, orders his material and tools, estimates the cost of the +job, makes the head-stock and then figures up his actual costs and +compares them with the estimated cost. Not until he has gone through all +of the operations, may he turn to a new piece of work. + +"We tried the half-day and half-day in shop plan," Mr. MacNary explains, +"but it was not a success. It disturbed the boys too much. So we hit on +the plan of letting each boy divide his time as he needed to. When he +has drawing and estimating to do, he does that and when the time for +lathe work comes, he turns to that. It breaks up any system in your +school, but it gives the best chance to the individual boy." + +One day a week all of the boys meet the teachers in conference to +discuss their work and to make and receive general suggestions. + +The boys who come to Mr. MacNary's school are boys who would probably +leave the regular school at fourteen. Many boys come because they are +discouraged with the grade work, and of these "grade failures," many +succeed admirably in the new school. During the two years of this +shop-work, the boys get a training which enables them to take and hold +good positions in the trades. As one foreman said, "A boy gets more +training in the two years of that school than he gets in three years of +any shop." + +These are but an index of the myriad of attempts which cities are making +to bring school and shop together, to train for usefulness, to start +boys in life. + + +XII Half a Chance to Study + +There are other ways in which the school may help. For example, in the +case of homework. On the one hand, homework for the sake of homework may +be eliminated. On the other hand, children may be given half a chance to +read and study. + +One day in a squalid back street I glanced through the window of a +corner house. The front of the house was a grocery store. The room into +which I happened to look was a general dwelling room. On one side stood +the kitchen stove; the floor was littered with children and rubbish, and +just under the window a child sat, her book before her on the +supper-covered dining table, doing multiplication examples--her +homework. The well-to-do child, less than ten squares away, who bent +over her problems in a quiet room, could scarcely appreciate the +difficulties attached to homework, when the family lives in three rooms +and does everything possible to reduce the bill for kerosene. + +There is just one place in every neighborhood where the child can find +light, air and quiet--that place is the school. Why then should the +school not be open for the child? "Why, indeed," asked the schoolmen of +Newark, N. J. Passing from thought to deed, they opened schools in the +crowded neighborhoods four nights a week from 7 to 9. + +Into these evening study classes, in charge of advisory teachers, any +child might come at all. The city librarian, generous in co-operation, +lent library books in batches of forty, for two months at a time. +Evening after evening, the boys and girls assemble and with text-books +or library books, do those things in the school which are impossible in +the home. For what other purpose should the school exist? + + +XIII Thwarting Satan in the Summer Time + +Another project, equally effective, involves the opening of schools +during the summer time. The farmer needed his boy for the harvest, so +summer vacations became the established rule, but the city street needs +neither the boy nor the girl at any time of the year. Idleness and +mischief link hands with street children and dance away toward +delinquency. Then why not have school in the summer time? Why not? + +The answer takes the form of vacation schools. In most cases the work of +the vacation school is designed primarily to interest the child. Games, +stories, gardening, manual work of various sorts, excursions and similar +devices are relied upon to maintain interest. + +A few cities, like Indianapolis, Worcester and Gary, on the other hand, +have established vacation schools in which children may make up back +work, or pursue studies in which they are especially interested. + +As a means of bringing below-grade children up to the standard of +affording an opportunity for the able children to advance more rapidly +in school, and, in general, as a means of keeping city children usefully +occupied during the summer months, the vacation school has won its +place. + +Newark, making an even more radical departure from tradition, runs some +schools twelve months in the year. Edgar G. Pitkin, principal of a +school in an immigrant district, first put the idea into practice. At +the end of the regular session in June, he announced to his children +that school would start again on the following Monday. Fearfully he +approached the building. The streets about the school seemed unusually +deserted that Monday morning. Suppose no one should be there! When the +gong sounded, however, more than seven-tenths of the two thousand +children belonging in the school were in their places. The attendance +that summer was ninety-two per cent, and the promotion ninety-five per +cent. During the three summer months there were exactly two cases of +discipline. + +"You see what happened," Mr. Pitkin explained. "All of the bright +ambitious children came back and the loafers stayed away. From that +picked crowd nothing but good work could be expected. There was no +attendance officer on duty, but the children were regular. Order was so +good that on hot days we put up the sashes between rooms, and on the +second floor, where four class-rooms were thrown into one, four classes +worked industriously under four teachers without the least friction." + +This school has been organized on a year schedule. If the children come +four terms each year instead of three, they will reduce the time between +the first and eighth grades by one-third, which means a saving to them +and to the school. Since it is the able children who come, the twelve +months' school affords them an opportunity to go quickly through work on +which the slower classmates must hold a more moderate pace. + + +XIV Sending the Whole Child to School + +It is a long step from the school of-- + + Reading, and writing and 'rithmetic, + Taught to the tune of the hickory stick, + +to the school which aims at the education of the whole child; yet that +step has been attempted in Gary, Indiana. There, perhaps more +consistently than anywhere else in the United States, the school +authorities are providing for the whole child in their schools. Many +schools have manual training and domestic science; many schools have +school gardens and playgrounds; many schools have nature work in the +parks and squares; but in no school that I have visited did I find a +more conscious effort to unite mental and physical, hand and head, and +vocation and recreation, in one complete system. + +This result, which to some may sound unbelievably like the impossible, +is accomplished first, by engaging experts to teach such special +subjects as botany and physical training; second, by abolishing grade +promotions and permitting each child to advance in his subject when he +is ready to do so; third, by keeping the school open morning, afternoon +and evening during practically the entire year; fourth, by making the +work of interest to each individual child. Perhaps this matter of +interest sums up better than any other the spirit of the Gary schools. +The system aims to make the school so attractive that children will +prefer to be there rather than to be anywhere else. + +How is this done? Take the case of John Frena, who occupies a place of +no particular distinction in the fifth year of the Gary schools. John's +school day (from 8:30 A. M. to 4:00 P. M.) is divided equally between +regular work (reading, writing, geography, etc.) and special work (play, +nature study, manual training and the like). A day of John's school life +reads like this: + + _First period_--Playground, games, sports and gymnastics, under + the direction of an expert. + + _Second period_--Nature study, elementary science and physical + geography. + + _Third and fourth periods_--Reading, writing, spelling and + language. + + _Lunch hour._ + + _Fifth period_--Playground (as before). + + _Sixth period_--Drawing and manual training. + + _Seventh and eighth periods_--History, political geography and + arithmetic. + +During his school day, John has played, used his head and his hands, and +alternated the work in such a way that no one part of it ever became +irksome. + +Next week, music and literature will be substituted on John's program +for drawing; the following week manual training will replace one period +of play. The four special subjects (drawing and manual training, music +and literature, nature study and science, and plays and games) rotate +regularly. Each day, however, includes four periods of this special work +and four periods of regular work. + +Such a plan sounds complicated. In reality, it is very easy. The +gymnasium teacher stays in the gymnasium, the drawing teacher in the +drawing room. In the regular work, there are forty children in each +class. For science and manual training these classes split in two. At +the end of each period, or of each two periods, depending on the +subject, the children pass from one room to another. While this system +brings them under several teachers each day, it enables them to take a +subject like art with one teacher for twelve years. + +Meanwhile our little friend John has shown himself bright in language, +but slow in arithmetic. Immediately he is advanced in language, and +perhaps placed in a lower arithmetic class. He may even be transferred +to another teacher for special arithmetic work. The system permits this +flexibility because it allows each teacher, an expert in her own field, +to shape her work to suit her pupils. + +Better still, if John cannot master his arithmetic in the regular +classes, he may attend voluntary classes on Saturday, at night, or +during the summer months. The schools afford him every chance to keep up +in every subject, and if he cannot make his way in this subject or in +that, he works in the fields which are open to him, doing what he can to +make his course a success. + +John, in the schools of Gary, is John Frena, with all of John Frena's +limitations and possibilities. The Gary school seeks to bridge the +limitations, expand the possibilities, and give John Frena a thousand +and one reasons for believing that if there is any place in the world +where he can grow into a complete man, that place is the Gary school. + + +XV Smashing the School Machine + +One of the oft-repeated complaints against the old education arose from +the iron-clad system of promotion which once in each year, with +automatic precision, separated the sheep from the goats, saying to the +sheep, "go higher," and to the goats, "repeat the grade." + +For the sheep, the system worked fairly well, at least that once; but +for the goats, it was a tragedy. The child who had failed in one out of +six branches, side by side with the child failing in six out of six, +repeated the year. + +The new education affords several remedies for this situation. Of these +the most generally known is promotion twice yearly. While this affords +considerable relief, it is greatly improved upon in Springfield, Mass., +by the division of each grade into three divisions--advanced, normal +and backward. These divisions the teacher handles separately so that +when promotion time comes the children who have shown special aptitude +are prepared to go into the next grade. Meantime the children have been +constantly changing from one division in the class to another. + +Perhaps the most generally practicable plan for relieving the mechanical +features of promotion is found in Indianapolis, and even more intensely +in Gary, where children are promoted by subjects rather than by grades. +In Indianapolis, the child entering the sixth grade, takes all English +with one teacher from that time until the end of the eighth grade. If +the child is strong in English, he advances rapidly. If he is weak in +English, the teacher gives him special attention. Learning each pupil's +capabilities in her particular branch, the teacher is able to give the +individual child, over a series of years, the help which his special +case requires. + +In Gary the departmental idea is carried through the entire school +system. In the Emerson School, for instance, children may take eighth +grade work in English and high school work in nature study or history. +The departmental work is strengthened in Gary, in Indianapolis, and in a +number of other cities, by afternoon work, Saturday classes and vacation +schools. Here, a child interested in any phase of the school work or +desiring to make up work in which he is deficient, may spend his spare +time to his heart's content. + +An even greater individuation of children exists in Fitchburg and +Newton, Mass., and in Providence, R. I. Children from the country and +foreign children who have difficulty with their English, together with +any other children who do not fit into any grade, are placed in an +ungraded class. A typical ungraded class of fifty pupils contained +Germans, Russians, Greeks, French, Italians and Polish children, who +were unable to speak English on entering the school. The ages of these +children varied from eight to fifteen. As soon as the ungraded children +appear to be fitted for any special grade, they are transferred. + +This ungraded work is supplemented by "floating teachers," who are +located in each school for the purpose of dealing with special cases. +The case of any child who, for this reason or that, cannot keep up with +the work in a particular subject, is handed over to these teachers. Thus +individual attention is secured in individual cases. + + +XVI All Hands Around for An Elementary School + +These progressive educational steps are not isolated instances of +success in new lines, nor are they incompatible with good work. They may +be welded into a unified system, aglow with the real interests of real +life. It is possible to correlate the old standard courses and the new +fields in such a way that the child will gain in interest and in life +experience. + +Nowhere is this possibility better illustrated than in the elementary +schools of Indianapolis. Take as an example School No. 52, which is +located in an average district. The children, neither very rich nor very +poor, possess the advantages and disadvantages of that great mass known +as "common people." + +The children in grades one to three, inclusive, in addition to studying +the three R's, spend thirty minutes each day learning to measure, fold, +cut and weave paper. In grades four and five, an hour and a half per +week is devoted to simple weaving, knife-work, raffia work, sewing and +basketry. Grade six has four and a half hours of similar work each week, +while in grades seven and eight, the pupils are occupied for one-third +of their entire school time in art work, book-binding, pottery work, +weaving (blankets and rugs), chair caning, cooking, sewing and printing. + +"But how is it possible?" queries the defender of the old system. "How +can the necessary subjects be taught in two-thirds of the time now +devoted to them? Are we not already crowded to death?" + +Yes, crowded with dead work, the proof of which lies in the fact that +the children who devote a third of the time to apply their knowledge get +as good or better marks in the academic work than the three-thirds +children. That, however, is not the really important point. This course +of study is valuable because it gives a rounded, unified training. + +This is how the course is organized. The school life is a unit, into +which each department fits and in which it works. The spelling lesson is +covered in the classroom and set in type in the print shop. The grammar +lesson consists in revising compositions with regulation proofreaders' +corrections. The art department designs clothes which are made in the +sewing classes. The drawing room furnishes plans for the wood and iron +work and designs for basketry and pottery. In the English classes, the +problems of caning and weaving are written and discussed. The +mathematical problems are problems of the school. Children in the +sixth year keep careful accounts of personal receipts and +expenditures--accounts which are balanced semi-weekly. The boy in one +woodworking class makes out an order for materials. A boy in another +class makes the necessary computations and fills the order. All costs of +dressmaking and cooking materials are carefully kept and dealt with as +arithmetic problems. For the older boys, shop-cards are kept, showing +the amount and price of materials used and the time devoted to a given +operation. These again form a basis for mathematical work. The whole is +knit together in a civics class, which deals with the industrial, +political and social questions, in their relations to the child and to +the community. + +Best of all, the things which the children talk and figure about, plan +and make, have value. The seventh and eighth year girls make clothes +which they are proud to show and wear; they cook lunch for which some of +the teachers pay a cost price. The baskets are taken home. Eighty chairs +are caned by the children each year. The bindery binds magazines, songs +and special literature. The boys make sleds and carts, hall stands, +umbrella racks, center tables and stools. They make cupboards and +shelves for the school, quilting-frames on which the girls do patchwork. +Rags are woven into rag carpets and sold. The print shop prints all of +the stationery for the school. Each can of preserves, in the ample stock +put up by the girls, is labeled thus: + + "PRESERVED PEACHES" + +with labels printed by the boys. + +June, 1912, witnessed a triumph for the entire school. The children in +the upper class had taken up the study of book-making. They even went to +a bindery and saw a book bound and lettered. Then, to show what they had +learned, they composed, set up and printed-- + + A BOOK + ABOUT BOOKS + by + June 8 A Class. + +This book of twenty-eight pages, tastefully covered and decorated, +contained three half-tone cuts which the children paid for by means of +entertainments; an essay by Hazel Almas on "The History of Books," one +by Adele Wise on "The Printing of a Book," and one by Ruth Kingelman on +"The Art of Bookbinding"; the program of the commencement exercises, and +a collection of poems and wise sayings. + +The children went further and invited Mr. Charles Bookwalter, the owner +of the bookbindery where they had learned their lesson, to come and talk +to them on Commencement Day. He came, made a splendid address and went +away filled with wonder before these achievements of fourteen-year-old +grammar school children. + +Each grade has a special subject of study. This year the boys in the +Eighth A are studying saws; the boys in Eighth B, lumbering; the girls +in Eighth A are investigating wool and silk; while in Eighth B the girls +are studying cotton and flax. This "study" means much. Not only do the +children discuss the topics, write about them, read books on them, and +do problems concerning them, but they visit the factories and study the +processes from beginning to end. + +When the problem of pins came up, the teacher desired several copies of +a description of pin-making, so she asked the class to write out a +letter to the manufacturers. The class, left to select, decided to send +this letter: + + SCHOOL NO. 52, + Indianapolis, Ind., Oct. 11, 1912. + + AMERICAN PIN COMPANY, + Waterbury, Conn. + + _Dear Sirs_: On seeing the pamphlet on pins you have been kind + enough to send us, I have decided to write and ask you if you + would kindly send us about twenty of your pamphlets on the + making of pins. + + We are in the eighth grade, and expect to go out into the world + in January, and your process of making pins will be spread + abroad to the whole world. + + We are very anxious to know more about the making of pins, and + we are very much interested in your process. + + Yours sincerely, + RUTH HARRISON. + +Need I say that the American Pin Company sent immediately twenty +duplicates of the desired pamphlet? + +The work in this school where thought and activity go hand in hand, is +done by the regular grade teachers--done, and done well. They are as +enthusiastic as the pupils. Four years' trial has convinced them. On the +day that I visited the school, I walked into a classroom where twenty +girls were busy sewing. The order was perfect. Every one was busy. The +teacher was nowhere in evidence. + +"That teacher," explained the principal to me later, "is off at a +teachers' meeting. She left these girls on their honor to work. You see +the result." + +I saw and marveled. Yet why marvel? Was not this a typical product of +the system which knits thought and activity into such a harmonious, +fascinating whole as the most fortunate adults find in later life? Out +of such a school may we not well develop harmony and keen life? Never +yet have men gathered grapes from thistles, but often and often have +they plucked from fig trees the figs which they craved and sought. + + +XVII From a Blazed Trail to a Paved Highway + +Pages might be filled with descriptions of similar successes, yet I +think that my point is already sufficiently established. How can we +disagree regarding so plain a matter? The path of educational progress +has led away from the three R's along a trail, blazed at first by a few +men and women who dreamed and stepped forward hesitatingly. Often they +retraced their steps, discouraged, and gave over the little they had +gained. By degrees, however, the trail was blazed. The way became +clearer. After all it was possible to connect education with life. + +Slowly the light of this truth dawned upon men's minds. Gradually the +way opened before them. One by one they trod the path, bridging the +worst defiles, straightening the road, cutting out the thickets and +filling in the morasses, until at last, behold the way, explored by +hesitating, derided pioneers, no longer a trail, but a broad highway. +Others have gone--their name is legion--and have succeeded. The three +R's are but the beginning of an adequate elementary curriculum. You, in +your own city, with your own teachers, can vitalize your elementary +schools. You can teach the children to use their heads and hands +together, and thus show them the way to a deeper interest in your +schools, and a larger outlook on their work in life. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +KEEPING THE HIGH SCHOOL IN STEP WITH LIFE + + +I The Responsibility of the High School + +"Every pupil of high school maturity should be in high school atmosphere +whether he has completed the work of the grammar grades or not," insists +Dr. F. E. Spaulding. "Perhaps the high school course of study is not +adapted to the needs of such children. Well, so much the worse for the +course of study. The sooner the high school suits its work to the needs +of fourteen and fifteen-year-old boys and girls, the sooner it will be +filling its true place in the community." Such opinions, voiced in this +case by a man whose national reputation is founded on his splendid work +as superintendent of the school system of Newton Mass., bespeak the +attitude of the most progressive American high schools. + +The high school is not a training ground for colleges, nor is it a +repository of classical lore. As an advanced school it differs no more +from the elementary school than the six cylinder automobile differs from +the four cylinder car. Though its work is more complex, like the +elementary school it exists for the sole purpose of helping children to +live wholesome, efficient lives. + + +II An Experiment in Futures + +Children who get stranded in the seventh or eighth grades may have +failed in one subject or in several. Over age and out of place, they +lose interest, become discouraged and at fourteen drop out of school to +work or to idle. In Newton, as in every other town, there were a number +of just such children whom Mr. Spaulding decided to get into the high +school. + +"There they will be among children of their own age," he explained. +"They may take a new line of work and acquire a real interest." + +"But they will fail in their high school work as they have failed in +their grade work," protested the doubters. + +Mr. Spaulding, smiling his quiet, genial smile, tried his experiment all +the same. From the seventh and eighth grades of the Newton schools he +picked the boys and girls who were fifteen or more at their next +birthdays. These pupils, seventy in all--forty girls and thirty +boys--were transferred, without examination, into the high school. + +"These youngsters were going to drop out of school for good in one year, +or two at the outside," explained Mr. Spaulding, "so I made up my mind +that during that year at least they should have some high school +training. They went to the regular high school teachers for their +hand-work; but for their studies, I put them in charge of three capable +grade teachers, who were responsible for seeing that each child was +making good. I put it to the grade teachers this way: 'Here are a lot of +children who have got the failure habit by failing all through their +school course. Unless we want to send them out of our school to make +similar failures in life, we must teach them to succeed. Take each child +on his own merits, give him work that he can do and let him learn +success.' + +"We gave these boys and girls twenty hours a week of technical work +(drawing, designing, shop-work, cooking and sewing) and ten hours a +week of academic work (English, mathematics, civics and hygiene). Shop +costs, buying of materials and simple accounting covered their +mathematics. Those were the things which would probably be most needful +in life. The boys got deeply interested in civics, and we let them go as +far and as fast as they pleased. With the girls we discussed hygiene, +dressing and a lot of other things in which they were interested. + +"When those children entered the school they were boisterous and rough. +The girls dressed gaudily, reveling in cheap finery. By Christmas, to +all appearances, their classes differed in no way from the other high +school classes. They all brushed their hair. The boys were neater and +the girls were becomingly dressed.["] + +Most of the seventy children stayed through the year. Twenty-seven of +the forty girls and seventeen of the thirty boys entered the regular +high school course the next fall. They were thus put into competition +with their former seventh and eighth grade comrades, although they had +had only two-fifths as much academic work as the regular eighth grade +pupils. There was the test. + +Could these derelicts, after one year of special care, take their places +in the regular freshman high school work? After the end of the first +quarter, a study made of the 800 children in the high school showed that +on the average there were fifty-four hundredths of one failure for each +scholar. Among the twenty-seven girls from the special classes, however, +there was but seventeen-hundredths of a failure for each girl, or +one-third as many failures as in the whole school. The boys made an even +better showing. Of the entire seventeen, only one boy failed, and in +only one subject. + + +III The Success Habit + +"We had given them something they liked and could do," Mr. Spaulding +concluded. "They succeeded a few times, got the success habit, learned +to like school, went into the regular high school course and succeeded +there." + +As an illustration of the way in which the new plan works, take the case +of James Rawley. James was in a serious predicament. Time after time the +court had overlooked his truancy and misdoings, but James had taken the +pitcher once too often to the well, and the open doors of the State +Reform School stared him grimly in the face. + +"It will be best for him in the long run," commented the judge. "Each +month of this wild life makes him a little less fit to keep his place in +the community. He has had his last chance." + +Yet there was one ray of hope, for James lived in and out of Boston, a +city located near the Newton Technical High School. This fact led +James's custodians to propose to the judge that he give James one more +trial, this time in the Newton Technical High School. The judge, also of +the initiated, agreed to the suggestion, and James, a dismal eighth +grade failure, entered the Newton Technical High School in one of the +special transfer classes. + +Just a word about James. He began life badly. His mother died when he +was young; and his father, a rather indifferent man, boarded the boy out +during his early years with an aunt, who first spoiled him through +indulgence, and then, inconsistently enough, hated him because he was +spoiled. Growing up in this uncongenial atmosphere, James became +entirely uncontrollable. He was disagreeable in the extreme, wild and +unmanageable. + +The people with whom James was boarding grew tired of his continued +truancy and he was placed on a farm near Boston. There, too, he was +discontented, dissatisfied and disobedient. Time after time he ran away +to Boston. He went on from bad to worse, falling in with vagrants, +learning their talk and their ways, acquiring a love for wandering and a +distaste for regularity and direction. Taken into custody by the +Juvenile Court, and placed on probation with a family outside of Boston, +James again ran away to mingle with a crowd of his old associates in +Boston. It was at this point that the court decided to send him to the +Reform School. It was likewise at this time that some friendly people +took him in charge, found him a home in Newton, and started his life +anew in the Newton Technical High School, which James entered with a +special transfer class. Promoted to the regular freshman class on trial, +James has renewed his interest in education and bids fair to make his +way through the high school. + +James is doing well in the Newton Technical High School. Though he does +not like all of the regular high school work, he has a full course, and +is working at it persistently. Heretofore school has never appealed to +him--in fact, he hated it cordially--but the school at Newton offered +him such a variety of subjects that he was able to find some which were +attractive. Since then he has been working on those subjects. + +There are many cities in which every school door would have been closed +to James, because he did not fit into the school system, but the +superintendent of the Newton schools believes in making the school fit +the needs of the boy. A fantastic theory? Well, perhaps a trifle, from +one viewpoint; nevertheless, it is the soul of education. + + +IV The Help-Out Spirit + +As a result of this special promotion policy, there are practically no +over-age pupils in the grammar schools of Newton. Instead of square pegs +in round holes, the Newton High School can boast of sixty or seventy +children who come, each year, in search of a new opening for which they +are technically not ready, but into which they may grow. After coming to +the high school, two-thirds of them find an incentive sufficient to lead +them to continue with an education of which they had already wearied. + +The Newton High School, recognizing its obligation to serve the people, +strains every nerve to enable boys and girls to take high school work. +The printing teacher pointed to his class of twenty. + +"Only three of them do not work on Saturdays and after school. They +couldn't come here if they didn't work. Hiney, there, was in a bakeshop +all day at three and a half a week. We got him a job afternoons and +Saturdays that pays him three dollars. That tall fellow will send +himself through high school on the six dollars a week that he gets from +a drug store where he works outside of school hours." + +"We aim," added Mr. Spaulding, "to do everything in our power to make it +possible for the boys to come here. If their parents cannot afford to +send them, we find work for them to do outside of school hours." + +That is virile work, is it not? And the result? During the past eight +years the number of pupils in the Newton schools who are over fourteen +has increased three times as fast as the number of pupils who are under +fourteen. The school authorities have searched the highways and byways +of the educational world until one-quarter of the school children of +Newton are in the high schools. + + +V Joining Hands with the Elementary Schools + +The same result which is attained informally at Newton is accomplished +more formally by the organization of the junior high schools which have +sprung up in Berkeley and Los Angeles, California; Evansville, Indiana; +Dayton, Ohio, and a number of other progressive educational centers. The +child's school life under this plan is divided into three parts--the +elementary grades (years one to six), the junior high school (years +seven to nine) and the high school proper (years ten to twelve). The +break, if break there must be, between the elementary and the high +school, thus comes at age twelve and at age fifteen, instead of, as +formerly, coming at age fourteen, when the temptation to leave school is +so strong. Then, too, the sharp transition from work by grades to work +by departments is made easier because the junior high school combines +the two, leading the pupil gradually over from the grade method to the +department method. + +Though the junior high school has so great a popularity, its work is +eclipsed by the still more revolutionary program of those educators who +advocate the complete abolition of any line between the elementary and +the high school, and the establishment of a public school of twelve +school years. This plan, coupled with promotion by subjects rather than +by grades, replaces the machine method of promotion and the gap between +elementary and high schools by an easy, natural progression adaptable to +the needs of any student, from the end of the kindergarten to the +beginning of the university. + +Superintendent Wirt of Gary, Indiana, has established such a +twelve-year course in the Emerson School. The grades, numbered from one +to twelve, are so arranged that a girl may take half of her subjects in +school year eight (last grammar grade) and the other half in school year +nine (first high school grade). In order to make the harmony more +complete, Mr. Wirt places the elementary rooms, containing the second +grade pupils, next door to the rooms which shelter high school seniors. +On this side of the hall is a kindergarten; directly across from it is a +class in high school geometry. + +The same plan, on a larger scale, has been adopted by I. B. Gilbert, +principal of the Union High School, Grand Rapids, Michigan, which houses +twelve hundred students. + +"We have obliterated the sharp line of distinction between the grades," +declared Mr. Gilbert. "The school, which is a new one, has a very +complete equipment--physical, chemical, and biological laboratories, two +cooking rooms, dressmaking and millinery rooms, an art department, a +woodworking shop, a forge room and a machine shop; the print shop, +though not yet installed, is to be put in this year. By bringing +children of all grades to the school, we place at the disposal of grade +pupils apparatus ordinarily reserved for high school pupils only. At the +same time, our equipment is in constant use and the cost of establishing +a separate industrial department or school for the grades is eliminated. + +"These are merely the surface advantages, however. The real gain to the +students is in other and most significant directions. First, the +abolishing of rigid grading allows each child to follow his own bent. At +the beginning of the adolescent period, when the old interests begin to +lag, some new ideas must be furnished if the child is to be kept in +school. We provide that new stimulus by beginning departmental work +with the seventh year (at twelve or thirteen). Then, if the child shows +any particular preference for any line of work, he may pursue it. From +the seventh grade up, promotion is by subjects entirely, and not by +grades. If a student elects art, she may follow up her art work for the +next six years; similarly, a boy may follow shop-work, or a girl +domestic science or millinery. In order to fit the school more quickly +to the pupils' need, we make a division at the beginning of the eighth +grade of those pupils desiring to take academic work and those desiring +to take industrial work in the high school. The latter group does extra +sewing or shop-work twice each week. + +"Again, we take all over-age and over-size pupils from the schools in +this section of the city, and by placing them in ungraded classes, +permit them to take the work which they can do. Here is a boy who cannot +master grammar. That is no reason why he should not design jewelry, so +we give him fourth year language, and take him into the tenth year class +in jewelry design. Yes, and he makes good, doing excellent craft work +and gradually pulling up in his language. By this means we make our +twelve grade school fit the needs of any and every pupil who may come to +it. + +"We have a natural educational progress for twelve years," concluded Mr. +Gilbert. "There is no break anywhere. Instead of making it hard to step +from grade eight to grade nine, we interrelate them so intimately that +the student scarcely feels the change from one to the other. The result? +Last June there were 152 pupils in our eighth grade. Of that number 118, +or more than three-quarters of them reported in the ninth grade this +fall. We have cancelled the invitation to quit school at the end of the +eighth grade and our children stay with us." + + +VI The Abolition of "Mass Play" + +Thus the dark narrow passage-way from the elementary to the higher +schools is being widened, lighted, paved and sign-posted. In some school +systems it has disappeared altogether, leaving the promotion from the +eighth year to the first year high school as easy as the step from the +seventh to the eighth grade. After the children have reached the high +school, however, the task is only begun. First they must be +individualized, second socialized, and third taught. + +"The trouble with the girls," complained Wm. McAndrew, in discussing his +four thousand Washington Irvingites, "is that they have always been +taught mass play. Take singing, for instance. A class started off will +sing beautifully all together, but get one girl on her feet and she is +afraid to utter a note. The grade instruction has taught them group +acting and group thinking. I step into a class of Freshmen with a 'Good +morning, girls'. + +"'Good morning,' they chorus. + +"'Are you glad to see me, girls?' + +"'Yes sir,' again in chorus. + +"'Do you wished I was hanged?' + +"'Yes sir,' generally,-- + +"'Oh, no sir,' cries one girl who has begun to cerebrate. The idea +catches all over the class, and again the chorus comes,-- + +"'Oh, no sir, no sir.' + +"So it goes. The bright girl takes her cue from the teacher and the +class takes the cue from the bright girl. They must be taught to think +and do for themselves." + +Everyone interested in school children should visit the Washington +Irving School (New York) and watch the truly wonderful McAndrew system +of individualization. In the office, you are cordially greeted. You wish +to see the school? By all means! But no teacher is detailed to serve +you. Instead, a messenger goes in search of the Reception Committee. Two +of the school girls, after a formal introduction, start your tour of +inspection, if you are fortunate enough to be there at nine, with a +visit to one of the assembly rooms, where, in groups of three or four +hundred, the girls enjoy three-quarters of an hour each morning. The +word "enjoy" is used advisedly, for, unlike the ordinary assembly, this +one is conducted entirely by the girls. + +Each morning a different chairman and secretary is selected, so that in +the course of the year every girl has had her turn. The chairman, after +calling the meeting to order and appointing two critics for the day, +reads her own scripture selection, and then calls upon some girl to lead +the salute to the flag. The minutes of the previous day's meeting are +then read, discussed and accepted. After fifteen minutes of +singing--singing of everything from "Faust" to "Rags"--the chairman +calls on the two critics for their criticism of the conduct of that +day's meeting. Some special event is then in order. On one Monday in +December Miss Sage, head of the Biology Department, described the +Biological Laboratory in the new school building. After she had +finished, the chairman rose. + +"Will anyone volunteer to tell in a few words the principal points which +Miss Sage made?" + +Three girls were promptly on their feet, giving, in clear, collected +language, an analysis of the talk. + +After you, as a guest, have been conducted to the platform, introduced +to the chairman, and given a seat of honor, the chairman turns to the +assembly, with the announcement,-- + +"Girls, I wish to introduce to you our guest of this morning." + +Instantly the whole assembly rises, singing blithely, "Good morning, +honored guest, we the girls of the Washington Irving High School are +glad to welcome you." + +The proceedings having come to an end, the chairman declares the meeting +adjourned and you look about, realizing with a start that the +girls--freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors--have spent +three-quarters of an hour in charge of themselves, and have done it with +interest, and with striking efficiency. Continuing your journey, you +find the process of individualization everywhere present. Here a girl is +in front of a class, directing the calisthenics which precede each class +hour. There a girl is standing at the front of the room, leading singing +or quizzing in geometry. + +"Yes, it was a wrench," Mr. McAndrew admits. "You see, the teachers +hated to give up. They had been despots during all of their teaching +lives, and the idea of handing the discipline and a lot of the +responsibility of the school over to the girls hurt them dreadfully, but +they have tried it and found that it works." + + +VII Experimental Democracy + +The high school pupil, after discovering himself, must next determine +his relation to the community. It is one thing to break down what Mr. +McAndrew calls the W. I. (Wooden Indian) attitude. It is quite another +to relate pupils to the community in which they live. Yet this, too, can +be done. The school is a society--incomplete in certain respects, yet in +its broad outline similar to the city and the state. The social work of +the school consists in showing the citizens of the school-community how +to enjoy the privileges and act up to the responsibilities of +citizenship. The Emerson School at Gary and the Union High School at +Grand Rapids, organized into complete schools from the first grade to +the end of the high school, are miniature working models of the +composite world in which all of the children will live. + +Particularly effective work has been done on the social side of high +school organization at the William Penn High School (Philadelphia), +where Mr. Lewis has turned the conduct of student affairs over to a +Student Government Association, directed by a Board of Governors of +eighteen, on which the faculty, represented by five members, holds an +advisory position only. The Association gives some annual event, like a +May day fete, in which all of the girls take part. It assumes charge of +the corridors, elevators, and lunch rooms; grants charters to clubs and +student societies, and assumes a general direction of student affairs. + +"It really doesn't take much time," Irene Litchman, the first term +(1912-13) President, explained. "We like it and we're proud to do it. We +used to have teachers everywhere taking charge of things. Now we do it +all ourselves." True enough, Madame President, and it is well done, as +any casual observer may see. Similar testimony is to be had from the +sick girls who have received letters and flowers, from the children +whose Christmas has been brightened by Association-dressed dolls, and +from the girls whose misunderstandings with members of the faculty have +been settled by the Student Association. + +Each class in the Washington Irving High School (New York) gives one +reception a term to one of the other classes. In addition, an annual +reception and play are given by the entire school. The plays for these +occasions are written, costumed and staged by the students. Last year +the reception was given to Mrs. Dix, wife of the Governor of New York, +and the play "Rip Van Winkle" was acted by eighteen hundred girls. Such +organizations and activities lead high school students to feel social +relationships, and to assume responsibilities as members of the social +group. + + +VIII Breaching the Chinese Wall of High School Classicism + +A high school education is included, by progressive communities, in the +birthright of every child. Since only a small part of these children are +preparing for college, the school must offer more than the traditional +high school course. The principal of a great Western high school which +housed nearly two thousand children, pointed to one room in which a tiny +class bent over their books. "That is probably the last class in Greek +that we shall ever have in the school," he said. "They are sophomores. +Only two freshmen elected Greek this fall, and we decided not to form +the class." Time was when Greek was one of the pillars of the high +school course of study. In this particular school, splendidly equipped +laboratories, sewing rooms, and shops have claimed the children. The +classics are still popular with a small minority, but the vast majority +come to learn some lesson which will direct their steps along the +pathway of life. + +Everywhere the technical high school courses are gaining by leaps and +bounds. The William Penn High School (Philadelphia), established in +1909, is to-day enrolling four-fifths of the girls who enter +Philadelphia high schools. In some cities, technical work and classical +work are done in the same building; in other cities, they are sheltered +separately, but everywhere the high school is opening its doors to that +great group of school children who, at seventeen or eighteen, must and +will enter the arena of life. + +The technical high school has not gained its prestige easily, however. +The bitter contests between the old and the new are well portrayed by +one dramatic episode from the history of the Los Angeles High School. +Mr. John H. Francis, now superintendent of the schools of Los Angeles, +was head of the Commercial Department in the Los Angeles High School. +Despite opposition and ridicule the department grew until it finally +emerged as a full-fledged technical high school, claiming a building of +its own,--a building which Mr. Francis insisted should contain +accommodations for two thousand students. The authorities +protested,--"Two thousand technical students? Why, Los Angeles is not a +metropolis." Mr. Francis gained his point, however, and the building was +erected to accommodate two thousand children. When the time for opening +arrived it was discovered, to the astonishment of the doubters, that +more students wanted to come into the school than the school would hold. +When Mr. Francis announced that students up to two thousand would be +admitted in order of application, excitement in school circles ran high, +and on the day before Registration Day a line began to form which grew +in length as the day wore on, until by nightfall it extended for squares +from the school. All that night the boys and girls camped in their +places, waiting for the morning which would bring an opportunity to +attend the technical high school. + +Though less dramatic in form, the rush toward technical high school +courses is equally significant. It is not that the old high school has +lost, but that the new high school is drawing in thousands of boys and +girls who, from lack of interest in classical education, would have gone +directly from the grammar school into the mill or the office. + + +IX An Up-to-Date High School + +The modern high school is housed in a building which contains, in +addition to the regular class rooms, gymnasiums, a swimming tank, +physics, and chemical laboratories; cooking, sewing, and millinery +rooms; wood-working, forge, and machine shops; drawing rooms; a music +room; a room devoted to arts and crafts; and an assembly room. This +arrangement of rooms presupposes Mr. Gilbert's plan of making the high +school, like the community, an aggregation of every sort of people, +doing every sort of work. + +Physical training in the high school has not yet come into its own, +though it is on the road to recognition. All of the newer high schools +have gymnasiums, but the children do not use them for more than thirty, +forty, or fifty minutes a week. Sometimes the work is optional. The West +Technical of Cleveland, with its outdoor basket ball court, its athletic +grounds and grandstand, in addition to the indoor gymnasium, offers a +good example of effective preparation for physical training. William D. +Lewis of the William Penn High School sends all students who have +physical defects to the gymnasium three, four, or even five times a +week, until the defects are corrected. These exceptions merely serve to +emphasize the fact that we have not yet learned that high school +children have bodies which are as much in need of development and +training as the minds which the bodies support. + +Several real attempts are being made to teach high school boys and girls +to care for their bodies, as they would for any other precious thing. +Hygiene is taught, positively,--the old time "don'ts" being replaced by +a series of "do's." In many schools, careful efforts are being made to +give a sound sex education. The program at William Penn, in addition to +the earlier work in biology and in personal and community hygiene, +includes a senior course, extending through the year, in Domestic +Sanitation and Eugenics. The course, given by the women in charge of +Physical Training, deals frankly with the domestic and personal problems +which the girls must face. The time is ripe for other schools to fall in +line behind these much-needed pioneers. + +The course of study in the modern high school is a broad one. Latin may +always be taken, and sometimes there is Greek. French, German and +Spanish, Mathematics, History, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, and Civics +are almost universally offered on the cultural side of the curriculum. +In addition, girls may take dress designing, sewing, millinery and home +economics; boys may take wood-working, forge work, machine-tool work, +electricity, printing, and house designing; and both boys and girls have +an opportunity to elect art, arts and crafts work and music. + +In some schools the combination of subjects group themselves into +definite courses, as in the Newton High School, which offers,-- + + The Classical Course. + The Scientific Course. + The General Course. + The Technical Course. + The Technology-College Course. + The Extra Technical Course. + The Fine Arts Course. + The Business Course. + +Other schools, like the Indianapolis Manual Training School, permit the +pupil, with the advice of the principal, to make his own combination of +subjects. Whether prepared by the school or by the pupil, however, the +courses lead to college, to normal schools, to advanced technical +schools, or to some definite vocation. On one subject, progressive high +schools are in absolute agreement,--the course of study must furnish +both culture and technical training in a form which meets the needs of +high school children. + + +X From School to Shop and Back Again + +The tendency toward vocational training finds its extreme expression in +the so-called Industrial Co-operative Course in which boys and girls +spend part of their time in school and part in the factory. Note this +legal document. "The party of the second part agrees to place, as far as +possible, the facilities of his establishment at the disposal of the +School Committee for general educational purposes along industrial +lines." In these words, the individual manufacturers of Providence, +Rhode Island, who are co-operating with the school board for the +establishment of the industrial co-operative course in the Technical +High School, place their mills and factories at the disposal of the +school authorities. The plan instituted at the suggestion of the +manufacturers themselves has won the approval of all parties during the +two years of its operation. + +The Providence experiment differs from those of Cincinnati and +Fitchburg, Mass., in two respects,--in the first place, the school +authorities have a written contract with the manufacturers. In the +second place, they may decide what the character of the shop-work shall +be. The boy who elects to take the industrial co-operative course in +Providence spends ten weeks in a shop at the end of his freshman year. +Apprenticeship papers are signed, the boy gives a bond, which is +forfeited if he drops the course without a satisfactory reason, and for +three years he spends 29 weeks in the shop and 20 weeks in school, +alternating, one week in the shop, the next in the school. For their +shop-work the boys receive ten cents, twelve cents, and fourteen cents +an hour during the first, second, and third years, respectively. Though +this wage is not high, it is sufficient to enable the boys to earn +enough during the year ($175 to $250) to pay for their keep at home +during their high school course. + +At the present time sixty-two Providence boys are working part time in +machine shops, in drafting rooms, in machine tool construction, in +pattern making and in jewelry making. In order to keep the scheme +elastic, the school offers to form a class in any trade for which +sixteen or more boys will apply. + +The part-time course is primarily educational and secondarily +vocational. Since it may determine the character of the shop-work, the +school is in a position to insure its educational value. Again, the +academic training is still received in the school, while the technical +work, heretofore done in school rooms, is carried on in the fields of +real industry. As a supplement of the old time system of apprenticeship, +the part-time school is an undoubted success, because it adds to shop +apprentice work all of the essential elements of a high school +education. + + +XI Fitting the High School Graduate Into Life + +The high school has not done its full duty when it has educated the +child,--it must go a step farther and educate him for something; then it +must go a step beyond that and help him to find himself in his chosen +profession. This vocational guidance which is filling so large a place +in public discussions, may mean guidance to a job or it may include +guidance in the job. In either case children must be led to decide upon +the kind of work for which they are fitted before they leave the school. + +Jesse B. Davis, Principal of the Central High School at Grand Rapids, +furnishes a brilliant example of this vocational directing. Mr. Davis +begins his work through the theme writing and oral composition of the +seventh and eighth grades. The purpose of the pupils' reading and +discussion is to arouse their vocational ambition and to lead them to +appreciate the value of further education and training for life. This +study upon the part of the pupil is supplemented by talks given by Mr. +Davis, prominent business and professional men and high school boys who +have come back to finish their education after a few years of battle +with the world. + +The high school classes in English are small--never more than +twenty-five, and the work is so arranged that the teacher may get a good +idea of the capability of each student. To facilitate this, the English +Department has prepared a series of essay subjects in the writing of +which the pupil gives the teacher a very definite idea of himself. +Beginning with "My Three Wishes;" the pupil next writes a story about +his ancestry; an essay on "My Church," which explains his belief; an +essay on "The Part I'd Like to Play in High School;" a study of "My Best +Friend," and finally an essay on "The Work of My Early School Days," +which shows the pupil's likes and dislikes. In addition to this, the +teacher notes any physical defects--eyesight, hearing, and the +like--which might incapacitate the pupil for particular vocations. This +data, together with reports from all departments on neatness, +sincerity, ambition and other qualities is filed in the office. + +During the second term of the freshman year papers are written on +approved biographies, dealing in each case with the qualities, +opportunities and education of the great one. These essays, read in +class, form the basis for a compilation of the elements necessary for +success in life. + +The work of the sophomore year begins with the preparation of a class +list of professions, semi-professions and trades,--a list which is +checked with the permanent list kept by the department. Succeeding +classes thus discover the breadth of the vocational field, besides +adding to the knowledge accumulated by their predecessors. + +After completing this list, the pupils write a letter to the teacher, +choosing a vocation and assigning reasons for the choice. When the pupil +cannot decide, the teacher assigns the vocation apparently best suited +to the pupil's capacity. An essay on his vocation is then prepared by +each pupil, showing first, what kind of activity and what +responsibilities the vocation involves; second, its social, intellectual +and financial advantages; third, the corresponding disadvantages; +fourth, the qualifications and traits necessary to success in the +vocation; and fifth, the reasons for choosing the vocation. Then, under +the advice of the teacher, the pupil writes to some man well known in +the profession of his choice--some lawyer, mining engineer, doctor or +contractor--explaining what he is doing, and asking for advice. The +generous responses given by men in all walks of life do much to confirm +the pupil in his faith, or to make him see that his choice is an unwise +one. + +At the beginning of the junior year those pupils preparing for college +send for the catalogues of the colleges which stand highest in the line +of work in which they are interested, and write an essay, giving the +comparative value of the courses offered by the various institutions. By +this means judgment takes the place of sentiment in the selection of a +college. While the college preparatory pupils are engaged in writing on +their college courses, pupils who are going directly from the high +school into business write an elaborate essay on the kind of preparation +necessary for their vocation, the qualities requisite for success in it, +and the best place and means of entering it. Studies of the proper +relations between employer and employed occupy the second half of the +junior year. + +The work of the senior year deals, in the first half, with the relation +between a citizen and his city; the second half, with the relation +between a citizen and the state. The pupil has thus passed from the +narrower to the broader aspects of his work in life. + +The effectiveness of the work is enhanced by the organization of the +high school boys into a Junior Association of Commerce (in an exact +imitation of the Grand Rapids Association of Commerce), which meets in +the rooms of the latter on Saturday morning; transacts business; listens +to an address by a specialist, and then visits his works, if he is +engaged in a local industry. On the Saturday before Thanksgiving (1912), +for example, Mr. VanWallen, of the VanWallen Tannery Co., gave the boys +a talk on the tanning industry, then took them through his tannery, +where they saw the processes of manufacture. The business men of Grand +Rapids, who are highly pleased with this practical turn in education, +co-operate heartily in every way. The boys are urged, during the summer +months, to take a position in the work which they have chosen, start at +the bottom and find out whether their beliefs regarding the industry +are true. Then, too, the Free Library makes a point of collecting books +and articles on various professions and vocations, and placing them +prominently before the students. The English Department (with five +periods a week) does other work, but none so vital to the pupils' lives +as this of directing them in the thing which they hope to do when they +leave school. + +The school may do more than direct the pupils in the choice of their +occupations, by actually securing positions for them. The head of the +Commercial Department in the Newton (Massachusetts) High School has a +card for every student, giving on one side a record of class work for +four years, and on the other side a statement of positions and pay of +the graduate. New pupils are placed; old pupils are offered better +opportunities. Employers are interviewed in attempts to have them +promote graduates. Through this system, Mr. Maxim keeps in constant +touch with the labor market and with graduates of his school. + +Certainly the high school must prepare students for life. Whether, in +addition, it shall constitute itself a Public Employment Bureau, finding +positions for students, keeping in touch with their careers, and +assisting in their advancement, is a matter yet to be determined. + + +XII The High School as a Public Servant + +Will the high school retain its present form? Probably not. If the +Berkeley-Los Angeles plan prevails, there will be three steps in the +public schools,--from elementary to junior high, to high school. If the +Gary plan wins, there will be twelve years of schooling, following one +another as consecutively as day follows night. Whether the Los Angeles +or the Gary plan is adopted, one thing seems reasonably certain,--the +high school will keep in close touch with life. + +The high school is securing a surer grip on the world with each passing +day. It is reaching out toward the grades, calling the pupils to come; +it is reaching out into the world, making places there for them to +occupy. The modern high school has ceased to be an adjunct to the +college. Instead, it is a distinctive unit in educational life, taking +boys and girls between the ages of fourteen and nineteen and relating +them to the world in which they must live. + +The era of the high school course is being succeeded by the era of the +high school boy and the high school girl. First, last, now and always, +the boys and girls, not the course, deserve primary consideration. +Whatever their needs, the high school must supply them if it is to +become a public servant, responsible for training children of high +school age in the noble art of living. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +HIGHER EDUCATION AT LOWVILLE[20] + + +I Lowville and the Neighborhood + +Away off in northwestern New York State, where the sun shines fiercely +in the summer mid-day, where the ice forms thick on the lakes, and the +snow lies on the north side of the hills from Thanksgiving well on to +Easter, there is a town of some three thousand inhabitants, called +Lowville. The comfortable homes, brick stores, wide tree-bordered +streets, smiling hills and giddy children look very much the same at +Lowville as they do in any one of a thousand similar towns east of the +Mississippi. Situated far back from the line of ordinary travel, the +town is typical of a great class. + +Stretching in all directions about Lowville is a fertile, prosperous, +agricultural region, farmed by good farmers, who are intelligently awake +to the problem of scientific agriculture in its multiple phases. + +These farmers grow fruits, raise general farm produce, breed a little +stock, cut some timber, besides all of the time-honored occupations of +the professional farmer. The boys and girls growing up in the town or +the neighboring countryside, blessed with good air, and a cheap supply +of wholesome food, look pleasantly forward toward life as something +worth living. + +So much for the good side of Lowville. Sad indeed is it to recall that +there is another side. Anyone who has been in close contact with +country life can readily imagine the ignorance, bigotry, prejudice, +unfairness and unsociableness of the population; the tendency to cling +to the past no matter what its shortcomings; the unwillingness to +venture into even the rosiest future which involves change. Lowville is +blessed a great deal and cursed a very little. The blessings are being +augmented and the curses minimized by means of the local high school. + + +II Lowville Academy + +Lowville Academy is an ancient private school whose usefulness was +immensely enhanced when it was converted into a public high school. When +Mr. W. F. H. Breeze took over the principalship he made no particular +objection to the old class rooms and wooden stairs, but he was very +insistent upon discovering, first, what the community needed, and +second, whether or not the school was meeting the need. + +More than half (at the present time sixty-five per cent.) of the pupils +at the school came from outside of the village. That is, they come from +the farms. As farmers' boys, many of them have been brought up to all of +the unscientific crudities which have been handed down in American +agriculture since the early settlers took the land from the Indians in +grateful recognition of their instructions in fertilization. While many +agricultural anachronisms may be laid to the door of the redskins, +planting by the moon and several equally absurd customs are traceable to +the higher civilization of Western Europe. + +Saturated with traditional agricultural lore--some better and some +worse--the boys and girls from outside of Lowville, sixty-five in each +hundred high school students, were growing up to become the owners of +promising New York farms. They needed, first of all, an education which +should equip them with all of the culture of our schools, beside giving +them a knowledge of the sciences of agriculture and of mechanics. Those +boys and girls who were planning to go to college required an advance +course in those purgatorial topics which, for some inexplicable reason, +are still regarded as necessary preliminaries to a college education. +Most of the girls in Lowville and the immediate vicinity hope to marry +sooner or later, and to preside over wholesome, clean homes. For +home-making, also, there were certain possible educational provisions. + +As prospective farmers, mechanics, college students, business men and +women, as prospective fathers and mothers, the boys and girls of +Lowville were looking to the schools--high as well as elementary--for an +education which should enable them to do successfully and efficiently +those things which life was holding before them. + +Furthermore, Lowville had no spot around which community interests and +civic ideas could center. There was intelligent interest in Lowville, +its streets, schools, trees, houses, and business interests; there was, +too, an interest, expressed among the neighboring farmers, in the +wonderful strides of agriculture; furthermore, men and women were +anxious to discuss political and social happenings in other parts of the +world. + +What more natural than that the school be converted into a center of +interest and education for Lowville and the surrounding territory. +Adults, as well as young folks, needed school help. Adults as well as +young folks should then be accommodated in the Lowville schools. + + +III The School's Opportunity + +"There was a peculiar opportunity," said Mr. Breeze, in his crisp direct +way. "The place needed organizing in educational lines. People were +anxious to have it done. They wanted the advantage of a modern +educational institution, but no one had provided it, so I made up my +mind that my business was to do it." + +Mr. Breeze made his first innovation in the course of study, +supplementing the old course by domestic science, several phases of +agriculture and mechanics. Then he correlated the various branches in +such a way that the subjects all harmonized with the work which any +particular student was doing. + +"We made up our minds," Mr. Breeze explained, "that if we were to hold +the children and to educate them usefully, we must make our course fit +the things which they had to do in life. The work must come down to +earth. It had to be practical--that is, applicable to everyday affairs. +Some people confuse practical with pecuniary. There is no relation +between the two words. Practical means usable. We set out to make a +usable education." + +"No education is usable which has frills," Mr. Breeze insists. "Frills +are nice for looks, but you can't put on frills until you have a garment +to which they may be attached. Our school is providing the garment--we +will leave the frills to some one else." + +With this idea in mind, the applied courses in the school were +organized. Wood-alcohol cook stoves, such as those used in the village, +ordinary sewing machines, typewriters for the commercial course, and the +simplest tools for the machine shop, made up the equipment. + +"These boys have but a few tools at home," Mr. Breeze says. "When they +go on the farm they will be compelled to use these tools. Why, then, +should they be taught mechanics with tools which they cannot duplicate +on their farms without an unjustifiable extravagance?" + + +IV Field Work as Education + +Pursuant to such philosophy, the boys began their shop-work by equipping +the shop, building benches, tool-chests, cabinets, and saw horses; +putting lath and plaster on the ceiling; setting up the simple tools and +putting the shop in running order. Meanwhile, the agricultural students +set up two cream separators and a milk-tester, and arranged their +laboratory. Then the school was ready for applied work, or rather, the +students having graduated from a course in shop equipment, were ready +for shop practice. + +The entire class in agriculture makes inspection of nearby farms--here +to see a well-managed orchard, there a new type of cow-barn or silo. +Again they inspect the soil of a district, going carefully over it, +picking samples and testing them on return to the school. In +fruit-packing season, the students visit the packing houses, or else, in +the case of some of the boys, they take a week of employment with a good +fruit packer. In season they practice tree pruning, grafting, budding, +transplanting and spraying. Whenever possible, the applied work of the +school is done in connection with the real applied work of life. + +The physics and chemistry are both related to the agriculture and the +mechanics courses in the most intimate manner. From the earliest lessons +in physics through analyses of heat, light and the principles of +mechanics, the theories are constantly interpreted in practical +problems which arise in the daily work of the Lowville farmer. The +physics teacher, enthusiastic over his students and his work, builds +machines and testing devices, which the boys and girls use in solving +the problems which they bring from their homes. No less close to the +life of the place is the chemical laboratory, which offers opportunity +for the analysis of soil, the chemistry of fertilizers, experiments in +testing food and milk, and a number of other matters pertaining to +agriculture and domestic life. + +The mechanical courses are closely related to the work in agriculture, +since most of the boys who take up the mechanical work are to go on the +farms. The course in mechanics passes quickly over the elements of the +work--most boys have learned to use saw, plane, chisel, auger, and +hammer years before. The smithing work of tempering, annealing, welding, +soldering and removing rust, all leads up to the real work of the +shops,--the making of products. The boys make pruning knives, squares +and drawing boards, grafting hooks, nail boxes, apple-boxing devices +(for this is an apple country), cement rollers, mallets, whiffle-trees, +bob-sleds, holders for saw filing, bag-holders, chicken-coops, poultry +exhibit boxes, hammer handles, greenhouse flats. Besides, they have +exercises in belt-lacing, in cement work, and reinforced concrete. Then, +too, they make models of barns and bridges, computing strains, +lumber-costs, labor-costs, floor spacing and arrangement. + +The agricultural course deals, in some detail, with fruit-growing, +animal husbandry, grain-growing, and related topics. Though the scope of +such a course is necessarily limited in a high school, it forms an +invaluable addition to the knowledge of the boy who cannot go to an +agricultural college before he begins his life on the farm. Taught by +an agricultural expert, the work assumes real importance to the +prospective farmer. + +Nor are the girls of Lowville neglected. + + +V Real Domestic Science + +The domestic science department, in charge of an expert, takes up +household economics, sewing, dietetics and cooking. The work throughout +is practical, the girls learning the principles of sanitation, and their +application to the household; domestic art and home decoration; +lighting, heating and ventilation. The sewing classes cover the usual +exercises in simple hemming and darning, making towels, hemming napkins, +and the like; then underclothes, and later dresses are made. + +In the cooking laboratory the girls learn food values and food +combinations, the cooking of simple dishes, the preparation of entire +meals. The girl who finishes the domestic science course in the Lowville +Academy is competent to organize a home, cook, sew, keep house and make +as efficient use of her opportunities as does her brother who has been +trained in mechanics or agriculture. + +It is not in the applied courses alone that an extraordinary amount of +co-operation has been attained. The academic branches, likewise, are so +adjusted as to bear directly upon the work of the remaining courses. The +Academic co-ordination is particularly noticeable in the English work, +which is required of everyone during the entire high school course. +English composition is made to serve as a connecting, co-ordinating +study--related to all of the other courses in the school. + +The student in agriculture writes reports on various phases of +agricultural work, collecting them in a folder and arranging them in +order, according to subject. Chemistry reports, history reports, all +are made a legitimate part of the work in English. + +The results of this system have been more than satisfactory to Mr. +Breeze and his staff of co-workers. Students who would have left at the +end of the grammar school, are attracted by the high school program, and +"saved" by a high school course. The appeal of the school is a wide one. +There are no class of boys and girls in Lowville who cannot find +something worth while in the high school. Often a student otherwise not +brilliant will succeed remarkably in a particular line. Of one such boy +in particular Mr. Breeze spoke. + + +VI One Instance of Success + +"He had no taste for Greek, but his reports and analysis in agriculture +and mechanics were brilliant. The excellent drawing and sketching and +the careful work showed how much appeal the applied course had made to +his mind; yet but for the agricultural course he would never have come +to high school. A farmer's son with little taste for the ordinary +academic studies was inspired by the idea of improved, scientific +farming and was getting a thorough insight into the principles of +agriculture, chemistry, physics, and mechanics, which will be of the +greatest service to him when he takes up farming. Such topics as judging +the age of cows, breed of cattle, cost of milk production, the cost of +cow-barn construction, grain, hay, cattle rations, silage, and nutrition +will all bear directly on the work of the farm in which he is so deeply +interested.["] + +So much for the contribution of the Lowville High School to the students +who have gone out of its class-rooms and class excursions, stronger in +body and more alert of mind. No less remarkable has been its service to +the community. At the suggestion of the school authorities acting in +co-operation with the Grange, the State, and several other agencies, +Lowville has secured an agricultural specialist, whose business it is to +travel through the countryside, advising farmers, discussing their +problems and suggesting better methods of operating the farms, or of +experimenting in new directions. Each winter for one week, a school for +adults is held, with courses in agriculture for the men and courses in +domestic science for the women. The teachers,--experts from the Cornell +School of Agriculture,--are exceptionally well prepared to deal with the +problems of New York State farmers. + +Higher education at Lowville is education for everyone in Lowville and +vicinity who wants it. With one eye on community needs and the other on +the best means of supplying them, the Lowville Academy is giving to the +citizens of Lowville a twentieth century higher education. + + FOOTNOTES: + + [Footnote 20: Much of the material in this chapter appeared + originally in the Journal of Education.] + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +A GREAT CITY SCHOOL SYSTEM[21] + + +I "Co-operation" and "Progressivism" + +If any two words in the English language can express the spirit of the +Cincinnati schools, they are "co-operation" and "progressivism." The +people of Cincinnati, high and low, have banded themselves together in +an endeavor to make good schools. Cincinnati schools are not a monument +to any individual or group of individuals, rather they are the handiwork +of the citizenship. In their eagerness for educational progress, the +people are not hypnotized by every cry of "lo here! lo there!" nor do +they live in terror of new educational ideas. Their one aim, the +education of Cincinnati's children, takes precedence over every other +consideration. Perhaps that fact explains both the co-operation and the +progressivism. + +Co-operation in the educational work of Cincinnati has been developed to +a remarkable degree. "There is not a civic society in the whole town +which is not working with the schools," says former Superintendent Dyer. +Mr. Dyer might have left out the word "civic" and still have been very +close to the truth. + +Mr. Frederick A. Geier, a leader among the manufacturers who have made +possible the "half time in shop, half time in school" system, says of +his activity in co-operating with the school authorities: "As a citizen +of Cincinnati, I am interested in the schools for two reasons: first, +because good schools will bring under their influence the maximum number +of pupils and parents, and it is the best agency I can conceive of for +producing a high quality of citizenship; second, as a manufacturer I +feel that the material prosperity of a community is directly related to +the mental and manual equipment of its people." Showing his faith by his +works, Mr. Geier has labored in season and out of season to make the +schools of Cincinnati the most progressive in the country. + +Speaking as "a woman and mother," Mrs. Isabella C. Pendleton, of the +Civic League, which has played an active part in building up school +sentiment, says: "I consider that the most important features of our +school system are the manual training for boys and the domestic science +for girls. I am happy to say that to-day a girl on graduating from our +schools is capable of taking care of a home." As public schools go, that +is not an insignificant achievement. No wonder Mrs. Pendleton, a woman +and mother, is interested in schools which accomplish such vital +results. + +From what extraordinary sources do the schools in Cincinnati secure +their support! "All of the local dentists have been brought into close +contact with the school system by the efforts of the Dental Society to +introduce mouth hygiene into the schools," says Dr. Sidney G. Rauh. "We +dentists," adds Dr. Rauh, "are firm believers in general co-operation." +No less cordial is the Board of Health in its endorsement of the +schools, and in its efforts to raise the health standard of school +children. + +"I do not believe there is any city in the United States which offers as +good an example of the spirit of co-operation as Cincinnati does," +affirms Carl Dehoney, of the Chamber of Commerce. "Why are we so active +in co-operating with the schools? Simply because we realize that good +schools, and especially practical schools, which will fit young men and +women for their real life work, have a tremendous bearing upon the +efficiency of the people of the city." Mr. W. C. Cauldius, also of the +Chamber of Commerce, says: "Our school development is the result of a +few years of public support and sympathy." In similar enthusiastic words +the leaders of every phase of Cincinnati life express their interest in +educational progress. + + +II An Educational Creed + +Let no one infer from what has been said that the people of Cincinnati +are agreed upon all of the details of educational policy, nor upon the +fundamentals either, for that matter, but they have adopted an +educational creed which runs about as follows: + +1. I believe in making the schools provide for the educational +necessities of every child. + +2. I believe that this can be done when all work together. + +3. I believe that new ideas are the life-blood of educational advance. + +That simple creed adopted by teachers, principals, mothers, +manufacturers, dentists and trade unionists has become a great motive +force in the upbuilding of the Cincinnati schools. + +The most evident thing about the Cincinnati school organization is its +democracy. The feudal spirit of lordship and serfdom existing in many +schools between superintendents and principals on the one hand, and +teachers on the other, is nowhere evident in the Cincinnati schools; +instead, each teacher, thrown upon her own initiative, is a creative +artist, solving her particular problem as she believes that it should be +solved, and abiding by the consequence of her failure or success. + +Early in his work Mr. Dyer made it clear that he would not tolerate a +mechanical system of education. "Up here on the hill, in a wealthy +suburban district, is a grammar school. Its organization, administration +and course of study must necessarily differ from that other school, +located in the heart of the factory district. The principal of each of +these schools has a problem to face--each will succeed in proportion as +he grasps the significance of his own problem and the readiest means for +its solution." Is not that a refreshing sentiment from a superintendent +of city schools? Note this other delightful touch: "My teachers soon +learned that I regard the teacher who works exactly like another teacher +as pretty poor stuff." Before the axe of such incisive radicalism, how +the antiquated structure of the old school machinery came crashing to +the ground, to be replaced by a system which recognized each teacher as +an individual builder of manhood and womanhood, working to meet the +needs of individual children. It is not an idle boast which the English +make when they glory in the absence of a curriculum; for even the best +curriculum, if mismanaged, is speedily converted into a noose, the knot +of which adjusts itself mechanically under the left ear of teacher and +child alike. The school authorities of Cincinnati destroyed both knot +and rope by giving to their teachers and principals this injunction: +"Make your school fit the needs of your children and your community." + +The old-time, machine-minded school superintendent, filled with the +spirit of co-operative coercion, assembles his teachers. "Now let's all +work together," he exclaims, "Here, Susie Smith, this is what you are +to teach your pupils, and this is the way in which you are to do it." It +was in quite a different spirit that Mr. Dyer said to each one of his +teachers: "You do your work, I'll do mine, and together we will make the +schools go." It was in this spirit that the teachers were called +together to confer on the reorganization of the course of study. Each +teacher in each grade had her say in the matter. If the most +insignificant teacher in Cincinnati said to Mr. Dyer: "I have an idea +that I think would improve the work in my grade," his invariable reply +was: "Then try it. There is no way to determine the value of ideas +except to try them." By that policy Mr. Dyer surrounded himself with a +group of vitally interested people, each one suited to the task in which +he believed implicitly, and each one fully convinced that the success or +failure of that part of the Cincinnati school system with which he was +immediately concerned, depended directly upon his efforts. No wonder the +schools succeeded! + + +III Vitalizing the Kindergarten + +The kindergartens are at the basis of the educational system of +Cincinnati, and they are in charge of a woman who believes in herself +and in her work. Perhaps the people of Cincinnati are not justified in +believing that their kindergartens are the very best in the whole United +States, but Miss Julia Bothwell, who directs them, says, modestly +enough, that she has visited kindergartens in many cities, adopting +their schemes and improving in response to their suggestions, until she +is convinced that no other city in the land can show a better +kindergarten system than that of Cincinnati. In truth, her plan is +ordinarily referred to as the "Cincinnati idea." + +Cincinnati children begin their kindergarten work at four and a half or +five, entering the first grade at six. While in the kindergarten they +play the games and sing the songs that all kindergartens play and sing, +but with this difference: their plays and songs are built around the +things that they do. + +The yellow October leaves of Cincinnati's parks half shadow the activity +of the busy classes of little kindergarten folks who go there to work +and to learn. The Park Commissioners, like every one else in Cincinnati, +are in thorough sympathy with the work of the schools, so they allot to +each kindergarten class a plot in the park, in which the children--using +all of the tools themselves--plant tulip bulbs under the direction of +the park gardeners. + +"Tulips are the first thing up in the spring," Miss Both well explained, +"so we have decided to use them. For years we tried gardens, but +children of kindergarten age are not willing to give gardens as much +attention as they require; then, too, the gardens ran wild during the +summer, so we have settled on the tulip. After the children have planted +the bulbs they sing and talk about their work. Then, early in the +spring, they begin to visit their plots, watching the first shoots of +green as they appear, looking eagerly for the buds, and then, at last, +as the reward of their interest, picking the flowers and taking them +home. Thus, each child, during his kindergarten course, sees the +complete cycle from bulb to flower." + +Besides this flower-culture in the park, the children grow hyacinths in +the school rooms, visit the woods to collect autumn leaves and spring +flowers, make excursions to the country, where they may see animals and +crops, and always, for a few days after an excursion, talk about the +things which they saw, draw them, sing about them and play games about +them. In order to facilitate the work the Board of Education leases a +farm, to which the kindergartens go in succession. By these means the +life of the city kindergarten child is thoroughly linked with nature. + +These things are not new in kindergartening, however. They have merely +taken firm root in the fertile soil of Cincinnati's educational +enthusiasm. The real excellence of Miss Bothwell's experiment consists +in connecting the kindergarten with the early elementary grades on the +one hand and with the community on the other. + +The first grade children of Cincinnati come back to the kindergarten +teachers for an hour's kindergartening once each week, in order to +clinch the kindergarten influence on the lives of the first graders. The +first grade teachers meet the director of kindergartening once each +week, for a discussion of kindergarten methods, and an initiation into +the kindergarten spirit. Thus the lump of first grade abstraction is +leavened with the leaven of kindergarten concretes, and the grade +teachers get the spirit of kindergarten work. In the near future Miss +Bothwell hopes to have the kindergarten work extend to the second grade, +in order that the spirit, rhythm, harmony and joy of the kindergarten +may thoroughly permeate the roots of the Cincinnati school system. + +Even more significant--if anything could be more significant than the +breakdown of the ironclad, first grade traditions--is the grip which the +kindergartens of Cincinnati have secured on the people. The Cincinnati +kindergartener is more than a teacher--she serves many masters. In the +morning she holds kindergarten classes. On two afternoons a week she +does kindergarten work with first grade children; on one afternoon she +holds a conference with the supervisor; on a fourth afternoon she visits +the classes of first grade teachers or confers with mothers' clubs, and +on her remaining afternoon she visits her children in their homes. Out +of these varied duties has come: first, a group spirit among the +kindergarteners, built upon frequent interchange of plans and ideas; +second, an understanding of the relation between the problems of the +kindergarten and the problems of the grades; third, a sympathetic grasp +of the home conditions surrounding the life of many a difficult child; +and fourth, sixty-one mothers' clubs, one organized in connection with +each kindergarten, which furnish a social gathering-place for mothers, +an opportunity to influence parental ideas, and a body of invaluable +public sentiment. + +The idea of a kindergarten, usually regarded as a small part of the +school program, has been evolved until, in this one city, it is a potent +influence, working on children, teachers, parents and public opinion. + + +IV Regenerating the Grades + +The kindergarten is not alone in its appeal to the child and in its +affiliation with the community. Traditional grade education has likewise +been modified and rehabilitated until it makes an appeal to parent and +child alike. In the first place, a consistent effort has been made to +provide accommodations for the physical education in the grades of the +fifty-seven elementary schools. Twenty-five now have fully equipped +gymnasiums in which children have two or three periods of exercise each +week. In the schools not so equipped the physical work is confined to +calisthenics. Each year the Board of Education appropriates five +hundred dollars for the Public School Athletic League, which organizes +meets and games, open to all public school pupils free of charge. +Besides field days, baseball, soccer and football there is an athletic +badge awarded to all pupils who pass an "efficiency" test in athletic +activities. + +The academic work of the grades is alive with enthusiasm. History, so +often made a mass of dead names and dates, is taught in terms of life. +The children learn that history is in reality a record of the things +which people did, and of the forces which were at work in their lives; +furthermore, that the commonplace acts of to-day will be the history of +to-morrow. Translated into ideas and social changes, history stimulates +thought, turning the child's mind from the purely personal side of life +to the social activities of which history is made. + +Arithmetic and geography begin at home, in the things which the children +know and do. Both are taught in terms of child experience. Both call to +the child mind the things of daily life. + +English, too, which is so important an element in education, is made to +reflect child experiences. Teaching the reading lesson of "Eyes and No +Eyes" one teacher asked her class: "Well, children, what did you see on +your way to school this morning? What did you see, Elmer?" + +"Well, I saw--I saw--" and Elmer sat down. + +"I saw that it had been raining in the night by the mud in the streets," +said Alice; while John had seen trolley cars, and remembered that the +number on one of them was 647. + +A seventh grade girl had read the Psalm beginning, "Who shall ascend +unto the hill of the Lord, or who shall stand in His holy place?" After +asking what a psalm was, and who wrote the Psalms, the teacher asked: + +"Who was David?" + +"He was the king of Palestine," replied one boy promptly. After +straightening out the history the teacher next asked: + +"For what was David noted?" + +"For being Solomon's father," ventured one little girl. + +"Oh, no," protested a boy, "He was the fighter." + +"Sure enough," said the teacher, "would the fact that he was a warrior +naturally influence his thoughts?" After an affirmative answer from the +class: "Where do we find any evidence of that in this Psalm, George?" +asked the teacher. + +George considered the reading a moment. "Oh, I see, it's where he says, +'The Lord mighty in battle.'" + +After an elaboration of this idea the teacher went on to ask why David +wrote, "Lift up your heads, oh ye gates, and the King of Glory shall +come in." By careful questioning the class was led to see that cities +had walls and gates; that David, who had won many victories, was +accustomed to have the gates thrown wide to receive him, and that his +triumphal entries had made a deep impression on his thoughts. After some +more discussion the Psalm was read again, this time with surprising +intelligence and feeling. + +One eighth grade class in English was engaged in preparing a catalog of +all of the pictures in the school, looking up the painters, their lives, +their principal works, and the circumstances connected with the painting +of the pictures which hung on the school wall. In the same room a girl +had written a description of a sunset, in which she had said: "The +western sky is illuminated with a fiery red, and the edges of the +clouds are also tinted with a silvery hue." + +"What would Corot say about that?" asked the teacher. + +The girl thought a moment. "I guess he would say that there was too much +color." + +"Yes," smiled the teacher, "he would say, 'Let's go home and wait for a +few moments.'" + +The essay work in the upper grades is linked with all of the other +school work. The children write about civics, architecture, localities, +books and pictures. One girl of thirteen wrote on "The Reaper"--"As I +enter my bedroom one picture especially catches my gaze. It hangs on the +eastern wall. It is the picture of a large city by moonlight. The moon +is bright and the stars are out. A beautiful lake borders the far end of +the city, and the moon makes the lake look like a mirror. The church +steeple stands out clear against the sky. It is a beautiful summer +night, and while the city sleeps an angel descends and bears a little +child to the heavens above. Some mother must have given up one of her +beloved flowers." + +No less valuable are the essays describing an ideal kitchen, a location +for a house, a home, school life, and the various other things with +which the child comes in contact. + +Last among the academic branches, there is a carefully organized eighth +grade course in civics, which, beginning with the geography and early +history of Cincinnati, covers family relations and the tenement problem; +the protection of public health--street cleaning, sewage, water, smoke +abatement, and the activities of the Board of Health in providing for +sanitation and the suppression of disease; the protection of life and +property; the business life of the community--relation of the citizen +to business life, the growth of commerce and industry in Cincinnati; +Cincinnati as a manufacturing center, the labor problem, and the +regulation of business by the government; the necessity for civic +beauty; the educational forces of the community; the care of dependents +and delinquents; the functions of government; and the collection and +expenditure of city funds. In this way the child, before he leaves the +elementary school, is given an idea of the real meaning of citizenship. + +Beginning in the kindergarten, the art work extends through the high +school, including in the lower elementary grades, paper-cutting and +pasting related to school work, the seasons and the holidays. From the +third grade on, the children make real products--trays, boxes, blotter +pads, calendars, booklets and folios--work which is supplemented by +object and constructive drawing and designing. + +Shop-work is given to boys, and domestic science to girls, in all of the +schools. The point at which these subjects are introduced and the amount +of time devoted to them depends upon--what do you think? The regulations +prescribed in the course of study? Not a bit of it! It depends upon the +needs of the community and of the child. + +Schools which are located in the poorer districts begin manual training +and domestic science with the second grade, though ordinarily they are +not introduced until the sixth. Normally the children are given one and +one-half or two hours a week of such work, but over-age, backward and +defective children may spend as much as half of their time upon it. For +some of the girls a five-room flat has been rented, in which they are +taught housekeeping in all of its phases. Otherwise the domestic +science consists of hand and machine sewing, the designing and making of +simple garments, the planning and preparation of food, and the +organization and care of a household. Wherever possible, the boys make +useful products in their shop-work, instead of constructing show pieces +which have no value. + +From top to bottom the grades are shaped to meet the needs of children. +Each class and each school is built around this central idea. The school +system, instead of taking the usual form of a cumbrous machine, is a +delicate mechanism adjusted to the wants of Cincinnati children. + + +V Popularizing High School Education + +Not content with making the grades interesting, the school authorities +of Cincinnati have made the high schools so profitable and popular that +ninety-five out of each one hundred children who complete the eighth +grade go to the Cincinnati high schools. Furthermore, during the past +six years the high school attendance in Cincinnati has doubled. These +two noteworthy conditions are the product of carefully matured and +efficiently executed plans, and of infinite labor. Yet the results have +more than repaid the labor which they cost. + +"Our first task," explained Dr. E. D. Lyon, principal of the Hughes High +School, "was to persuade the community that it needed high school +training. Next we secured two fine new high school buildings. Then those +of us who are engaged in high school work faced the supreme task. We had +to prove to the people that their expenditures on high schools were +worth while, by providing a high school education that would mean +something to the pupils and to the community." Note the spirit of social +obligation--a feeling prevalent throughout the Cincinnati schools. + +"Most parents fail to see the importance of the high school problem," +said Assistant Superintendent Roberts, "because they never make +consistent efforts to have their children choose their vocations +intelligently. We began our work right there, at the bottom, by telling +the parents of grade children about the high school courses, and what +they meant. Eighth grade teachers, under the guidance of Mr. F. P. +Goodwin, are expected to talk to their classes regularly on the +vocational opportunities in Cincinnati and elsewhere, and to help the +children get started right in high school careers. Besides that, we take +the grade children on trips to the high schools, showing them on each +trip some striking feature of high school work. Parents' meetings are +held, in which the high schools are explained and discussed, and we send +circulars to the parents of sixth, seventh and eighth grade pupils, +explaining the high school work as simply as may be." + +After arousing such expectations, the high school cannot fulfill its +obligations in any way other than by the provision of a thorough course +of study adapted to the needs of all types of pupils. The preparation +for this in Cincinnati has been made with consummate skill. The pupil, +on entering the high school, may select any one of the nine general +courses, in which there are twenty-three possible combinations of +subjects. + +Four of the courses--General, Classical, Domestic Science and Manual +Training--prepare for various colleges and technical schools. The other +five courses--Commercial, Technical Co-operative Course for Boys; +Technical Co-operative Course for Girls; Art and Music, lead to +vocations. Housed in the same high school building is this range of +work, which permits boys and girls to select a course which will bear +directly on almost any line of work that they may care to follow in +later life. + +Each course is shaped to give the children who select it a definite +training in the line of their interest. The General Course prepares +pupils for college; the Domestic Science Course shows girls how to make +and keep a home; the Commercial Course turns out bookkeepers; the +Technical Co-operative Courses, enabling boys and girls to spend part of +their time in the school and part in the factory, are arranged in +co-operation with the principal industries of Cincinnati. The Art and +Music Courses, like the other special work, are in the hands of experts +who are competent to give a practical direction to the activity of their +pupils. + +In passing, it is interesting to note that the people of Cincinnati are +getting the best possible use out of their splendid high school +equipment. In addition to the regular classes which fill the Woodward +High School from 8:30 to 3:00, the pupils in the continuation courses +occupy the building every afternoon and all day Saturday. Five nights a +week it is filled by an enthusiastic night school, three thousand +strong, and during six weeks of the summer vacation a summer school +holds its sessions there. It would be difficult to find a school plant +which comes nearer to being used one hundred per cent of its time. To be +sure, such things were not done "in father's time," but then the people +of Cincinnati have a theory that while a good thing is worth all it +costs, it does not pay to let even the best of things decay for lack of +use. That is why the school system tingles from end to end with vigor +and enthusiasm. + + +VI A City University + +Besides the kindergarten, elementary schools, and high schools, the city +of Cincinnati has a university, which, like all of the other educational +forces of the city, is tied up with the general educational program. +Those graduates of the Cincinnati high schools who desire to go to +college, may pass from the high school of Cincinnati into the University +of Cincinnati without a break in the continuity of their education. + +The University of Cincinnati is a municipal university. The city +appropriates one-half of one mill on the general assessment, for +university purposes. The board of education appropriates ten thousand +dollars a year toward the maintenance of the Teachers' College, the +school in which the city teachers are trained. The training school for +kindergarteners is affiliated with the university, having the same +entrance requirements as the other university courses. In explanation of +this close connection between the city and the university, President +Dabney begins his 1911 report to the board of directors by saying: "An +effort has been made in this report to explain the service of the +university to the city and people of Cincinnati. It is therefore not +only an official report to the directors, but is also a statement for +the information of all citizens." Begun in this spirit of public +obligation, the report details the services of the Teachers' College in +supplying teachers; of the School of Economics and Political Science in +supplying municipal experts; and of the Engineering School for its +inauguration of the widely-known industrial co-operative courses--for be +it known to the uninitiated that the five hundred students of the +University Engineering School spend alternately two weeks in the school +and two weeks in a shop. More than that, the Engineering School +furnishes experts for municipal engineering work. + +That the students of the University may feel the interest of the city in +their work, preference is given to the University graduates in +appointments of teachers, of municipal engineers, and of employees on +such municipal work as testing food, inspecting construction, and the +like. University students may thus occupy their spare time in practical +municipal work. + +"The University should lead the progressive thought of the community," +says President Dabney, and by way of making good his proposition he +avails himself of every opportunity to turn his students into municipal +activities, or to co-operate in any way with the forces that are making +for a greater Cincinnati. + + +VII Special Schools for Special Classes + +There are children in Cincinnati, as in every other city, who cannot +afford to go to the high school. The easiest answer to such children is, +"Well, then, don't." The fairest answer is a system of schools which +will enable them to secure an education even though they are at work. +Cincinnati in selecting the latter course has opened a school for the +education of every important group unable to attend the high schools who +wish to avail themselves of advanced educational opportunities. + +First there is the night school work, which, in addition to the ordinary +academic courses, offers special opportunities in machine shop practice, +blacksmithing, mechanical and architectural drawing, and domestic +science. As these courses are carried forward in the Woodward High +School building the students have all of the advantages of high school +equipment. + +Night school, coming after a day's exertion, is so trying that only the +most robust can profit by it. No small importance therefore attaches to +the operation of the compulsory continuation schools under the Ohio law, +which empowers cities to compel working children between fourteen and +sixteen years of age to attend school for not more than eight hours a +week between the hours of 8:00 A. M. and 5:00 P. M.--hours which will +presumably be subtracted from shop time. By means of this adaptation of +the German system even those children who must leave school at fourteen +are guaranteed school work for the next two years at least. Although +this is but a minimum requirement, it represents a beginning in the +right direction. + +No less significant than this compulsory system are the voluntary +continuation schools for those over sixteen years of age, which have +been established for machinists' apprentices, for printers' apprentices, +for saleswomen, and for housewives. The first two courses are conducted +under the direction of a genius named Renshaw, who takes from the +machine shop boys of every age, nationality and experience, fits them +somewhere into his four-year course; gives them a numbered time check +from his time board; teaches them reading, writing, arithmetic, +mechanical drawing, geometry, algebra and trigonometry by means of an +ingenious series of blueprints, which constitute their sole text-book; +visits them in their shops, giving suggestions and advice about the shop +work, and finally sends them out finished craftsmen, with an excellent +foundation in the theoretical side of the trades. The work is entirely +voluntary, yet so excellent is it that a number of Cincinnati +manufacturers send their apprentices to Mr. Renshaw, paying them +regular wages for the four hours of credit which the said Renshaw +registers weekly on the boys' time-cards. "One firm sends sixty boys +here each week," commented Mr. Renshaw's assistant. "That makes two +hundred and forty hours of school work each week for which they pay +regular wages. Well, sir, the superintendent there told me that they +didn't so much as notice the loss." + +"I tried to explain my system to one superintendent," said Mr. Renshaw, +"but he wouldn't even listen. 'It makes no difference how you do it,' he +grumbled, 'I don't care about that. I know that the boys are neater, +more careful, more accurate, and better all-around workmen after they +have been with you for a while. That's enough explanation for me.'" + +Acting on such sentiments the manufacturer peremptorily dismisses the +boy who does not do his school tasks satisfactorily. The responsibility +is in the school, whose growing enrollment and influence tell their own +story. Firms send their boys to the school with the comment that the +hours of school time, for which they are paid, do not add to the cost of +shop management, but do add to the value of the boys to the shop. +Increased efficiency pays. + +A school of salesmanship for women has met with a like success. The +leading stores, glad of an opportunity to raise the standard of their +employees, grant the saleswomen a half day each week, without loss of +pay, during which they take the salesmanship course. The course has the +hearty backing of the best Cincinnati merchants, who see in it an +opportunity, as Mr. Dyer put it, "to make their employees the most +skilled and intelligent, the most obliging and trustworthy, the best +treated and best paid--in short, the very best type of saleswomen in +the country." + +That this work may keep pace with the demand for it the school +authorities offer industrial instruction in any pursuit for which a +class of twenty-five can be organized. + +"A large number of women were born too soon to get the advantage of the +courses in domestic science now being offered in our high schools," +comments Mr. Dyer in his dry way. Scores of such women anxious to learn +all that was known about domestic arts constituted a class for which the +school was well equipped to provide. "Then suppose we give them what +they need," said Mr. Dyer. Just fancy--a continuous course in domestic +science! Yet there it is, in Cincinnati, with an enrollment of more than +eleven hundred women, attending the public schools to learn domestic +arts. What could be more rational than this Cincinnati system of making +a school--even though it be a continuation school--to fit the +educational needs of Cincinnati people--grown-ups and children alike? + + +VIII Special Schools for Special Children + +The Cincinnati schools provide for special children as well as for +special classes of people. First there are the unusually bright +children, who "mark-time" in the ordinary classes. These children were +placed in "rapidly moving classes." While omitting none of the work, +they were allowed to go as fast as their mental development would allow +them, instead of as slowly as the other members of the class made it +necessary to move. At the beginning the teacher found these +exceptionally able children lacking in effort and attention, qualities +which they had not needed to keep their place in the grades. "The extra +work and responsibility stimulated their mental activity, increased +their power of attention, fostered thoroughness and accuracy, developed +resourcefulness and initiative, and those other qualities necessary for +leadership." Why should it not be so? Why should not the specially able +child be taught as thoroughly as the defective one? Yet Mr. Dyer, +speaking from experience, remarks: "Strange to say, it is harder to +establish such classes than defective and retarded ones." Strange +indeed! + +For the sub-normal or retarded children Cincinnati has made ample +provision. Spending from a quarter to a half of their time in manual +work, the children are no longer tortured with the doing of things +beyond their powers. The overgrown boys have instruction in shop work. +The overgrown girls have a furnished flat in which they learn the arts +of home-making at first hand. There are in all over four hundred +children in these schools. + +Similar accommodations are provided for other special groups. The +anaemic and tubercular children are taught in two open-air schools; six +teachers are detailed to instruct the deaf children; one teacher devotes +her time to the blind children, and ten teachers are employed to take +charge of those children who are mentally defective. Thus, by adjusting +the schools to the needs of special groups of people, and of special +individuals, Cincinnati is providing an education which reaches the +individual members of the community. + + +IX Playground and Summer Schools + +The vacation school is planned to meet the needs of the children in the +crowded districts during the hot summer months. "For that reason," says +Mr. Dyer, "it provides industrial work of all kinds unassociated with +book instruction, but mingled with a great amount of recreational +activity--excursions, stories, folk-dancing, and a wide variety of +games." + +The field of industrial activity is a broad one, including cooking, +nursing, housekeeping, sewing, knitting, crocheting, weaving and +basketry; drawing and color work, brush and plastic work; bench work +with tools, making useful articles; sports and games, including +folk-dancing for girls and ball for boys. The primary and kindergarten +classes offer a delightful round of song, story, games, excursions, +paper work and other forms of construction. For the girls who have to +take care of babies there are special classes. The boys make useful +articles in the shops, and the girls, in sewing-room and cooking +laboratory, learn to do the things around which the interests of the +home always center. By co-operation with the park commissioners, the +playgrounds were made an integral part of the summer school work. + +Besides the recreational summer school Cincinnati has maintained for the +past five years an academic summer school, in which children might make +up back work in school, or do special work in any line which was of +particular interest to them. In these schools "the very best instructors +that can be secured" are employed, and their recommendations are +accepted by the school principals when the fall term opens. "This school +is one of the means taken to deal with the problem of repeaters in our +schools," says Mr. Dyer. "Instead of requiring children who are behind +to fall back a year, they may, if they are not hopeless failures, but +only deficient in a few studies, remove their deficiencies in the summer +school and go on with their class. We have followed up these pupils," +Mr. Dyer adds, "and found that a normal percentage keep up with the +class in succeeding years." + + +X Mr. Dyer and the Men Who Stood With Him + +A spirit of comradeship and hearty co-operation breathes from every nook +and cranny of the Cincinnati schools. Principals and teachers alike +sense the fact. Alike they aim toward the upbuilding of the schools. + +"Never in my life have I found such a spirit of mutual helpfulness," +says Assistant Superintendent Roberts. "Every teacher has felt that she +had a part to play, that she counted, that her suggestions were worth +while, and she has worked earnestly toward this end." + +"Everywhere I encounter the same willingness to co-operate with the +schools," said Superintendent Condon, after spending three months in the +place that Mr. Dyer vacated when he became superintendent of the Boston +schools. "There is a heartiness in it, too, that grips a man." + +"There is always the jolliest good-fellowship in the Schoolman's Club," +exclaimed a grammar school principal. "It's always 'Roberts' and 'Lyon' +and 'Dyer' there. They're as good as the rest, no better. We all go +there to work, and to work hard for the schools." + +On such a spirit is the school system of Cincinnati founded. From its +point of vantage, set upon its high hill of ministry to child needs, it +flashes like a searchlight through the storm of nineteenth century +pedagogical obscurity. The optimist sings a new, glad song; the +pessimist is confounded; the searcher after educational truth uncovers +reverently before this masterpiece of educational organization, this +practical demonstration of the wonders that may be accomplished where +head and heart work together through the schools, for the children. + +Such is the triumph, but whose the glory? + +"It is not mine," protests Mr. Dyer, "I did only my part." "Nor mine," +"Nor mine," echo his assistants. Truly, wisely, bravely spoken. The +glory is not to Mr. Dyer, nor to any other one man or woman--the glory +is to Mr. Dyer and the men and women who worked with him for the +Cincinnati schools. + +"My predecessor was an able organizer," explained Mr. Dyer. "He left +things in splendid condition, and we took up his work. There were five +things which marked great epochs in the upbuilding of the Cincinnati +schools: + +"First, we established the merit system for the appointment of teachers. + +"Second, we improved the school buildings and equipment. + +"Third, we organized special courses for children who were not able to +profit by the regular work. + +"Fourth, by putting applied work in the grades we gave the children a +chance to use their hands as well as their heads. + +"Fifth, we enlarged the school system by adding buildings and courses +until there was a place in the schools for every boy and girl, man and +woman in Cincinnati who wanted an education. + +"That was the sum total of our work. It was a long and difficult task." +Mr. Dyer's tall form straightened a trifle. His earnest, determined face +relaxed. From under his bushy eyebrows flashed a gleam of triumph--the +triumph of a strong, purposeful, successful man. "But when it was all +over," he concluded, "and when the things for which we had striven were +accomplished we knew that they were worth while." + +When Mr. Dyer left his position in Cincinnati to become Superintendent +of the Boston schools, there was, on every hand, a feeling of loss and +of uncertainty among those most interested in the city's educational +problems. During those months which elapsed between Mr. Dyer's departure +for Boston and the election of his successor there was a feeling that, +after all, perhaps he was not replaceable. + +Then the successor came,--a quiet man, with a constructive imagination +that enabled him to grasp, readily and completely, Cincinnati's +educational need. There had been an era of radical educational +adjustment in the city. The school system had been changed,--artfully +changed, it is true--but changed, nevertheless, in all of the essential +elements of its being. Some of the changes had been made with such +rapidity that their foundations had not been fully completed. The +brilliant school policy which Mr. Dyer had inaugurated needed rounding +out for fulfilment and completion. Randall J. Condon saw these things; +and he saw, furthermore, that in a community so awakened as Cincinnati, +almost any educational program was feasible, so long as it remained +reasonable. + +The Cincinnati school people who went to Providence for the purpose of +inviting Mr. Condon to take charge of the Cincinnati schools, felt the +constructive power of his leadership. Providence had been educationally +transformed, and Mr. Condon was the man responsible for the +transformation. + +The people of Cincinnati have every cause to congratulate themselves +upon the new school head. At the outset Mr. Condon said,--"I purpose, to +the best of my ability, to live up to and follow out the policies +inaugurated by Mr. Dyer." With the utmost fidelity he has kept his word. + +There is far more in Mr. Condon's administration than a mere follow-up +policy. Everywhere he is building. In the face of a difficult financial +situation which compels a serious curtailment of expenses for the time +being, he is insisting upon additional kindergartens, extended high +school accommodations, a more intimate correlation of the elementary and +high school system, and an extensive system of recreation and social +centers. It is upon the latter point that Mr. Condon is laying the +greatest emphasis at the outset of his administration. + +The Cincinnati policy which Mr. Condon has inaugurated with regard to +civic centers is admirably summed up in his statement of the case. "A +larger use of the school house for social, recreational and civic +purposes should be encouraged. The school house belongs to all of the +people, and should be open to all the people upon equal terms,--as civic +centers for the free discussion of all matters relating to local and +city government, and for the non-partisan consideration of all civic +questions; as recreational centers, especially for the younger members +of the community, to include the use of the baths and gymnasiums for +games and sports, and other physical recreations, the use of class-rooms +and halls for music, dramatics, and other recreational activities, and +for more distinct social purposes; as educational centers in which the +more specific educational facilities and equipment may be used by +classes or groups of younger or older people, in any direction which +makes for increased intelligence, and for greater economic and +educational efficiency; as social centers in which the community may +undertake a larger social service in behalf of its members,--stations +from which groups and organizations of social workers may prosecute any +non-partisan and non-sectarian work for the improvement of the social +and economic conditions of the neighborhood, rendering any service which +may help to improve the condition of the homes, giving assistance to the +needy, disseminating information, helping to employment, and in general +affording the community in its organized capacity an opportunity to +serve in a larger measure the needs of the individual members." Here is, +indeed, a broad-gauge social school policy, to which the administrative +authorities of the Cincinnati schools are fully committed. + +The movement for social centers in the schools is to be under the +direction of a social secretary appointed by the superintendent. Until +the organization is more highly perfected, principals are free, under +certain restrictions, to open their schools for classes, groups, and all +other legitimate community activities. + +Mr. Condon's activities in the direction of socialized school buildings +finds a ready response. "There was already a large use of a number of +the schools for community meetings--for welfare associations, for boys' +and girls' study clubs, and for musical and social gatherings." The +program is a program of extension, rather than of innovation. It has +already won the approval of the citizenship. + +Spontaneity must be the soul of such a movement. "It was my strong +conviction that the development of such a social movement should come +from the people themselves, not that a ready-made program or plan should +be given them, but that they should develop their own." One by one +centers are being formed. The Board of Education furnishes the building, +the local social center organization pays the immediate expenses which +its activities incur. The movement has been started right. "I am a great +believer in democracy," Mr. Condon says. "The people can be trusted to +settle social questions as they should be settled, provided all sides +can be fully presented and time taken for deliberation. The school house +affords the one opportunity where all can meet on common ground as +American citizens and as good neighbors, where the question of wealth +and position may be forgotten, and where what a man is in himself, and +what he is willing to do for the common good, counts most." + +Such is the spirit in which Mr. Dyer, the men and women who worked with +him, and the men and women who succeeded him, have striven for the +advancement of education; such the spirit of co-operation and +progressiveism which dominates this great city school system. + + FOOTNOTES: + + [Footnote 21: Much of this material appeared originally in + Educational Foundations.] + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE OYLER SCHOOL OF CINCINNATI + + +I An Experiment in Social Education + +On the west side of Cincinnati, separated from the main part of the town +by railroad yards, waste land and stagnant water, surrounded by +factories and a myriad of little homes, stands the Oyler School. "Can +any good thing come out of Nazareth?" queried a doubter. Answers, in +bell tones, the philosopher, "If a man can build a better house or make +a better mousetrap than his neighbor, though he fix his home in the +woods, the world will find a path to his door." Because Oyler has built +a better school in a better community the world sits at Oyler's feet to +learn of its experiment in social education. + +The first time that I went to the Oyler School I encountered a Committee +of Manufacturers. A Committee of Manufacturers in a public school during +business hours! These men had met to talk with the school principal over +the location of a library, which the entire community had worked to +secure. When the time came to go before the Park Board over in the +center of the city, to secure a playground near the Oyler School, the +local bank furnished automobiles, and dozens of business men, leaving +their offices, took the opportunity to endorse the work of the school, +and to second its demands that play space be given to West End children. +The manufacturers have become interested because in less than a decade +the Oyler School has changed the face of the community, creating +harmony out of discord, and order out of chaos. + +The struggle of Oyler is the story of a man, a delivered message, a +thriving, enthusiastic school and a reborn neighborhood. Many years +ago--about twenty to be exact--a young man named Voorhes was made first +assistant in a West End school. Like other young men who go into school +work he applied himself earnestly to his tasks, but unlike most of them +he did some hard thinking at the same time. Among other things he +thought about the relation between the school and the community, +wondering why the two were so completely divorced from one another. Then +the problem was focused on one concrete example--a boy named John, +nearly sixteen years old, who had succeeded in getting only as far as +the eighth grade. John, who had never taken kindly to language or +grammar, began thinking pretty seriously toward the end of his last year +in the grammar school. He tried, he struggled, but the syntax was too +much for him. After all, it was not his fault, and he complained +bitterly against a punishment in the form of "leaving down" for +something which he could not help. His training was so inadequate that +he was entirely unable to pass the high school examinations which, in +those days, were like the laws of the Medes and the Persians. + +"I am safe in saying that he did not know the difference between a verb +and a preposition," said Mr. Voorhes, "but during the grammar lesson he +could make a drawing of the face of the teacher that was in no sense a +caricature. This phase of his ability gave me a cue to what might be +done for him. Knowing both the superintendent and the principal of the +Technical School, I talked the situation over with them, begging them, +with all the persuasive power at my command, to take the boy, +forgetting his shortcomings, and magnifying his peculiar talents, which +I felt sure were considerable along mechanical lines. They acceded to my +request, giving John a place in the school, to which he walked three +miles back and forth daily for three years. For many years John has been +superintendent of the lighting plant of a large city, and his experience +has always stood out before me as a terrible rebuke to the then dominant +educational regime, which could offer John nothing but a sneer. These +facts took such a vital hold on me, seeming to reinforce so fully the +thought that the industrial abilities which I had acquired back on the +farm proved of incalculable value to me, that the resolution to promote +industrial education became a fixed part of my educational creed. The +memory of that lesson in educational equity kept the need for industrial +training constantly in my mind, till I had opportunity to give it +expression in the Oyler School." + +John bespoke the needs of the community by which Oyler was surrounded. +It was so different from other communities. There were the ugly +straggling factory buildings, the miserable homes, their squalid +tenants, and worst of all there were the rough, boisterous, over-age, +uninterested, incorrigible boys and girls, who flitted from school to +home, to street, to jail, and then, gripped by the infirm hand of the +law, in the form of a Juvenile Court probation officer, or a truant +officer, they came back to school unwillingly enough to begin the cycle +all over again. + +"As for discipline," remarked one of the city school officials, "the +school hadn't known it for years, the probation officer couldn't keep +the children in school and the Juvenile Court couldn't keep them out of +jail. Even the majesty of the law is lost on children, you know." The +children taunted the police; the police hated the children; the home +repelled; the factory called, grimly; child labor flourished, and the +school despaired. + + +II An Appeal for Applied Education + +Such were the conditions when Mr. Voorhes became school principal. +Grinding factories, wretched homes, parental ignorance, social neglect, +educational impotence--few men could enter such a field of battle with a +light heart, but Mr. Voorhes did. + +What, think you, was his first move? He addressed to the heads of all of +the factories in the neighborhood a letter, suggesting the establishment +of a manual training department in connection with the grade work of the +Oyler School. "As I become more and more familiar with existing +conditions in our school district," he wrote, "I am convinced that a +Manual Training Department would be of vital importance to the school +and to the general welfare of the community. Such departments are being +looked upon to-day as necessary adjuncts to modern school equipment. + +"Our school is being drained constantly of its life force by the +adjacent factory demands, and if we could send pupils forth with trained +hands as well as trained minds they could render a much more useful +service, which, in time, would not only show itself in more profitable +returns to employers, but must also tend toward a higher standard of +culture in the neighborhood, and a longer continuance in school by our +pupils. + +"I know of no other section of the city where the actual need should +make a stronger appeal for support than here. Anything you may do will +be greatly appreciated." + +"You can imagine my surprise," says Mr. Voorhes, "when during the next +few days my mail brought me a hearty response of checks and pledges +amounting to nearly a thousand dollars." Manual training was assured! +No! Not yet. The Board of Education reached the conclusion that manual +training in the grades was undesirable. "With the exception of $85 which +I was told to use as I saw fit the checks and pledges were alike +returned to the donors. That $85 gave a piano to our kindergarten." + +That failure back in 1903 was the seed-ground of later success. The +community was interested to the extent of a thousand dollars at least. +The manufacturers were not only interested in education, but were +willing to support it financially. There was a change of administration. +Mr. F. B. Dyer became Superintendent of Schools and at once met the +situation by establishing a manual training center in the Oyler School. + + +III Solving a Local Problem + +The end was not yet, however. The truant officers and the Juvenile Court +were still busy keeping Oyler children out of mischief and in school. +The conventional type of manual training--one period per week in the +sixth, seventh and eighth grades--was not holding the pupils. + +"The children were not getting enough manual work to establish either +habit or efficiency," Mr. Voorhes comments, "besides, this work reached +only to the sixth grade. At this time there were in the school fifty +boys and girls below the fifth grade who were from two to five years +behind their normal classes. That is to say, they were--most of them--of +that unfortunate class that has seen more trouble in a few years than +most of us see in a lifetime. I was constantly asking myself: 'Where do +these folks come in?' 'What is our school doing to help their function +in life?' 'Are we really of any assistance to them after all?' 'Is it +worth their while to come to our school?' My sympathy for the pupils was +constantly growing, and I went at last in desperation to the +superintendent with a plan for a revolution in the organization of my +school, a revolution that I was sure would meet the needs of the +community and one upon which I was willing to stake my reputation if I +had any." + +At this point it is worth remembering, parenthetically, that Cincinnati +school men have a habit of going about their school problems in very +much that spirit, beginning by sizing up the needs of the community, +continuing by becoming imbued with an idea of the community needs and +ending by presenting this idea to the school authorities and +getting--within bounds--carte blanche to make their schools serve the +locality in which they are situated. + +This was Mr. Voorhes's experience. He was told to go ahead and make +good--a permission of which he availed himself in an astoundingly short +space of time by introducing a system of applied education, aimed to +meet the needs of the children who attended the Oyler School. + +"There is a peculiar situation," said Mr. Dyer, "and it needs peculiar +handling. You have only one problem to solve--that of the west end. Go +ahead!" Mr. Voorhes did go ahead with a plan under which all children in +the sixth and seventh grades were given three periods a week in +laboratories and shops. Subnormal pupils in the third, fourth and fifth +grades were to have four and one-half hours (one school day) for applied +work each week. In order to give special help to backward pupils they +were sent in small groups to the seventh and eighth grade teachers while +their classes were doing applied work. Below-grade children go to the +eighth grade teacher for special work in arithmetic and geography, and +the seventh grade teacher for English and history. In this way the +backward children from the lower grades have special training by the +best equipped teachers in the school. + +The eighth grade pupils give one-fifth of their time to applied work. +During the year the boys have, in addition to the shop-work, twenty +lessons in preparing and cooking plain, substantial meals. To make this +"siss" work palatable to the sterner sex much of it takes the form of +instruction in camp life--cooking in tin cans and other handy home-made +devices. In a community where boys have always been trained to regard +home work as menial, but where the absence of servants makes a "lift" +from the husband or brother such a Godsend to the wife at odd times, the +value of giving grade boys a taste for cooking can hardly be +over-estimated. + +The boys also receive twenty lessons in the simpler forms of +sewing--darning, hemming, sewing on buttons. At the same time the girls +are taught the use of simple tools. + + +IV Domestic Science Which Domesticates + +Beginning with the second grade the girls have domestic science while +the boys are at manual training. This domestic science has a truer ring +to it than most of the teaching which passes under that name. The +children at Oyler have a peculiar need for domestic science, because in +many of the homes mother works out, and even when she is not away her +knowledge of domestic arts is so rudimentary that she can impart little +to her daughters. So it comes about that the Oyler School seeks to teach +the girls all that they would have under intelligent direction in a +normal home. + +Once each week they cook and once they sew, devoting from one-eighth to +one-fifth of their entire time to these activities. By way of +preparation for both cooking and sewing they are carefully trained in +buying. They must make the dollar go a long way--buying in season the +things cheapest at that time and preparing them in a way to yield the +maximum of return. For example, they are called upon in January to buy a +50 cent dinner for six persons. Laura Wickersham's cost list is: + + Soup meat $0.20 + Can of tomatoes .10 + Spaghetti .05 + Cheese .05 + Bread .05 + Butter, etc. .08 + ---- + $0.53 + +Gus Potts, a mere boy, makes this suggestion: + + Meat $0.20 + Potatoes .05 + Cabbage .05 + Bread .05 + Milk .04 + Butter .05 + Coffee .05 + ---- + $0.49 + +In their cooking laboratory they learn to cook simple foods, one thing +at a time, until they reach the upper grades, where they must prepare +entire meals on limited allowances. + +The sewing is equally practical. The girls learn to patch, darn, hem and +make underclothing and dresses. Then, going into homes where no +intelligent needlework has ever been done--where frequently a darning +needle is unknown--they teach the mother and older sisters how to sew, +until whole families, under the influence of one school child, improve +their wardrobe and reduce their cost for clothing. Certain sewing days +in school, called darning days, are sacred to the renovation of worn-out +garments which the girls bring from home. + +The Oyler system may not turn out artists in dress design--it has no +such aim. The children who come to its class-rooms are ignorant of the +simplest devices known to civilization for the making of comfortable +homes. The domestic science courses are organized to take care of their +children by teaching them to be intelligent home-makers. + + +V Making Commercial Products in the Grades + +No less practical is the work of the boys in the shops, since the great +majority of them will enter factories. The shop-work is designed to +familiarize them with the ideas underlying shop practice. Instead of +making useless joints and surfaces the boys turn out finished, +marketable products. The eighth grade boys, with the aid of the +instructor, have built a drill-press from the scraps of machinery which +were found lying about. Now they are at work on an engine. Elaborate +products you will say, for eighth grade boys, yet these boys are likely +interested, they do their task with zest, and linger about the shop +after school hours are over--anxious to complete the jobs which the +day's work has begun. + +Boys in grades two to six made three dozen hammer handles for use in the +high school machine shops. Of forty-two pieces of rough stock there were +produced thirty-six handles, a record which some commercial shops might +envy. These same boys made a book and magazine rack, of rather elaborate +design, and an umbrella rack for each of the schools in Cincinnati. +These racks, displayed in the offices of the various principals, would +stand comparison with a high grade factory product. The boys are now +engaged in making a desk book-rack (a scroll saw exercise) for every +school teacher in Cincinnati. When they have finished there will be more +than a thousand. + +Besides these routine class exercises the Oyler boys are privileged to +make anything which appeals to them and for which they can supply the +material. The school machines are theirs, subject to their use at any +time. Taking advantage of this, the boys sharpen the home knives and +hatchets, make axe handles, umbrella racks, hall stands, stools, sleds, +cane chairs, and repair or make any product which fancy or home +necessity may dictate. + + +VI A Real Interest in School + +Let no one infer that the academic branches are neglected at Oyler. Far +from it, they are taught with consummate skill by a corps of teachers +who enjoy the work because they find the children interested. Strange to +relate, an interest in school came in at the front door with Mr. +Voorhes' new plan for applied education. The wild boys and dishevelled +girls of the West End, who had erstwhile hated school, came now to +participate in school activities with an interest seldom surpassed in +public or private schools. + +"You see," Mr. Voorhes remarked, "a day a week in the shop or +laboratories is just about enough to keep down the high spirits of the +older ones, and at the same time give them an applied education of which +they feel the value. That one day of practical work did the trick. It +made the other four days of academic work taste just as good as pie." + +Mr. Voorhes' plan arrived. It won the interest of the children and later +with the assistance of the Mothers' Club and the kindergarten it won the +sympathy of the community. + + +VII The Mothers' Club + +Like all of the other school centers in Cincinnati, Oyler has a +kindergarten and a Mothers' Club, around which the change in community +feeling has centered, until Mr. Voorhes describes them as "the most +important influence that ever came into our school." Yet the +kindergarten here, as elsewhere, has had a life and death grapple for +existence. In the West End, dominated by its conservative, German +atmosphere, the pleas for kindergartens fell on deaf ears. At last, +after much preparation, a meeting of mothers and children was held for +the purpose of forming an organization; at the meeting there were +thirteen children and five mothers, and all antagonistic, or at best +suspicious. + +"I went around and played with every one of those children," said Mr. +Voorhes, "talking to the mothers, and trying to persuade them that this +was not failure, but merely the forerunner of success. The next day I +went into every grade, saying to the children: + +"'What was the matter? Mother did not come to the Mothers' Meeting +yesterday.' + +"'Oh, she couldn't leave the baby.' + +"'Leave the baby! Why, of course not. No one expected her to leave the +baby. Tell her to come and bring the baby along.'" + +So another meeting was held, and another to which the babies were +brought--some women bringing as many as three, who were too young to go +to school. At one Mothers' Meeting, after the club had been well +organized, there were twenty women, listening, discussing and nursing +babies, all at once. + +If the beginnings of the experiment were discouraging the results have +more than offset the original disappointment. At the last meeting (in +January) seventy of the eighty-five paid up members were present, +intelligent, eager, interested, participating heartily in the +discussions. It has cost years of labor, but these mothers have reached +the point where they can talk intelligently about the children and their +needs. + +"Only yesterday," said Miss Phelps, Kindergarten Director, "one mother +said to me: 'I used to be the most impatient woman with my children--I +simply couldn't stand it when they refused to do what I told them. The +other day my mother said to me, "You're about the most patient woman I +ever saw. What's done it?" And I said to her: "Well, mother, I do not +know of anything except those folks at the kindergarten, which all +helped me to look at children in a very different way."'" + +Through the Mothers' Meetings the mothers have come to feel that they +are co-operating with the teacher and the school. Those mothers who have +children in the upper grades as well as in the kindergarten go to the +grade teachers too, seeking advice, or making suggestions. They have +learned to feel that they are an essential part of the educational +plan, and their enthusiastic interest tells of the advantages gained by +this co-operation. + +The Oyler Mothers' Club has been the center of the movement to clear up +the community. Through them and through the grades refuse has been +cleaned and kept from the streets. The club maintains, out of its fund, +a medicine chest at the school, which is used by the visiting nurse. It +has cleaned up the children, and that is no small item. + +"Back in 1904," says Mr. Voorhes, "I had five hundred of the children +vaccinated in my office, and such dirt and vermin I never saw! Nearly +every child had the high water mark on his wrist, and their clothes and +bodies were filthy. They didn't know a bathtub from a horse trough; they +don't now for the matter of that, because there are scarcely a dozen +houses in this section that have bathtubs, but the children are clean." + +Each year the old members of the Mothers' Club bring in the new mothers, +saying to Miss Phelps: "This is my mother, I brought her," "This is +mine!" with a delighted satisfaction in having added something to the +club. The kindergarten, filling two rooms, is thriving, and the +kindergarten teachers, visiting and advising in the home, are cordially +welcomed everywhere. + + +VIII The Disappearance of "Discipline" + +"Discipline," smiled Mr. Voorhes, "no, we don't mention the word any +more. Five years ago the discipline problem in this school was more +serious than in any school in town. We couldn't handle it, not even with +a club. To-day the discipline looks after itself." + +The disciplining of an undisciplined school may sound like an immensely +difficult task. Wrongly essayed it would be. Rightly directed it +becomes the merest child's play. The teachers have disciplined the +school--disciplined it through kindness--and here, again, the +inspiration may be traced to the Mothers' Club and the kindergarten, for +it was in the kindergarten that the first real attempt was made to bring +this school into closer relations with the home by home visiting. Little +by little the example told on the grade teachers, who went to see the +children when they were absent; nor was it long before a custom grew up +in the school, by virtue of which a teacher who wished to visit one +absent child, might pick her own time to make her visit. If perchance +the psychological moment was during school hours, she went then, while +another teacher or the principal took her place. + +Among the many illustrations of the efficiency of this system one stands +out strongly. A boy had been away for a week, sick with rheumatism, when +his teacher decided to call and see him. She went hesitatingly, however, +for this boy had been rough and troublesome all through school, but +particularly to her. At last her mind was made up. She visited the boy +and came away radiant, overjoyed at the cordial reception he had given +her. Again she went, and the mother, opening the door with a glad face, +said: + +"Come right in, Tom's been looking for you." + +"Is he better?" the teacher asked. + +"Yes, pretty much, but he said that he would get well right quick when +you came to see him again." + +Does anyone wonder that the boy should feel so kindly over attentions to +which he was not accustomed? Is it strange that he should have come back +to school with a firm resolve to be decent to his teacher? + +Discipline? There is no longer a problem of discipline. The teachers +are enthusiastic over the work, because they can see its results in the +changed homes and lives about them. The children engaged in occupations +which they enjoy and sensing the efforts of the school in their behalf, +discipline themselves by being frank and hearty in work or in play. + +Mr. Voorhes is not surprised at this transformation. The plan on which +he staked his reputation was a simple one, based on the idea of serving +a community which he had studied carefully, by providing for it an +education that met its needs. Though revolutionary from an educational +viewpoint, the plan succeeded because it was socially sound--because it +linked together the school and the community, of which the school is a +logical part. + + +IX The Spirit of Oyler + +Oyler has a motto, a very shibboleth, "The school for the community and +the community for the school." Not only do its principal and teachers +believe that the school must center its activities about the needs of +the community in which it is located, but they put their belief into +practice, studying the community diligently and seeking to find an +answer for every need which it manifests. Out of this spirit of service +has grown up a warmth of feeling and interest among the teachers seldom +surpassed anywhere. + +"When I came to Oyler I felt about it as Sherman felt about war," says +Mr. Voorhes. "Now I would not trade places with any school man in +Cincinnati. The teachers feel the same way. Never yet have we had a +teacher who wanted to leave. Each one has her class, that is enough. We +have no problem of discipline now. The children and their parents are +working for the school.["] + +Sometimes people get the idea that Mr. Voorhes does not do very much. +One visitor spent half a day observing, and then sitting down in his +office she said: + +"Mr. Voorhes, I have been here half a day and I haven't seen you around +at all. What do you do?" + +"Madam," answered Mr. Voorhes, "I am a man of leisure. All I do is to +sit here at this desk, ready to get behind any one of my teachers, with +two hundred and fifty pounds from the shoulder, in order to prevent +anybody or anything from getting in the way of her work." + +Small wonder that the teachers like to stay. Small wonder that the work +which the school does commands the respect of the people of Cincinnati. +In the school, as well as in the neighborhood, each person has a task +and a fair chance to do it well. + +From its position as "the worst school in Cincinnati" Oyler has risen, +first in its own esteem, and then in the esteem of the city, until it is +looked upon everywhere as a factor in the life of the west end, and an +invaluable cog in the educational machinery of the city. Its tone has +changed, too. Mr. Roberts, who came, a total stranger, to assist in the +work while Mr. Voorhes was sick, says, "I have never heard a word of +discourtesy or a bit of rudeness since I came to this school." That is +strong testimony for a new man in a new place. Splendidly done, Oyler! + +Mr. Voorhes has not stopped working. On the contrary, he is at it harder +than ever, shaping his school to the ever-changing community needs. He +has stopped disciplining, though, and he has stopped wondering about the +success of his experiment. Time was when Oyler looked upon high school +attendance much as a New York gunman looks at Sunday School. Last year +of the thirty-three children in the eighth grade, eighteen--more than +half--went to high school. The tradition against high school has been +replaced by a healthy desire for more education. "One day a week in the +shops," Mr. Voorhes says, "means interest and enthusiasm. Our children +compete in high school with the children of grammar schools from the +well-to-do sections, and with the best our boys and girls hold their +own." + +The community is interested. Parents and manufacturers alike come to the +school, consult, advise, suggest, co-operate. The school boy is no +longer sneered at by "the gang." The school has made its place in the +community, and "the gang" is enthusiastically engaged in school work. +The complexion of the neighborhood has changed, too. It is less rough, +the police have less to do. Houses are neater, children better clothed +and cared for. Oyler has won the hearts of its people, improved the food +on their tables and the clothes on their backs, sent the children to +high school, and their mothers to Mothers' Clubs; and the people who +once uttered their profanity indiscriminately in every direction now +swear by Oyler. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +VITALIZING RURAL EDUCATION + + +I The Call of the Country + +There is a call of the land just as there is a call of the city, though +the call of the city has sounded so insistently during the past century +that men innumerable, heeding it, have cast in their lot with the +throngs of city dwellers. Yet the city proves so unsatisfying that +thousands are turning from its rows of brick houses and lines of paved +streets to the fruit trees, dairy herds, market gardens and broad acres +of the countryside. The call of the city is answered by a call which is +becoming equally distinct--the call "Back to the Land." + +The ten-acre lot may not be any nearer paradise than the "Great White +Way," but there is about it a breadth of quiet wholesomeness which +cannot make its presence felt in the bustle of the clanging cars and the +rushing whirl of crowded streets. The unsmoked blue of the sky is over +the country, as are the fragrance of flowers, woods and mown grass; the +stars are brilliant by night, and by day the birds sing, and the cows +and barnyard fowls talk philosophically together. The children have room +to run and play between their periods of work, which is very near of kin +to blessedness, because, aside from being instructive, it binds the +child into the family group in a way that factory work can never do. The +country cries health and enthusiasm to the world-weary soul as it does +to the barefoot boy. Whittier was very near the heart of things when he +wrote: + + Blessings on thee, little man, + Barefoot boy, with cheek of tan! + With thy turned-up pantaloons, + And thy merry whistled tunes; + With thy red lips, redder still + Kissed by strawberries on the hill. + +Despite the loneliness, isolation and overwork in some country places, +the rural life is, on the whole, very rich in-- + + Sleep that wakes in laughing day, + Health that mocks the doctor's rules, + Knowledge never learned of schools. + +Country life holds a great promise for the future--a promise of vigorous +manhood and womanhood, and of earnest, sane living. Through the rapidly +progressing country school, more perhaps than through any other agency, +this promise may be fulfilled. There are two possibilities in the +development of the country school. On the one hand, several one-room +schools may be consolidated into one central graded school, to which the +children are transported at public expense; on the other hand, the +old-time, one-room school may be reorganized and vitalized. + + +II Making Bricks with Straw + +Even the doughtiest son of the soil must needs admit that the farmer of +the past, living secluded in his house or village, was provincial, +narrow, bigoted and individualistic. Times are rapidly changing, +however, and out of the old desolation of rural individualism there is +arising the spirit of wholesome, virile co-operation, which has +transformed the face of many a country district almost in the twinkling +of an eye. Nowhere is this co-operative spirit better expressed than in +the consolidated country schools, which are organized, like the city +school, by subjects and grades. + +Considered from any viewpoint, the consolidated school is superior, as a +form of organization, to the district school. Rather, the consolidated +school permits organization, and the district school does not. Wherever +it has been tried the testimony in favor of consolidation is +overwhelming. + +"Comparison," cried one county superintendent in consternation. +"Comparison! There is no comparison. The old one-room school, like the +one-horse plough, has seen its day. The farmers in this country, after +figuring it out, have reached the conclusion that the one-room school is +in the same class with a lot of other old-fashioned machinery--good in +its day, but not good enough for them. That is why over eighty per cent +of our schools have been consolidated. You see it's this way: The +farmers need labor badly, and rather than see their sons go to a school +where they are called on once or twice a day by a sadly overworked +teacher they would put them to work on the farm. The consolidated school +wins them with its good course of study and the boys stay in school." + +That is the first, and perhaps the most vital, advantage of the +consolidated school--it permits the enlargement of the course of study. +Sewing, cooking, agriculture, manual training, drawing and music, have +all been introduced, because the teachers have time for them. High +school work has been added, too. The consolidated school, in so far as +the course of study is concerned, is very nearly on a par with the +graded school of the city. + +Have you ever attended a one-room country school? If you have not you +can form but the faintest idea of what it means to the teacher. Her day +is so split up with little periods of class work that she can never do +anything thoroughly. Here, for example, is an average schedule of work +for a one-room class in Indiana: + + + DAILY PROGRAM + + FORENOON + + Time Class Grade + + 8:30 Opening Exercises All + 8:40 Reading Primary + 8:45 Reading First + 8:50 Reading Second + 8:55 Reading Third + 9:00 Reading Sixth + 9:10 Grammar Fourth + 9:20 Grammar Fifth + 9:30 Grammar Sixth + 9:40 Grammar Seventh + 9:50 Grammar Eighth + 10:00 Reading Fourth + 10:10 Reading Seventh + 10:20 Recess All + 10:30 Reading Primary + 10:40 Reading First + 10:50 Numbers Second + 11:00 Numbers Third + 11:05 Arithmetic Fourth + 11:15 Arithmetic Fifth + 11:25 Arithmetic Seventh + 11:35 Arithmetic Eighth + 11:50 Reading Fifth + Noon Noon All + + +Appalling, do you say? What other word describes it adequately? There +are twenty-one teaching periods in the morning; twenty-four in the +afternoon. Forty-five times each day that teacher must call up and +teach a new class. The college professor is "overloaded" with fourteen +classes a week. This woman had two hundred and twenty-five. Will any one +be so absurd as to suppose that she can do them or herself justice? + +Consolidation, among its many advantages, reduces the number of classes +per day, and increases the time which the teacher may devote to each +class. Note the contrast between that schedule of a one-room teacher and +the teaching schedule of a consolidated school teacher in the same +county: + + TEACHER'S DAILY PROGRAM + + FORENOON + + Time Class Grade + + 8:30 Opening Exercises All + 8:45 Desk 1-B + 8:50 Phonetics 1-A + 9:00 Phonetics 1-B + 9:15 Reading 1-A + 9:30 Reading Second + 9:45 Rest Exercise All + 10:00 Nature All + 10:15 Rest All + 10:30 Words 1-B + 10:50 Words 1-A + 11:10 Numbers Second + 11:30 History 1-A + + +The "district," or one-room, schools in Montgomery County, Indiana, have +twenty-three pupils per teacher, scattered over six grades. The +consolidated schools in the same county show sixteen pupils per teacher, +in three grades. While the teacher in the district school averages +twenty-seven recitations a day, the teacher in the consolidated school +has eleven; but the time per recitation is: district, thirteen minutes; +consolidated, twenty-nine minutes. The number of minutes which the +district teacher may give to each grade is fifty minutes; the +consolidated teacher has one hundred and seventeen minutes per grade. +Badly sprinkled with figures as that statement is, it gives some idea of +the increased opportunities for effective teaching in the consolidated +school. No teacher can do justice to twenty-seven classes per day, and +an average recitation period of thirteen minutes is so short as to be +almost unworthy of mention. + +Most consolidated schools, in addition to the ordinary rooms, have an +assembly room in which lectures, festivals, socials, public meetings, +and farmers' institutes are held. Acting as a center for community life, +the consolidated school takes a real place in the instruction of the +community. The big brick or stone building, well constructed and +surrounded, as it usually is, by well-kept grounds, furnishes the same +kind of local monument that the court house supplies in the county seat. +People point proudly to it as "their" public building. It is an +experience of note in traveling across an open farming country to come +suddenly upon a splendidly-equipped, two-story school, set down, at a +point of vantage, several miles away from the nearest railroad. + +The consolidated school at Linden, Montgomery County, Indiana, for +example, situated in a town of scarcely three hundred inhabitants, is +equipped with gas from its own gas-plant; with steam heat; ample toilet +accommodations; an assembly room; and halls so broad that the primary +children may play some of their games there in bad weather. + +One of the most widely discussed among consolidated schools is the John +Swaney Consolidated School, of Putnam County, Illinois.[22] The John +Swaney School occupies a twenty-four acre campus, lying a mile and a +half from the nearest village, and ten miles from the nearest town. The +agitation for consolidation in Putnam County led John Swaney and his +wife to give twenty-four acres as a campus for a local consolidated +school. Hence the name and much of the success which has attended the +work of the school. + +The school cost $15,000, equipped. It is of brick with four class-rooms, +two laboratories, a library, offices, a manual training shop, a domestic +science kitchen, and a basement play-room. The building is lighted, +heated, and ventilated in the most modern fashion. The John Swaney +School thus came into existence with an equipment adequate for any +school and elaborate for a school situated far from the channels of +trade and industry. + +The course of study organized includes all of the modern specialized +work which the effective city school is able to do. Securing good +teachers and possessing unique facilities, the school carries boys and +girls through a series of years, in which intellectual, experimental, +manual, recreational, and social activities combine to make the school +the center of community life and community influence. + +The school campus is used as a laboratory and a play ground. The trees +provide subject matter for a course in horticulture. The fertile land is +turned to agricultural use, and the broad expanse of twenty-four acres +furnishes additional space for games and sports. + +The social life of this school is no less effective than is its location +and equipment. The teachers' cottage, an old school building converted +for this purpose, furnishes a center for the life of the teaching staff, +and makes a background for the social life of the entire school. There +are two strong literary societies, including all of the pupils in the +school. Each year plays are presented on the school stage. There are +musical organizations, parents' conferences, entertainments, and +community gatherings of all descriptions. In every sense, the John +Swaney School is a community center. + +Prosperity has followed in the wake of this educational development. The +John Swaney School is known far and wide, and consequently farm renters +and farm buyers alike seek the locality because of the educational +opportunities which the school affords for their children, and because +of the social opportunities which the community around the school +affords for them. + +The movement for school consolidation, like many another good movement, +originated in Massachusetts. From that state it has spread extensively +to Indiana, Minnesota, Iowa, Kansas, Idaho, Washington, and a number of +other states,--East, West, and South. In every progressive rural +community, wherever prosperous farmers and comfortable farm homes are +found, there the consolidation movement is being discussed, agitated, or +operated. + +The movement toward consolidation has been particularly active during +the past few years in the South. The Southern States are, for the most +part, largely agricultural communities. The rural population far +outnumbers the urban population, and it is in these districts, +therefore, that the consolidated school can have its greatest influence. +By 1912, the state of Louisiana alone was able to report over 250 +consolidated county schools. Georgia, Florida, and North Carolina show +themselves almost equally active in forwarding this generally accepted +progressive educational movement. + +The difficulties involved in consolidation may be summed up under two +heads. There is, first of all, the conservatism and prejudice of those +people who believe that the things which were good enough for their +fathers, are still good enough for them. Secondly, there are the +technical difficulties involved in transporting pupils from distant +localities to the school center. Roads are bad at certain times of the +year. Wagons are costly. Desirable drivers are difficult to secure. +These factors, taken together, make the administrative difficulties of +the consolidated school far greater than those of the old-time one-room +country school. + +The forces operating to overcome these difficulties are destined +ultimately to triumph. The widespread acceptance of an agricultural +education that followed upon the work of experiment stations, +universities and high schools, has convinced even the most reactionary +of the old-time group that there are, at least, certain things in the +new generation which surpass, in their economic and social value, the +like things of the old. The inroads of scientific agriculture have +played havoc with agricultural tradition and conservatism. The obvious +merits of the new scheme are destined to overcome the prejudices which +the long continuance of the old scheme created. + +The technical difficulties of transportation are being met in a number +of ways. Wagon builders in various parts of the country are devoting +themselves to the designing and building of wagons which will be cheap +and effective. State and local authorities are actively engaged in the +improvement of roads. The near future promises a standard of +transportation facilities that will far surpass any that the +consolidation movement has thus far enjoyed. The details of +transportation administration are being worked out variously in +different communities, and always with a view to the particular needs of +the community involved. + +While the disadvantages of consolidation lie mainly in the overcoming of +prejudice and the solution of administrative problems, the advantages of +consolidation seem to be primarily educational and social. The +consolidated school is the only method thus far devised for giving +graded school and high school privileges under adequately paid teachers +to the inhabitants of rural communities. Again the consolidated school +is the only method of securing a school attendance sufficiently large to +provide the incentive arising from competition and emulation for pupils +of each grade or age. Furthermore, the consolidated school, standing out +as the most distinctive feature of a rural landscape, is readily +converted into a center of rural life and activity where young folks and +old folks alike find a common ground for social interests. + +The advantages of the rural school are thus summed up by Mabel +Carney,[23]--"For the complete and satisfying solution of the problem of +rural education and for the general reconstruction and redirection of +country life, the consolidated country school is the best agency thus +far devised." The reasons for this statement are summed up under seven +heads. In the first place, the consolidated school is a democratic, +public school, directly in the hands of the people who support it. +Secondly, it is at the door of farm houses and is wholly available, even +more available, when public transportation is provided, than the present +one-teacher school. Third, every child in the farm community is reached +by it. All children may attend because of the transportation facilities +afforded. Fourth, the cost of the school is reasonable. Fifth, it +accommodates all grades, including the high school. The country high +school, by excluding the younger children, denies modern educational +facilities to any except pupils of high school grade. Sixth, it +preserves a balanced course of study. While educating in terms of +farm-life experience, it does not force children prematurely into any +vocation, although it prepares them generally for all vocations. Lastly, +the consolidated school is the best social and educational center for +the rural community that has been thus far organized. + +However just may be the judging of a tree by its fruit, the fruit of the +consolidation movement seems uniformly good. First, because the children +get to school; and second, because after they get there they are taught +something worth while. + +When the schools of a district are consolidated, transportation must be +furnished for the students. Union Township, Montgomery County, Indiana, +covering one hundred and six square miles, has replaced thirty-seven +district schools with six consolidated schools. Some of the children are +brought as far as five miles in wagons, or on the interurban electric +cars. The wagon calls at stated hours, and the children must be ready. +Tardiness is therefore reduced, until one county reports ten hundred and +ninety-one cases of tardiness in its district schools (for 1910-11) and +ninety-two cases in consolidated schools, although in this county there +are more children in the consolidated than in the district schools. + +Then, too, the children stay later in the consolidated schools. In +Montgomery County, Indiana, the children who have not finished the +eighth grade and who are staying away from school constitute twenty-nine +per cent. of the population in the consolidated schools, as against +sixty-three per cent. in the district schools. The Vernon consolidated +school in Trumbull County, Ohio, has enrolled nearly nine-tenths of the +children of school age. Before the consolidation only three-fifths were +in school. + +Theoretically, the introduction of agriculture, manual training, and +other applied courses which are found in most consolidated schools, +should have some effect on the lives of the children. In order to show +its extent Superintendent Hall, of Montgomery County, Indiana, asked one +thousand children (five hundred in district schools and five hundred in +consolidated schools) what they proposed to do after they left school. +Arranged according to the kind of school in which the children were, the +answers showed as follows: + + + _District_ _Consolidated_ + _Chosen Profession_ _Schools_ _Schools_ + + Teaching 151 122 + Business 123 73 + Farming 92 129 + Law 55 21 + Mechanics 48 86 + Medicine 13 9 + Ministry 12 4 + Stock-breeding 3 41 + Miscellaneous 3 15 + --- --- + Total 500 500 + + +Agricultural studies--stock-breeding and farming--and mechanics show up +strongly in the consolidated schools, at the expense of teaching, +business and law in the district schools. While such figures do not +prove anything, they indicate the direction in which the minds of +consolidated school children are moving. + +Eli M. Rapp, of Berks County, Pennsylvania, voices the spirit of the +consolidation movement when he says: + +"The consolidated school furnishes the framework for a well-organized, +rural education. Its course of study is broader, its appeal is stronger, +its service to the community more pronounced, and, best of all, it holds +the children. Progressive rural communities have wakened up to the fact +that unless their children are educated together there is a strong +probability that they will be ignorant separately." + + +III Making the One-Room Country School Worth While + +The brilliant success of the consolidated schools reveals the +possibilities of team-work in rural education, but it cannot detract +from the wonderful work which has been done, and is still being done, by +the one-room rural school. Always there will be districts so sparsely +settled that the consolidated school is not feasible. In such localities +the one-room school, transformed as it may be by enlightened effort, +must still be relied upon to provide education. Nor is this outcome +undesirable. The one-room country school bristles with educational +possibilities. Under intelligent direction, even its cumbersome +organization may yield a plenteous harvest of useful knowledge and +awakened interest. + +The droning reading lesson and the sing-song multiplication table are +heard no more in the progressive country school. In their place are +English work, which reflects the spirit of rural things, and the +arithmetic of the farm. Here is a boy of thirteen, in a one-room country +school, writing an essay on "Selecting, Sowing and Testing Seed Corn," +an essay amply illustrated by pen and ink drawings of growing corn, corn +in the ear and individual corn kernels. Mabel Gorman asks, "Does it pay +the farmer to protect the birds?" After describing the services of birds +in destroying weed seeds and dangerous insects and emphasizing their +beauty and cheerfulness, she concludes: "The question is, does it pay +the farmer to protect the birds?" The only answer is that anything that +adds to the attractiveness of the farm is worthy of cultivation. Happily +a farmer who protects the birds secures a double return--increased +profit from his crop and increased pleasure of living. Viola Lawson, +writing on the subject, "How to Dust and Sweep," makes some pertinent +comments. "I think if a house is very dirty, a carpet sweeper is not a +very good thing. A broom is best, because you can't get around the +corners with a sweeper." Note this hint to the school board: "We spend +about one-third of our time in the school house, so it is very important +to keep the dust down. The directors ought to let the school have +dustless chalk. If they did there wouldn't be so much throat trouble +among teachers and children. Then so many children are so careless about +cleaning their feet, boys especially. They go out and curry the horses, +and clean out the stables, and get their feet all nasty. Then they come +to school and bring that dust into the schoolroom. Isn't that awful?" +Viola is thirteen. + +Over in eastern Wisconsin Miss Ellen B. McDonald, County Superintendent +of Oconto County, has her children engaged in contests all the year +round--growing corn, sugar beets, Alaska peas and potatoes; the boys +making axe handles and the girls weaving rag carpet. During the summer +Miss McDonald writes to the children who are taking part in the contests +suggesting methods and urging good work. One of the letters began with +the well-known lines: + + Say, how do you hoe your row, young man, + Say, how do you hoe your row, + Do you hoe it fair, do you hoe it square, + Do you hoe it the best you know? + +"How are you getting along with the contests?" continues the letter. +"Are you taking good care of your beets, peas, corn or garden? Remember +that it will pay you well for all the work you do upon it." In reply one +girl writes: "My corn is a little over five feet high. My tomatoes have +little tomatoes on, but mamma's are just beginning to blossom. My beets +are growing fine. I planted them very late. My lettuce is much better +than mamma's. We have been eating it right along." Mark the note of +exultation over the fact that her crop is ahead of her mother's. + +Sometimes the school child brings from school knowledge which materially +helps his father. Here is a Wisconsin English lesson, and a proof of the +saying, "Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings," all in one. + +These country boys and girls take an interest in English work, because +it deals with the things they know. Miss Ellen B. McDonald, County +Superintendent of Schools in Oconto County, Wisconsin, publishes a +column of school news in each of the three county newspapers. Here is +one of her contributions, in the form of an English lesson and a +counting lesson combined: (A "rag-baby tester" is a device for +determining the fertility of seed corn before it is planted.) + + "My dear Miss McDonald: + + "The rag-baby tester is causing a whole lot of excitement. We + have tested one lot and this morning started another. We notice + one thing in particular, the corn which was dried by stove heat + sprouts perfectly, while that dried in granaries, etc., is not + sprouting at all. Last fall papa saved his seed corn, selecting + it very carefully, and hung it up in the granary to dry. I + selected several ears from the same field and at the same time, + and dried them on the corn tree at school. Upon testing them + this spring papa's corn does not sprout at all, while mine is + sprouting just exactly as good as the Golden Glow sent out to + the school children. This morning I am testing some more of + papa's, and if that fails he will have to buy his seed, a thing + he has never had to do before. We tested the corn secured from + four of our interested farmers last week and one lot germinated; + the other three did not. This morning pupils from seven + different homes brought seed to be tested. We had a package of + last year's seed left and tested several kernels of that, as + well as some sent out this year, and we think last year's seed + is testing a little the better." + +The new arithmetic, like the new English, deals with the country. It +seems a little odd, just at first, to see boys and girls standing at the +board computing potato yields, milk yields, the contents of granaries, +the price of bags and the cost of barns and chicken houses; yet what +more natural than that the country child should figure out his and +perhaps his father's problems in the arithmetic class at school? + +The geography is no less pertinent. Soil formation, drainage, the +location and grouping of farm buildings, the physical characteristics of +the township and of the county are matters of universal interest and +concern. Every school in Berks County, Pennsylvania, is provided with a +fine soil survey map of the county, made by the United States Geological +Survey. What more ideal basis for rural geography? + +Here and there a country school is waking up to the physical needs of +country children. "Country boys are not symmetrically developed," +asserts Superintendent Rapp, of Berks County. "They are flat-chested and +round-shouldered." That is interesting, indeed. Mr. Rapp explains: "It +is because of the character of their work, nearly all of which tends to +flatten the chest. Whether or not that is the explanation, the fact +remains, and with it the no less evident fact that it is the business of +the school to correct the defects. In an effort to do this we have +worked out a series of fifty games which the children are taught in the +schools." In May a great "Field Day and Play Festival" is held, to which +the entire county is invited. Each school trains and sends in its teams. +Trolleys, buggies, autos and hay wagons contribute their quota, until +five thousand people have gathered in an out-of-the-way spot to help the +children enjoy themselves. + +Mr. Rapp is a great believer in activity. Tireless himself, he has fifty +teacher-farmers--men who teach in the winter and farm in the summer--an +excellent setting for country boys and girls. He believes in activity +for children, too. "If the school appealed as it ought to the motor +energies of children, instead of having to drive them in, you would have +to drive them out." To prove his point Mr. Rapp cites the instance of +one man teacher, who, before the days of manual training in the schools, +decided to have manual training in his one-room Berks County school. + +"He did the work himself," Mr. Rapp says, "dug out the cellar and set up +a shop in it. The only help he had was the help of the pupils, and the +work was done in recess time and after school. They made their own +tools, cabinets, book-cases, picture-frames, clock-frames, and anything +else they wanted. And do you know, when it got dark, that man would +send the children home from the school in order to be rid of them." + +Consolidated schools help. They make rural education broader and easier, +but the one-room country school, presided over by a live teacher, may be +made worth while. Social events, sports, contests in farm work and +domestic work, studies couched in terms of the country, may all prove +potent factors in shaping the child and the community. + + +IV Repainting the Little Red Schoolhouse + +Without, as well as within, the little red school-house may be +transformed. The course of study may establish a standard in rural +thought. The rural school-house may set a standard of rural architecture +and landscape gardening. + +How typical of old-time country schools are the lines: + + Still sits the school-house by the road, + A ragged beggar sunning. + Around it still the sumacs grow, + And blackberry vines are running. + +The unpainted, rough exterior of the little school vied with the unkempt +school grounds. Both supplied subjects for artistic treatment. To the +consternation of the poet and the romancer, the modern one-room school +is painted, and the school yard, instead of being filled with a thicket +of blackberry and sumac, is laid out for playground, flower-beds and +gardens. The up-to-date country school, while far less picturesque, is +much more architectural and more useful. + +The State Superintendent of Education in Wisconsin furnishes free to +local school boards plans of modern one-room schools. With a hall at +each end for wraps, an improved heating and ventilating device, and all +of the light coming from the north side, where there is one big window +from near the floor to the ceiling, these buildings, costing from two +thousand dollars up, provide in every way for the health and comfort of +the children. The superintendent may go farther than to suggest in +Wisconsin, however, for if a school building becomes dilapidated he may +condemn it, and then state aid to local education is refused until +suitable buildings are provided. The law has proved an excellent +deterrent to educational parsimony. + +Superintendent Kern, of Rockford, Illinois, has done particularly +effective work in beautifying his schools. Within the schools are +tastefully painted and decorated. Outside there are flower-beds, hedges, +individual garden plots, neatly-cut grass, and all of the other +necessaries for a well-kept yard. No longer crude and unsightly, the +Rockford school yards are models which any one in the neighborhood may +copy with infinite advantage. As the school becomes the center of +community life local pride makes more and more demands. Could you visit +some of the finer school buildings in Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin and +Illinois you would be better able to understand why men boast of "Our +School" in the same tone that they use when boasting of their corn +yields. + + +V A Fairyland of Rural Education + +You will perhaps be somewhat skeptical--you big folks who have ceased to +believe in little people--when you hear that out in western Iowa there +is a county which is an educational fairyland. Yet if you had traveled +up and down the country, gone into the wretched country school +buildings, seen the lack-luster teaching and the indifferent scholars, +which are so appallingly numerous; if you had read in the report of the +investigating committee which has just completed its survey of Wisconsin +rural schools the statement that in many districts the hog pens were on +a better plane of efficiency than the school houses; if you had seen the +miserable inadequacy of country schools North, East, South and West, and +had then been transported into the midst of the school system of Page +County, Iowa, you would have been sure that you had passed through the +looking-glass into the queer world beyond. Yet Page County is there--a +fairyland presided over by a really, truly fairy. + +The schools in Page County, Iowa, which, by the way, is one of the best +corn counties in Iowa, are little republics in which the children have +the fun, do the work and grow up strong and kind. Each school has its +song, its social gatherings, its clubs, and its teams. How you would +have pricked up your ears if you had driven past the Hawley School and +heard a score of lusty voices shouting the school song to the tune of +"Everybody's Doing It!" + +December was the time of the Page County contests, when each school sent +its exhibits of dressmaking, cooking, rope-splicing, barn-planning, +essay-writing and its corn-judging teams to the county seat, where they +were displayed and judged very much as they would be at a county fair. +Further, it was the time when the prizes were to be awarded to the boy +having the best acre of alfalfa, of corn and of potatoes. (Queer, isn't +it, but last year a girl got the first prize for the best crop of +potatoes.) December is a great month in Page County. This year more than +three thousand exhibits were sent into Clarinda, the county seat. Every +boy and girl is on tip-toe with expectancy, and after the awards the +successful schools are as proud as turkey cocks. + +"We have never taken the thing seriously here before," explained a +farmer who had left his work in mid-afternoon and come in to teach the +boys of a school how to judge seed corn. "This year we're going down +there to Clarinda for all that's in it." If he hadn't meant what he said +he would scarcely have been spending his hours in the school-room. If +the Hawleyville boys had not been thoroughly in earnest they would not +have been there, after school, learning how to judge corn. + +The community around each school is agog with excitement while +preparations are being made for the county contest. The men folk advise +the boys regarding their corn-judging and their models of farm +implements and farm buildings, while the women give lessons galore in +the mysteries of country cooking, for it is no small matter to be hailed +and crowned as the best fourteen-year-old cook in Page County, Iowa. + +One Page County teacher conducts her domestic science work in the +evening at the homes of the girls. On a given day of each week the +entire class visits the home of one of the girls, prepares, cooks and +eats a meal. What an opportunity to inculcate lessons in domestic +economy at first hand! What a chance to show the behind-the-time +housekeeper (for there are such even in Page County) how things are +being done! + +Because Page County is a great corn county much school time is devoted +to corn. In every school hangs a string of seed corn which is brought in +by the boys in the fall, dried during the winter, and in the spring +tested for fertility. A Babcock milk-tester, owned by the county, +circulates from school to school, enabling the children to test the +productivity of their cows. Teams of boys, under the direction of the +school, make their own road drags, and care for stretches of road--from +one to five miles. The boys doing the best work are rewarded with +substantial prizes. Do you begin to suspect the reason for the interest +which the big folks take in the doings of Page County's little folks? It +is because the little folks go to schools which are a vital part of the +community. + +Three times a year there is, in each school, a gathering of the friends +and parents of the children. Sometimes they celebrate Thanksgiving, +sometimes they have a "Parents' Day." Anyway, the boys decorate the +school, the girls cook cake and candy, and the parents come and have a +good evening. The children begin with their school song, sung, perhaps, +like this Kile School song, to the tune of "Home, Sweet Home": + + 1. What school is the dearest, + The neatest and best, + What school is more pleasant, + More dear than the rest, + Whose highways and byways + Have charms from each day, + Whose roads and alfalfa, + They have come to stay. + + _Chorus._ + Kile, Kile, our own Kile, + We love her, we'll praise her, + We'll all work for Kile. + + 2. Whose corn is so mellow, + Whose cane is so sweet, + Whose taters are so mellow, + Whose coal's hard to beat, + Whose Ma's and whose Grandpa's + Are brave, grand and true, + Their love for their children + They never do rue. + +There follows a program like the program of any other social evening, +except that very often the parents take part as well as the children. +The things are interesting, too, like this little duet, sung at the +Thanksgiving entertainment by two of the Kile girls: + + 1. If a body pays the taxes, + Surely you'll agree, + That a body earns a franchise, + Whether he or she. + + _Chorus._ + Every man now has the ballot, + None, you know, have we, + But we have brains and we can use them, + Just as well as he. + + 2. If a city's just a household, + As it is, they say, + Then every city needs housecleaning, + Needs it right away. + + 3. Every city has its fathers, + Honors them, I we'en, + But every city must have mothers, + That the house be clean. + + 4. Man now makes the laws for women, + Kindly, too, at that, + But they often seem as funny + As a man-made hat. + +The grand event of this fairyland comes in the summer, when the boys and +girls from all of the schools go to the county seat for a summer camp, +where, between attending classes and lectures, playing games and +reveling in the joys of camp life, they come to have a very much broader +view of the world and a more intense interest in one another. + +They are only one-room schools out there in Page County, but they have +adapted themselves to the needs of the community, focusing the attention +of parents and children alike on the bigger things in rural life, and +the ways in which a school may help a countryside to appreciate and +enjoy them. So the boys and girls of Page County have their fairyland, +and are devoted to the good fairy, who, in the shape of a generous, +kindly county superintendent, helps them to enjoy it. + + +VI The Task of the Country School + +The teacher of a one-room school in Berks County was quizzing a class +about Columbus. + +"Where was he born?" she queried. + +"In Genoa." + +"And where is Genoa, Ella?" + +"On the Mediterranean Sea," replied Ella promptly. + +"What was his business?" was her next question. + +"He was a sailor," ventured a bright boy. "A sailor," chorused the +class. + +"Why was he a sailor, Edith?" Edith shook her head. + +"Yes, George." + +"Why, because he lived on the sea." + +"Of course. Now think a minute. Do many of the boys from this country +become sailors?" + +"No'm," from the class. + +"What do they become?" + +"Farmers," cried the class, hissing the "f" and flattening the "a." + +Certainly, the boys in a farming community, brought up on the farm, +naturally become farmers, yet in the interim, between babyhood and +farmer life, they go to school. How absurdly easy the task of the +school--to determine that they shall be intelligent, progressive, +enthusiastic, up-to-date farmers. The girls, too, marry farmers, keep +farmers' homes and raise farmers' sons. How simple is the duty of seeing +that they are prepared to do these things well! + +The task of the city school is complex because of the vast number of +businesses, professions, industrial occupations and trades which +children enter. In comparison the country school has the plainest of +plain sailing. What are the ingredients of successful farmers and +farmers' wives? What proportion of physical education, of mental +training, of technical instruction in agriculture, of suggestions for +practical farm work, of dressmaking, sewing and cooking, enter into the +making of farmers' boys and farmers' girls who will live up to the +traditions of the American farm? To what extent must the school be a +center for social activity and social enthusiasm? How shall the school +make the farm and the small country town better living places for the +men and women of to-morrow? + +The duty of the country school is simple and clear. It must fit country +children for country life. First it must know what are the needs of the +country; then, manned by teachers whose training has prepared them to +appreciate country problems, it will become the power that a country +school ought to be in directing the thoughts and lives of the +community. + + FOOTNOTES: + + [Footnote 22: An extensive reference to this school will be found + in "Country Life and the Country School," Mabel Carney, Row, + Peterson & Company, Chicago, 1912.] + + [Footnote 23: Supra, pp. 180-181.] + + + + +CHAPTER X + +OUT OF THE MOUTHS OF BABES AND SUCKLINGS + + +I Miss Belle + +The sun shone mildly, though it was still late January, while the wind, +which occasionally rustled the dry leaves about the fence corners, had +scarcely a suggestion of winter in its soft touch. Across the white +pike, and away on either side over the rolling blue grass meadows, the +Kentucky landscape unfolded itself, lined with brown and white fences, +and dotted with venerable trees. A buggy, drawn by a carefully-stepping +bay horse, came over the knoll ahead, framing itself naturally into the +beautiful landscape. Surely, that must be Joe and Miss Belle; it was so +like her, since she always seemed at home everywhere, making herself a +natural part of her surroundings. Another moment and there was no longer +any doubt. It was Miss Belle with three youngsters crowded into her lap +and beside her in the narrow buggy seat, while a dangling leg in the +rear suggested an occupant of the axle. + +"Well, well," cried Miss Belle, cordially, as Joe stopped, glad of any +excuse not to go, "where are you bound for? You didn't come all the way +over to ride back with me?" + +"No, indeed, Miss Belle," I laughed back, "no one ever expects to ride +with you so near the school-house. I'll walk along ahead until you begin +to unload." + +"Go along, now you're casting reflections on Joe's speed. Come, Joe, +we'll show him." Joe, who did not leave his accustomed walk at once, +finally yielded to the suggestion of a gentle blow from the whip and +broke into a trot. + +"Lem'me walk with you," cried the rider on the springs, slipping from +her perch and stepping out beside the buggy. So we journeyed for half a +mile. The horse, under constant urging, jogged along, while the spring +rider and I trotted side by side over the well-made pike. Then Miss +Belle drew rein in front of a small, yellow house. + +"Now, out you go," she exclaimed to her young companions. "All out here +but one. Goodbye, dearies. All right, up you get," and in a moment we +were snugly fixed in the buggy for a half hour's ride behind Joe. + +"You see those two little girls who got off there," said Miss Belle, +pointing to the house we had just left, "well, they are two of a family +of six--two younger than those. Their mother died last winter, so +naturally I take an interest in them. Their father does his best with +them, but it is a big task for a man to handle alone." + +The last child was unloaded by this time, and Miss Belle, settling +herself back comfortably, chatted about her work in a one-room country +school in the Blue Grass belt of Kentucky. + + +II Going to Work Through the Children + +"Maybe there are thirty-five families that my school ought to draw +from," she began. "Six years ago when I took this school some of them +surely did need help. Dearie me! The things they didn't know about +comfort and decency would fix up a whole neighborhood for life. They +wore stockings till they dropped off. Some of the girls put on sweaters +in October, wore them till Christmas, washed them, and then wore them +till spring. You never saw such utterly wretched homes. There was hardly +a window shade in the neighborhood, nor a curtain either. It wasn't that +the women didn't care--they simply didn't know. + +"I saw it all," said Miss Belle, nodding her head thoughtfully, "and it +worried me a great deal at first. I just had to get hold of those people +and help them--I had made up my mind to that. Impatience wouldn't do, +though, so I said to myself, 'Now, my dear, don't you be in any hurry. +You can't do anything with the old folks, they're too proud. If you +succeed at all it's got to be through the children.' So I just waited, +keeping my eyes open, and teaching school all of the while, until, the +first thing I knew, the way opened up--you never would guess how--it was +through biscuits.["] + + +III Beginning on Muffins + +"The folks around here never had seen anything except white bread. There +wasn't a piece of cornbread or of graham anywhere. You know what their +white bread is, too--heavy, sour, badly made and only half cooked. The +old folks were satisfied, though, and there didn't seem to be any way to +go at it except through the youngsters. Day after day I saw them take +raw white biscuits and sandwiches made of salt-rising white bread out of +their baskets, wondering how they could eat them. Still I didn't say +anything, but every lunch time I ate corn muffins or graham wafers, with +all of the gusto I could master. One day a little girl up and asked me: + +"'Say, Miss Belle, what may you all be eatin'?' + +"'Corn muffins,' said I. 'Ever taste them?' + +"'Nope.' + +"'Well, wouldn't you like a taste?' + +"'Sure I would.' + +"She took it, and a great big one, too. 'Um,' says she, smacking her +lips, 'Um.' + +"'Like it?' I asked. + +"'Um,' says she again, like a baby with a full stomach. + +"'Oh, Miss Belle,' piped up Annie, 'how do you make 'em?' + +"That was the chance I had been waiting for. + +"'Would you like to know?' I asked, and to a chorus of 'Sure,' ''Deed we +would,' 'Oh, yes,' I put the recipe on the board, and it wasn't two days +before those girls brought in as good corn muffins as I ever tasted. +Little Annie is a good cook--never saw a better--and before the week was +out she says to me: + +"'Miss Belle, ma's mad with you.' + +"'What all's the matter?' I asked. + +"'She says since you taught us to make those corn muffins she'll be +eaten out of house and home. The first night I made 'em pa ate eleven. +He hasn't slackened off a bit since. He must have 'em every day.' + +"That made the going pretty easy," Miss Belle went on. "The muffins were +mighty good, they were new, and, by comparison, the white biscuits +didn't have a show. It wasn't long before I had the whole neighborhood +making corn muffins, graham wafers, black bread, graham bread and +whole-wheat bread. They sure did catch on to the idea quickly. Every +Monday I put a recipe on the board. These women knew how to cook the +fancy things. It was the plain, simple, wholesome things that they +needed to know about, so my recipes were always for them. During the +week each of the children cooks the thing and brings it to me, and the +one who gets the best result puts a recipe on the board Friday. + +"You see, after I once got started it wasn't hard to follow up any line +I liked. By the time I was putting a recipe a week on the board the +mothers got naturally interested and would come to school to ask about +this recipe and that. They wouldn't take any advice, you understand, not +they! They knew all about cooking, so they thought, but they were mighty +proud of the things their daughters did, particularly when they took the +prizes at the county fair. Besides that, it made a whole lot of +difference at home, because the things they made helped out a lot and +tasted mighty good on the table." + +Miss Belle's next move was against the cake--soggy, sticky stuff, full +of butter, that was very generally eaten by all of the families that +could afford it. Expensive and fearfully indigestible it made up, +together with bread, almost the entire contents of most lunch baskets. + +"I couldn't see quite how to go about the cake business," Miss Belle +commented, "because they were particularly proud of it. Finally, though, +I hit on an idea. One of the women in the neighborhood was sick. She was +a good cook and knew good cooking when she saw it, so I got my sister to +make an angel cake, which I took around to her. I do believe it was the +first light cake she had ever tasted--anyway, she was tickled to death. +It wasn't long after that before every one who could afford to do it was +making angel food. Of course it's expensive, but since they were bound +to make cake, that was a lot better than the other." + +Similar tactics gradually replaced the fried meats by roasts and stews. +When Miss Belle came, meat swam in fat while it cooked and came from the +stove loaded with grease. Everybody fried meat, and when by chance they +bought a roast they began by boiling all of the juice out of it before +they put it in the oven. Miss Belle's stews and roasts made better +eating, though. The men-folks liked them hugely and the old frying +process was doomed. + +"No," concluded Miss Belle, laughingly, "you can't do a thing with the +old folks. Why if I was to go into a kitchen belonging to one of those +women and tell her how to sift flour she would run me out quick, but +when Annie comes home and makes such muffins that the man of the family +eats eleven the first time, there is no way to answer back. The muffins +speak for themselves." + + +IV Taking the Boys in Hand + +While the girls were making over the diet of the neighborhood Miss Belle +was working through the boys to improve the strains of corn used by the +farmers, the methods of fertilizing and the quality of the truck +patches. A few years ago when the farmer scorned newfangled ideas it was +the boys that took home methods for numbering and testing each ear of +corn to determine whether or not the kernels on it would sprout when +they were planted. The farmer who turns a deaf ear to argument can offer +no effective reply to a corn-tester in which only one kernel in three +has sprouted. The ears are infertile, from one cause or another, and the +sooner he replaces them by fertile seed the better for his corn crop. + +Out beside a white limestone pike stands the school in which Miss Belle +has done her work. One would hardly stop to look at it, because it +differs in no way from thousands of similar country school-houses. +Modest and unassuming, like Miss Belle, it holds only one feature of +real interest--the faces of the children. Bright, eager, enthusiastic, +they labor earnestly over their lessons in order that they may get at +their "busy work," and linger over their "busy work" during recess and +after school, because it glides so swiftly from their deft fingers. In +this, as in everything else which she does, Miss Belle has a system. The +child whose lessons are not done, and done up to a certain grade, is not +taught new stitches or new designs. Even the youngest responds to the +stimulus, and the little girl in a pink frock, with pink ribbons on her +brown pig-tails, lays aside the mat she is making to write "Annie Belle +Lewis" on the board, and to tell you that she is seven; while John +Murphy, of the mature age of eleven, stops crocheting ear-mufflers for a +moment to tell you what he is doing and why he does it. + + +V "Busy Work" as an Asset + +"You never would guess what a help the 'busy work' is," smiled Miss +Belle. "You see, they never can do it until their lessons are finished, +so they are as good at arithmetic as they are at patching. Then I always +teach the little ones patterns and stitches where they have to count, +'One, two, three, four, five, and drop one,' you know, and in the +shortest time they learn their number work. It seems to go so much more +quickly when they do it in connection with some pieces that they can +see. But you never would guess the best thing the sewing has done--it +has stopped gossiping. It's hard to believe, I know, but it's true. +There used to be a lot of trouble in this neighborhood. People told +tales, there was ill feeling, and folks quarreled a great deal of the +time. It wasn't long before I found out that it was the girls who did +most of the tale-bearing. No wonder, either! They weren't very busy in +school, and they had nothing much to do at home except to listen and +talk. Really, they hadn't any decent interest in life. Of course there +was no use in saying anything, but I felt that if I could get them busy +at something they liked they would stop talking. It wasn't enough to +start them at dressmaking, either, but when I started in on hard, fancy +work designs I had them. They made pretty clothes, embroidered them; +made lace and doilies. Most of the girls can pick up a new Irish-lace +pattern from a fashion-book as easily as I can, and they are rabid for +new patterns. The same girls who did most of the tale-bearing are busy +at work, and I find them swapping patterns and recipes instead of +stories." + +While the girls patch, darn, crochet, hem, knit, weave baskets, make +garments and do the various kinds of "busy work," the boys clean the +school yard, plant walnut trees--Mrs. Faulconer, the County +Superintendent, is having the school children plant nut trees along all +the pikes--and do anything else which is not beneath their dignity. +"They have no work benches," lamented Miss Belle, "I hope they will get +them soon, although there is really no place to put them." Indeed, in a +little building packed with fifty children and the school-room furniture +the space is narrow. + +Yet this little one-room building at Locust Grove has left such a mark +on the community that when the County School Board recently decided to +transfer Miss Belle to a larger school the member from her district +promptly resigned, and refused to be placated until every other member +of the board had apologized to him and promised to leave Miss Belle in +his school. + +"We never saw the old gentleman mad before," said a neighbor. "But he +certainly was mad then. He had watched Miss Belle's work grow, and knew +what it had meant to the children; so when they proposed to take her +away he went right up in the air." + + +VI Marguerite + +What wonder? He had seen the magic workings of a hand that felt the +pulse, judged the symptoms, and prescribed a sure-to-cure remedy for a +countryside full of ignorance, drunkenness, bitter hatreds and +never-ending quarrels. Within a stone's throw of his house he had seen +the transformation in the life of a little girl named Marguerite. Since +her birth she had lived in darkness, but into her desolate home Miss +Belle had sent light. + +"You never saw a worse home," says Miss Belle. "Her mother was woefully +ignorant of everything in the way of home-making. The children were +wretchedly dressed. The house was barrenness itself--no shades, no +curtains, no decorations of any kind. It was pathetic. When she came to +school neither she nor her mother could sew a stitch." + +Marguerite, an apt girl with her fingers, eagerly learned the needlework +lessons of the school. She taught her mother to sew, while she herself +made portieres and curtains, lightening up the old home with a rare new +beauty. + +Here again is Lillie, who is very slow at needlework and arithmetic, but +who has put the family diet on a wholesome basis by learning to cook +some of the most delicious, nourishing dishes. Her bread--the best in +Fayette County--is light as a feather. Hannah comes back after leaving +school to learn how to ply her needle. Until a year ago Christmas she +could not sew a stitch; now her stitches are so neat as to be almost +invisible. Mrs. Hawly, aroused to enthusiasm by her thirteen-year-old +daughter, has come to school, learned plain and fancy sewing, and +started to make her own and her daughter's clothes. Everywhere are the +marks of a teacher's handiwork stamped indelibly on the lives of her +scholars and their families. Small wonder that the old gentleman on the +board was loath to part with Miss Belle! + + +VII Winning Over the Families + +With supreme joy Miss Belle tells of her conquest of the fathers of her +boys and girls--her family, as she calls it. "The children were very +poorly cared for," she says. "The fathers spent the money for whiskey, +and the mothers lacked the means and the knowledge to clothe the +children better. Sometimes they were pitiful in their poor shoes and +thin clothes. Well, sir, we got up a Christmas entertainment, and, +except for one or two, the children wore the same clothes they had been +coming to school in all winter--shabby, patched and dirty as some of +them were. They stood up there, though, one and all, to do their turns +and speak their pieces, and their fathers were ashamed. They saw their +children in old clothes, and the children of some of the neighbors all +fixed up, and they just couldn't stand it. + +"It surely did make a difference the next year." Miss Belle's cheery +face broadened with a satisfied smile. "The men didn't say a word--you +know our men aren't in the habit of saying very much--but they went to +town themselves the day before the entertainment and came back with new +dresses for the girls and new clothes for the boys. Of course some of +them were so small they would scarcely go on, while others were miles +big; but every one had something new and no one felt badly. + +"This Christmas," concluded Miss Belle, "our entertainment packed the +school-house, and some were turned away. Just to show you how crowded it +was--there were twenty-four babies there. I was ready for them, though, +with two pounds of stick candy; so whenever a baby squalled he got a +stick of candy quick." + +Strange, good things have followed the visits of the mothers to the +schools. They would never have come had it not been for the wonderful +things which their children were learning with such untoward enthusiasm. +One girl, who had been particularly successful with her needlework, +brought her mother to school--a hard woman who had a standing quarrel +with seven of her neighbors at that particular time. It took a little +tact, but when the right moment arrived Miss Belle suggested that she +pay a visit to a sick neighbor and offer to help. The woman went at +last, found that it was a very pleasant thing on the whole to be +friendly, and carried the glad tidings into her life, substituting +kindness for her previous rule of incivility. To her surprise her +enemies have all disappeared. + +The mothers, coming to school to talk over the work of their children, +have for the first time seen one another at their best. Sitting over a +friendly cup of tea, chatting about Jane's dress or Willie's lessons, +they have learned the art of social intercourse. Slowly the lesson has +come to them, until to-day there is not a woman in the neighborhood who +is not on speaking terms with every one else, a situation undreamed of +five years ago. + +Nine months in each year Miss Belle McCubbing holds her classes in the +Locust Grove School, which stands on the Military Pike, seven miles +outside of Lexington, Kentucky. "Angels watch over that school," says +Mrs. Faulconer. Doubtless these angels are the good angels of the +community, for in six years the bitterness of neighborhood gossip and +controversy has been replaced by a spirit of neighborly helpfulness. +Boys and girls, doing Miss Belle's "busy work," fathers and mothers +learning from their children, have heaped upon Miss Belle's deserving +head the peerless praise of a community come to itself--regenerated in +thought and act, turned from the wretchedness and desolation of the past +to the light and civilization of the future, saved and blessed by the +lives of a teacher and her children. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +WIDE-AWAKE SLEEPY EYE + + +I Fitting Schools to Needs + +This is the story of a school that was built to fit a town, and it +begins with a hypothetical case. Suppose that there was a town--a +prosperous town of some 2,247 souls, set down in the middle of a +well-to-do farming district. As for business, the town has a few +industries and some stores; the countryside is engaged in general +farming. Suppose that the school board of such a town should come to you +and say: "We are looking for a school superintendent. Are you the one?" +Suppose you said, "Yes." How would you prove your point? + +Out in Minnesota there is a town named Sleepy Eye, set down in a +well-to-do farming district. At the head of the Sleepy Eye schools there +is J. A. Cederstrom. Mr. Cederstrom has proved by a very practical +demonstration that he is "the one." + +When Mr. Cederstrom took charge of the Sleepy Eye schools he found an +excellent school plant, an intelligent community and a school system +that was like the school system of every other up-to-date +two-thousand-inhabitant town in the Middle West. Before Mr. Cederstrom +there lay a choice. He could continue the work exactly as it had always +been carried on, improve the school machinery, and make a creditable +showing at examination time. That path looked like the path of least +resistance. Mr. Cederstrom did not take it, however. Instead he made up +his mind that after measuring the community and the children he would, +to use his own words, "fit the work to their respective needs." + +"The work offered has been somewhat varied," Mr. Cederstrom explains. "I +have not attempted to follow any set course or outline of work made out +by some one else who is not familiar with our conditions and needs." + +Where does there exist a more admirable statement of the principle +underlying the new education? This man, when given charge of a school +plant, deliberately chose to make the school fit the needs of the +community upon which the school was dependent for support. Oblivious of +tradition he set about remodeling the school in the interest of its +constituency. + +Sleepy Eye is located in a farming district. Many of the boys who come +to the Sleepy Eye School will manage farms when they are grown men, and +many of the Sleepy Eye girls will marry farmers and manage them. Here +were farmer men and farmer women in the making. What more natural than +to organize a Department of Agriculture? + +A Department of Agriculture in a school? Yes, truly; and a short winter +course for farm boys and girls who could not come the year round, and a +school experiment station with school farms for the children, and a live +farmers' institute that met in the school and was fed and cared for by +the Department of Domestic Science, and all sorts of courses built up +around the needs of the children and of the community. + + +II Getting the Janitor in Line + +As a result of this method of course-making the school janitor found +himself on the instruction staff of the school. One day a couple of the +short course boys were in the engine-room while the janitor was +repairing a defective pipe in the heating plant. The boys lent a hand in +the work; and one of them, having a practical turn of mind, suggested +that he would like to learn more about pipe-fitting in order to install +a water system on the farm at home. The janitor repeated the remark to +Mr. Cederstrom, who called the boys out and had a talk with them +regarding the possibilities of the plan. + +The outlook for the course was not bright. Every instructor in the +mechanical department was working on full time. Only one way out +remained and that way led to the janitor. + +The janitor was a busy man during the day, but his evenings were +comparatively free. After some parleying he agreed to give a course in +elementary plumbing and steam-fitting on Tuesday and Thursday evenings +at seven-thirty. So the boys came to school in the evening, and under +the direction of the school janitor learned how to install a water +system in their homes. Their work for the year consisted in making a +model water system for a house, a barn and the other farm buildings. The +materials for this course were picked up from the school's scrap-heap. + +Perhaps some people will not understand the spirit of it--getting the +janitor in line to give a course in steam-fitting from the odds and ends +that are found on the scrap-heap. Such a proceeding is unconventional in +the extreme. But, on the other hand, here were boys who wished to know +how they might go back and improve their homes. Who shall say that the +imparting of such knowledge is not the business of a real school? + + +III The Department of Agriculture + +Let us go back for a moment to the organization of the Department of +Agriculture. The school at Sleepy Eye have available what every other +school should have--five acres of tillable ground. This tract at Sleepy +Eye is devoted to tests and experimental work, to flower gardens and to +individual school gardens--one for each child who applies. + +The experimental work and tests are carried on exactly as they would be +at a state experiment station. In the section of Minnesota surrounding +Sleepy Eye, corn is the great staple crop. Therefore on the +demonstration grounds of the Department of Agriculture, Independent +School District No. 24, Sleepy Eye, Minnesota, they are growing a number +of plots of corn, each plot variously planted, fertilized, cultivated, +and cared for, so that the children may learn at first-hand scientific +methods of discovering the best kinds of crop, and the best ways of +handling a crop in their own locality. + +The allotment of the school gardens carried with it instruction in +engineering and in civics at the same time that the bonds between home +and school were cemented. The part of the school land that was to be +devoted to school gardens was turned over to the older boys, who +surveyed it in exactly the same way that the United States government +surveyed the homestead tracts. The plot was laid out in towns and +ranges. The sections were staked and numbered. Then the children who +wished to take up plots went into the newly surveyed territory, picked +their plots, and filed an application with the land commissioner for a +plot, stating the section, town and range. After that a line formed and +the plots (20x20 feet) were allotted. No child was permitted to take up +an allotment unless he had the endorsement of a parent or guardian. The +form on which this endorsement was secured was as follows: + + Name____________________ Grade______________ + _______ Sec____ Town__________ Range________ + + APPLICATION FOR LAND IN PUBLIC SCHOOL GARDEN, DEPT. OF AGR., + SLEEPY EYE HIGH SCHOOL + + "It is assumed that the parent or guardian who endorses this + application will co-operate with the school authorities and have + the applicant care for and weed said land during the growing + season, and devote at least two and a half hours each week this + summer to the agricultural work as may be directed or required + by the Director of the Department of Agriculture, Mr. Haw. + + "I hereby apply for...... Sec...... Town....... Range...... in + the Public School Garden of Sleepy Eye High School, and will + cultivate and care for same as may be directed by the proper + authorities, and will keep a careful record of the returns + therefrom and report same on or before Oct. 20, 1911. I will do + the additional agricultural work that may be directed as + indicated above. + + ................................. Applicant. + + Endorsed by ........................ Parent or Guardian." + + +The form carried on its opposite side statements showing the character +of crop and its value, the amount paid for seeds and an itemized +statement of the returns. The school gardens proved an admirable +success. The children had learned the details of a great historical +event in their own state--the giving out of free land; the boys had +conducted a miniature survey; rivalry had been developed in the +competition over plots; the gardens, laid out side by side, served as a +splendid object lesson in quality of work; no boy or girl could allege a +teacher's unfairness from an untilled, weedy plot; the parents were made +to feel that the school was doing something practical for their +children; the children were taught a simple form of accounting and +cost-keeping; and, best of all, they were made to feel their citizenship +in the school. + +The Department of Agriculture has, in addition to its experimental farm, +a well-equipped laboratory, in which tests and experiments are carried +on. Sleepy Eye is located in a dairy section; therefore one of the chief +functions of this laboratory has been the testing of milk. Any farmer +may bring milk samples and have the Babcock test applied to determine +the percentage of butter fat which an individual cow is yielding. + + +IV A Short Course for Busy People + +In the neighborhood of Sleepy Eye, as in many other places, there are +many boys and girls who cannot attend school throughout the year, but +who would welcome a chance to go to school in the winter months. +Agricultural colleges have recognized this need by the organization of +"short courses" during the winter months. Only a few children can go to +college, however. Lack of preparation and lack of funds compel them to +remain at home. It was for them that the school at Sleepy Eye organized +a short course like that given in the agricultural colleges, extending +from the end of November to the middle of March. Of the pupils attending +this course, some of the boys are as old as thirty-seven, and some of +the girls as young as fifteen; yet all come, eager to find out some of +the things which the school has to teach them. + +The agricultural work of the short course centered around the +agricultural problems of the Brown County Farm. Planting, milk and cream +testing, work in seed testing and germination, and treatment of seeds +for fungus growths, corn judging, and similar topics covered the work +of the term. The short course boys had already learned many lessons in +the practical school of farm work. The school at Sleepy Eye offered them +in addition the knowledge which science has recently accumulated +regarding the work of the farm. + +As the successful farmer must be a trained mechanic, the short course +laid great stress on manual training. The boys were taught how to handle +and care for tools, how to frame a building, how to make eveners, +hayracks, watering troughs, wagon boxes, and similar useful farm +articles. In the blacksmith shop the simpler problems in forging were +covered, including the making of hooks, clevises, cold chisels and other +small tools. + +While the boys were engaged in agricultural and mechanical work the +girls took domestic science. In addition to the elementary work in +cooking and sewing there were advanced courses in dress designing, so +planned as to prepare a girl to work out her own patterns and make up +her own materials. + +Let no one suppose that the short course neglected academic work. +Indeed, it was originally intended to enable boys and girls who felt too +big for the local school, or who had no time to take the entire term +there, to review common school subjects. The courses in industrial work, +in agriculture and in domestic science were offered in addition to these +regular school studies. + +The proof of the pudding is in the eating. The boys and girls who take +the short course for the first year come back in considerable numbers to +take a second and a third year of work during the winter months. The +short course is a success, because it gives the boys and girls who take +it training and knowledge which they would not otherwise acquire. + + +V Letting the Boys Do It + +The school at Sleepy Eye needed a farm building on the school farm. The +short course boys and some of the older boys in the school were anxious +to learn. What more natural procedure than for the school to buy the +lumber and have the boys do the work? Exactly this proceeding was +followed, and the pupils erected the building which they needed to carry +on the applied work of the school. + +The mechanical work of the school is splendidly organized. First of all, +the pupils built a large part of the equipment themselves. Five simple +forges, made by the students of pineboards and concrete, form an +excellent shop equipment, besides giving the boys who did the work an +inkling of the ease with which a forge can be erected in connection with +the tool-house on the farm. The boys built a turning lathe, on which the +wood turning of the school is done. Besides the shop-work there is a +well-organized course in mechanical drawing. The whole department is +prepared to teach boys, particularly farm boys, some of the things which +they will most need in the mechanical work on the farms. + +The mechanical courses are open to the boys in the grades, as well as to +the high school and the short course pupils. The work is graded, and may +be followed through the high school course. + + +VI A Look at the Domestic Science + +While the boys are in the shops the girls are occupied with domestic +science. A well-equipped laboratory and sewing-room furnish the basis +for some thorough work. The Domestic Science Department is one to which +Mr. Cederstrom points with justifiable pride. "Of all my constructive +work since coming here," he says, "I probably take my greatest pride in +our Domestic Science Department, where elementary and advanced work is +offered in cooking and in household economy." + +Because the space in the school was small, and the demand for +instruction large, Mr. Cederstrom planned the domestic science tables +himself, and superintended their building. Again the effectiveness of +the school's work is shown by its results. With the modest equipment +which the funds and space available provided, the girls in the Domestic +Science Department each year serve a dinner to the farmers and farmers' +wives attending the annual farmers' institute held in the school in +February. On one occasion the department baked almost half a cord of +bread, roasted one hundred and forty pounds of beef, and fed five +hundred and seventeen persons at one dinner. + +The sewing work includes a complete course in dressmaking. Students are +required to make patterns from pictures selected in fashion magazines. +These patterns are then used in cutting out the garments, which the +girls themselves make up. + +Each girl in the High School is required to take at least one year each +of cooking and of sewing. These courses occupy five periods a week. An +additional year in each course is optional. Most of the girls eagerly +elect it. Mr. Cederstrom takes a very practical view of such educational +matters. "Our girls like the domestic science work," he says. "They take +as much pride in bringing to my office a good loaf of bread, or a +well-prepared dish of vegetables or meat as they do in being able to +give a perfect demonstration of a theorem in geometry, or a perfect +conjugation or declension of a Latin word. Possibly ten years from now +they may have more demand upon their ability to prepare a square meal +for a hungry life companion, or to cut out a dress or apron for a +younger member of the family than they will have need of doing some of +the other things which I have just mentioned." + +They do not teach domestic science for its own sake out in Sleepy Eye; +they see farther ahead than that. Mr. Cederstrom is making his work +practical, because, as he says, "We are anxious to do what little we can +toward making our girls more efficient and capable as housekeepers, +wives, and possibly as mothers." + + +VII How It Works Out + +There are two questions that naturally arise: First, what is the effect +of this work on the children? Second, what is its effect on the farmers? +Both questions must be answered briefly, though the answers to both +might be followed out through pages of illustrative detail. + +The children like the school at Sleepy Eye. The boys and girls come +early and stay late. The school doors open at eight o'clock and are not +closed until dark. There are always pupils there from the beginning to +the end of that period. The children are not interested in the applied +work alone. Their interest in that has led them very often to an +interest in some of the academic studies toward which they had no +particular inclination. + +The homes in Sleepy Eye are also interested in the school. As one woman +remarked: "My girls like to do work about the house now; they never did +before." School work which gives girls a new desire and a new viewpoint +on the work in the home is a step, and a long one, toward building +sounder homes and stronger family ties. There are some Sleepy Eye homes +in which the interest of the boys in the school shops has led their +parents to buy benches and tools which the children may use at home. + +The school at Sleepy Eye has interested the farmers. It has persuaded +them that high grade seed is better than mongrel seed. Consequently the +farmers are shelling more bushels of corn to the acre planted. The +school has persuaded the farmers that well-bred cattle are more +profitable than mongrel cattle. Consequently the farmers are raising the +standard of their herds. When the farmers come into Sleepy Eye they go +to the school. Perhaps they have milk to be tested; perhaps they are +looking for suggestions regarding soil or blight; perhaps they want to +know the latest facts about the scale or rust; perhaps they want some +advice about farm implements. In any case they go to the school. + +The farmers have been led to the school through the children. The boys +have gone home to their fathers with suggestions and improvements of +inestimable value in the management of the farm. The girls have gone +home to their mothers with practical ideas on the running of the +household. These demonstrations of school efficiency have done more than +argument or persuasion ever could hope to do in convincing the fathers +and mothers of the usefulness of the school. + + +VIII Theoretical and Practical + +The work in mechanics seems to interfere in no essential particular with +the regular academic work of the school. The boys and girls are +interested and enthusiastic. That counts for a great deal. Then, too, +boys and girls come to school for the mechanical work who would not come +at all if the mechanical work were not there. The academic work which +such boys take is clear gain. Through the mechanical work many pupils +become interested in the school, and the school means, for all pupils, +academic as well as applied work. + +"We do not discount those parts of an education that were once the sum +total of the work in every high school," Mr. Cederstrom says. "They are +all offered and taken by the students. We are trying to give in addition +to these academic branches the kind of education which will appeal to +the children as being of a common-sense order." There is in the high +school a Latin Course, a Scientific Course, beside the Agricultural +Course and the Industrial Course. All of the students are required to +take this academic work. Many, in addition, take the industrial and +agricultural work, even when they do not receive credit in their +academic course. Each high school student is allowed two periods a day +in laboratory work, shop-work, or some other form of applied education. +In addition to those periods, the students may work in the shops or +laboratory after school, if they please. Many of them get their applied +education in that way. + +How great is the fire that a little spark kindles! It was more than a +thousand miles away that I first heard of the school at Sleepy Eye. It +happened in this way. The clock had scarcely announced that it was high +noon when a group of men drew their chairs up to a dinner table +generously loaded with country hotel fare. There were two school +directors in this happen-so party, a carter, a salesman, a lawyer, a +farmer and two teachers, who talked with a professional twang. The +salesman listened impatiently to the educational clap-trap, watching for +an opening between phrases. When at last the loophole appeared: + +"Gentlemen," said he, "you're interested in schools? Then you ought to +see some real schools. Did you ever go to a school to listen to a +phonograph?" Then, turning to the farmers: "Did you ever go to school to +get your horses shod? You go to school for both in Sleepy Eye, +Minnesota. They're the greatest schools I have ever seen. They run from +seven in the morning till eight at night, and accommodate every kid that +wants an education. Gentlemen, if you want to see real schools go to +Sleepy Eye." + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE SOUTH FOR THE NEW EDUCATION + + +I A Dream of Empire + +A keen Atlanta business man leaned forward on his chair and spoke +eagerly. "Yes, sir," he exclaimed, "the world is ours. We have the +biggest, finest batch of undeveloped resources in the country--perhaps +on the planet. Iron, coal, stone, timber, power--our hills are full of +them, so full that we have never even inventoried our treasure-house. +Our possibilities are beyond the power of words, and we've got to live +up to them." + +This man knew Georgia and the South. He had helped, and still is helping +to convert the iron, coal, timber, and water-power into Southern +prosperity. He was still unsatisfied. + +"The trouble with us is, we can't go fast enough," he admitted. "Do you +know why? Do you know the biggest burden we have to carry--the most +determined enemy we have to fight? Well, sir, it's ignorance--the +ignorance of the common man about his farm or his trade; the ignorance +of the business man about outside things; the ignorance of the teachers +who are supposed to enlighten us." He leaned forward again. "That sounds +strong, doesn't it? But it's gospel." + +I reminded him of the rapidity with which the South was forging ahead in +its educational activities. He threw his head back proudly. "Of course," +he cried, "the experiment stations, the colleges, the high schools, the +club movement, and all that--of course we're going ahead. I'm not +speaking of that. My point is that we must wake up to two things. First +of all, we must never make the mistakes that you did in the North when +you built up your educational system. That means no pedantry, or +classical snobbery. We mustn't go that way. Our way is plain though. I +see it more clearly every time I think the matter over--we must train +the intelligence of the Southern people." + +He continued, in his enthusiastic mood. "Yes, there is a great future +for the South. Its resources make a future possible; but unless those +resources are intelligently used, our prosperity will not go very deep, +or reach very far. We must take the people with us." + +This man's view typifies the educational vision that is sweeping over +the South. "We must take the people with us," he said. There is nothing +novel in the idea; but coming as it did from a representative business +man, it carried weight and conviction. + +Another thing he said in the same connection enforced his argument. +"They talk about the race problem in the South," he said. "That is, the +old generation does. We younger men are not so much concerned about the +race problem as we are concerned about efficiency in industry and in +agriculture. The races are here to stay; we cannot change that if we +would. Meanwhile, all of us, whites as well as blacks, are slovenly in +our farming, indifferent in our business transactions, and hopelessly +behind in our methods of conducting affairs. From top to bottom we need +trained intelligence. That, more than anything else, will solve the +South's problems." + + +II Finding the Way + +The step is a short one from a vision of trained intelligence to a +demand for effective education. Throughout the South, the will to +progress is everywhere in evidence, and with unerring accuracy, one +community after another is turning to this as the way. + +There is no Southern city in which the agitation for increased +educational activity is not being pushed with vigor and intensity. On +all hands there appears the result of a conviction that the only means +by which the effectiveness of the South can be maintained and increased, +lie along the path of increased educational opportunities. The South, if +it is to fulfill the greatness of its promise, must remodel its +educational system in the interests of a larger South, as the West has +remodeled its educational system in the interest of a larger West. The +notable State universities of the Middle and Far West, the Normal +Schools, the prevalent system of education, have been felt, and are now +being felt, in the progressive, efficient, Western population. Nothing +less than a generally educated public could have made the West in the +brief years that have elapsed since it was a wilderness. Nothing save +general education can make the resources of the South yield up their +greatest advantage to the Southern people. + +The time for traditional formalism has passed in the South, as it has +passed in every other progressive community. Whatever the needs of the +community may be, those needs must be met through some form of public +education. In the South the most pressing need appears in the demand for +intelligent farming. For decades the tenant farmers, largely negroes, +cultivated their farms as their fathers had cultivated. They raised +cotton because the raising of cotton offered the path of least +resistance. Farm animals were scarce, because the farm animals only came +with surplus cash, and surplus cash was scarce indeed in districts where +the tenant farmers lived through the year on the credit obtained from +the prospective cotton crops. There was little corn raised, because the +people did not understand the need for raising corn, nor did they +realize the financial possibilities of the Southern corn crop. In a +word, the agricultural South lacked the knowledge which modern +scientific agriculture has brought. + +The past generation has seen a revolution in Southern agriculture, +because of the revolution which has occurred in Southern agricultural +education. Led by the experiment stations and universities, the South +has undertaken to reorganize its system of living from the land. + +The Atlanta banker fully realized the need for culture. He was himself a +cultured gentleman; but he also saw that before the people of the South +could have culture, they must have an economic system directed with +sufficient intelligence to supply the necessaries of life, which must +always be taken for granted before the possibilities of culture are +realized. Cultural education comes after, and not before, education for +intelligent and direct vocational activity. + +During the educational revolution of the past twenty-five years, no +section of the country has thrown itself into the foreground of +educational progress with more vigor and with greater earnestness and +zeal than that displayed in the South. In certain directions the South +has proved a leader in the inauguration and administration of new +activities. In other directions the Southern States have followed +actively and energetically. + +A traveler through the New South stumbles unavoidably upon countless +illustrations of the part which modern education is playing in Southern +life. Individuals, families, communities, are being re-made by the new +education. + + +III Jem's Father + +Jem wasn't a good boy, but he was interested in his school. He was one +of those fortunate boys who lived in a county that had been possessed by +the corn club idea, and the corn club was the thing which had given Jem +his school interest. + +Jem never took to studies. Each year he had told his mother that "there +weren't no use in goin' back to that there school again." Persistently +she had sent him back, until one year when Jem found a reason for going. + +A new teacher came to Jem's school--a young man fresh from normal +school, full of enthusiasm, energy, and new ideas. The boys felt from +the start that he was their friend, and before many weeks had elapsed, +the community began to feel his presence. This new teacher was +particularly enthusiastic over the "club idea." "We must get the boys +and girls doing something together" he kept saying to his classes. + +The year wore on, but interest in the school did not flag, because all +through the winter months there were entertainments, parents' meetings, +literary meetings, spelling bees, reading hours, and other evening +activities. In fact, the time came when there was a light in the +school-house three or four nights in each week. + +Toward spring the new teacher began to push the "club idea." He started +with the boys, and, as luck would have it, picked out Jem. "Jem," he +said one day, "I want you to stay after school, I want to speak to you a +minute." Jem stayed, not knowing exactly what was coming. When the rest +of the pupils had tumbled out of the school door, and disappeared along +the muddy road, the teacher and Jem sat down together. + +"Jem," said the teacher, "we ought to have a corn club in this school." + +Jem looked up doggedly, but gave no sign of interest or enthusiasm. + +"You see," the teacher said, "it's this way. Farming isn't all that it +might be around here. People raise things the way they have always been +raised. Our county superintendent has an idea. He proposes to teach the +farmers in this county how to raise corn." + +Jem looked skeptical. "Are you to do the teaching?" he asked. + +"No," was the answer, "you are." + +"I?" said Jem. + +"Yes," said the teacher, "you and the other boys in the school." + +Jem scratched his head. "I ain't never taught no one nothing in my +life," he commented. + +"It's this way," the teacher went on. "Up at Washington and out at the +State College they have been doing a lot of thinking and working with +corn. They found, for instance, that if you pick seed corn carefully, +you get a better crop than if you are careless in seed selection. They +have also found that if you follow certain rules about planting and +cultivation you get a better crop. For years the men at the Experiment +Station and at Washington talked about these things in Farmers' +Bulletins. They established experiment farms, and demonstration farms, +too. Lately they have been doing something more, and something which I +think is better than anything so far--they have decided to have the boys +teach their fathers how to raise corn." + +"Do you mean to say," asked Jem, "that I could teach Dad anything about +corn-raisin'?" + +"Yes," said the teacher, "you can, and, what is more, you will, won't +you?" + +"Well," said Jem, "I dunno." + +"Here is what we have to do," said the teacher. "This year the county +superintendent is going to offer prizes for the boy with the best acre +of corn. He sends out rules. You have to plough a certain way, plant a +certain way, and cultivate a certain way. If you do not follow the rules +you are not allowed to stay in the contest. Now I'll tell you what I +want to do. The boys in this school are as smart, if not smarter, than +the boys in any other school in the country; so I guess it is up to us +to get some of those prizes right here at home." + +Jem was visibly interested. "Money prizes?" he asked. + +"Yes, money prizes," said the teacher. "The first prize will be fifty +dollars." + +Jem's eyes opened wide. "I'm in for that," he said with conviction. + +That night, when Jem sat down to supper, he broached the corn +proposition to his father. + +"Shucks," his father exclaimed. "You raise an acre of corn? Why you +wouldn't get twenty-five bushels!" + +"Twenty-five," said Jem, contemptuously. "I'd get a hundred." + +"A hundred," said his father. "Here, look here, boy, I have been +farming this land for thirty odd years, and the best I ever done on an +acre of corn was seventy bushels. I'll tell you what, though," he added +conclusively, "this here talk about corn clubs makes me tired. You and +your hundred bushels! I was looking over the paper when it came in this +noon, and I saw a piece about a chap over by Southport with over a +hundred bushels to the acre. Do you know what I'm goin' to do tonight? +I'm goin' to write that editor a letter, and tell him that any paper +that publishes lies like that ain't fit for my family to see. This +year's subscription ain't run out, but they don't need to send me the +rest. I'll get a paper somewhere else." + +Despite home opposition, Jem persisted and prevailed. His father gave +him an acre grudgingly, but it was a good acre. And when, following the +rules which he and the other boys who had agreed to enter the contest +read over with the teacher, he disked his land and ploughed his narrow, +deep furrows, he listened, not without misgivings, to the remarks which +his elder brother passed at his expense. + +"Say, Jem," this brother remarked, "you have spent three times as much +time on that acre as any acre of corn raised in this county was ever +worth. Are you diggin' graves for 'possums?" + +When, later in the season, Jem cultivated with persistent regularity, he +was forced to listen to similar comments. Jem wasn't good at repartee; +so he said nothing; but, sustained by the encouragement of the new +teacher, who came to see his acre every week, Jem followed the rules to +the letter. + +He had his reward at harvest time. When the ears first set it became +apparent that Jem had a good crop. As they developed, the goodness of +the crop became more manifest; but when the acre had been harvested, +put through the sheller and bagged, and Jem had stowed in his pocket a +certificate of "ninety-six bushels on one acre," it was time for some +explanations. + +"Jem," said his father at the supper table on the evening of that +memorable day when Jem's corn went through the sheller, and his +certificate showed ninety-six bushels, "I wrote a letter to that editor, +and sent him next year's subscription in advance." + + +IV Club Life Militant + +The experience of Jem's father has been duplicated many times by parents +and communities during the past ten years of club growth in the South. +The school, working through the children, has educated fathers, mothers, +villages, and whole counties. + +All of the agencies of government,--local, State, and national,--have +cooperated to make the children's clubs one of the leading agencies in +developing that trained intelligence which is so great an asset in the +prosperity of any community. Thanks to the tireless efforts of men like +William H. Smith, the children's clubs have become one of the most +aggressive factors in educating rural communities to higher standards of +efficiency. There are many kinds of clubs--corn clubs, potato clubs, +tomato clubs, pig clubs. Anything which the children can raise is a +legitimate object of club activity. The work in the South started with +corn clubs. + +The corn-club idea in Mississippi grew out of an educational experience +of Professor William H. Smith.[24] For years Professor Smith had taught, +in a mildly progressive way, the time-honored subjects which were +included in the study-course of the rural school. Two of Professor +Smith's students, a boy of twenty and a girl of seventeen, left school; +and they left, as the boy told Professor Smith very frankly, because the +school taught them very little that would be of use later on in the work +which they would be called upon to do. This boy expected to grow cotton; +the girl expected to marry the boy, manage his domestic affairs and +attend to the many duties which fall to the lot of women on a farm. + +When he left school, the boy put it to Professor Smith in this way: "I +am goin' to be a farmer. I ain't fitted to be nothing else, and book +learnin' ain't helpin' me none. It's just a waste of time. I've got to +clear land and work it into a farm. If I was goin' to be a bookkeeper or +an engineer, or somethin', what you are teachin' me here might help; but +I can't remember that I have ever learned a thing since I got the hang +how to figure the interest on a mortgage, that will be of any account to +me on a farm. Almost all the boys has got to be a farmer like me. You +know, professor, it appears to me like these schools for the people +ought to be teachin' the children of the people how to make a livin' on +the farm--how to make life better and easier, instead of just makin' us +plum disgusted with ourselves." + +This experience, standing out among a multitude of similar experiences, +led Professor Smith to an interest in some form of educational work that +would help boys and girls in their lives on the farm. The outcome of his +thinking and experimenting, combined with the thinking and experimenting +of many another capable educational leader, is the club idea for boys +and girls alike. + +There was a real need for the corn club. For the year 1899 the total +corn area in Alabama was 2,743,060 acres. On these acres the farmers +secured an average of 12.7 bushels per acre. Ten years later, in 1909, +the total acreage had decreased to 2,572,092, and the per acre yield had +decreased to 11.9 bushels per acre. Here was a decrease of 170,968 acres +in corn; of 4,367,310 bushels in the corn crop; and of .8 of a bushel in +the average yield per acre. The boys' corn club movement was started in +Alabama in 1909. That year two hundred and sixty-five boys were +enrolled. The average per acre yield of corn in the State was 11.9 +bushels. The next year the enrollment of boys reached twenty-one +hundred; the total yield increased more than sixty per cent.; and the +average number of bushels per acre rose to eighteen. The figures for +1911 and 1912 show an increase, though less extensive, in the total +acreage and the total yield of corn for each year. + +Southern land will grow corn. Properly treated, it will better a yield +of twelve bushels per acre, five, ten, and even fifteen-fold. The +leaders of Southern agricultural education knew this. They knew, +furthermore, that the betterment could never be brought about until the +farmers were convinced that it was possible. How could they be shown? +The Farmers' Bulletin had a place; the experiment farm had a place; but +if it were only possible to make every farm an experiment farm! + +The way lay through the boys. They could be induced to organize +miniature experiments in scores of farms in every county, and then the +farmers would see! + +Backed by a carefully worked out organization, the authorities set out +with the deliberate purpose of educating the farmer through his son. If +his corn yield was low, he would learn how to get a larger yield. If he +raised no corn, he would learn of the spot-cash value of corn. Boys +were organized into clubs; directions were given; prizes were offered, +and the boys went to work with a will. For the most part they took one +acre. + +When compared to the yield on surrounding acres, the corn crops secured +by the boys are little short of phenomenal. In Pike County, Alabama, +where the number of boys engaging in corn club contests increased from +one in 1910 to two hundred and seventy in 1912, the average number of +bushels per acre grown by the boys rose from 50.5 to 85.3. In the entire +State there were one hundred and thirty-seven boys who made over a +hundred bushels per acre each in 1911. The average per acre for each of +these boys was one hundred and twenty-seven bushels, and the total +profit on their corn crop was $12,500. + +Records made by individual boys through the Southern States run very +high. Claude McDonald, of Hamer, S. C., raised 210-4/7 bushels at a cost +of 33.3c a bushel. Junius Hill, of Attalla, Ala., raised 212-1/2 +bushels. Ben Leath, of Kensington, Ga., raised 214-5/7 bushels. John +Bowen, of Grenada, Miss., raised 221-1/5 bushels. Eber A. Kimbrough, +Alexander City, Ala., raised 224-3/4 bushels; and Bebbie Beeson, +Monticello, Miss., raised 227-1/16 bushels.[25] These boys were all +State prize winners. + +There are several things worthy of note about these record yields. +Practically all of the high yields were made on deeply ploughed, widely +separated rows. The record made by Bennie Beeson (227-1/16 bushels, at a +cost of fourteen cents per bushel) was secured on dark, upland soil, +with a clay sub-soil, ploughing to a depth of ten inches, rows three +feet apart, hills six inches apart, with ten cultivations. Beeson used +5-1/2 tons of manure and eight dollars' worth of other fertilizer on his +acre. The seed corn was New Era. Barnie Thomas, who grew 225 bushels on +rich, sandy loam, ploughed nine inches, planted his rows three and +one-half feet apart, and kept the hills ten inches apart. He cultivated +six times, and selected his own seed from the field. Many of the boys +making the fine records developed and selected their own seed. One boy, +with an acre yield of 124.9 bushels, cleared six hundred and ninety-five +dollars, counting prizes. Another boy, with a yield of 97-4/5 bushels, +reports that his father's yield was thirty bushels. John Bowen, with a +yield of 221-1/5 bushels, reports the yield on nearby acres as forty +bushels. Arthur Hill, with 180-3/5 bushels, reports the nearby yields as +twenty bushels. + +Such figures, uncertified, would challenge the credulity of the +uninitiated. The land on which these record yields were secured had been +raising twenty, forty, and fifty bushels of corn to the acre. Over great +sections, the per acre average was well under twenty. Into this +desolation of agricultural inefficiency, a few thousand school boys +entered. Under careful supervision and proper guidance, with little +additional expenditure of money or of time, they produced results wholly +unbelievable to the old-time farmer. Yet he saw the crop, husked, and +watched it through the sheller. There was no magic and no chicanery. He +had learned a lesson. + +The records cited above are exceptionally high. There were hundreds of +others almost equally good. "Twenty-one Georgia club members from the +seventh congressional district alone grew 2,641 bushels at an average +cost of 23 cents per bushel; 19 boys in Gordon County, Georgia, average +90 bushels, 10 of them making 1,058 bushels. The 10 boys who stood +highest in Georgia averaged 169.9 bushels and made a net profit of more +than $100 each, besides prizes won. In Alabama 100 boys average 97 +bushels at an average cost of 27 cents. In Monroe County, Alabama, 25 +boys averaged 78 bushels. In Yazoo County, Mississippi, 21 boys averaged +111.6 bushels at an average cost of 19.7 cents. In Lee County, +Mississippi, 17 boys averaged 82 bushels at an average cost of 21 cents. +Sixty-five boys in Mississippi averaged 109.9 bushels at an average cost +of 25 cents. Twenty Mississippi boys averaged 140.6 bushels at an +average cost of 23 cents. Ninety-two boys in Louisiana grew 5,791 +bushels on 92 acres; 10 of these boys had above 100 bushels each, +although the weather conditions were very unfavorable in that State. In +North Carolina 100 boys averaged 99 bushels. In the same State 432 boys +averaged 63 bushels. In Buncombe County, North Carolina, 10 boys +averaged 88 bushels. In Sussex County, Virginia, 16 boys averaged 82 +bushels. Fifteen boys in the vicinity of Memphis, Tenn., where the +business men contributed about $3,000 to aid the work, averaged 127.4 +bushels at an average cost of 28 cents per bushel. Many other records in +other States were equally good in view of the fact that a drought +prevailed very generally throughout the South in 1911.["][26] + +Such returns challenge the attention of the most hidebound. These boys +got results that exceeded anything that had ever been heard of in their +communities. The old folks who had scoffed; the wise-acres whose advice +was not taken; and the "I told you so" farmers who had uttered their +predictions, all stood aside, while the boys, pointer in hand, taught +their respective communities one of the best lessons they had ever +learned. + + +V Canning Clubs + +Parallel with the boys' corn clubs are the girls' canning clubs. If the +boys could grow corn (in a number of cases the corn contests were won by +girls), why might it not be possible to have the girls do something +along parallel lines? The idea found expression in the girls' tomato +clubs and similar organizations. During 1910, three hundred and +twenty-five girls were enrolled in such clubs in Virginia and South +Carolina. Dr. Knapp and his fellow workers decided that one-tenth of an +acre would be enough for a good garden. Each girl was urged to plant +some other kind of vegetable in addition to her tomatoes, and to can +surplus fruit. In 1911, more than three thousand girls, in eight +different States, had joined clubs and planted their gardens. By 1912 +the number had grown to twenty-three thousand girls in twelve States. +Many of the girls put up more than five hundred quart cans of tomatoes +from their plots, besides ketchup, pickles, chow-chow, preserves, and +other products. Quite a number of girls put up more than a thousand +quart cans, and one girl put up fifteen hundred quart cans. Some of the +girls, in addition to the prizes, had a net profit of as much as a +hundred dollars on their gardens. + +The United States Bureau of Plant Industry sets forth the object of the +girls' demonstration work as follows: + + "(1) To encourage rural families to provide purer and better + food at a lower cost, and utilize the surplus and otherwise + waste products of the orchard and garden, and make the poultry + yard an effective part of the farm economy. + + (2) To stimulate interest and wholesome cooperation among + members of the family in the home. + + (3) To provide some means by which girls may earn money at home, + and, at the same time, get the education and viewpoint necessary + for the ideal farm life. + + (4) To open the way for practical demonstrations in home + economics. + + (5) To furnish earnest teachers a plan for aiding their pupils + and helping their communities."[27] + + +VI Recognition Day for Boys and Girls + +The most astonishing thing about the club activity is the recognition +which it has won wherever it has been worked out on an extensive basis. +The reason for this general recognition is quite obvious, and its effect +is no less stimulating. + +Public officials and business men have vied with one another in their +efforts to reward the winners of county and State club contests. The +same bulletin which records the astonishing figures on corn yields, +tells about the things that were done for the 56,840 boys who were +members of corn clubs. Fifty-two Georgia boys received diplomas signed +by the governor of the State and other officials, for producing more +than a hundred bushels per acre each, at an average cost of less than +thirty cents per bushel. Business men and citizens generally subscribed +liberally money, free railroad transportation, and trips to State +capitals. In 1911 the total value of the prizes offered in the South to +the boys' corn clubs approximated fifty thousand dollars. In Oklahoma, +one thousand dollars in gold was offered to the one hundred and twenty +boys making the best record in that State. The State prize winners were +sent to Washington for a week, where they were received at the White +House by the President, and at the Capitol by the Speaker of the House +of Representatives. They were presented with special cards of admission +to the Senate and House of Representatives, and, when visiting Congress, +they were presented to their Senators and Congressmen. By special +invitation these distinguished visitors appeared before the Committee on +Agriculture at the House of Representatives. They also visited the +office of the Secretary of Agriculture. They were photographed, and +large diplomas bearing the seal of the Department and the signature of +the Secretary were awarded to them. + +One does not wonder at the widespread recognition accorded these boys, +in view of the fact that their efforts have been responsible for an +immense increase in the business prosperity of their respective States. +Once more have educators demonstrated the possibilities of teaching +parents through the education of children. + + +VII Teaching Grown-Ups to Read + +The educational work which is being done in the uplands of the South has +already received widespread recognition. The slogan, "Down with the +moonshine still and up with the moonlight school," typifies the spirit +of the upland community. + +One might journey far before discovering a more enthusiastic people than +the teachers and the scholars of the Southern uplands. The appalling +extent of illiteracy among the descendants of Marion's men finds a +parallel in their pathetic desire for some form of education. + +The Southern hill whites love the old and fear the new. Traditionally, +they belong to a past generation; actually, they are reaching out for +the better things which the new generation can offer. The moonlight +schools are attended by old people and young alike. The struggling +colleges, the industrial and technical schools, with their record of +privation and hardship, bear eloquent testimony to the genuine efforts +which the upland population is making in these early years of its +educational awakening. + +Every sincere effort among the hill whites meets with instant response. +For the most part, they deprive themselves of the necessaries of life in +order that they may send their children to school. Boys skimp and save; +girls walk for miles along mountain trails and paths; communities give +of the scanty means of their effort for the building and maintenance of +schools. Everywhere the spirit of the new education is permeating the +Southern upland communities. + + +VIII George Washington, Junior + +One teacher, whose years of effort in the Piedmont have brought her the +confidence and co-operation of the community, tells of the success of +one of her earliest ventures with a boy of thirteen. + +The boy's father was bad; his mother slovenly and indifferent. The boy +himself was bright and active. + +When the time came for him to enter the cotton mill, the teacher +protested to his family, but without success. Still there was something +that she could do for him, still she saw an opportunity of serving him, +and she asked him to come to her home with a number of other boys, for a +couple of nights a week, when they sat together, reading, or playing +games. + +The boy had appeared sullen at first, but toward the end of his school +term he showed an active interest. It became apparent that he was +particularly clever at languages. None of his lessons troubled him, and, +with the assistance of the teacher, he learned Italian readily, and +during the evenings, when the other boys played games or talked, he +worked over his Italian sentences with vital interest. + +Just before Christmas, during the first year that this boy had spent in +the mill, a friend visited his teacher, became interested in her work, +and asked if there was any way in which she could help. + +"You may," said the teacher. "You may buy Andy an outfit." + +The friend went to the city with the order in her pocket,--a hat, a +suit, and a complete outfit, new, as a Christmas present for Andy. + +On Christmas eve, Andy alone came to the teacher's house. She had not +asked the other boys,--partly because most of them preferred to stay at +home, partly because she had no such fine present for them as she had +for Andy. + +"Never in my life," the teacher said, "had I seen Andy clean. I made up +my mind that for once he should have a clean body as well as clean +clothes." + +When Andy came that Christmas eve, the teacher took him into a room +where there were towels, soap, a basin, and a new outfit of clothes. + +"Andy," she said, "this is your Christmas present from my friend, and +now you are going to give me a Christmas present, too. You are going to +wash up and dress up." + +Andy followed directions, and when he emerged from the room in his spick +and span outfit, his hat set side-wise on his wet, newly combed hair, he +stood up very straight, surveying himself as best he could from head to +foot, and exclaimed,--"Gee! I feel just like George Washington." The +bath and the new suit were a realization of his highest ideal. + +"Andy and I were always friends after that," said the teacher, "and +since Andy was the moving spirit among the boys in the village, the boys +and I got along well together. It was my introduction to the heart of +the community, and it came with Andy's realization of an ideal which he +had long cherished." + + +IX A Step Toward Good Health + +Having won Andy over, the teacher prepared to work her way past some of +the barriers of prejudice which the community had placed between itself +and civilization. The girls offered the readiest opening. + +"The homes were wretched," the teacher said. "The people did not know +the simplest health rules. They were strangers to sanitation or +cleanliness. Their housekeeping was primitive and their cooking +miserable. I had won the boys by getting them together in something that +resembled a club. I decided that my best path to the girls, and from +them to the community, lay through housekeeping." + +The hypothesis was, at least, worthy of a try-out. The teacher began by +keeping her own house in the most approved manner, and asking the girls +to come in and help her do it. + +"You'll like to take supper with me this evening," she would say to a +group of girls at recess time. "Speak to your mothers when you go home, +and you, Sadie and Annie, will stay over night and sleep in the spare +bed." + +They were slow to respond at first. Long habit made them suspicious, but +when the first few girls had spent their night with the teacher and had +come home with the tales of her wonderful household arrangements, the +others were looking eagerly for a chance to duplicate their experiences. + +"Am I next?" a little girl asked anxiously one day, after the +invitations to a party had been given out. The assurance that she was, +made her face shine for the remainder of the afternoon. + +"The school girls all came willingly," the teacher said. "It was after I +had them so interested that one of the factory hands came in. It was +Saturday night, and she rapped on the door before coming in with a +hesitating touch, as if she was afraid. She sat down across from me, +smoothing her dress and looking unhappy." + +"You'll not understand," said the factory girl, apologetically. "But +Mame is in your school--she's my sister. You had her up last week to +spend the night. You'll remember?" + +The teacher nodded. + +"She came home, and ever since she's been telling us about the way you +did things. And I've been thinking,----" + +She stopped and looked at the teacher, half suspiciously, half +appealingly. + +"I've been thinking how nice it would be for me, if I could do them +things the same as you. You see," she spoke rapidly, "I'm gettin' +married soon now, and when Mame came a-telling that way, and our house +like it always is, and the baby crying, and nothing done exceptin' ma +a-scoldin', and I says to myself, I says, if I could do things like that +teacher can do 'em mebbe I wouldn't make mistakes like ma makes 'em." +She paused for breath, looking expectant. + +"You would like to come here to see how I do things?" the teacher asked. + +The girl nodded eagerly. + +"Come Monday after hours, and spend the night with me." + +"After that," the teacher said, "it was a great deal easier. The next +thing I wanted to do was to get the children examined for glasses and +throat trouble. There were two second-rate country doctors there who +knew little or nothing about modern medicine. The nearest man that I +could trust was forty miles away. He was a specialist, too, and high +priced. Still, I sat down and wrote him a letter, telling him how we +were fixed. He answered by return mail, making a special rate and +setting a day. I hoped to take twelve of the children, but I had car +fare for only seven. Then came our windfall. I told the railroad what I +was trying to do, and they made a special excursion rate and took the +children at less than half fare. We were all able to go, and the extra +money went for a treat to soda and the movies." + +The children went back home, singing the praises of the trip, the +teacher, and the doctor. They went back, too, with expert advice and +assistance, and with the good news that others would soon have a turn. + +Group by group, the needy children were brought down to the specialist +in the city. Some were even operated on, although at the outset the +parents would not hear of operations. In the end the children won, +however. Their enthusiasm for the teacher and their doctor carried the +day. + +"It has been slow," the teacher said, "but at the end of it all, they +see better, hear better, eat more wholesome, nourishing food, live +better, and understand themselves better. On the whole it has paid." + + +X Theory and Practice[28] + +The rural schools of the South have no monopoly on progressive +educational views. A number of Southern cities have taken up their +position in the vanguard of educational progress. Notable among these +cities is Columbus, Georgia,--a city of 20,554 people, in which +Superintendent Roland B. Daniel has undertaken a vigorous policy of +shaping the schools in the interests of the community. There were in +1913, 5,356 children of school age in Columbus. Of this number, 4,089 +were in the schools. The school population is rather unevenly divided, +racially,--3,348 of the children of school age are white, and 1,198 are +colored. About one-quarter of the white population depends for its +livelihood upon the mills. Columbus is surrounded by an agricultural +district from which come many children in search of high school +training. The city of Columbus presents an industrial problem of an +unusually complex character, and the manner in which this problem has +been handled by the schools is worthy of the highest commendation. +Superintendent Daniel has laid down three definite planks in his +educational platform for the city of Columbus. In the first place, he +aims to provide school accommodations which are fitted to the peculiar +needs of each part of the community. In the second place, he aims to +shape the school system of Columbus in terms of the local environment of +the children. In the third place, he has inaugurated a high school +policy, which makes high school training practical as well as +theoretical. + +Among the mill operatives of Columbus, Superintendent Daniel estimates +that there are approximately 800 children of school age. The situation +presented by these children was critical in the extreme. There was an +absence of compulsory education laws; few of the children attended any +school, and when they did enter a school they seldom remained long +enough to secure any marked educational advantage. Less than 5 per cent. +of the children continued in school after they were old enough to work +in the cotton mills. + +Pursuant of his intention to make the schools supply the needs of all of +the children of Columbus, Superintendent Daniel organized the North +Highlands School in the factory district. Of this school he says: "It is +not made to conform, either in course of study or hours, to the other +schools of similar rank in the system, for the board desires to meet the +conditions and convenience of the people for whom the school was +established. Classroom work begins in the morning at 8 o'clock and +continues until 11 o'clock, with a recess of 10 minutes at 9:30. The +afternoon session begins at 1 o'clock, and the school closes for the day +at 3:30 o'clock." + +The long intermission in the middle of the day is given in order to +allow the children to take hot lunches to parents, brothers, and sisters +who are working in the mill. Many of the mills are located at some +distance from the school. Some of the children are called upon to walk +as much as two miles during the noon hour, in order to carry the +lunches. These "dinner toters," when carrying lunch baskets for persons +outside of the family, receive 25 cents per week per basket. In case +several baskets are carried, the income thus earned is considerable. + +The school thus organized on the basis of local needs is further +specialized in a way that will appeal to the needs of the mill operative +group. The academic courses are similar to the courses offered in the +other schools, except that more emphasis is laid upon the "three R's." +Superintendent Daniel says that the time is very limited in which these +children will attend school, and more attention is given as to what may +be regarded as fundamental. "While the prescribed course contemplates +seven years, few continue after the fifth or sixth year, so strong is +the call of the mills. Not more than 1 per cent finish this school and +pursue their studies further." + +The three morning hours and the first hour in the afternoon are devoted +to academic studies, while the last hour and a half of the day is given +to practical work. The boys are required to take elementary courses in +woodwork and gardening, alternating these two branches on alternate +days. The girls are given work in basketry, sewing, cooking, poultry +raising, and gardening. + +The results of the introduction of this applied work are summed up by +Superintendent Daniel in this way,--"In all of these lines of work it is +now the hope of the school only to better living conditions a little +among the people for whom it was especially organized. The +transformation is necessarily slow. In the beginning, no doubt, the +advocates of this type of school thought that many might be induced to +continue in school and do more advanced work, especially along +vocational lines. In this respect the school has been a disappointment +to some. We are seldom able to induce pupils to finish even the limited +course offered in this school." + +The North Highland School, in addition to its work for the children, has +begun an organized effort to raise the standards of the local community. +Every day the principal and teachers of the school visit some of the +homes, giving helpful suggestions, caring for the sick, and in any other +possible way contributing to home life. Superintendent Daniel reports +the progress in this respect by saying,--"Confidence is now so strong +that one of the teachers every Saturday morning collects the physically +defective ones in the community and takes them to the free clinic for +operations or treatment. At first parents would see their children die +rather than permit them to be operated upon, but now they seldom decline +to permit them to be taken by a teacher to the free clinic, when in the +judgment of the teacher it is necessary." + +The school has made an effort to organize the older people of the +community. There are entertainments and school gatherings in which +parents and children alike participate. As a further help to those +parents who are compelled to work in the mills, the school grounds, +which are amply provided with a full play equipment, are open to all of +the children at all hours of the day and all days of the week. "It is +not infrequent," says Superintendent Daniel, "that, when the mother goes +to work at 6 in the morning, she sends her children to the school to +enjoy the privileges of the grounds until the opening of the school at 8 +o'clock." + +The work of the negro schools is similarly fitted to the industrial +needs of the negro children. Boys and girls alike devote a considerable +portion of their time to industrial work. The main purpose of this work +for negroes is to prepare them for the line of industrial opportunity +open to them. The school reports that it has developed a number of good +blacksmiths, carpenters, cooks, seamstresses, and laundresses. Pupils +who remain in the schools long enough to complete the course are able to +earn, upon leaving school, about twice what they would be able to earn +had no such training been provided. + +A vigorous attempt has been made to reorganize grade work in the +interests of clearness and effectiveness. As Superintendent Daniel puts +the matter,--"We undertook to place before the teachers a definite +problem, and to put suggestions into tangible form. We stated that all +subjects could be taught with the books merely as helps and means to an +end, and contend further for the doctrine that a working knowledge of +books and subjects is far more desirable than accomplishing the feat of +memorizing the printed page." Many teachers will be astonished by the +doctrine which Superintendent Daniel evolves from this statement of +educational theory. "The teachers were asked to conduct the work in such +a manner that it would not be necessary to recite or take written tests +with closed books, but that school books be used as tools with which to +work, and that the child should use text-books as adults do books of +reference, while the teacher guides and directs in the development of +thought.["] + +This attempt of Superintendent Daniel to proceed with the grammar school +work in a more natural way, and to relate all of it more closely to +life, met with some interesting results, as may be gathered from the +following test questions which were worked out by teachers in pursuance +of the instructions to make text-books incidental and thought primary in +the school work. + + + ARITHMETIC, THIRD B + + Roy shops for his mother at Kirven's. He buys 2 boxes of hair + pins at $.05 each, 6 towels at $.10 each, and 5 handkerchiefs + for $.25. What was his bill? If he hands the clerk $1.00, how + much change will he receive? + + + THIRD A + + If Isabel's 2 pair of shoes cost $4, how much will shoes for all + the girls in the class cost? + + + GEOGRAPHY THIRD B + + Turn to the map on page 65 and find and write the names of seven + different shore forms. + + + ARITHMETIC, FOURTH B + + In our room are 46 pupils. The class receives 230 tablets and + 138 pencils for the term. How many of each does each child + receive? + + + GEOGRAPHY, FOURTH B + + What products may be sent to us from New England? If they were + shipped from Portsmouth, N. H., on what bodies of water would + they travel? + + + GEOGRAPHY, FOURTH A + + Why does the United States carry on more trade with the British + Isles than with Germany? At what seaport would our vessels land + in the British Isles? What would they carry and what would they + bring back? + + + GEOGRAPHY, FIFTH A + + What highways of trade will be used for shipping oranges from + San Francisco to Columbus, Ga., by way of the Panama Canal? How + many miles is this, approximately? (Use rule and map on page + 65.) + + + GEOGRAPHY, FIFTH B + + What is the chief industry of the people of Columbus, and why? + Describe the climate of our city, tell what fruits, vegetables + and farm products find a market here. What would a boat coming + up the river bring to Columbus? What would it carry back? + +Superintendent Daniel's viewpoint is clear and sane. "It is not +sufficient," he says, "to maintain courses in domestic science and +manual training for the grades, and to teach other subjects as if they +belonged to another realm." Consequently he has made every endeavor to +bring together the forces of the community and of the school in a +sympathetic whole, around which the educational life of the town must +center. + +The industrial high school is an integral and highly important part of +the work in the Columbus schools. Side by side with the academic high +school, it affords an opportunity for the children who do not intend to +continue their educational work beyond high school grade to get some +assistance in the direction of a training for life activity. It was +originally intended to duplicate, in a measure, the conditions and hours +maintained in the industrial plants of the city. Formerly the school was +open for eleven calendar months; at the present time a vacation of six +weeks is allowed. The school hours are from 8 o'clock in the morning +until 4 o'clock in the afternoon, for five days each week. Pupils who +have not maintained the required standard during the week are compelled +to attend school on Saturday. + +All pupils of the Industrial High School are required to take academic +work of high school grade in mathematics, history, English, and +science. + +The introduction of manual training and domestic science into the grades +of all Columbus schools has pointed many children in the direction of +the Industrial High School. While it is not the intention of the school +authorities to make the work of the Industrial High School final, it is +hoped that those children who are enabled to continue with educational +work are benefited markedly by this specialized course. + +Throughout this deliberate attempt of the Columbus school administration +to make the schools fit the needs of the community there is evidence of +a scientific spirit which is in the last degree commendable. The +community need is first ascertained. The school work is then organized +in response to this community need. If, perchance, the first effort +meets with little success, additional effort is continued until some +measure of success is assured. The school authorities are not afraid to +change their opinions or their system. They are not even afraid to fail +on a given experiment. The one thing of which they are afraid is failure +to provide for the educational needs of the community. + + +XI A People Coming to Its Own + +The first great battle in the educational awakening of the South has +been won. The people realize the necessity for an intelligently active +population. + +The second battle is well under way. The people of the South are shaping +the schools to meet the peculiar educational needs which the economic +and social problems of the South present. + +A rallying-cry is ringing through the Southern States,--"The schools for +the people; the people for the schools; and a higher standard of +education and of life for the community." + +The South is in line for the New Education. School officials are +working. Superintendent Daniel writes,--"Everyone connected with the +system has been too intent on doing his work well and in establishing +and maintaining the ideals of the system to be disturbed by petty +difficulties. The teachers," he adds, "have appeared to feel that it was +rather a privilege than a burden to participate in making the Columbus +system efficient through the preparation of her children for life."[29] +The public is asking for a correlation of school with life, and the +schools are educating the South through the children. + + FOOTNOTES: + + [Footnote 24: Now State Superintendent. See an article + "'Corn-Club' Smith," P. C. Macfarlane, Collier's Weekly, May 17, + 1913, p. 19.] + + [Footnote 25: United States Department of Agriculture, Bureau of + Plant Industry, Results of Boys' Demonstration Work in Corn Clubs + in 1911, Washington, May, 1912, p. 4.] + + [Footnote 26: Op. cit., pp. 5-6.] + + [Footnote 27: U. S. Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Plant + Industry, Girls' Demonstration Work, Washington, January, 1913, + pp. 1-2.] + + [Footnote 28: For a full statement of the work of the Columbus + Schools see "Industrial Education in Columbus,["] Ga., R. B. + Daniel, U. S. Bureau of Education, Bulletin 535, Government + Printing Office, 1913. Also, The Annual Report of the Columbus + Public Schools for the Year Ending August 1, 1913.] + + [Footnote 29: Annual report of the Columbus Public Schools, 1913, + p. 18.] + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +THE SPIRIT OF THE NEW EDUCATION + + +I The Standard of Education + +The educational experiments described in the preceding chapters are +replete with the spirit of the New Education. From the virile +educational systems of the country a protest is being sounded against +traditional formalism. School men have learned that that which is is not +necessarily right. Each concept, each method, must run the gauntlet of +critical analysis. It is not sufficient to allege in support of an +educational principle that the results derived from its application have +been satisfactory in the past. Insistently the question is repeated, +"What are its effects upon the problems of to-day?" + +Educational ancestor worship is no more acceptable to the progressive +spirit of the Western World than is ancestor worship in any other form. +The past has made its contribution, and has died in making it. For the +contribution the present is grateful, but it must steadfastly refuse in +its own name, and in the name of the future, to be bound by any decree +of the past which will not stand the acid test of present experience. + +The old education was beset by traditionalism. Under its dominance, +education, defined once and for all, was established as a standard to +which men must attain; hence a preceptor, guiding his young charges +along the straight path to knowledge, might, with perfect confidence, +admonish them, "Lo here, the three R's is education," or "Lo there, +Greek and higher mathematics is education," according as his training +had been in the three R's or in Greek. In either case he felt certain of +his general ground. Once and for all the educational standard had been +set. By that standard new ideas were judged, and either justified or +condemned. + +Under this predetermined scheme there was a formula for education--a +formula as definite as that for making bread or pickling pork. The +formula was applied to each child who presented himself to the +administration. If the formula worked successfully the child was +declared educated in the same way that pork which has been successfully +treated by the proper processes is declared to be pickled. If the +formula did not work the child was not educated. He sat in school with a +dunce-cap upon his head, or else played hookey and spent his hours in +fishing, swimming or idling. + +Perhaps, in view of the recent contributions of science, it would be +more illuminating to say that the old education inoculated the child +with a predetermined educational virus. If the virus "took" the child +was declared immune to the bacteria of ignorance, illiteracy, stupidity +and other prevalent social complaints. If the virus did not take the +schoolmaster ostentatiously washed his hands of the recreant. + + +II Standardization Was a Failure + +Only one argument need be urged against this method of attacking the +educational problem--it did not work. In the first place, the most +brilliant school successes often turned out to be the most arrant life +failures, while the school derelicts frequently became life successes of +stellar magnitude. To the thinking man the inference was plain; the +formula was not an unqualified success. Not only was this true of the +children who went through school, but there were crowds of children for +whom the school held no attraction whatever. They attended a few +sessions, wasted a scant bit of energy in educational effort, and then +dropped out, hopeless of obtaining results by further "study." + +The old education read out of the school those children who could not +benefit by its teachings. How utterly different the concept which has +gripped the minds of progressive, modern educators! Under their guidance +education has become what Herbert Spencer called it--a preparation for +complete living. No longer a fixed, objective standard, education has +been recognized as an enlargement of the life horizon of each individual +boy or girl in the community. "Teach us individual needs," proclaim the +educational progressives, "and we will tell you what the character of +education must be." + +Thus has education ceased to be an objective standard, created by one +age and handed down rigidly immobile to the ages succeeding. Instead it +is accepted as a fulfilment--a complement--to child needs. Always +education has been regarded as a process of molding life and character. +The chief difference between the old and the new education is that the +old education made a mold, and then forced the child to fit the mold, +while the new education begins by determining the character of child +needs, and then fits the mold to the needs. The old education was like +the farmer who built a corn-sheller, and then attempted to find ears of +corn which would fit into the sheller; the new education is like the +farmer who first measured the corn and then built his sheller to fit the +corn. The old education selected the class which was able to conform to +its requirements; the new education serves all classes. + + +III Education as Growth + +Under the impetus given to it by modern thinkers, education has become +the direction of growth, rather than the application of a formula. The +child is a developing creature. It has become the function of education +to watch over and guide the development. + +Nor do the modern schools consider mental development as the sole object +of educational endeavor. Physical growth is an equally essential part of +child life. Therefore the direction of physical growth becomes just as +vital a part of the educational machinery. Aesthetic and spiritual +growth require like emphasis. Each phase of child life receives +independent consideration. + +The old education through mental impression is giving way before the new +education through physical, mental and spiritual expression. Expression +is the essence of growth; and since the school is to foster child growth +it must place child expression in a place of paramount importance. + +Child needs, rather than abstract standards, have thus become the basis +of school activity. The old education developed its course of study by +surveying the interests of adults, and picking from among them those, +apparently the most simple, which were fit for children. The new +education applies the laboratory method--studying children and their +interests--reports, among its other findings, the quite evident fact +that children enter into life as whole-heartedly as adults; that the +field of their interest lies, not in the left-over problems of older +people, but in their own problems and processes; and that therefore the +educator must found his philosophy and his practice on an understanding +of the child and child needs. + +There is in the world a phenomenon called adult life, with its phases, +problems and ideals. There is likewise in the world a phenomenon called +child life, with its phases, problems and ideals. A complete +understanding of either may not be derived through a study of the other. +Child needs exist separate from and different from adult needs. It is +the business of the new education to understand them and meet them. + +Two appeals are reaching the ears of the modern educator: the first, the +appeal of the child; the second, the appeal of the community. The appeal +of the child is an appeal for the opportunity of developing all of its +faculties. Physically, children grow. The school, recognizing this fact, +is making a vigorous effort to break the shell of custom, which has +confined its activities to purely intellectual pursuits, and provide a +physical training which will lead the school child to perfect normal +body growth, as well as normal growth of mind. Even in its intellectual +activity the school is recognizing the importance of making the child +mind an active machine for thought, rather than a passive storehouse for +information. Though less emphasized, the training for sensual growth is +becoming of ever increasing importance in the new education. Above all, +the aesthetic side of child life is being expanded in an effort to round +out a completed adulthood. + + +IV Child Needs and Community Needs + +The recognition of child needs, which forms so integral a part of the +new education, is paralleled by a similar recognition of the needs of +the community. The progressive educator is laying aside for a moment the +details of his task, and asking himself the pertinent question: "What +should the community expect in return for the annual expenditure of a +billion dollars on public education?" What are community needs if not +the needs for manhood and womanhood? They are well summed up in three +words--virility, efficiency, citizenship. Possessed of those attributes +a group of individuals rounds itself inevitably into a vigorous, +progressive community. They are normal qualities which a people must +demand if their social standards are to be maintained. Since they +constitute so vital an element in social life, a community lavish in its +expenditures for schools may surely expect the school product to be +virile, efficient, worthy citizens. The new education, recognizing the +justice of this demand, is crying out insistently for social, as well as +individual, training in the school. + +The new educational institutions have set themselves to meet the needs +of the child and of the community. Their success depends upon their +ability to understand these needs and to supply them. + +The old-fashioned schoolmaster asked: "How can I compel?" His answer was +the rod. The modern schoolmaster asks: "How can I direct?" His answer is +a laboratory, open-minded, scientific method, and a host of varied +courses designed to meet the needs of individual children and of +individual communities. + +Communities vary as greatly in their characteristics as do children. It +is now certain that no formula will provide education for all children. +Each new study of community needs makes it more evident that no system +will supply education for all communities. It is the business of the +educator to study the individual child and the individual community, and +then to provide an education that will assist both to grow normally and +soundly in all of their parts. + + +V The Final Test of Education + +The school is a servant, not a master. In that fact lies its +greatness--the greatness of its opportunity and of its responsibility. +As an institution its object is service--assistance in growth. +Development is the goal of education. Virility, efficiency, citizenship, +manhood, womanhood--these are its legitimate products. Its tools and +formulas are such as will most effectively serve these ends. When the +increase of knowledge leads to new methods and formulas which will prove +more effective than the old ones, then the old ones must be laid aside, +reverently, perhaps, but none the less firmly, and the new ones adopted. +Changes may not be made hastily and without due consideration; but when +experiment has shown that the new device is more advantageous in +furthering the objects of education than the old and tried formulas, a +change is inevitable. + +The first and last word on the subject is spoken when this question is +asked and answered: "Does education exist for children, or do children +exist for education?" + +If children exist for education, then it is just that an objective +educational standard should be created; it is fair that a hard and fast +course of study be mapped out in conformity with that standard; it is +right that educational machinery be constructed which automatically +turns away from the schools any child who does not conform to the school +system as it is. If children exist for education, they should either +conform to its requirements, or else, if they will not or cannot +conform, they should be mercilessly thrust aside. + +If, on the other hand, education exists for children, then the primal +consideration must be child needs. If any one child, or any group of +children, has needs which are not met by existing educational +institutions, then these institutions must be remodeled. If an adequate +congenial education is a part of the birthright of every American child, +then educational institutions must be reorganized and reshaped until +they provide that birthright in the fullest possible measure. + +Already the answer has been formulated. Already educators have +recognized the potency of the saying: "The schools were made for the +children, not the children for the schools." Hence it follows that no +school system is so sacred, no method of teaching so venerable, no +textbook so infallible, no machinery of administration so permanent, +that it must not give way before the educational needs of childhood. + +Concerning the educational problem of to-day, yesterday cannot speak +with authority. Each age has its problems--problems which may be solved +by that age, or handed on unsolved to the future. The past is dead. Only +its voice--its advice and suggestion--serves as a guide or as a warning. +Of authority it should have not an atom. + +The educational opportunities of to-day are without peer. The +educational machinery, ready at hand, is being transformed to meet the +newly understood needs of the child and of the community. The spirit of +the new education is the spirit of service, the spirit of fair dealing, +the spirit of growth for the individual and of advancement for society. +Here are individual needs. There are aligned the social obligations and +requirements of the age. In so far as it lies within the power of the +school, the children who leave its doors shall have their needs +supplied, and shall be equipped to play their part as virile, efficient +citizens in a greater community. Such is the spirit of the new +education. + + + + +INDEX + + + Age distribution, 36. + and school progress, 37. + + Ages of childhood, 35. + + American school system, Statistics of, 19, 20. + + Applied education, need for, 156. + + Applied work, Cincinnati, 136. + in the grades, 161. + + Average children and the old education, 39. + fallacy of, 34. + + + Berks County schools, manual training in, 186. + physical training in, 186. + + Boys and girls, object of educating, 42. + + Brown, E. E., quoted, 13. + + + Carney, Mabel, quoted, 179. + + Chancellor, W. R., quoted, 40, 41. + + Change, prevalence of, 24. + in social structure, 25. + + Child growth, stages of, 44. + + Child needs, recognition of, 56. + and community needs, 255. + + Childhood, ages of, 35. + + Children, needs of analyzed, 45. + social needs of, 48. + varying capacity of, 37, 38. + vs. subject matter, 39. + + Cincinnati, educational advantages of, 148. + kindergarten work in, 129. + school system of, 125. + school policy continued, 150. + special school work in, 141. + schools, co-operation in, 126. + creed of, 127. + general support of, 126. + new plans for, 149. + social centers in, 151. + social work of, 150. + + City and country, educational value of, 29. + + City home, effect of industrial changes on, 30, 31. + + City life and the new basis for education, 28, 29. + + Civic education, necessity for, 49. + + Civics teaching in the grades, Cincinnati, 135. + + Club activity in schools, recognition of, 235. + + Columbus, Ga., curriculum of schools, 244. + local needs basis of, 242, 243. + school policy of, 242, 243. + + Community and the school, 72. + education applied to a small town, 52. + life, contribution of schools to, 167. + needs and child life, 256. + + Consolidated school, advantages of, 179, 180. + course of study in, 172. + daily program in, 174. + disadvantages of, 179. + growth of in South, 177, 178. + + Continuation High School work, 109. + schools in Ohio, 76. + + Co-operation, spirit of in consolidated schools, 172. + + Country, the call of the, 170, 171. + + Country life, transformation in, 171, 172. + + Country school, daily program in a district, 173. + daily program in a consolidated, 174. + two possibilities of, 171. + the duty of, 194. + new geography, 185. + task of, 193, 194. + transformation in, 171, 172. + schools and physical training, 186. + + Courses of study, correlation in, 135. + home school, 69. + + Criticism of schools, general, 11. + significance, 17. + + Curriculum, content of, 44. + requirements of, 51. + + + Defectives, treatment of, Cincinnati, 144. + + Discipline, disappearance of, Oyler School, 165. + + Distribution of age, 36. + + District school, daily program in, 173. + + Domestic science, course in Lowville High School, 122. + course in Page County, 190. + home school movement, 68. + importance of, 51. + in the grades, 159. + in a Kentucky school, 195-200. + in Sleepy Eye schools, 213-216. + problems in, 160. + + Draper, A. S., quoted, 12, 13, 18. + + + Education and the industrial revolution, 26, 27, 30. + and the success habit, 95. + as growth, 254. + city, effect of industrial changes on, 30, 31. + creed of, Cincinnati schools, 127. + elastic system of, 127. + essentials of, 15, 16. + for home-making, 68. + for life, 43. + for the whole child, 81. + in the early home, 27, 28. + place of physical training in, 71. + public lectures and, 73. + purpose of, 15, 16. + new basis for, 24. + new studies, 74. + object of, 22, 23, 42. + social importance of, 19, 20. + specialization in, 75. + standard of, 251. + theory and practice, 242-249. + in Kentucky, reaching parents through children, 195-206. + in the South, canning clubs, 234, 235. + corn clubs, 225-228, 229-233. + effect of on corn yield, 230-233. + improving health, 241. + improving home life, 239, 241. + teaching parents through children, 225-228, 229-233. + + Educational advance in Cincinnati, 148. + + Educational formulas, danger of, 252. + + Educational needs and the small town, 52. + + Educational problems of an industrial community, 55. + + Educational work and the small town, 52. + + Elementary grades, activities of, 87. + co-operation in, 86. + special studies for, 89. + spirit of service in, 90. + + English, as a stimulus for other studies, 63. + constructive work in, 61, 62. + new methods for, 61. + organization of, Grand Rapids High School, 111. + original work, 65. + story work and, 64. + use of in other studies, 111. + + Enrollment and attendance, statistics of, 17, 18. + + + Facts, place of in education, 22. + + Fallacy of average children, 34, 35. + + Fisher, Irving, quoted, 15. + + Formalism in education, danger of, 252. + + Froebel, F., quoted, 28. + + + Gary, plan of the schools in, 81. + + Geography, new method of teaching, 59. + + Geography and arithmetic, method of teaching in + a southern school, 246-248. + + Geography in Newark, 59. + + Grade work, regeneration of, Cincinnati, 132. + + Grades, amalgamation of with high school, 99. + applied work in, 161. + + Grand Rapids High School, vocational guidance in, 110. + + Growth, and child activity, 47. + and education, 254. + through play, 46. + of children, stages in, 44. + + + Hanus, P. H., quoted, 13, 14. + + Health, importance of, 45. + + High School, amalgamation of with grades, 99. + at Lowville, 116. + course of study in Cincinnati, 138. + future of, 114. + growing importance of, 54-56. + popularization of Cincinnati, 137. + promotion to, without examinations, 94. + responsibility of, 92. + social status of, 92. + + High school children, experiments with, 92. + + High school courses, arrangement of, 108. + + High school status, Superintendent Spaulding on, 92. + + High school training, right of children to, 105. + + High schools, co-operation with elementary grades, 98. + technical development of, 106. + + Home, education in, 27, 28. + + Home making, education for, 68. + + Home school, activities of, 70. + course of work in, 69. + in Indianapolis, 68. + in Providence, 69. + + Home visiting in the grades, 166. + + Home work, disadvantages of, 79. + opportunities for in school, 79. + + Huxley, T. H., quoted, 16. + + + Industrial communities, educational problems, 55. + + Industrial High School, place of in the school system, 248. + + Industrial system, effect of on education, 27. + + Institutions, effects of change upon, 26. + + + John Swaney School, course of study, 176. + equipment of, 176. + social life in, 176, 177. + + Junior High Schools, outlook for, 98. + + + Kentucky education, teaching a community to cook, 195-200. + + Kindergartens, at Gary, Ind., 58. + progressive work in, 58. + in relation to grade work, 131. + vitalized work in, 129. + + + Linden, Ind., equipment of consolidated schools, 175. + + Locust Grove School, method of teaching a community, 195-206. + + Lowville High School, courses in, 121. + domestic science in, 122. + social service of, 123. + work in, 116. + + + Mass training, defects of, 101. + + Mathematics, and life problems, 60. + in Gary schools, 60. + in Indianapolis schools, 60. + + Mothers' clubs, organization of, 163. + work of, Cincinnati, 132, 163. + + + Needs of school children, 43. + + New basis for education, 24. + and city life, 28, 29. + + New education in the South, 220-250. + + Newark vacation school, 80. + + Newton Technical High School, success of, 96. + + North Highland School, industrial training in, 245, 246. + raising community standards, 245. + + + Oconto County, Wis., schools, agricultural work in, 183-185. + the new arithmetic, 184, 185. + the new English, 184, 185. + + Ohio, continuation schools, 76. + + Old education, spirit of, 253. + + One-room school, making it worth while, 182-187. + possibilities of, 182-187. + + Open air schools, 71. + results of, 72. + + Original work in English, 65. + + Overwork, extent in schools, 14, 15. + + Oyler School, social education in, 153. + + + Page County, Iowa, contests in schools, 189. + domestic science, 190. + ideal schools in, 188-193. + social life in, 191, 192. + training for country life, 189-190. + + Physical training and education, 71. + a part of school work, 82. + + Play, and growth, 46. + creative forms of, 48. + stages of, 47. + + Playgrounds, Cincinnati, 145. + + Popularized High Schools, Cincinnati, 137. + + Promotion for special students, 92. + + Promotion, improvements in, 85. + new methods of, 85. + + Promotion average, fetish of, 40, 41. + + Public lectures, and education, 73. + + + Rapp, Eli, quoted, 182, 186. + + Regeneration of grade work, Cincinnati, 132. + + Rural districts, needs of, 54. + + + School and community, 167. + + School and shop work in high school, 109. + + School feeding, 72. + + School children, needs of, 43. + + School equipment, educational nature of, 120. + + School houses, social uses for, 117. + + School machinery, abolition of, 84. + necessity for, 32. + new standards of, 32. + + School mortality, statistics of, 18. + + School plant, wider use of, 73. + + School progress and age distribution, 37. + + School work related to shop work, 76. + + Schools, agricultural training at Sleepy Eye, 208-211. + agricultural training in Oconto County, Wis., 183-185. + agricultural training in Page County, 189, 190. + and the community, 72. + as public servants, 257. + city, effect on children, 33, 34. + condition of, Montclair, N. J., 13, 14. + consolidated vs. district, 171, 172. + courses at Sleepy Eye, Minn., 218. + courses fitted to community needs at Sleepy Eye, 207, 208. + domestic science at Sleepy Eye, Minn., 213-216. + elementary plumbing at Sleepy Eye, Minn., 209. + equipment at Sleepy Eye, 214. + equipment of Linden, Ind., 175. + general criticism of, 11. + influence on community at Sleepy Eye, Minn., 217. + local service of, 157. + mechanical course at Sleepy Eye, Minn., 214. + Montgomery County, Ind., 180, 181. + Page County, Iowa, 189-193. + purpose of, 42, 43. + short agricultural course at Sleepy Eye, Minn., 212, 213. + size of, 33. + social uses of, Cincinnati, 158. + + Self-government in high schools, 102, 104. + + Sex hygiene, importance of, 46. + + Shop work and school work, 76. + + Sleepy Eye, Minn., course in domestic science, 213-216. + course in elementary plumbing and steam-fitting, 209. + courses given in schools, 218. + department of agriculture, 208-211. + equipment for mechanical work, 214. + fitting schools to community needs, 207, 208. + influence on community at large, 217. + mechanical course, 214. + + Sleepy Eye, Minn., short course in agriculture, 212, 213. + + Small town, educational work of, 52. + + Smith, W. H., "Corn Club," 228. + + Social centers in Cincinnati schools, 151. + + Social change, 25. + + Social education, Cincinnati, 153. + content of, 49. + + Social importance of education, 19, 20. + + Social needs of children, 48. + + Southern schools, corn clubs in, 225-228, 229-233. + + Special school for defectives, Cincinnati, 144. + + Special schools, Cincinnati, 141. + + Specialization in education, 75. + + Spencer, H., quoted, 16. + + Standard of education, 251. + + Story work and English, 64. + + Student organization in high school, 102. + + Subjects of study, summary of, 51. + + Success habits in education, 95. + + Summer schools, Cincinnati, 145. + + + Technical High Schools, development of, 106. + + Three "R's," Progressive work in, 59. + + Twelve-year schools, possibilities of, 99. + + Tyler, J. M., quoted, 16. + + + University of Cincinnati, social relations of, 140. + + + Vacation schools in Newark, 80. + + Vernon school, before and after consolidation, 181. + + Vocational guidance in high schools, 110. + + Vocational training, appeal of, 78. + Cincinnati, 142. + in elementary grades, 77. + Lowville, 117. + + + Washington Irving High School, procedure in, 102. + + Waste in education, 12, 13. + extent of, 18, 19. + + Wider use of the schools, Lowville, 117. + + William Penn High School, student organization in, 104. + + + * * * * * + +TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: + +Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as +possible, including obsolete and variant spellings. Obvious +typographical errors in punctuation (misplaced quotes and the like) have +been fixed. Corrections [in brackets] in the text are noted below: + +page 4: missing quote added + + article, will exclaim,--"[']There is something that we must + introduce into our schools.'" + +page 8: added missing word + + VIII. Breaching [the] Chinese Wall of High School Classicism + +page 9: typo corrected + + I. "Cooperation"[Co-operation] and "Progressivism" + +page 29: typo corrected + + Standing on the threshhold[threshold] of his meager dwelling, + this child of six looks forward + +page 77: typo corrected + + school district establishes part-time day schools for the + instruction of youths over fourteen years af[of] age who are + engaged in regular employment, such board of education + +page 94: typo corrected + + buying of materials and simple acounting[accounting] covered + their mathematics. Those were the things which would probably + +page 94: missing quote added + + school classes. They all brushed their hair. The boys were + neater and the girls were becomingly dressed.["] + +page 103: typo corrected + + "Yes, it was a wrench," Mr. McAndrews[McAndrew] admits. "You + see, the teachers hated to give up. They had been + +page 123: missing quote added + + will all bear directly on the work of the farm in which he is so + deeply interested.["] + +page 167: missing quote added + + that is enough. We have no problem of discipline now. The + children and their parents are working for the school.["] + +page 197: missing quote added + + first thing I knew, the way opened up--you never would guess + how--it was through biscuits.["] + +page 220: typo corrected + + biggest burden we have to carry--the most determined enemy we + have to fight? Well, sir, its's[it's] ignorance--the ignorance + of the common man about his farm or his + +page 233: missing quote added + + other States were equally good in view of the fact that a + drought prevailed very generally throughout the South in + 1911.["][26] + +Footnote 28: missing quote added + + For a full statement of the work of the Columbus Schools see + "Industrial Education in Columbus,["] Ga., R. B. Daniel, + +page 246: missing quote added + + should use text-books as adults do books of reference, while the + teacher guides and directs in the development of thought.["] + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The New Education, by Scott Nearing + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NEW EDUCATION *** + +***** This file should be named 26919.txt or 26919.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/6/9/1/26919/ + +Produced by Chris Curnow, Matt Mello and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/26919.zip b/26919.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..bba5408 --- /dev/null +++ b/26919.zip diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7818ee7 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #26919 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/26919) |
