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-The Project Gutenberg EBook of Report of the Committee of Fifteen, by 
-W. T. Harris and A. S. Draper and H. S. Tarbell
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
-other parts of the world 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.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
-to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
-
-Title: Report of the Committee of Fifteen
-       Read at the Cleveland Meeting of the Department of
-       Superintendence, February 19-21, 1884 With the Debate
-
-Author: W. T. Harris
-        A. S. Draper
-        H. S. Tarbell
-
-Release Date: June 10, 2016 [EBook #52292]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: UTF-8
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE OF FIFTEEN ***
-
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-Produced by Charlene Taylor, Wayne Hammond and the Online
-Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
-file was produced from images generously made available
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-
-  REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE
-  OF FIFTEEN BY
-  W. T. HARRIS, LL. D., A. S.
-  DRAPER, LL. D., AND H. S.
-  TARBELL READ AT THE
-  CLEVELAND MEETING OF
-  THE DEPARTMENT OF SUPERINTENDENCE,
-  FEBRUARY
-  19-21, 1895, WITH
-  THE DEBATE
-
-  [Illustration]
-
-
-  PUBLISHED BY THE NEW ENGLAND PUBLISHING
-  COMPANY BOSTON
-  MDCCCXCV
-
-
-
-
-CORRELATION OF STUDIES IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS.
-
-BY W. T. HARRIS, LL. D.
-
-
-The undersigned Committee agrees upon the following report, each member
-reserving for himself the expression of his individual divergence from
-the opinion of the majority, by a statement appended to his signature,
-enumerating the points to which exception is taken and the grounds for
-them.
-
-
-I. CORRELATION OF STUDIES.
-
-Your Committee understands by correlation of studies:--
-
-
-_1. Logical order of topics and branches._
-
-First, the arrangement of topics in proper sequence in the course of
-study, in such a manner that each branch develops in an order suited
-to the natural and easy progress of the child, and so that each step
-is taken at the proper time to help his advance to the next step in
-the same branch, or to the next steps in other related branches of the
-course of study.
-
-
-_2. Symmetrical whole of studies in the world of human learning._
-
-Second, the adjustment of the branches of study in such a manner that
-the whole course at any given time represents all the great divisions
-of human learning, as far as is possible at the stage of maturity at
-which the pupil has arrived, and that each allied group of studies
-is represented by some one of its branches best adapted for the epoch
-in question; it being implied that there is an equivalence of studies
-to a greater or less degree within each group, and that each branch
-of human learning should be represented by some equivalent study; so
-that, while no great division is left unrepresented, no group shall
-have superfluous representatives, and thereby debar other groups from a
-proper representation.
-
-
-_3. Psychological symmetry--the whole mind._
-
-Third, the selection and arrangement of the branches and topics within
-each branch, considered psychologically, with a view to afford the best
-exercise of the faculties of the mind, and to secure the unfolding of
-those faculties in their natural order, so that no one faculty is so
-overcultivated or so neglected as to produce abnormal or one-sided
-mental development.
-
-
-_4. Correlation of pupil’s course of study with the world in which he
-lives--his spiritual and natural environment._
-
-Fourth and chiefly, your Committee understands by correlation of
-studies the selection and arrangement in orderly sequence of such
-objects of study as shall give the child an insight into the world
-that he lives in, and a command over its resources such as is obtained
-by a helpful co-operation with one’s fellows. In a word, the chief
-consideration to which all others are to be subordinated, in the
-opinion of your Committee, is this requirement of the civilization
-into which the child is born, as determining not only what he shall
-study in school, but what habits and customs he shall be taught in
-the family before the school age arrives; as well as that he shall
-acquire a skilled acquaintance with some one of a definite series of
-trades, professions, or vocations in the years that follow school;
-and, furthermore, that this question of the relation of the pupil to
-his civilization determines what political duties he shall assume and
-what religious faith and spiritual aspirations shall be adopted for the
-conduct of his life.
-
-To make more clear their reasons for the preference here expressed
-for the objective and practical basis of selection of topics for the
-course of study rather than the subjective basis so long favored by
-educational writers, your Committee would describe the psychological
-basis, already mentioned, as being merely formal in its character,
-relating only to the exercise of the so-called mental faculties.
-
-It would furnish a training of spiritual powers analogous to the
-gymnastic training of the muscles of the body. Gymnastics may develop
-strength and agility without leading to any skill in trades or useful
-employment. So an abstract psychological training may develop the will,
-the intellect, the imagination, or the memory, but without leading to
-an exercise of acquired power in the interests of civilization. The
-game of chess would furnish a good course of study for the discipline
-of the powers of attention and calculation of abstract combinations,
-but it would give its possessor little or no knowledge of man or
-nature. The psychological ideal which has prevailed to a large extent
-in education has, in the old phrenology, and in the recent studies
-in physiological psychology, sometimes given place to a biological
-ideal. Instead of the view of mind as made up of faculties like will,
-intellect, imagination, and emotion, conceived to be all necessary to
-the soul, if developed in harmony with one another, the concept of
-nerves or brain-tracts is used as the ultimate regulative principle
-to determine the selection and arrangement of studies. Each part
-of the brain is supposed to have its claim on the attention of the
-educator, and that study is thought to be the most valuable which
-employs normally the larger number of brain-tracts. This view reaches
-an extreme in the direction of formal, as opposed to objective or
-practical grounds for selecting a course of study. While the old
-psychology with its mental faculties concentrated its attention on
-the mental processes and neglected the world of existing objects and
-relations upon which those processes were directed, physiological
-psychology tends to confine its attention to the physical part of the
-process, the organic changes in the brain cells and their functions.
-
-Your Committee is of the opinion that psychology of both kinds,
-physiological and introspective, can hold only a subordinate place in
-the settlement of questions relating to the correlation of studies. The
-branches to be studied, and the extent to which they are studied, will
-be determined mainly by the demands of one’s civilization. These will
-prescribe what is most useful to make the individual acquainted with
-physical nature and with human nature so as to fit him as an individual
-to perform his duties in the several institutions--family, civil
-society, the state, and the Church. But next after this, psychology
-will furnish important considerations that will largely determine the
-methods of instruction, the order of taking up the several topics so as
-to adapt the school work to the growth of the pupil’s capacity, and the
-amount of work so as not to overtax his powers by too much, or arrest
-the development of strength by too little. A vast number of subordinate
-details belonging to the pathology of education, such as the hygienic
-features of school architecture and furniture, programmes, the length
-of study hours and of class exercises, recreation, and bodily
-reactions against mental effort, will be finally settled by scientific
-experiment in the department of physiological psychology.
-
-Inasmuch as your Committee is limited to the consideration of the
-correlation of studies in the elementary school, it has considered
-the question of the course of study in general only in so far as this
-has been found necessary in discussing the grounds for the selection
-of studies for the period of school education occupying the eight
-years from six to fourteen years, or the school period between the
-kindergarten on the one hand and the secondary school on the other. It
-has not been possible to avoid some inquiry into the true distinction
-between secondary and elementary studies, since one of the most
-important questions forced upon the attention of your Committee is
-that of the abridgment of the elementary course of study from eight or
-more years to seven or even six years, and the corresponding increase
-of the time devoted to studies usually assigned to the high school and
-supposed to belong to the secondary course of study for some intrinsic
-reason.
-
-
-II. THE COURSE OF STUDY--EDUCATIONAL VALUES.
-
-Your Committee would report that it has discussed in detail the several
-branches of study that have found a place in the curriculum of the
-elementary school, with a view to discover their educational value for
-developing and training the faculties of the mind, and more especially
-for correlating the pupil with his spiritual and natural environment in
-the world in which he lives.
-
-
-_A. Language studies._
-
-There is first to be noted the prominent place of language study
-that takes the form of reading, penmanship, and grammar in the first
-eight years’ work of the school. It is claimed for the partiality
-shown to these studies that it is justified by the fact that language
-is the instrument that makes possible human social organization. It
-enables each person to communicate his individual experience to his
-fellows and thus permits each to profit by the experience of all. The
-written and printed forms of speech preserve human knowledge and make
-progress in civilization possible. The conclusion is reached that
-learning to read and write should be the leading study of the pupil in
-his first four years of school. Reading and writing are not so much
-ends in themselves as means for the acquirement of all other human
-learning. This consideration alone would be sufficient to justify their
-actual place in the work of the elementary school. But these branches
-require of the learner a difficult process of analysis. The pupil must
-identify the separate words in the sentence he uses, and in the next
-place must recognize the separate sounds in each word. It requires a
-considerable effort for the child or the savage to analyze his sentence
-into its constituent words, and a still greater effort to discriminate
-its elementary sounds. Reading, writing, and spelling in their most
-elementary form, therefore, constitute a severe training in mental
-analysis for the child of six to ten years of age. We are told that it
-is far more disciplinary to the mind than any species of observation of
-differences among material things, because of the fact that the word
-has a twofold character--addressed to external sense as spoken sound to
-the ear, or as written and printed words to the eye--but containing a
-meaning or sense addressed to the understanding and only to be seized
-by introspection. The pupil must call up the corresponding idea by
-thought, memory, and imagination, or else the word will cease to be a
-word and remain only a sound or character.
-
-On the other hand, observation of things and movements does not
-necessarily involve this twofold act of analysis, introspective
-and objective, but only the latter--the objective analysis. It is
-granted that we all have frequent occasion to condemn poor methods of
-instruction as teaching words rather than things. But we admit that we
-mean empty sounds or characters rather than true words. Our suggestions
-for the correct method of teaching amount in this case simply to laying
-stress on the meaning of the word, and to setting the teaching process
-on the road of analysis of content rather than form. In the case of
-words used to store up external observation the teacher is told to
-repeat and make alive again the act of observation by which the word
-obtained its original meaning. In the case of a word expressing a
-relation between facts or events, the pupil is to be taken step by
-step through the process of reflection by which the idea was built up.
-Since the word, spoken and written, is the sole instrument by which
-reason can fix, preserve, and communicate both the data of sense and
-the relations discovered between them by reflection, no new method
-in education has been able to supplant in the school the branches,
-reading and penmanship. But the real improvements in method have led
-teachers to lay greater and greater stress on the internal factor of
-the word, on its meaning, and have in manifold ways shown how to repeat
-the original experiences that gave the meaning to concrete words, and
-the original comparisons and logical deductions by which the ideas of
-relations and causal processes arose in the mind and required abstract
-words to preserve and communicate them.
-
-It has been claimed that it would be better to have first a basis of
-knowledge of things, and secondarily and subsequently a knowledge of
-words. But it has been replied to this, that the progress of the
-child in learning to talk indicates his ascent out of mere impressions
-into the possession of true knowledge. For he names objects only after
-he has made some synthesis of his impressions and has formed general
-ideas. He recognizes the same object under different circumstances of
-time and place, and also recognizes other objects belonging to the same
-class by and with names. Hence the use of the word indicates a higher
-degree of self-activity--the stage of mere impressions without words
-or signs being a comparatively passive state of mind. What we mean by
-things first and words afterward, is, therefore, not the apprehension
-of objects by passive impressions so much as the active investigation
-and experimenting which come after words are used, and the higher forms
-of analysis are called into being by that invention of reason known as
-language, which, as before said, is a synthesis of thing and thought,
-of outward sign and inward signification.
-
-Rational investigation cannot precede the invention of language any
-more than blacksmithing can precede the invention of hammers, anvils,
-and pincers. For language is the necessary tool of thought used in the
-conduct of the analysis and synthesis of investigation.
-
-Your Committee would sum up these considerations by saying that
-language rightfully forms the centre of instruction in the elementary
-school, but that progress in methods of teaching is to be made, as
-hitherto, chiefly by laying more stress on the internal side of the
-word, its meaning; using better graded steps to build up the chain of
-experience or the train of thought that the word expresses.
-
-The first three years’ work of the child is occupied mainly with the
-mastery of the printed and written forms of the words of his colloquial
-vocabulary; words that he is already familiar enough with as sounds
-addressed to the ear. He has to become familiar with the new forms
-addressed to the eye, and it would be an unwise method to require
-him to learn many new words at the same time that he is learning to
-recognize his old words in their new shape. But as soon as he has
-acquired some facility in reading what is printed in the colloquial
-style, he may go on to selections from standard authors. The literary
-selections should be graded, and are graded in almost all series of
-readers used in our elementary schools, in such a way as to bring those
-containing the fewest words outside of the colloquial vocabulary into
-the lower books of the series, and increasing the difficulties, step by
-step, as the pupil grows in maturity. The selections are literary works
-of art possessing the required organic unity and a proper reflection
-of this unity in the details, as good works of art must do. But they
-portray situations of the soul, or scenes of life, or elaborated
-reflections, of which the child can obtain some grasp through his
-capacity to feel and think, although in scope and compass they far
-surpass his range. They are adapted, therefore, to lead him out of and
-beyond himself, as spiritual guides.
-
-Literary style employs, besides words common to the colloquial
-vocabulary, words used in a semi-technical sense expressive of fine
-shades of thought and emotion. The literary work of art furnishes a
-happy expression for some situation of the soul, or some train of
-reflection hitherto unutterable in an adequate manner. If the pupil
-learns this literary production, he finds himself powerfully helped
-to understand both himself and his fellow-men. The most practical
-knowledge of all, it will be admitted, is a knowledge of human
-nature--a knowledge that enables one to combine with his fellow-men,
-and to share with them the physical and spiritual wealth of the race.
-Of this high character as humanizing or civilizing, are the favorite
-works of literature found in the school readers, about one hundred and
-fifty English and American writers being drawn upon for the material.
-Such are Shakespeare’s speeches of Brutus and Mark Antony, Hamlet’s
-and Macbeth’s soliloquies, Milton’s L’Allegro and Il Penseroso, Gray’s
-Elegy, Tennyson’s Charge of the Light Brigade and Ode on the Death of
-the Duke of Wellington, Byron’s Waterloo, Irving’s Rip Van Winkle,
-Webster’s Reply to Hayne, The Trial of Knapp, and Bunker Hill oration,
-Scott’s Lochinvar, Marmion, and Roderick Dhu, Bryant’s Thanatopsis,
-Longfellow’s Psalm of Life, Paul Revere, and the Bridge, O’Hara’s
-Bivouac of the Dead, Campbell’s Hohenlinden, Collins’ How Sleep the
-Brave, Wolfe’s Burial of Sir John Moore, and other fine prose and
-poetry from Addison, Emerson, Franklin, The Bible, Hawthorne, Walter
-Scott, Goldsmith, Wordsworth, Swift, Milton, Cooper, Whittier, Lowell,
-and the rest. The reading and study of fine selections in prose and
-verse furnish the chief æsthetic training of the elementary school.
-But this should be re-enforced by some study of photographic or other
-reproductions of the world’s great masterpieces of architecture,
-sculpture, and painting. The frequent sight of these reproductions is
-good; the attempt to copy or sketch them with the pencil is better;
-best of all is an æsthetic lesson on their composition, attempting to
-describe in words the idea of the whole that gives the work its organic
-unity, and the devices adopted by the artist to reflect this idea in
-the details and re-enforce its strength. The æsthetic taste of teacher
-and pupil can be cultivated by such exercises, and once set on the road
-of development, this taste may improve through life.
-
-A third phase of language study in the elementary school is formal
-grammar. The works of literary art in the readers, re-enforced as they
-ought to be by supplementary reading at home of the whole works from
-which the selections for the school readers are made, will educate
-the child in the use of a higher and better English style. Technical
-grammar never can do this. Only familiarity with fine English works
-will insure one a good and correct style. But grammar is the science of
-language, and as the first of the seven liberal arts it has long held
-sway in school as the disciplinary study _par excellence_. A survey
-of its educational value, subjective and objective, usually produces
-the conviction that it is to retain the first place in the future. Its
-chief objective advantage is, that it shows the structure of language,
-and the logical forms of subject, predicate, and modifier, thus
-revealing the essential nature of thought itself, the most important
-of all objects, because it is self-object. On the subjective or
-psychological side, grammar demonstrates its title to the first place
-by its use as a discipline in subtle analysis, in logical division
-and classification, in the art of questioning, and in the mental
-accomplishment of making exact definitions. Nor is this an empty,
-formal discipline, for its subject-matter, language, is a product of
-the reason of a people, not as individuals, but as a social whole, and
-the vocabulary holds in its store of words the generalized experience
-of that people, including sensuous observation and reflection, feeling
-and emotion, instinct and volition.
-
-No formal labor on a great objective field is ever lost wholly,
-since at the very least it has the merit of familiarizing the pupil
-with the contents of some one extensive province that borders on
-his life, and with which he must come into correlation; but it is
-easy for any special formal discipline, when continued too long, to
-paralyze or arrest growth at that stage. The overcultivation of the
-verbal memory tends to arrest the growth of critical attention and
-reflection. Memory of accessory details too, so much prized in the
-school, is also cultivated often at the expense of an insight into the
-organizing principle of the whole and the casual nexus that binds the
-parts. So, too, the study of quantity, if carried to excess, may warp
-the mind into a habit of neglecting quality in its observation and
-reflection. As there is no subsumption in the quantitative judgment,
-but only dead equality or inequality (A is equal to or greater or less
-than B), there is a tendency to atrophy in the faculty of concrete
-syllogistic reasoning on the part of the person devoted exclusively
-to mathematics. For the normal syllogism uses judgments wherein the
-subject is subsumed under the predicate (This is a rose--the individual
-rose is subsumed under the class rose; Socrates is a man, etc.). Such
-reasoning concerns individuals in two aspects, first as concrete wholes
-and secondly as members of higher totalities or classes--species and
-genera. Thus, too, grammar, rich as it is in its contents, is only a
-formal discipline as respects the scientific, historic, or literary
-contents of language, and is indifferent to them. A training for four
-or five years in parsing and grammatical analysis practiced on literary
-works of art (Milton, Shakespeare, Tennyson, Scott) is a training of
-the pupil into habits of indifference toward and neglect of the genius
-displayed in the literary work of art, and into habits of impertinent
-and trifling attention to elements employed as material or texture,
-and a corresponding neglect of the structural form, which alone is
-the work of the artist. A parallel to this would be the mason’s habit
-of noticing only the brick and mortar, or the stone and cement, in
-his inspection of the architecture, say of Sir Christopher Wren. A
-child overtrained to analyze and classify shades of color--examples of
-this one finds occasionally in a primary school whose specialty is
-“objective teaching”--might in later life visit an art gallery and make
-an inventory of colors without getting even a glimpse of a painting as
-a work of art. Such overstudy and misuse of grammar as one finds in the
-elementary school, it is feared, exists to some extent in secondary
-schools and even in colleges, in the work of mastering the classic
-authors.
-
-Your Committee is unanimous in the conviction that formal grammar
-should not be allowed to usurp the place of a study of the literary
-work of art in accordance with literary method. The child can be
-gradually trained to see the technical “motives” of a poem or prose
-work of art and to enjoy the æsthetic inventions of the artist. The
-analysis of a work of art should discover the idea that gives it
-organic unity; the collision and the complication resulting; the
-solution and _dénouement_. Of course these things must be reached
-in the elementary school without even a mention of their technical
-terms. The subject of the piece is brought out; its reflection in the
-conditions of the time and place to heighten interest by showing its
-importance; its second and stronger reflection in the several details
-of its conflict and struggle; its reflection in the _dénouement_
-wherein its struggle ends in victory or defeat and the ethical or
-rational interests are vindicated,--and the results move outward,
-returning to the environment again in ever-widening circles,--something
-resembling this is to be found in every work of art, and there are
-salient features which can be briefly but profitably made subject of
-comment in familiar language with even the youngest pupils. There
-is an ethical and an æsthetical content to each work of art. It is
-profitable to point out both of these in the interest of the child’s
-growing insight into human nature. The ethical should, however, be kept
-in subordination to the æsthetical, but for the sake of the supreme
-interests of the ethical itself. Otherwise the study of a work of art
-degenerates into a goody goody performance, and its effects on the
-child are to cause a reaction against the moral. The child protects
-his inner individuality against effacement through external authority
-by taking an attitude of rebellion against stories with an appended
-moral. Herein the superiority of the æsthetical in literary art is
-to be seen. For the ethical motive is concealed by the poet, and the
-hero is painted with all his brittle individualism and self-seeking.
-His passions and his selfishness, gilded by fine traits of bravery and
-noble manners, interest the youth, interest us all. The established
-social and moral order seems to the ambitious hero to be an obstacle
-to the unfolding of the charms of individuality. The deed of violence
-gets done, and the Nemesis is aroused. Now his deed comes back on
-the individual doer, and our sympathy turns against him and we
-rejoice in his fall. Thus the æsthetical unity contains within it the
-ethical unity. The lesson of the great poet or novelist is taken to
-heart, whereas the ethical announcement by itself might have failed,
-especially with the most self-active and aspiring of the pupils.
-Aristotle pointed out in his Poetics this advantage of the æsthetic
-unity, which Plato in his Republic seems to have missed. Tragedy purges
-us of our passions, to use Aristotle’s expression, because we identify
-our own wrong inclinations with those of the hero, and by sympathy we
-suffer with him and see our intended deed returned upon us with tragic
-effect, and are thereby cured.
-
-Your Committee has dwelt upon the æsthetic side of literature in this
-explicit manner because they believe that the general tendency in
-elementary schools is to neglect the literary art for the literary
-formalities which concern the mechanical material rather than the
-spiritual form. Those formal studies should not be discontinued, but
-subordinated to the higher study of literature.
-
-Your Committee reserves the subject of language lessons, composition
-writing, and what relates to the child’s expression of ideas in
-writing, for consideration under Part 3 of this Report, treating of
-programme.
-
-
-_B. Arithmetic._
-
-Side by side with language study is the study of mathematics in the
-schools, claiming the second place in importance of all studies. It
-has been pointed out that mathematics concerns the laws of time and
-space--their structural form, so to speak--and hence that it formulates
-the logical conditions of all matter both in rest and in motion. Be
-this as it may, the high position of mathematics as the science of
-all quantity is universally acknowledged. The elementary branch of
-mathematics is arithmetic, and this is studied in the primary and
-grammar schools from six to eight years, or even longer. The relation
-of arithmetic to the whole field of mathematics has been stated (by
-Comte, Howison, and others) to be that of the final step in a process
-of calculation, in which results are stated numerically. There are
-branches that develop or derive quantitative functions: say geometry
-for spatial forms, and mechanics for movement and rest and the forces
-producing them. Other branches transform these quantitative functions
-into such forms as may be calculated in actual numbers; namely,
-algebra in its common or lower form, and in its higher form as the
-differential and integral calculus, and the calculus of variations.
-Arithmetic evaluates or finds the numerical value for the functions
-thus deduced and transformed. The educational value of arithmetic
-is thus indicated both as concerns its psychological side and
-its objective practical uses in correlating man with the world of
-nature. In this latter respect as furnishing the key to the outer
-world in so far as the objects of the latter are a matter of direct
-enumeration,--capable of being counted,--it is the first great step
-in the conquest of nature. It is the first tool of thought that man
-invents in the work of emancipating himself from thraldom to external
-forces. For by the command of number he learns to divide and conquer.
-He can proportion one force to another, and concentrate against an
-obstacle precisely what is needed to overcome it. Number also makes
-possible all the other sciences of nature which depend on exact
-measurement and exact record of phenomena as to the following items:
-order of succession, date, duration, locality, environment, extent
-of sphere of influence, number of manifestations, number of cases of
-intermittence. All these can be defined accurately only by means of
-number. The educational value of a branch of study that furnishes the
-indispensable first step toward all science of nature is obvious. But
-psychologically its importance further appears in this, that it begins
-with an important step in analysis; namely, the detachment of the idea
-of quantity from the concrete whole, which includes quality as well as
-quantity. To count, one drops the qualitative and considers only the
-quantitative aspect. So long as the individual differences (which are
-qualitative in so far as they distinguish one object from another) are
-considered, the objects cannot be counted together. When counted, the
-distinctions are dropped out of sight as indifferent. As counting is
-the fundamental operation of arithmetic, and all other arithmetical
-operations are simply devices for speed by using remembered countings
-instead of going through the detailed work again each time, the hint
-is furnished the teacher for the first lessons in arithmetic. This
-hint has been generally followed out and the child set at work at
-first upon the counting of objects so much alike that the qualitative
-difference is not suggested to him. He constructs gradually his tables
-of addition, subtraction, and multiplication, and fixes them in his
-memory. Then he takes his next higher step; namely, the apprehension
-of the fraction. This is an expressed ratio of two numbers, and
-therefore a much more complex thought than he has met with in dealing
-with the simple numbers. In thinking five-sixths, he first thinks five
-and then six, and holding these two in mind thinks the result of the
-first modified by the second. Here are three steps instead of one,
-and the result is not a simple number, but an inference resting on an
-unperformed operation. This psychological analysis shows the reason
-for the embarrassment of the child on his entrance upon the study of
-fractions and the other operations that imply ratio. The teacher finds
-all his resources in the way of method drawn upon to invent steps and
-half steps, to aid the pupil to make continuous progress here. All
-these devices of method consist in steps by which the pupil descends
-to the simple number and returns to the complex. He turns one of the
-terms into a qualitative unit, and thus is enabled to use the other
-as a simple number. The pupil takes the denominator, for example, and
-makes clear his conception of one-sixth as his qualitative unit, then
-five-sixths is as clear to him as five oxen. But he has to repeat
-this return from ratio to simple numbers in each of the elementary
-operations--addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, and
-in the reduction of fractions--and finds the road long and tedious at
-best. In the case of decimal fractions the psychological process is
-more complex still; for the pupil has given him one of the terms, the
-numerator, from which he must mentally deduce the denominator from
-the position of the decimal point. This doubles the work of reading
-and recognizing the fractional number. But it makes addition and
-subtraction of fractions nearly as easy as that of simple numbers and
-assists also in multiplication of fractions. But division of decimals
-is a much more complex operation than that of common fractions.
-
-The want of a psychological analysis of these processes has led many
-good teachers to attempt decimal fractions with their pupils before
-taking up common fractions. In the end they have been forced to make
-introductory steps to aid the pupil, and in these steps to introduce
-the theory of the common fraction. They have by this refuted their own
-theory.
-
-Besides (_a_) simple numbers and the four operations with them, (_b_)
-fractions common and decimal, there is (_c_) a third step in number;
-namely, the theory of powers and roots. It is a further step in ratio;
-namely, the relation of a simple number to itself as power and root.
-The mass of material which fills the arithmetic used in the elementary
-school consists of two kinds of examples: first, those wherein there
-is a direct application of simple numbers, fractions, and powers;
-and secondly, the class of examples involving operations in reaching
-numerical solutions through indirect data and consequently involving
-more or less transformation of functions. Of this character is most
-of the so-called higher arithmetic and such problems in the text-book
-used in the elementary schools as have, not inappropriately, been
-called (by General Francis A. Walker in his criticism on common-school
-arithmetic) numerical “conundrums.” Their difficulty is not found in
-the strictly arithmetical part of the process of the solution (the
-third phase above described), but rather in the transformation of
-the quantitative function given into the function that can readily
-be calculated numerically. The transformation of functions belongs
-strictly to algebra. Teachers who love arithmetic, and who have
-themselves success in working out the so-called numerical conundrums,
-defend with much earnestness the current practice which uses so much
-time for arithmetic. They see in it a valuable training for ingenuity
-and logical analysis, and believe that the industry which discovers
-arithmetical ways of transforming the functions given in such problems
-into plain numerical operations of adding, subtracting, multiplying,
-or dividing is well bestowed. On the other hand, the critics of this
-practice contend that there should be no merely formal drill in school
-for its own sake, and that there should be, always, a substantial
-content to be gained. They contend that the work of the pupil in
-transforming quantitative functions by arithmetical methods is wasted,
-because the pupil needs a more adequate expression than number for
-this purpose; that this has been discovered in algebra, which enables
-him to perform with ease such quantitative transformations as puzzle
-the pupil in arithmetic. They hold, therefore, that arithmetic pure
-and simple should be abridged and elementary algebra introduced after
-the numerical operations in powers, fractions, and simple numbers
-have been mastered, together with their applications to the tables of
-weights and measures and to percentage and interest. In the seventh
-year of the elementary course there would be taught equations of the
-first degree and the solution of arithmetical problems that fall under
-proportion, or the so-called “rule of three,” together with other
-problems containing complicated conditions--those in partnership, for
-example. In the eighth year quadratic equations could be learned, and
-other problems of higher arithmetic solved in a more satisfactory
-manner than by numerical methods. It is contended that this earlier
-introduction of algebra, with a sparing use of letters for known
-quantities, would secure far more mathematical progress than is
-obtained at present on the part of all pupils, and that it would enable
-many pupils to go on into secondary and higher education who are now
-kept back on the plea of lack of preparation in arithmetic, the real
-difficulty in many cases being a lack of ability to solve algebraic
-problems by an inferior method.
-
-Your Committee would report that the practice of teaching two lessons
-daily in arithmetic, one styled “mental,” or “intellectual,” and the
-other “written” arithmetic (because its exercises are written out with
-pencil or pen), is still continued in many schools. By this device the
-pupil is made to give twice as much time to arithmetic as to any other
-branch. It is contended by the opponents of this practice, with some
-show of reason, that two lessons a day in the study of quantity have a
-tendency to give the mind a bent or set in the direction of thinking
-quantitatively, with a corresponding neglect of the power to observe,
-and to reflect upon, qualitative and causal aspects. For mathematics
-does not take account of causes, but only of equality and difference in
-magnitude. It is further objected that the attempt to secure what is
-called thoroughness in the branches taught in the elementary schools
-is often carried too far; in fact, to such an extent as to produce
-arrested development (a sort of mental paralysis) in the mechanical and
-formal stages of growth. The mind, in that case, loses its appetite for
-higher methods and wider generalizations. The law of apperception, we
-are told, proves that temporary methods of solving problems should not
-be so thoroughly mastered as to be used involuntarily, or as a matter
-of unconscious habit, for the reason that a higher and more adequate
-method of solution will then be found more difficult to acquire. The
-more thoroughly a method is learned, the more it becomes part of the
-mind, and the greater the repugnance of the mind toward a new method.
-For this reason, parents and teachers discourage young children from
-the practice of counting on the fingers, believing that it will cause
-much trouble later to root out this vicious habit and replace it
-by purely mental processes. Teachers should be careful, especially
-with precocious children, not to continue too long in the use of a
-process that is becoming mechanical; for it is already growing into
-a second nature, and becoming a part of the unconscious apperceptive
-process by which the mind reacts against the environment, recognizes
-its presence, and explains it to itself. The child that has been
-overtrained in arithmetic reacts apperceptively against his environment
-chiefly by noticing its numerical relations--he counts and adds; his
-other apperceptive reactions being feeble, he neglects qualities and
-causal relations. Another child who has been drilled in recognizing
-colors apperceives the shades of color to the neglect of all else. A
-third child, excessively trained in form studies by the constant use
-of geometric solids, and much practice in looking for the fundamental
-geometric forms lying at the basis of the multifarious objects that
-exist in the world, will, as a matter of course, apperceive geometric
-forms, ignoring the other phases of objects.
-
-It is, certainly, an advance on immediate sense-perception to be able
-to separate or analyze the concrete, whole impression, and consider the
-quantity apart by itself. But if arrested mental growth takes place
-here, the result is deplorable. That such arrest may be caused by too
-exclusive training in recognizing numerical relations is beyond a
-doubt.
-
-Your Committee believes that, with the right methods, and a wise use
-of time in preparing the arithmetic lesson in and out of school, five
-years are sufficient for the study of mere arithmetic--the five years
-beginning with the second school year and ending with the close of
-the sixth year; and that the seventh and eighth years should be given
-to the algebraic method of dealing with those problems that involve
-difficulties in the transformation of quantitative indirect functions
-into numerical or direct quantitative data.
-
-Your Committee, however, does not wish to be understood as recommending
-the transfer of algebra, as it is understood and taught in most
-secondary schools, to the seventh year, or even to the eighth year of
-the elementary school. The algebra course in the secondary school, as
-taught to the pupils in their fifteenth year of age, very properly
-begins with severe exercises, with a view to discipline the pupil
-in analyzing complex literate expressions at sight, and to make him
-able to recognize at once the factors that are contained in such
-combinations of quantities. The proposed seventh-grade algebra must
-use letters for the unknown quantities and retain the numerical form
-of the known quantities, using letters for these very rarely, except
-to exhibit the general form of solution, or what, if stated in words,
-becomes a so-called “rule” in arithmetic. This species of algebra
-has the character of an introduction or transitional step to algebra
-proper. The latter should be taught thoroughly in the secondary school.
-Formerly it was a common practice to teach elementary algebra of
-this sort in the preparatory schools, and reserve for the college a
-study of algebra proper. But in this case there was often a neglect
-of sufficient practice in factoring literate quantities, and, as a
-consequence, the pupil suffered embarrassment in his more advanced
-mathematics; for example, in analytical geometry, the differential
-calculus, and mechanics. The proposition of your Committee is intended
-to remedy the two evils already named: first, to aid the pupils in the
-elementary school to solve, by a higher method, the more difficult
-problems that now find place in advanced arithmetic; and secondly,
-to prepare the pupil for a thorough course in pure algebra in the
-secondary school.
-
-Your Committee is of the opinion that the so-called mental arithmetic
-should be made to alternate with written arithmetic for two years, and
-that there should not be two daily lessons in this subject.
-
-
-_C. Geography._
-
-The leading branch of the seven liberal arts was grammar, being the
-first of the _Trivium_ (grammar, rhetoric, and logic). Arithmetic,
-however, led the second division, the _Quadrivium_ (arithmetic,
-geometry, music, and astronomy). We have glanced at the reasons for
-the place of grammar as leading the humane studies, as well as for
-the place of arithmetic as leading the nature studies. Following
-arithmetic, as the second study in importance among the branches that
-correlate man to nature, is geography. It is interesting to note
-that the old quadrivium of the Middle Ages included geography, under
-the title of geometry, as the branch following arithmetic in the
-enumeration; the subject-matter of their so-called “geometry” being
-chiefly an abridgment of Pliny’s geography, to which were added a few
-definitions of geometric forms, something like the primary course in
-geometric solids in our elementary schools. So long as there has been
-elementary education there has been something of geography included.
-The Greek education laid stress on teaching the second book of Homer,
-containing the Catalogue of the Ships and a brief mention of the
-geography and history of all the Greek tribes that took part in the
-Trojan War. History remains unseparated from geography and geometry
-in the Middle Ages. Geography has preserved this comprehensiveness of
-meaning as a branch of the study in the elementary schools down to the
-present day. After arithmetic, which treats of the abstract or general
-conditions of material existence, comes geography with a practical
-study of man’s material _habitat_, and its relations to him. It is not
-a simple science by itself, like botany, or geology, or astronomy,
-but a collection of sciences levied upon to describe the earth as the
-dwelling-place of man and to explain something of its more prominent
-features. About one-fourth of the material relates strictly to the
-geography, about one-half to the inhabitants, their manners, customs,
-institutions, industries, productions, and the remaining one-fourth
-to items drawn from the sciences of mineralogy, meteorology, botany,
-zoölogy, and astronomy. This predominance of the human feature in a
-study ostensibly relating to physical nature, your Committee considers
-necessary and entirely justifiable. The child commences with what
-is nearest to his interests, and proceeds gradually toward what is
-remote and to be studied for its own sake. It is, therefore, a mistake
-to suppose that the first phase of geography presented to the child
-should be the process of continent formation. He must begin with the
-natural difference of climate, and lands, and waters, and obstacles
-that separate peoples, and study the methods by which man strives to
-equalize or overcome these differences by industry and commerce, to
-unite all places and all people, and make it possible for each to
-share in the productions of all. The industrial and commercial idea
-is, therefore, the first central idea in the study of geography in
-the elementary schools. It leads directly to the natural elements of
-difference in climate, soil, and productions, and also to those in
-race, religion, political status, and occupations of the inhabitants,
-with a view to explain the grounds and reasons for this counter-process
-of civilization which struggles to overcome the differences. Next
-comes the deeper inquiry into the process of continent formation,
-the physical struggle between the process of upheaving or upbuilding
-of continents and that of their obliteration by air and water; the
-explanation of the mountains, valleys, and plains, the islands,
-volcanic action, the winds, the rain-distribution. But the study
-of cities, their location, the purposes they serve as collecting,
-manufacturing, and distributing centres, leads most directly to the
-immediate purpose of geography in the elementary school. From this
-beginning, and holding to it as a permanent interest, the inquiry into
-causes and conditions proceeds concentrically to the sources of the raw
-materials, the methods of their production, and the climatic, geologic,
-and other reasons that explain their location and their growth.
-
-In recent years, especially through the scientific study of physical
-geography, the processes that go to the formation of climate, soil, and
-general configuration of land masses have been accurately determined,
-and the methods of teaching so simplified that it is possible to lead
-out from the central idea mentioned to the physical explanations of the
-elements of geographical difference quite early in the course of study.
-Setting out from the idea of the use made of the earth by civilization,
-the pupil in the fifth and sixth years of his schooling (at the age of
-eleven or twelve) may extend his inquiries quite profitably as far as
-the physical explanations of land-shapes and climates. In the seventh
-and eighth year of school much more may be done in this direction.
-But it is believed that the distinctively human interest connected
-with geography in the first years of its study should not yield to the
-purely scientific one of physical processes until the pupil has taken
-up the study of history.
-
-The educational value of geography, as it is and has been in elementary
-schools, is obviously very great. It makes possible something like
-accuracy in the picturing of distant places and events, and removes
-a large tract of mere superstition from the mind. In the days of
-newspaper reading one’s stock of geographical information is in
-constant requisition. A war on the opposite side of the globe is
-followed with more interest in this year than a war near our own
-borders before the era of the telegraph. The general knowledge of the
-locations and boundaries of nations, of their status in civilization,
-and their natural advantages for contributing to the world market, is
-of great use to the citizen in forming correct ideas from his daily
-reading.
-
-The educational value of geography is even more apparent if we admit
-the claims of those who argue that the present epoch is the beginning
-of an era in which public opinion is organized into a ruling force by
-the agency of periodicals and books. Certainly neither the newspaper
-nor the book can influence an illiterate people; they can do little to
-form opinions where the readers have no knowledge of geography.
-
-As to the psychological value of geography little need be said. It
-exercises in manifold ways the memory of forms and the imagination; it
-brings into exercise the thinking power, in tracing back toward unity
-the various series of causes. What educative value there is in geology,
-meteorology, zoölogy, ethnology, economics, history, and politics
-is to be found in the more profound study of geography, and, to a
-proportionate extent, in the study of its merest elements.
-
-Your Committee is of the opinion that there has been a vast
-improvement in the methods of instruction in this branch in recent
-years, due, in large measure, to the geographical societies of this
-and other countries. At first there prevailed what might be named
-sailor geography. The pupil was compelled to memorize all the capes
-and headlands, bays and harbors, mouths of rivers, islands, sounds,
-and straits around the world. He enlivened this, to some extent, by
-brief mention of the curiosities and oddities in the way of cataracts,
-water-gaps, caves, strange animals, public buildings, picturesque
-costumes, national exaggerations, and such matters as would furnish
-good themes for sailors’ yarns. Little or nothing was taught to give
-unity to the isolated details furnished in endless number. It was
-an improvement on this when the method of memorizing capital cities
-and political boundaries succeeded. With this came the era of map
-drawing. The study of watersheds and commercial routes, of industrial
-productions and centres of manufacture and commerce, has been adopted
-in the better class of schools. Instruction in geography is growing
-better by the constant introduction of new devices to make plain and
-intelligible the determining influence of physical causes in producing
-the elements of difference and the counter-process of industry and
-commerce by which each difference is rendered of use to the whole
-world, and each locality made a participator in the productions of all.
-
-
-_D. History._
-
-The next study, ranked in order of value, for the elementary school is
-history. But, as will be seen, the value of history, both practically
-and psychologically, is less in the beginning and greater at the
-end than geography. For it relates to the institutions of men, and
-especially to the political state and its evolution. While biography
-narrates the career of the individual, civil history records the
-careers of nations. The nation has been compared to the individual
-by persons interested in the educational value of history. Man has
-two selves, they say, the individual self, and the collective self
-of the organized state or nation. The study of history is, then, the
-study of this larger, corporate, social and civil self. The importance
-of this idea is thus brought out more clearly in its educational
-significance. For to learn this civil self is to learn the substantial
-condition which makes possible the existence of civilized man in all
-his other social combinations--the family, the Church, and the manifold
-associated activities of civil society. For the state protects these
-combinations from destruction by violence. It defines the limits
-of individual and associated effort, within which each endeavor
-re-enforces the endeavors of all, and it uses the strength of the whole
-nation to prevent such actions as pass beyond these safe limits and
-tend to collision with the normal action of the other individuals and
-social units. Hobbes called the state a Leviathan, to emphasize its
-stupendous individuality and organized self-activity. Without this,
-he said, man lives in a state of “constant war, fear, poverty, filth,
-ignorance, and wretchedness; within the state dwell peace, security,
-riches, science, and happiness.” The state is the collective man who
-“makes possible the rational development of the individual man, like a
-mortal God, subduing his caprice and passion and compelling obedience
-to law, developing the ideas of justice, virtue, and religion, creating
-property and ownership, nurture and education.” The education of the
-child into a knowledge of this higher self begins early within the
-nurture of the family. The child sees a policeman or some town officer,
-some public building, a court house or a jail; he sees or hears of an
-act of violence, a case of robbery or murder followed by arrest of the
-guilty. The omnipresent higher self, which has been invisible hitherto,
-now becomes visible to him in its symbols and still more in its acts.
-
-History in school, it is contended, should be the special branch for
-education in the duties of citizenship. There is ground for this claim.
-History gives a sense of belonging to a higher social unity which
-possesses the right of absolute control over person and property in
-the interest of the safety of the whole. This, of course, is the basis
-of citizenship; the individual must feel this or see this solidarity
-of the state and recognize its supreme authority. But history shows
-the collisions of nations, and the victory of one political ideal
-accompanied by the defeat of another. History reveals an evolution
-of forms of government that are better and better adapted to permit
-individual freedom, and the participation of all citizens in the
-administration of the government itself.
-
-People who make their own government have a special interest in the
-spectacle of political evolution as exhibited in history. But it
-must be admitted that this evolution has not been well presented
-by popular historians. Take, for instance, the familiar example of
-old-time pedagogy, wherein the Roman republic was conceived as a
-freer government than the Roman empire that followed it, by persons
-apparently misled by the ideas of representative self-government
-associated with the word _republic_. It was the beginning of a new
-epoch when this illusion was dispelled, and the college student became
-aware of the true Roman meaning of _republic_, namely, the supremacy
-of an oligarchy on the Tiber that ruled distant provinces in Spain,
-Gaul, Asia Minor, Germany, and Africa, for its selfish ends and with
-an ever-increasing arrogance. The people at home in Rome, not having
-a share in the campaigns on the borderland, did not appreciate the
-qualities of the great leaders who, like Cæsar, subdued the nations by
-forbearance, magnanimity, trust, and the recognition of a sphere of
-freedom secured to the conquered by the Roman civil laws, which were
-rigidly enforced by the conqueror, as much as by the violence of arms.
-The change from republic to empire meant the final subordination of
-this tyrannical Roman oligarchy, and the recognition of the rights of
-the provinces to Roman freedom. This illustration shows how easily a
-poor teaching of history may pervert its good influence or purpose into
-a bad one. For the Roman monarchy under the empire secured a degree
-of freedom never before attained under the republic, in spite of the
-election of such tyrants as Nero and Caligula to the imperial purple.
-The civil service went on as usual administering the affairs of distant
-countries, educating them in Roman jurisprudence, and cultivating a
-love for accumulating private property. Those countries had before
-lived communistically after the style of the tribe or at best of the
-village community. Roman private property in land gave an impulse
-to the development of free individuality such as had always been
-impossible under the social stage of development known as the village
-community.
-
-To teach history properly is to dispel this shallow illusion which
-flatters individualism, and to open the eyes of the pupil to the true
-nature of freedom, namely, the freedom through obedience to just laws
-enforced by a strong government.
-
-Your Committee has made this apparent digression for the sake of a more
-explicit statement of its conviction of the importance of teaching
-history in a different spirit from that of abstract freedom, which
-sometimes means anarchy, although they admit the possibility of an
-opposite extreme, the danger of too little stress on the progressive
-element in the growth of nations, and its manifestation in new and
-better political devices for representing all citizens without
-weakening the central power.
-
-That the history of one’s own nation is to be taught in the elementary
-school seems fixed by common consent. United States history includes
-first a sketch of the epoch of discoveries and next of the epoch of
-colonization. This, fortunately, suits the pedagogic requirements. For
-the child loves to approach the stern realities of a firmly established
-civilization through its stages of growth by means of individual
-enterprise. Here is the use of biography as introduction to history.
-It treats of exceptional individuals whose lives bring them in one
-way or another into national or even world-historical relations. They
-throw light on the nature and necessity of governments, and are in turn
-illuminated by the light thrown back on them by the institutions which
-they promote or hinder. The era of semi-private adventure with which
-American history begins is admirably adapted for study by the pupil
-in the elementary stage of his education. So, too, the next epoch,
-that of colonization. The pioneer is a degree nearer to civilization
-than is the explorer and discoverer. In the colonial history the pupil
-interests himself in the enterprise of aspiring individualities, in
-their conquest over obstacles of climate and soil; their conflicts with
-the aboriginal population; their choice of land for settlement; the
-growth of their cities; above all, their several attempts and final
-success in forming a constitution securing local self-government. An
-epoch of growing interrelation of the colonies succeeds, a tendency
-to union on a large scale due to the effect of European wars which
-involved England, France, and other countries, and affected the
-relations of their colonies in America. This epoch, too, abounds
-in heroic personalities, like Wolfe, Montcalm, and Washington, and
-perilous adventures, especially in the Indian warfare.
-
-The fourth epoch is the Revolution, by which the colonies through
-joint effort secured their independence and afterward their union as
-a nation. The subject grows rapidly more complex, and tasks severely
-the powers of the pupils in the eighth year of the elementary school.
-The formation of the Constitution, and a brief study of the salient
-features of the Constitution itself, conclude the study of the portion
-of the history of the United States that is sufficiently remote to
-be treated after the manner of an educational classic. Everything
-up to this point stands out in strong individual outlines, and is
-admirably fitted for that elementary course of study. Beyond this
-point, the War of 1812 and the War of the Rebellion, together with the
-political events that led to it, are matters of memory with the present
-generation of parents and grandparents, and are, consequently, not so
-well fitted for intensive study in school as the already classic period
-of our history. But these later and latest epochs may be, and will be,
-read at home not only in the text-book on history used in the schools,
-but also in the numerous sketches that appear in newspapers, magazines,
-and in more pretentious shapes. In the intensive study which should
-be undertaken of the classic period of our history, the pupil may be
-taught the method appropriate to historical investigation, the many
-points of view from which each event ought to be considered. He should
-learn to discriminate between the theatrical show of events and the
-solid influences that move underneath as ethical causes. Although he
-is too immature for very far-reaching reflections, he must be helped
-to see the causal processes of history. Armed with this discipline in
-historic methods, the pupil will do all of his miscellaneous reading
-and thinking in this province with more adequate intellectual reaction
-than was possible before the intensive study carried on in school.
-
-The study of the outlines of the Constitution, for ten or fifteen weeks
-in the final year of the elementary school, has been found of great
-educational value. Properly taught, it fixes the idea of the essential
-three-foldness of the constitution of a free government and the
-necessary independence of each constituent power, whether legislative,
-judicial, or executive. This and some idea of the manner and mode of
-filling the official places in these three departments, and of the
-character of the duties with which each department is charged, lay
-foundations for an intelligent citizenship.
-
-Besides this intensive study of the history of the United States in the
-seventh and eighth years, your Committee would recommend oral lessons
-on the salient points of general history, taking a full hour of sixty
-minutes weekly--and preferably all at one time--for the sake of the
-more systematic treatment of the subject of the lesson and the deeper
-impression made on the mind of the pupil.
-
-
-_E. Other branches._
-
-Your Committee has reviewed the staple branches of the elementary
-course of study in the light of their educational scope and
-significance. Grammar, literature, arithmetic, geography, and history
-are the five branches upon which the disciplinary work of the
-elementary school is concentrated. Inasmuch as reading is the first
-of the scholastic arts, it is interesting to note that the whole
-elementary course may be described as an extension of the process
-of learning the art of reading. First comes the mastering of the
-colloquial vocabulary in printed and script forms. Next come five
-incursions into the special vocabularies required (_a_) in literature
-to express the fine shades of emotion and the more subtle distinctions
-of thought, (_b_) the technique of arithmetic, (_c_) of geography,
-(_d_) of grammar, (_e_) of history.
-
-In the serious work of mastering these several technical vocabularies
-the pupil is assigned daily tasks that he must prepare by independent
-study. The class exercise or recitation is taken up with examining
-and criticising the pupil’s oral statements of what he has learned,
-especial care being taken to secure the pupil’s explanation of it in
-his own words. This requires paraphrases and definitions of the new
-words and phrases used in technical and literary senses, with a view
-to insure the addition to the mind of the new ideas corresponding
-to the new words. The misunderstandings are corrected and the pupil
-set on the way to use more critical alertness in the preparation of
-his succeeding lessons. The pupil learns as much by the recitations
-of his fellow-pupils as he learns from the teacher, but not the same
-things. He sees in the imperfect statements of his classmates that they
-apprehended the lesson with different presuppositions and consequently
-have seen some phases of the subject that escaped his observation,
-while they in turn have missed points which he had noticed quite
-readily. These different points of view become more or less his own,
-and he may be said to grow by adding to his own mind the minds of
-others.
-
-It is clear that there are other branches of instruction that may lay
-claim to a place in the course of study in the elementary school; for
-example, the various branches of natural science, vocal music, manual
-training, physical culture, drawing, etc.
-
-Here the question of another method of instruction is suggested.
-There are lessons that require previous preparation by the pupil
-himself--there are also lessons that may be taken up without such
-preparation and conducted by the teacher, who leads the exercise and
-furnishes a large part of the information to be learned, enlisting
-the aid of members of the class for the purpose of bringing home
-the new material to their actual experience. Besides these, there
-are mechanical exercises for purposes of training, such as drawing,
-penmanship, and calisthenics.
-
-In the first place, there is industrial and æsthetic drawing, which
-should have a place in all elementary school work. By it is secured the
-training of the hand and eye. Then, too, drawing helps in all the other
-branches that require illustration. Moreover, if used in the study of
-the great works of art in the way hereinbefore mentioned, it helps to
-cultivate the taste and prepares the future workman for a more useful
-and lucrative career, inasmuch as superior taste commands higher wages
-in the finishing of all goods.
-
-Natural science claims a place in the elementary school not so much
-as a disciplinary study side by side with grammar, arithmetic, and
-history, as a training in habits of observation and in the use of
-the technique by which such sciences are expounded. With a knowledge
-of the technical terms and some training in the methods of original
-investigation employed in the sciences, the pupil broadens his views
-of the world and greatly increases his capacity to acquire new
-knowledge. For the pupil who is unacquainted with the technique of
-science has to pass without mental profit the numerous scientific
-allusions and items of information which more and more abound in all
-our literature, whether of an ephemeral or a permanent character.
-In an age whose proudest boast is the progress of science in all
-domains, there should be in the elementary school, from the first, a
-course in the elements of the sciences. And this is quite possible; for
-each science possesses some phases that lie very near to the child’s
-life. These familiar topics furnish the doors through which the child
-enters the various special departments. Science, it is claimed, is
-nothing if not systematic. Indeed, science itself may be defined as
-the interpretation of each fact through all other facts of a kindred
-nature. Admitting that this is so, it is no less true that pedagogic
-method begins with the fragmentary knowledge possessed by the pupil
-and proceeds to organize it and build it out systematically in all
-directions. Hence any science may be taken up best on the side nearest
-the experience of the pupil and the investigation continued until the
-other parts are reached. Thus the pedagogical order is not always
-the logical or scientific order. In this respect it agrees with the
-order of discovery, which is usually something quite different from
-the logical order; for that is the last thing discovered. The natural
-sciences have two general divisions: one relating to inorganic matter,
-as physics and chemistry, and one relating to organic, as botany and
-zoölogy. There should be a spiral course in natural science, commencing
-each branch with the most interesting phases to the child. A first
-course should be given in botany, zoölogy, and physics, so as to treat
-of the structure and uses of familiar plants and animals, and the
-explanation of physical phenomena as seen in the child’s playthings,
-domestic machines, etc. A second course, covering the same subjects,
-but laying more stress on classification and functions, will build on
-to the knowledge already acquired from the former lessons and from
-his recently acquired experience. A third course of weekly lessons,
-conducted by the teacher as before in a conversational style, with
-experiments and with a comparison of the facts of observation already
-in the possession of the children, will go far to helping them to an
-acquisition of the results of natural science. Those of the children
-specially gifted for observation in some one or more departments of
-nature will be stimulated and encouraged to make the most of their
-gifts.
-
-In the opinion of your committee, there should be set apart a full hour
-each week for drawing and the same amount for oral lessons in natural
-science.
-
-The oral lessons in history have already been mentioned. The spiral
-course, found useful in natural science because of the rapid change in
-capacity of comprehension by the pupil from his sixth to his fourteenth
-year, will also be best for the history course, which will begin with
-biographical adventures of interest to the child, and possessing an
-important historical bearing. These will proceed from the native
-land first to England, the parent country, and then to the classic
-civilizations (Greece and Rome being, so to speak, the grandparent
-countries of the American colonies). These successive courses of oral
-lessons adapted respectively to the child’s capacity will do much to
-make the child well informed on this topic. Oral lessons should never
-be mere lectures, but more like Socratic dialogues, building up a
-systematic knowledge partly from what is already known, partly by new
-investigations, and partly by comparison of authorities.
-
-The best argument in favor of weekly oral lessons in natural science
-and general history is the actual experiences of teachers who have for
-some time used the plan. It has been found that the lessons in botany,
-zoölogy, and physics give the pupil much aid in learning his geography,
-and other lessons relating to nature, while the history lessons
-assist very much his comprehension of literature, and add interest to
-geography.
-
-It is understood by your Committee that the lessons in physiology
-and hygiene (with special reference to the effects of stimulants and
-narcotics) required by State laws should be included in this oral
-course in natural science. Manual training, so far as the theory and
-use of the tools for working in wood and iron are concerned, has just
-claims on the elementary school for a reason similar to that which
-admits natural science. From science have proceeded useful inventions
-for the aid of all manner of manufactures and transportation. The child
-of to-day lives in a world where machinery is constantly at his hand. A
-course of training in wood- and iron-work, together with experimental
-knowledge of physics or natural philosophy, makes it easy for him to
-learn the management of such machines. Sewing and cookery have not
-the same, but stronger claims for a place in school. One-half day in
-each week for one-half a year each in the seventh and eighth grades
-will suffice for manual training, the sewing and cookery being studied
-by the girls, and the wood- and iron-work by the boys. It should be
-mentioned, however, that the advocates of manual training in iron- and
-wood-work recommend these branches for secondary schools, because of
-the greater maturity of body, and the less likelihood to acquire wrong
-habits of manipulation, in the third period of four years of school.
-
-Vocal music has long since obtained a well-established place in all
-elementary schools. The labors of two generations of special teachers
-have reduced the steps of instruction to such simplicity that whole
-classes may make as regular progress in reading music as in reading
-literature.
-
-In regard to physical culture your Committee is agreed that there
-should be some form of special daily exercises amounting in the
-aggregate to one hour each week, the same to include the main features
-of calisthenics, and German, Swedish, or American systems of physical
-training, but not to be regarded as a substitute for the old-fashioned
-recess, established to permit the free exercise of the pupils in the
-open air. Systematic physical training has for its object rather the
-will training than recreation, and this must not be forgotten. To go
-from a hard lesson to a series of calisthenic exercises is to go from
-one kind of will training to another. Exhaustion of the will should be
-followed by the caprice and wild freedom of the recess. But systematic
-physical exercise has its sufficient reason in its aid to a graceful
-use of the limbs, its development of muscles that are left unused or
-rudimentary unless called forth by special training, and for the help
-it gives to the teacher in the way of school discipline.
-
-Your Committee would mention in this connection instruction in
-morals and manners, which ought to be given in a brief series of
-lessons each year with a view to build up in the mind a theory of the
-conventionalities of polite and pure-minded society. If these lessons
-are made too long or too numerous, they are apt to become offensive to
-the child’s mind. It is of course understood by your Committee that the
-substantial moral training of the school is performed by the discipline
-rather than by the instruction in ethical theory. The child is trained
-to be regular and punctual, and to restrain his desire to talk and
-whisper--in these things gaining self-control day by day. The essence
-of moral behavior is self-control. The school teaches good behavior.
-The intercourse of a pupil with his fellows without evil words or
-violent actions is insisted on and secured. The higher moral qualities
-of truth-telling and sincerity are taught in every class exercise that
-lays stress on accuracy of statement.
-
-Your Committee has already discussed the importance of teaching
-something of algebraic processes in the seventh and eighth grades with
-the view to obtaining better methods of solving problems in advanced
-arithmetic; a majority of your Committee are of the opinion that formal
-English grammar should be discontinued in the eighth year, and the
-study of some foreign language, preferably that of Latin, substituted.
-The educational effect on an English-speaking pupil of taking up a
-language which, like Latin, uses inflections instead of prepositions,
-and which further differs from English by the order in which its words
-are arranged in the sentence, is quite marked, and a year of Latin
-places a pupil by a wide interval out of the range of the pupil who has
-continued English grammar without taking up Latin. But the effect of
-the year’s study of Latin increases the youth’s power of apperception
-in very many directions by reason of the fact that so much of the
-English vocabulary used in technical vocabularies, like those of
-geography, grammar, history, and literature, is from a Latin source,
-and besides there are so many traces in the form and substance of human
-learning of the hundreds of years when Latin was the only tongue in
-which observation and reflection could be expressed.
-
-Your Committee refers to the programme given later in this report for
-the details of co-ordinating these several branches already recommended.
-
-
-_The difference between elementary and secondary studies._
-
-In recommending the introduction of algebraic processes in the seventh
-and eighth years--as well as in the recommendation just now made to
-introduce Latin in the eighth year of the elementary course--your
-Committee has come face to face with the question of the intrinsic
-difference between elementary and secondary studies.
-
-Custom has placed algebra, geometry, the history of English literature,
-and Latin in the rank of secondary studies; also general history,
-physical geography, and the elements of physics and chemistry. In
-a secondary course of four years trigonometry may be added to the
-mathematics; some of the sciences whose elements are used in physical
-geography may be taken up separately in special treatises, as geology,
-botany, and physiology. There may be also a study of whole works of
-English authors, as Shakespeare, Milton, and Scott. Greek is also
-begun in the second or third year of the secondary course. This is the
-custom in most public high schools. But in private secondary schools
-Latin is begun earlier, and so, too, Greek, algebra, and geometry.
-Sometimes geometry is taken up before algebra, as is the custom in
-German schools. These arrangements are based partly on tradition,
-partly on the requirements of higher institutions for admission, and
-partly on the ground that the intrinsic difficulties in these studies
-have fixed their places in the course of study. Of those who claim
-that there is an intrinsic reason for the selection and order of these
-studies, some base their conclusions on experience in conducting pupils
-through them, others on psychological grounds. The latter contend, for
-example, that algebra deals with general forms of calculation, while
-arithmetic deals with the particular instances of calculation. Whatever
-deals with the particular instance is relatively elementary, whatever
-deals with the general form is relatively secondary. In the expression
-a + b = c algebra indicates the form of all addition. This arithmetic
-cannot do, except in the form of a verbal rule describing the steps
-of the operation: its examples are all special instances falling
-under the general form given in algebra. If, therefore, arithmetic
-is an elementary branch, algebra is relatively to it a secondary
-branch. So, too, geometry, though not directly based on arithmetic,
-has to presuppose an acquaintance with it when it reduces spatial
-functions into numerical forms, as, for example, in the measurement
-of surfaces and solids, and in ascertaining the ratio of the
-circumference to the radius, and of the hypothenuse to the two other
-sides of the right-angled triangle. Geometry, moreover, deals with
-necessary relations; its demonstrations reach universal and necessary
-conclusions, holding good not merely in such material shapes as we
-have met with in actual experience, but with all examples possible,
-past, present, or future. Such knowledge transcending experience is
-intrinsically secondary as compared with the first acquaintance with
-geometric shapes in concrete examples.
-
-In the case of geometry it is claimed by some that what is called
-“inventional geometry” may be properly introduced into the elementary
-grades. By this some mean the practice with blocks in the shape of
-geometric solids, and the construction of different figures from the
-same; others mean the rediscovery by the pupil for himself of the
-necessary relations demonstrated by Euclid. The former--exercises of
-construction with blocks--are well enough in the kindergarten, where
-they assist in learning number, as well as in the analysis of material
-forms. But its educational value is small for pupils advanced into
-the use of books. The original discovery of Euclid’s demonstrations,
-on the other hand, belongs more properly to higher education than
-to elementary. In the geometrical text-books, recently introduced
-into secondary schools, there is so much of original demonstration
-required that the teacher is greatly embarrassed on account of the
-differences in native capacity for mathematics that develop among
-the pupils of the same class in solving the problems of invention. A
-few gifted pupils delight in the inventions, and develop rapidly in
-power, while the majority of the class use too much time over them,
-and thus rob the other branches of the course of study, or else fall
-into the bad practice of getting help from others in the preparation
-of their lessons. A few in every class fall hopelessly behind and
-are discouraged. The result is an attempt on the part of the teacher
-to correct the evil by requiring a more thorough training in the
-mathematical studies preceding, and the consequent delay of secondary
-pupils in the lower grades of the course in order to bring up their
-“inventional geometry.” Many, discouraged, fail to go on; many more
-fail to reach higher studies because unable to get over the barrier
-unnecessarily placed before them by teachers who desire that no pupils
-except natural geometricians shall enter into higher studies.
-
-Physical geography in its scientific form is very properly made a part
-of the secondary course of study. The pupil in his ninth year of work
-can profitably acquire the scientific technique of geology, botany,
-zoölogy, meteorology, and ethnology, and in the following years take
-up those sciences separately and push them further, using the method
-of actual investigation. The subject-matter of physical geography is
-of very high interest to the pupil who has studied geography in the
-elementary grades after an approved method. It takes up the proximate
-grounds and causes for the elements of difference on the earth’s
-surface, already become familiar to him through his elementary studies,
-and pushes them back into deeper, simpler, and more satisfactory
-principles. This study performs the work also of correlating the
-sciences that relate to organic nature by showing their respective
-uses to man. From the glimpses which the pupil gets of mineralogy,
-geology, botany, zoölogy, ethnology, and meteorology in their necessary
-connection as geographic conditions he sees the scope and grand
-significance of those separate inquiries. A thirst is aroused in him to
-pursue his researches into their domains. He sees, too, the borderlands
-in which new discoveries may be made by the enterprising explorer.
-
-Physics, including what was called until recently “natural
-philosophy,” after Newton’s _Principia_ (_Philosophiæ naturalis
-principia mathematica_), implies more knowledge of mathematics
-for its thorough discussion than the secondary pupil is likely to
-possess. In fact, the study of this branch in college thirty years
-ago was crippled by the same cause. It should follow the completion
-of analytical geometry. Notwithstanding this, a very profitable study
-of this subject may be made in the second year of the high school or
-preparatory school, although the formulas can then be understood in
-so far as they imply elementary algebra only. The pupil does not get
-the most exact notions of the quantitative laws that rule matter in
-its states of motion and equilibrium, but he does see the action of
-forces as qualitative elements of phenomena, and understand quite
-well the mechanical inventions by which men subdue them for his use
-and safety. Even in the elementary grades the pupil can seize very
-many of these qualitative aspects and learn the explanation of the
-mechanical phenomena of nature, and other applications of the same
-principles in invention, as, for example, gravitation in falling
-bodies: its measurement by the scales; the part it plays in the pump,
-the barometer, the pendulum; cohesion in mud, clay, glue, paste,
-mortar, cement, etc.; capillary attraction in lamp-wicks, sponges,
-sugar, the sap in plants; the applications of lifting by the lever,
-pulley, inclined plane, wedge, and screw; heat in the sun, combustion,
-friction, steam, thermometer, conduction, clothing, cooking, etc.;
-the phenomena of light, electricity, magnetism, and the explanation
-of such mechanical devices as spectacles, telescopes, microscopes,
-prisms, photographic cameras, electric tension in bodies, lightning,
-mariner’s compass, horseshoe magnet, the telegraph, the dynamo. This
-partially qualitative study of forces and mechanical inventions has
-the educational effect of enlightening the pupil, and emancipating him
-from the network of superstition that surrounds him in the child world,
-partly of necessity and partly by reason of the illiterate adults
-that he sometimes meets with in the persons of nurses, servants, and
-tradespeople, whose occupations have more attraction for him than those
-of cultured people. The fairy world is a world of magic, of immediate
-interventions of supernatural spiritual beings, and while this is
-proper enough for the child up to the time of the school, and in a
-lessening degree for some time after, it is only negative and harmful
-in adult manhood and womanhood. It produces arrested development of
-powers of observation and reflection in reference to phenomena, and
-stops the growth of the soul at the infantine stage of development.
-Neither is this infantine stage of wonder and magic more religious
-than the stage of disillusion through the study of mathematics and
-physics. It is the arrest of religious development, also, at the stage
-of fetichism. The highest religion, that of pure Christianity, sees
-in the world infinite mediations, all for the purpose of developing
-independent individuality; the perfection of human souls not only in
-one kind of piety, namely, that of the heart, but in the piety of the
-intellect that beholds truth, the piety of the will that does good
-deeds wisely, the piety of the senses that sees the beautiful and
-realizes it in works of art. This is the Christian idea of divine
-Providence as contrasted with the heathen idea of that Providence,
-and the study of natural philosophy is an essential educational
-requisite in its attainment, although a negative means. Of course
-there is danger of replacing the spiritual idea of the divine by the
-dynamical or mechanical idea, and thus arresting the mind at the stage
-of pantheism instead of fetichism. But this danger can be avoided by
-further education through secondary into higher education, whose entire
-spirit and method are comparative and philosophical in the best sense
-of the term. For higher education seems to have as its province the
-correlation of the several branches of human learning in the unity
-of the spiritual view furnished by religion to our civilization. By
-it one learns to see each branch, each science or art or discipline,
-in the light of all the others. This higher or comparative view is
-essential to any completeness of education, for it alone prevents
-the one-sidedness of hobbies, or “fads,” as they are called in the
-slang of the day. It prevents also the bad effects that flow from the
-influence of what are termed “self-educated men,” who for the most part
-carry up with them elementary methods of study, or at best, secondary
-methods, which accentuate the facts and relations of natural and
-spiritual phenomena, but do not deal with their higher correlations.
-The comparative method cannot, in fact, be well introduced until the
-student is somewhat advanced, and has already completed his elementary
-course of study dealing with the immediate aspects of the world, and
-his secondary course dealing with the separate formal and dynamical
-aspects that lie next in order behind the facts of first observation.
-Higher education in a measure unifies these separate formal and dynamic
-aspects, corrects their one-sidedness, and prevents the danger of what
-is so often noted in the self-educated men who unduly exaggerate some
-one of the subordinate aspects of the world and make it a sort of first
-principle.
-
-Here your Committee finds in its way the question of the use of the
-full scientific method in the teaching of science in the elementary
-school. The true method has been called the method of investigation,
-but that method as used by the child is only a sad caricature of the
-method used by the mature scientific man, who has long since passed
-through the fragmentary observation and reflection that prevail in the
-period of childhood, as well as the tendencies to exaggeration of the
-importance of one or another branch of knowledge at the expense of
-the higher unity that correlates all; an exaggeration that manifests
-itself in the possession and use of a hobby. The ideal scientific man
-has freed himself from obstacles of this kind, whether psychological
-or objective. What astronomical observers call the subjective
-coefficient must be ascertained and eliminated from the record that
-shows beginnings, endings, and rates. There is a possibility of perfect
-specialization in a scientific observer only after the elementary and
-secondary attitudes of mind have been outgrown. An attempt to force the
-child into the full scientific method by specialization would cause
-an arrest of his development in the other branches of human learning
-outside of his specialty. He could not properly inventory the data of
-his own special sphere unless he knew how to recognize the defining
-limits or boundaries that separate his province from its neighbors. The
-early days of science abounded in examples of confusion of provinces
-in the inventories of their data. It is difficult, even now, to decide
-where physics and chemistry leave off, and biology begins.
-
-Your Committee does not attempt to state the exact proportion in which
-the child, at his various degrees of advancement, may be able to
-dispense with the guiding influence of teacher and text-book in his
-investigations, but they protest strongly against the illusion under
-which certain zealous advocates of the early introduction of scientific
-method seem to labor. They ignore in their zeal the deduction that is
-to be made for the guiding hand of the teacher, who silently furnishes
-to the child the experience that he lacks, and quietly directs his
-special attention to this or to that phase, and prevents him from
-hasty or false generalization as well as from undue exaggeration of
-single facts or principles. Here the teacher adds the needed scientific
-outlook which the child lacks, but which the mature scientist possesses
-for himself.
-
-It is contended by some that the scientific frame of mind is adapted
-only to science, but not to art, literature, and religion, which
-have something essential that science does not reach; not because of
-the incompleteness of the sciences themselves, but because of the
-attitude of the mind assumed in the observation of nature. In analytic
-investigation there is isolation of parts one from another, with a view
-to find the sources of the influences which produce the phenomena shown
-in the object. The mind brings everything to the test of this idea.
-Every phenomenon that exists comes from beyond itself, and analysis
-will be able to trace the source.
-
-Now, this frame of mind, which insists on a foreign origin of all
-that goes to constitute an object, debars itself in advance from the
-province of religion, art, and literature as well as of philosophy.
-For self-determination, personal activity, is the first principle
-assumed by religion, and it is tacitly assumed by art and literature,
-Classic and Christian. The very definition of philosophy implies this,
-for it is the attempt to explain the world by the assumption of a
-first principle, and to show that all classes of objects imply that
-principle as ultimate presupposition. According to this view it is
-important not to attempt to hasten the use of a strictly scientific
-method on the part of the child. In his first years he is acquiring
-the results of civilization rather as an outfit of habits, usages, and
-traditions than as a scientific discovery. He cannot be expected to
-stand over against the culture of his time, and challenge one and all
-of its conventionalities to justify themselves before his reason. His
-reason is too weak. He is rather in the imitation stage of mind than in
-that of criticism. He will not reach the comparative or critical method
-until the era of higher education.
-
-However this may be, it is clear that the educational value of science
-and its method is a very important question, and that on it depends the
-settlement of the question where specialization may begin. To commence
-the use of the real scientific method would imply a radical change also
-in methods from the beginning. This may be realized by considering the
-hold which even the kindergarten retains upon symbolism and upon art
-and literature. But in the opinion of a majority of your Committee
-natural science itself should be approached, in the earliest years of
-the elementary school, rather in the form of results with glimpses into
-the methods by which these results were reached. In the last two years
-(the seventh and eighth) there may be some strictness of scientific
-form and an exhibition of the method of discovery. The pupil, too, may
-to some extent put this method in practice himself. In the secondary
-school there should be some laboratory work. But the pupil cannot
-be expected to acquire for himself fully the scientific method of
-dealing with nature until the second part of higher education--its
-post-graduate work. Nevertheless this good should be kept in view from
-the first year of the elementary school, and there should be a gradual
-and continual approach to it.
-
-In the study of general history appears another branch of the secondary
-course. History of the native land is assumed to be an elementary
-study. History of the world is certainly a step further away from
-the experience of the child. It is held by some teachers to be in
-accordance with proper method to begin with the foreign relations
-of one’s native land and to work outward to the world-history. The
-European relations involved in the discovery and colonization of
-America furnish the only explanation to a multitude of questions that
-the pupil has started in the elementary school. He should move outward
-from what he has already learned, by the study of a new concentric
-circle of grounds and reasons, according to this view. This, however,
-is not the usual course taken. On beginning secondary history the
-pupil is set back face to face with the period of tradition, just
-when historic traces first make their appearance. He is, by this
-arrangement, broken off from the part of history that he has become
-acquainted with, and made to grapple with that period which has no
-relation to his previous investigations. It is to be said, however,
-that general history lays stress on the religious thread of connection,
-though less now than formerly. The world history is a conception of the
-great Christian thinker, St. Augustine, who held that the world and its
-history is a sort of antiphonic hymn, in which God reads his counsels,
-and the earth and man read the responses. He induced Orosius, his
-pupil, to sketch a general history in the spirit of his view. It was
-natural that the Old Testament histories, and especially the chapters
-of Genesis, should furnish the most striking part of its contents. This
-general history was connected with religion, and brought closer to
-the experience of the individual than the history of his own people.
-To commence history with the Garden of Eden, the Fall of Man, and the
-Noachian Deluge was to begin with what was most familiar to all minds,
-and most instructive, because it concerned most nearly the conduct of
-life. Thus religion furnished the apperceptive material by which the
-early portions of history were recognized, classified, and made a part
-of experience.
-
-Now that studies in archæology, especially those in the Nile and
-Euphrates valleys, are changing the chronologies and the records of
-early times and adding new records of the past, bringing to light
-national movements and collisions of peoples, together with data
-by which to determine the status of their industrial civilization,
-their religious ideas, and the form of their literature and art, the
-concentric arrangement of all this material around the history of the
-chosen people as a nucleus is no longer possible. The question has
-arisen, therefore, whether general history should not be rearranged
-for the secondary school, and made to connect with American history
-for apperceptive material rather than with Old Testament history. To
-this it has been replied with force that the idea of a world history,
-as St. Augustine conceived it, is the noblest educative ideal ever
-connected with the subject of history. Future versions of general
-history will not desert this standpoint, we are told, even if they take
-as their basis that of ethnology and anthropology, for these, too, will
-exhibit a plan in human history--an educative principle that leads
-nations toward freedom and science, because the Creator of nature has
-made it, in its fundamental constitution, an evolution or progressive
-development of individuality. Thus the idea of divine Providence is
-retained, though made more comprehensive by bringing the whole content
-of natural laws within his will as his method of work.
-
-These considerations, we are reminded by the partisans of humanity
-studies, point back to the educative value of history as corrective of
-the one-sidedness of the method of science. Science seeks explanation
-in the mechanical conditions of, and impulses received from, the
-environment, while history keeps its gaze fixed on human purposes, and
-studies the genesis of national actions through the previous stages of
-feelings, convictions, and conscious ideas. In history the pupil has
-for his object self-activity, reaction against environment, instead of
-mechanism, or activity through another.
-
-The history of English literature is another study of the secondary
-school. It is very properly placed beyond the elementary school, for
-as taught it consists largely of the biographies of men of letters.
-The pupils who have not yet learned any great work of literature
-should not be pestered with literary biography, for at that stage
-the greatness of the men of letters cannot be seen. Plutarch makes
-great biographies because he shows heroic struggles and great deeds.
-The heroism of artists and poets consists in sacrificing all for
-the sake of their creations. The majority of them come off sadly
-at the hands of the biographer, for the reason that the very sides
-of their lives are described which they had slighted and neglected
-for the sake of the Muses. The prophets of Israel did not live in
-city palaces, but in caves; they did not wear fine raiment, nor feed
-sumptuously, nor conform to the codes of polite society. They were no
-courtiers when they approached the king. They neglected all the other
-institutions--family, productive industry, and state--for the sake of
-one, the Church, and even that not the established ceremonial of the
-people, but a higher and more direct communing with Jehovah. So with
-artists and men of letters, it is more or less the case, that the
-institutional side of their lives is neglected, or unsymmetrical, or if
-this is not the case, it will be found prosaic and uneventful, throwing
-no light on their matchless productions.
-
-For these reasons, should not the present use of literary biography
-as it exists in secondary schools, and is gradually making its way
-into elementary schools, be discouraged, and the time now given to it
-devoted to the study of literary works of art? It will be admitted
-that the exposure of the foibles of artists has an immoral tendency on
-youth: for example, one affects to be a poet, and justifies laxity and
-self-indulgence through the example of Byron. Those who support this
-view hold that we should not dignify the immoral and defective side of
-life by making it a branch of study in school.
-
-
-_Correlation by synthesis of studies._
-
-Your Committee would mention another sense in which the expression
-correlation of studies is sometimes used. It is held by advocates of
-an artificial centre of the course of study. They use, for example,
-De Foe’s Robinson Crusoe for a reading exercise, and connect with
-it the lessons in geography and arithmetic. It has been pointed out
-by critics of this method that there is always danger of covering
-up the literary features of the reading matter under accessories of
-mathematics and natural science. If the material for other branches
-is to be sought for in connection with the literary exercise, it will
-distract the attention from the poetic unity. On the other hand,
-arithmetic and geography cannot be unfolded freely and comprehensively
-if they are to wait on the opportunities afforded in a poem or novel
-for their development. A correlation of this kind, instead of being
-a deeper correlation, such as is found in all parts of human learning
-by the studies of the college and university, is rather a shallow and
-uninteresting kind of correlation, that reminds one of the system of
-mnemonics, or artificial memory, which neglects the association of
-facts and events with their causes and the history of their evolution,
-and looks for unessential quips, puns, or accidental suggestions with a
-view to strengthening the memory. The effect of this is to weaken the
-power of systematic thinking which deals with essential relations, and
-substitute for it a chaotic memory that ties together things through
-false and seeming relations, not of the things and events, but of the
-words that denote them.
-
-The correlation of geography and arithmetic and history in and through
-the unity of a work of fiction is at best an artificial correlation,
-which will stand in the way of the true objective correlation. It is
-a temporary scaffolding made for school purposes. Instruction should
-avoid such temporary structures as much as possible, and when used
-they should be only used for the day, and not for the year, because of
-the danger of building up an apperceptive centre in the child’s mind
-that will not harmonize with the true apperceptive centre required by
-the civilization. The story of Robinson Crusoe has intense interest
-to the child as a lesson in sociology, showing him the helplessness
-of isolated man and the re-enforcement that comes to him through
-society. It shows the importance of the division of labor. All children
-should read this book in the later years of the elementary course,
-and a few profitable discussions may be had in school regarding its
-significance. But De Foe painted in it only the side of adventure that
-he found in his countrymen in his epoch, England after the defeat
-of the Armada having taken up a career of conquest on the seas,
-ending by colonization and a world commerce. The liking for adventure
-continues to this day among all Anglo-Saxon peoples, and beyond other
-nationalities there is in English-speaking populations a delight in
-building up civilization from the very foundation. This is only,
-however, one phase of the Anglo-Saxon mind. Consequently the history of
-Crusoe is not a proper centre for a year’s study in school. It omits
-cities, governments, the world commerce, the international process,
-the Church, the newspaper and book from view, and they are not even
-reflected in it.
-
-Your Committee would call attention in this connection to the
-importance of the pedagogical principle of analysis and isolation as
-preceding synthesis and correlation. There should be rigid isolation
-of the elements of each branch for the purpose of getting a clear
-conception of what is individual and peculiar in a special province
-of learning. Otherwise one will not gain from each its special
-contribution to the whole. That there is some danger from the kind of
-correlation that essays to teach all branches in each will be apparent
-from this point of view.
-
-
-III. THE SCHOOL PROGRAMME.
-
-In order to find a place in the elementary school for the several
-branches recommended in this report, it will be necessary to use
-economically the time allotted for the school term, which is about two
-hundred days, exclusive of vacations and holidays. Five days per week
-and five hours of actual school work or a little less per day, after
-excluding recesses for recreation, give about twenty-five hours per
-week. There should be, as far as possible, alternation of study-hours
-and recitations (the word recitation being used in the United States
-for class exercise or lesson conducted by the teacher and requiring the
-critical attention of the entire class). Those studies requiring the
-clearest thought should be taken up, as a usual thing, in the morning
-session, say arithmetic the second half hour of the morning and grammar
-the half-hour next succeeding the morning recess for recreation in the
-open air. By some who are anxious to prevent study at home, or at least
-to control its amount it is thought advisable to place the arithmetic
-lesson after the grammar lesson, so that the study learned at home
-will be grammar instead of arithmetic. It is found by experience that
-if mathematical problems are taken home for solution two bad habits
-arise; namely, in one case, the pupil gets assistance from his parents
-or others, and thereby loses to some extent his own power of overcoming
-difficulties by brave and persistent attacks unaided by others; the
-other evil is a habit of consuming long hours in the preparation of a
-lesson that should be prepared in thirty minutes, if all the powers of
-mind are fresh and at command. An average child may spend three hours
-in the preparation of an arithmetic lesson. Indeed, in repeated efforts
-to solve one of the so-called “conundrums,” a whole family may spend
-the entire evening. One of the unpleasant results of the next day is
-that the teacher who conducts the lesson never knows the exact capacity
-and rate of progress of his pupils; in the recitation he probes the
-knowledge and preparation of the pupil, plus an unknown amount of
-preparatory work borrowed from parents and others. He even increases
-the length of the lessons, and requires more work at home, when the
-amount already exceeds the unaided capacity of the pupil.
-
-The lessons should be arranged so as to bring in such exercises as
-furnish relief from intellectual tension between others that make
-large demands on the thinking powers. Such exercises as singing and
-calisthenics, writing and drawing, also reading, are of the nature of a
-relief from those recitations that tax the memory, critical alertness,
-and introspection, like arithmetic, grammar, and history.
-
-Your Committee has not been able to agree on the question whether
-pupils who leave school early should have a course of study different
-from the course of those who are to continue on into secondary
-and higher work. It is contended, on the one hand, that those who
-leave early should have a more practical course, and that they
-should dispense with those studies that seem to be in the nature of
-preparatory work for secondary and higher education. Such studies as
-algebra and Latin, for example, should not be taken up unless the
-pupil expects to pursue the same for a sufficient time to complete the
-secondary course. It is replied, on the other hand, that it is best to
-have one course for all, because any school education is at best but an
-initiation for the pupil into the art of learning, and that wherever
-he leaves off in his school course he should continue, by the aid of
-the public library and home study, in the work of mastering science
-and literature. It is further contended that a brief course in higher
-studies, like Latin and algebra, instead of being useless, is of more
-value than any elementary studies that might replace them. The first
-ten lessons in algebra give the pupil the fundamental idea of the
-general expression of arithmetical solutions by means of letters and
-other symbols. Six months’ study of it gives him the power to use the
-method in stating the manifold conditions of a problem in partnership,
-or in ascertaining a value that depends on several transformations of
-the data given. It is claimed, indeed, that the first few lessons in
-any branch are relatively of more educational value than an equal
-number of subsequent lessons, because the fundamental ideas and
-principles of the new study are placed at the beginning. In Latin,
-for instance, the pupil learns in his first week’s study the, to him,
-strange phenomenon of a language that performs by inflections what
-his own language performs by the use of prepositions and auxiliaries.
-He is still more surprised to find that the order of words in a
-sentence is altogether different in Roman usage from that to which he
-is accustomed. He further begins to recognize in the Latin words many
-roots or stems which are employed to denote immediate sensuous objects,
-while they have been adopted into his English tongue to signify fine
-shades of distinction in thought or feeling. By these three things his
-powers of observation in matters of language are armed, as it were,
-with new faculties. Nothing that he has hitherto learned in grammar
-is so radical and far-reaching as what he learns in his first week’s
-study of Latin. The Latin arrangement of words in a sentence indicates
-a different order of mental arrangement in the process of apprehension
-and expression of thought. This arrangement is rendered possible by
-declensions. This amounts to attaching prepositions to the ends of the
-words, which they thus convert into adjectival or adverbial modifiers;
-whereas the separate prepositions of the English must indicate by
-their position in the sentence their grammatical relation. These
-observations, and the new insight into the etymology of English words
-having a Latin derivation, are of the nature of mental seeds which will
-grow and bear fruit throughout life in the better command of one’s
-native tongue. All this will come from a very brief time devoted to
-Latin in school.
-
-
-_Amount of time for each branch._
-
-Your Committee recommends that an hour of sixty minutes each week be
-assigned in the programme for each of the following subjects throughout
-the eight years: physical culture, vocal music, oral lessons in natural
-science (hygiene to be included among the topics under this head), oral
-lessons in biography and general history, and that the same amount of
-time each week shall be devoted to drawing from the second year to the
-eighth inclusive; to manual training during the seventh and eighth
-years so as to include sewing and cookery for the girls, and work in
-wood and iron for the boys.
-
-Your Committee recommends that reading be given at least one lesson
-each day for the entire eight years, it being understood, however,
-that there shall be two or more lessons each day in reading in the
-first and second years, in which the recitation is necessarily very
-short, because of the inability of the pupil to give continued close
-attention, and because he has little power of applying himself to
-the work of preparing lessons by himself. In the first three years
-the reading should be limited to pieces in the colloquial style, but
-selections from the classics of the language in prose and in poetry
-shall be read to the pupil from time to time, and discussions made
-of such features of the selections read as may interest the pupils.
-After the third year your Committee believes that the reading lesson
-should be given to selections from classic authors of English, and
-that the work of the recitation should be divided between (_a_) the
-elocution, (_b_) the grammatical peculiarities of the language,
-including spelling, definitions, syntactical construction, punctuation,
-and figures of prosody, and (_c_) the literary contents, including the
-main and accessory ideas, the emotions painted, the deeds described,
-the devices of style to produce a strong impression on the reader.
-Your Committee wishes to lay emphasis on the importance of the last
-item,--that of literary study,--which should consume more and more of
-the time of the recitation from grade to grade in the period from the
-fourth to the eighth year. In the fourth year and previously the first
-item--that of elocution, to secure distinct enunciation and correct
-pronunciation--should be most prominent. In the fifth and sixth years
-the second item--that of spelling, defining, and punctuation--should
-predominate slightly over the other two items. In the years from the
-fifth to the eighth there should be some reading of entire stories,
-such as Gulliver’s Travels, Robinson Crusoe, Rip Van Winkle, The
-Lady of the Lake, Hiawatha, and similar stories adapted in style and
-subject-matter to the capacity of the pupils. An hour should be devoted
-each week to conversations on the salient points of the story, its
-literary and ethical bearings.
-
-Your Committee agrees in the opinion that in teaching language care
-should be taken that the pupil practices much in writing exercises
-and original compositions. At first the pupil will use only his
-colloquial vocabulary, but as he gains command of the technical
-vocabularies of geography, arithmetic, and history, and learns the
-higher literary vocabulary of his language, he will extend his use of
-words accordingly. Daily from the first year the child will prepare
-some lesson or portion of a lesson in writing. Your Committee has
-included under the head of oral grammar (from the first to the middle
-of the fifth year) one phase of this written work devoted to the study
-of the literary form and the technicalities of composition in such
-exercises as letter writing, written reviews of the several branches
-studied, reports of the oral lessons in natural science and history,
-paraphrases of the poems and prose literature of the readers, and
-finally compositions or written essays on suitable themes assigned
-by the teacher, but selected from the fields of knowledge studied in
-school. Care should be taken to criticise all paraphrases of poetry in
-respect to the good or bad taste shown in the choice of words; parodies
-should never be permitted.
-
-It is thought by your Committee that the old style of composition
-writing was too formal. It was kept too far away from the other work of
-the pupil. Instead of giving a written account of what he had learned
-in arithmetic, geography, grammar, history, and natural science,
-the pupil attempted artificial descriptions and reflections on such
-subjects as “Spring,” “Happiness,” “Perseverance,” “Friendship,” or
-something else outside of the line of his school studies.
-
-Your Committee has already expressed its opinion that a good English
-style is not to be acquired by the study of grammar so much as by
-familiarity with great masterpieces of literature. We especially
-recommend that pupils who have taken up the fourth and fifth readers,
-containing the selections from great authors, should often be required
-to make written paraphrases of prose or poetic models of style, using
-their own vocabulary to express the thoughts so far as possible, and
-borrowing the _recherché_ words and phrases of the author, where their
-own resources fail them. In this way the pupil learns to see what the
-great author has done to enrich the language and to furnish adequate
-means of expression for what could not be presented in words before, or
-at least not in so happy a manner.
-
-Your Committee believes that every recitation is, in one aspect of it,
-an attempt to express the thoughts and information of the lesson in the
-pupil’s own words, and thus an initial exercise in composition. The
-regular weekly written review of the important topics in the several
-branches studied is a more elaborate exercise in composition, the pupil
-endeavoring to collect what he knows and to state it systematically
-and in proper language. The punctuation, spelling, syntax, penmanship,
-choice of words, and style should not, it is true, be made a matter
-of criticism in connection with the other lessons, but only in the
-language lesson proper. But the pupil will learn language, all the
-same, by the written and oral recitations. The oral grammar lessons,
-from the first year to the middle of the fifth year, should deal
-chiefly with the use of language, gradually introducing the grammatical
-technique as it is needed to describe accurately the correct forms and
-the usages violated.
-
-Your Committee believes that there is some danger of wasting the time
-of the pupil in these oral and written language lessons in the first
-four years by confining the work of the pupil to the expression of
-ordinary commonplace ideas not related to the subjects of his other
-lessons, especially when the expression is confined to the colloquial
-vocabulary. Such training has been severely and justly condemned as
-teaching what is called prating or gabbling, rather than a noble use
-of English speech. It is clear that the pupil should have a dignified
-and worthy subject of composition, and what is so good for his purpose
-as the themes he has tried to master in his regular lessons? The
-reading lessons will give matter for literary style, the geography for
-scientific style, and the arithmetic for a business style; for all
-styles should be learned.
-
-Your Committee recommends that selected lists of words difficult to
-spell be made from the reading lessons and mastered by frequent writing
-and oral spelling during the fourth, fifth, and sixth years.
-
-Your Committee recommends that the use of a text-book in grammar
-begin with the second half of the fifth year, and continue until the
-beginning of the study of Latin in the eighth grade, and that one daily
-lesson of twenty-five or thirty minutes be devoted to it.
-
-For Latin we recommend one daily lesson of thirty minutes for the
-eighth year. For arithmetic we recommend number work from the first
-year to the eighth, one lesson each day, but the use of the text-book
-in number should not, in our opinion, begin until the first quarter
-of the third year. We recommend that the applications of elementary
-algebra to arithmetic, as hereinbefore explained, be substituted for
-pure arithmetic in the seventh and eighth years, a daily lesson being
-given.
-
-Your Committee recommends that penmanship as a separate branch be
-taught in the first six years at least three lessons per week.
-
-Geography, in the opinion of your Committee, should begin with oral
-lessons in the second year, and with a text-book in the third quarter
-of the third year, and be continued to the close of the sixth year with
-one lesson each day, and in the seventh and eighth years with three
-lessons per week.
-
-History of the United States with the use of a text-book, your
-Committee recommends for the seventh and the first half of the eighth
-year, one lesson each day; the Constitution of the United States for
-the third quarter of the eighth year.
-
-The following schedule will show the number of lessons per week for
-each quarter of each year:--
-
-    Reading. Eight years, with daily lessons.
-
-    Penmanship. Six years, ten lessons per week for first two
-    years, five for third and fourth, and three for fifth and sixth.
-
-    Spelling Lists. Fourth, fifth, and sixth years, four lessons
-    per week.
-
-    Grammar. Oral, with composition or dictation, first year to
-    middle of fifth year, text-book from middle of fifth year to
-    close of seventh year, five lessons per week. (Composition
-    writing should be included under this head. But the written
-    examinations on the several branches should be counted under
-    the head of composition work.)
-
-    Latin or French or German. Eighth year, five lessons per week.
-
-    Arithmetic. Oral first and second year, text-book third to
-    sixth year, five lessons per week.
-
-    Algebra. Seventh and eighth years, five lessons per week.
-
-    Geography. Oral lessons second year to middle of third year,
-    text-book from middle of third year, five lessons weekly to
-    seventh year, and three lessons to close of eighth.
-
-    Natural Science and Hygiene. Sixty minutes per week, eight
-    years.
-
-    History of United States. Five hours per week seventh year and
-    first half of eighth year.
-
-    Constitution of United States. Third quarter in the eighth year.
-
-    General History and Biography. Oral lessons, sixty minutes a
-    week, eight years.
-
-    Physical Culture. Sixty minutes a week, eight years.
-
-    Vocal Music. Sixty minutes a week, eight years.
-
-    Drawing. Sixty minutes a week, eight years.
-
-    Manual Training, Sewing, and Cooking. One-half day each week in
-    seventh and eighth years.
-
-Your Committee recommends recitations of fifteen minutes in length in
-the first and second years, of twenty minutes in length in the third
-and fourth years, of twenty-five minutes in the fifth and sixth years,
-and of thirty minutes in the seventh and eighth.
-
-The results of this programme show for the first and second years
-twenty lessons a week of fifteen minutes each, besides seven other
-exercises occupying an average of twelve minutes apiece each day; the
-total amount of time occupied in the continuous attention of the
-recitation or class exercises being twelve hours, or an average of two
-hours and twenty-four minutes per day.
-
-For the third year twenty lessons a week of twenty minutes each, and
-five general exercises taking up five hours a week, or an average of
-one hour per day, giving an average time per day of two hours and
-twenty minutes for class recitations or exercises.
-
-In the fourth the recitations increase to twenty-four (by reason of
-four extra lessons in spelling) and the time occupied in recitations
-and exercises to thirteen hours and an average per day of two hours
-thirty-six minutes.
-
-  --------------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+----------
-  BRANCHES.     | _1st   | _2d    | _3d    | _4th   | _5th   | _6th   | _7th   |  _8th
-                | year_  | year_  | year_  | year_  | year_  | year_  | year_  |  year_
-  --------------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+----------
-  Reading       |  10 lessons a   |              5 lessons a week
-                |      week    -  |
-  --------------+-------------- --+-----------------+-----------------+-------------------
-  Writing       |  10 lessons a   |   5 lessons a   |   3 lessons a   |
-                |      week       |      week       |      week       |
-  --------------+--------+--------+--------+--------+-----------------+-------------------
-  Spelling      |        |        |        |    4 lessons a week      |
-      lists     |        |        |        |                          |
-  --------------+--------+--------+--------+--------+-----------------+--------+----------
-  English       |     Oral, with composition lessons    |   5 lessons a week   |
-    Grammar     |                                       |    with text-book    |
-  --------------+--------+--------+--------+--------+---+—---+--------+--------+----------
-  Latin         |        |        |        |        |        |        |        | 5 lessons
-  --------------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+----------
-  Arithmetic    |Oral, 60 minutes |  5 lessons a week with text-book  |        |
-                |a week           |                                   |        |
-  --------------+-----------------|--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+----------
-  Algebra       |        |        |        |        |        |        |    5 lessons a
-                |        |        |        |        |        |        |       week
-  --------------+--------+--------+----+---+--------+--------+--------+-------------------
-  Geography     | Oral, 60 minutes a   |   [1]5 lessons a week with     | 3 lessons a
-                | week                 |       text-book              |    week
-  --------------+----------------------+------------------------------+-------------------
-  Natural       |
-   Science      |                        Sixty minutes a week
-     +Hygiene   |
-  --------------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------------+----
-  U. S.         |        |        |        |        |        |        |  5 lessons a |
-     History    |        |        |        |        |        |        |    week      |
-  --------------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+----------
-  U. S.         |        |        |        |        |        |        |        |     |[1]5
-  Constitution  |        |        |        |        |        |        |        |     |ls
-  --------------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+-----+----
-  General       |                         Oral, sixty minutes a week
-     History    |
-  --------------+-------------------------------------------------------------------------
-  Physical      |                             Sixty minutes a week
-     Culture    |
-  --------------+-------------------------------------------------------------------------
-  Vocal Music   |                             Sixty minutes a week
-                |                            divided into 4 lessons
-  --------------+-------------------------------------------------------------------------
-  Drawing       |                             Sixty minutes a week
-                |
-  --------------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+-------------------
-  Man’l Train.  |        |        |        |        |        |        |   One-half day
-    or Sewing + |        |        |        |        |        |        |     each week
-       Cookery  |        |        |        |        |        |        |
-  ==================+========+========+========+========+========+========+========+======
-  Number of     | 20 + 7 | 20 + 7 | 20 + 5 | 24 + 5 | 27 + 5 | 27 + 5 | 23 + 6 | 23 + 6
-      Lessons   |  daily |  daily |  daily |  daily |  daily |  daily |  daily |  daily
-                |  exer. |  exer. |  exer. |  exer. |  exer. |  exer. |  exer. |  exer.
-  ==============+========+========+========+========+========+========+========+==========
-  Total Hours   |   12   |   12   | 11⅔    |   13   | 16¼    | 16¼    | 17½    | 17½
-  of Recitat’ns |        |        |        |        |        |        |        |
-  ==============+========+========+========+========+========+========+========+==========
-  Length of     | 15 min | 15 min | 20 min | 20 min | 25 min | 25 min | 30 min | 30 min
-  Recitations   |        |        |        |        |        |        |        |
-  --------------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+----------
-
-  [1] Begins in second half year.
-
-In the fifth and sixth years the number of recitations increases to
-twenty-seven per week, owing to the addition of formal grammar, and the
-total number of hours required for all is 16¼ per week, or an average
-of 3¼ per day.
-
-In the seventh and eighth years the number of lessons decreases to
-twenty-three, history being added, penmanship and special lessons in
-spelling discontinued, the time devoted to geography reduced to three
-lessons a week. But the recitation is increased to thirty minutes in
-length. Manual training occupies a half-day, or 2½ hours, each week.
-The total is 19 hours per week, or 3¾ per day.
-
-The foregoing tabular exhibit shows all of these particulars.
-
-
-IV. METHODS AND ORGANIZATION.
-
-Your Committee is agreed that the time devoted to the elementary school
-work should not be reduced from eight years, but they have recommended,
-as hereinbefore stated, that in the seventh and eighth years a modified
-form of algebra be introduced in place of advanced arithmetic, and
-that in the eighth year English grammar yield place to Latin. This
-makes, in their opinion, a proper transition to the studies of the
-secondary school and is calculated to assist the pupil materially in
-his preparation for that work. Hitherto, the change from the work of
-the elementary school has been too abrupt, the pupil beginning three
-formal studies at once, namely, algebra, physical geography, and Latin.
-
-Your Committee has found it necessary to discuss the question of
-methods of teaching in numerous instances, while considering the
-question of educational values and programmes, because the value and
-time of beginning of the several branches depend so largely on the
-method of teaching.
-
-The following recommendations, however, remain for this part of their
-report:--
-
-They would recommend that the specialization of teachers’ work should
-not be attempted before the seventh or eighth year of the elementary
-school and in not more than one or two studies then. In the secondary
-school it is expected that a teacher will teach one, or at most, two
-branches. In the elementary school, for at least six years, it is
-better, on the whole, to have each teacher instruct his pupils in all
-the branches that they study, for the reason that only in this way can
-he hold an even pressure on the requirements of work, correlating it in
-such a manner that no one study absorbs undue attention. In this way
-the pupils prepare all their lessons under the direct supervision of
-the same teacher and by their recitations show what defects of methods
-of study there have been in the preparation.
-
-The ethical training is much more successful under this plan, because
-the personal influence of a teacher is much greater when he or she
-knows minutely the entire scope of the school work. In the case of the
-special teacher the responsibility is divided and the opportunities of
-special acquaintance with character and habits diminished.
-
-With one teacher, who supervises the study and hears all the
-recitations, that there is a much better opportunity to cultivate
-the two kinds of attention. The teacher divides his pupils into two
-classes and hears one recite while the other class prepares for the
-next lesson. The pupils reciting are required to pay strict attention
-to the one of their number who is explaining the point assigned him
-by the teacher--they are to be on the alert to notice any mistakes of
-statement or omissions of important data, they are at the same time
-to pay close attention to the remarks of the teacher. This is one kind
-of attention, which may be called associated critical attention. The
-pupils engaged in the preparation of the next lesson are busy, each
-one by himself, studying the book and mastering its facts and ideas,
-and comparing them one with another, and making the effort to become
-oblivious of their fellow-pupils, the recitation going on, and the
-teacher. This is another kind of attention, which is not associated,
-but an individual effort to master for one’s self without aid a
-prescribed task and to resist all distracting influences. These two
-disciplines in attention are the best formal training that the school
-affords.
-
-Your Committee has already mentioned a species of faulty correlation
-wherein the attempt is made to study all branches in each, misapplying
-Jacotot’s maxim, “all is in all” (_tout est dans tout_).
-
-A frequent error of this kind is the practice of making every
-recitation a language lesson, and interrupting the arithmetic,
-geography, history, literature, or whatever it may be, by calling the
-pupil’s attention abruptly to something in his forms of expression,
-his pronunciation, or to some faulty use of English; thus turning
-the entire system of school work into a series of grammar exercises
-and weakening the power of continuous thought on the objective
-contents of the several branches, by creating a pernicious habit of
-self-consciousness in the matter of verbal expression. While your
-Committee would not venture to say that there should not be some degree
-of attention to the verbal expression in all lessons, it is of the
-opinion that it should be limited to criticism of the recitation for
-its want of technical accuracy. The technical words in each branch
-should be discussed until the pupil is familiar with their full force.
-The faulty English should be criticised as showing confusion of
-thought or memory, and should be corrected in this sense. But solecisms
-of speech should be silently noted by the teacher for discussion in the
-regular language lesson.
-
-The question of promotion of pupils has occupied from time to time
-very much attention. Your Committee believes that in many systems
-of elementary schools there is injury done by too much formality in
-ascertaining whether the pupils of a given class have completed the
-work up to a given arbitrarily fixed point, and are ready to take up
-the next apportionment of the work. In the early days of city school
-systems, when the office of superintendent was first created, it was
-thought necessary to divide up the graded course of study into years
-of work, and to hold stated annual examinations to ascertain how many
-pupils could be promoted to the next grade or year’s work. All that
-failed at this examination were set back at the beginning of the year’s
-work to spend another year in reviewing it. This was to meet the
-convenience of the superintendent, who, it was said, could not hold
-examinations to suit the wants of individuals or particular classes.
-From this arrangement there naturally resulted a great deal of what is
-called “marking time.” Pupils who had nearly completed the work of the
-year were placed with pupils who had been till now a year’s interval
-below them. Discouragement and demoralization at the thought of taking
-up again a course of lessons learned once before caused many pupils to
-leave school prematurely.
-
-This evil has been remedied in nearly one-half of the cities by
-promoting pupils whenever they have completed the work of a grade. The
-constant tendency of classification to become imperfect by reason of
-the difference in rates of advancement of the several pupils owing to
-disparity in ages, degree of maturity, temperament, and health, makes
-frequenter classification necessary. This is easily accomplished by
-promoting the few pupils who distance the majority of their classmates
-into the next class above, separated as it is, or ought to be, by an
-interval of less than half a year. The bright pupils thus promoted have
-to struggle to make up the ground covered in the interval between the
-two classes, but they are nearly always able to accomplish this, and
-generally will in two years’ time need another promotion from class to
-class.
-
-The procrustean character of the old city systems has been removed by
-this device.
-
-There remain for mention some other evils besides bad systems of
-promotion due to defects of organization. The school buildings are
-often with superstitious care kept apart exclusively for particular
-grades of pupils. The central building erected for high school
-purposes, though only half filled, is not made to relieve the
-neighboring grammar school, crowded to such a degree that it cannot
-receive the classes which ought to be promoted from the primary
-schools. It has happened in such cases that this superstition prevailed
-so far that the pupils in the primary school building were kept at work
-on studies already finished, because they could not be transferred to
-the grammar school.
-
-In all good school systems the pupils take up new work when they have
-completed the old, and the bright pupils are transferred to higher
-classes when they have so far distanced their fellows that the amount
-of work fixed for the average ability of the class does not give them
-enough to do.
-
-In conclusion, your Committee would state, by way of explanation, that
-it has been led into many digressions, in illustrating the details of
-its recommendations in this report, through its desire to make clear
-the grounds on which it has based its conclusions and through the hope
-that such details will call out a still more thorough-going discussion
-of the educational values of branches proposed for elementary schools,
-and of the methods by which those branches may be successfully taught.
-
-With a view to increase the interest in this subject, your Committee
-recommends the publication of selected passages from the papers sent
-in by invited auxiliary committees and by volunteers, many of these
-containing valuable suggestions not mentioned in this report.
-
-
-
-
-Organization for City School Systems.
-
-BY PRESIDENT ANDREW S. DRAPER.
-
-    [This is the report of a sub-committee of the Fifteen, of which
-    President Draper of the University of Illinois is chairman.]
-
-
-It is understood that the committee is to treat of city school systems,
-which are so large that persons chosen by the people to manage them,
-and serving without pay, cannot be expected to transact all the
-business of the system in person, nor to have personal knowledge of all
-business transactions, and which are so large that one person employed
-to supervise the instruction cannot be assumed to personally manage or
-direct all of the details thereof, but must, in each case, act under
-plans of organization and administration established by law and through
-assistants or representatives.
-
-The end for which a school system exists is the _instruction of the
-children_, attaching to the word instruction the meaning it attains
-in the mind of a well-educated person, if not in the mind of an
-educational expert.
-
-To secure this end, no plan of organization alone will suffice. Nothing
-can take the place of a sincere desire for good schools, of a fair
-knowledge of what good schools are, and what will make them, of a
-public spirit and a moral sense on the part of the people, which are
-spontaneous, or which can be appealed to with confidence. Fortunately,
-the interest which the people have in their own children is so large,
-and the anxiety of the community for public order and security is so
-great, that public sentiment may ordinarily be relied upon, or may be
-aroused to action, to choose proper representatives and take proper
-measures for the administration of the schools. If, in any case, this
-is not so, there is little hope of efficient schools. Wherever it _is_
-so, it alone will not suffice, but proper organization may become the
-instrument of public sentiment, and develop schools which will be
-equal to the needs of all, and become the safeguards of citizenship.
-Efficient schools can be secured only by providing suitable buildings
-and appliances, and by keeping them in proper order on the one hand,
-and, on the other hand, by employing, organizing, aiding, and directing
-teachers, so that the instruction shall have life and power to
-accomplish the great end for which schools are maintained.
-
-The circumstances of the case naturally and quickly separate the duties
-of administration into two great departments, one which manages the
-business affairs, and the other which supervises the instruction. The
-business affairs of the school system may be transacted by any citizens
-of common honesty, correct purposes, and of good business experience
-and sagacity. The instruction will be ineffective and abnormally
-expensive unless put upon a scientific educational basis and supervised
-by competent educational experts.
-
-There will be a waste of money and effort and a lack of results, unless
-the authorities of these two departments are sympathetic with each
-other; that is, unless, on the one hand, the business management is
-sound, is appreciative of good teaching, looks upon it as a scientific
-and professional employment, and is alert to sustain it; and unless, on
-the other hand, the instructors are competent and self-respecting, know
-what good business management is, are glad to uphold it, and are able
-to respect those who are charged with responsibility for it.
-
-To secure efficiency in these departments, there must be adequate
-authority and quick public accountability. The problem is not merely
-to secure some good schoolhouses, but good schoolhouses wherever
-needed, and to avoid the use of all houses which are not suitable
-for use; it is not to get some good teaching, but to prevent all bad
-teaching, and to advance all the teaching to the highest possible point
-of special training, professional spirit, and of life-giving power. All
-of the business matters must be entrusted to competent business hands
-and managed upon sound business principles; and all of the instruction
-must be put upon a professional basis. To insure this, there must be
-deliberation and wisdom in determining policy, and then the power to do
-what is determined upon must be present and capable of exercise, and
-the responsibility for the proper exercise of the power must, in each
-case, be individual and immediate.
-
-It is imperative that we discriminate between the legislative and
-executive action in organizing and administering the schools. The
-influences which enter into legislative action, looking to the
-general organization and work of the schools, must necessarily and
-fundamentally flow directly from the people and be widely spread. The
-greater the number of people, in proportion to the entire population,
-who can be led to take a positive interest and an active part in
-securing good schools, the better will the schools be, provided the
-people can secure the complete execution of their purposes and plans.
-But experience has clearly shown that many causes intervene to prevent
-the complete execution of such plans, that all the natural enemies
-of sound administration scent plenty of plunder and are especially
-active here, that good school administration requires much strength of
-character, much business experience, much technical knowledge, and can
-be only measurably satisfactory when the responsibility is adequate,
-and the penalties for maladministration are severe. Decentralization in
-making the plan and determining what shall be done, and centralization
-in executing the plan and in doing what is to be done, are, perhaps,
-equally important.
-
-It should be remembered that the character of the school work of a city
-is not merely a matter of local interest, and that the maintenance of
-the schools does not rest merely or mainly upon local authority. The
-people of the municipality, acting, and ordinarily glad to act, but, in
-any event, being obliged to act, under and pursuant to the law which
-has been ordained by the sovereign authority of the state, establish
-and maintain schools. They must have the taxing power which the state
-alone possesses in order to enable them to proceed at all. They must
-regard the directions which the state sees fit to give as to the
-essential character of the schools, when it exercises in their behalf,
-or when it delegates to them the power of taxation.
-
-The plan should be flexible for good, while inflexible for evil.
-Meeting essential requirements, the people of the municipality may well
-be empowered to proceed as much farther as they will in elaborating a
-system of schools. The higher the plane of average intelligence, and
-the more generally and the more directly the people act in deciding
-what shall be done, and the greater the facility and completeness
-with which the intelligence of the city is able to secure the proper
-execution of its plans by officers appointed for that purpose, the more
-elaborate and the more efficient will be the schools, and this should,
-of course, be provided for.
-
-It is idle to suggest that centering executive functions is unwisely
-taking power away from the people. The people cannot execute plans
-themselves. The authority to do it must necessarily be delegated. The
-question simply is, “Shall it be given to a number of persons, and if
-so, to how many? Or to only one?” This question is to be decided by
-experience, and it is, of course, true that experience has not been
-uniform. But it is doubtless true that the general experience of
-the communities of the country has shown that where purely executive
-functions are conferred upon a number of persons jointly, they yield
-to antagonistic influences and shift the responsibility from one to
-another; and that centering the responsibility for the proper discharge
-of executive duties upon a single person, who gets the credit of good
-work and must bear the disgrace or penalty of bad work, and who can
-quickly be held accountable for misdeeds and inefficiency, has secured
-the fullest execution of public plans and the largest results. To call
-this “centralization,” with the meaning which commonly attaches to the
-word, is inaccurate. Instead of removing the power from the people,
-it is keeping the power closer to the people, and making it possible
-for the citizen in his individual capacity and for organized bodies
-of citizens to secure the execution of plans according to the purpose
-and intent with which those plans were made. Indeed, it is safe to
-say that experience has shown that this is _the only way_ in which to
-prevent the frequent thwarting of the popular will and the defiance of
-individuals whose interests are ignored or whose rights are invaded.
-
-But all the people of a city whose population is numbered by hundreds
-of thousands or millions cannot meet in a legislative assemblage to
-formulate plans. They cannot gather in mass meetings, and, if they
-could, mass meetings cannot deliberate. Even their legislative action
-must flow, not from a primary, but from a representative assembly.
-
-What shall such a representative legislative body be called? How shall
-it be chosen? Of how many members shall it be composed? And what shall
-be its powers? These and other similar questions are all important
-and must be determined by the law-making power of the state. The
-sentiments of the city, as expressed through the local organizations,
-and particularly the newspapers, must, of course, have much weight
-with the legislature if there is anything like unanimity or any very
-strong preponderance of opinion in the city, for the plan for which
-a community expresses a preference will surely be likely to operate
-most effectually in that community. But the local sentiment is not
-conclusive. When divided, it is no guide at all. The legislature is
-to take all the circumstances into consideration, take the world’s
-experience for its guide, and, acting under its responsibilities, it
-must exercise its high powers in ways which will build up a system of
-schools in the city likely to articulate with the state educational
-system and become the effective instrument of developing the
-intelligence and training the character of the children of the city up
-to the ideals of the state.
-
-The name of the legislative branch of the school government is not
-material, and the one to which the people are accustomed may well
-continue to be employed. There is no name more appropriate than the
-“Board of Education.”
-
-The manner of selecting or appointing the members of this legislative
-body may turn somewhat upon the circumstances of the city. We are
-strongly of the opinion that in view of the well-known difficulty about
-securing the attendance of the most interested and intelligent electors
-at school elections, as well as because of the apparent impossibility
-of freeing school elections from political or municipal issues, the
-better manner of elections is by appointment. If the members of the
-board are appointed, the mayor of the city is likely to be the official
-to whom the power of appointment may most safely be entrusted. The
-mayor is not suggested because his office should sustain any relation
-to the school system, but in spite of the fact that it does not and
-should not. The school system should be _absolutely emancipated
-from partisan politics, and completely dissociated from municipal
-business_. But we think the appointments should be made by some one
-person, rather than by a board. The mayor is representative of the
-whole city and all its interests. While not chosen with any reference
-to the interests of the schools, he may be assumed to have information
-as to the fitness of citizens for particular responsibilities, and
-to be desirous of promoting the educational interests of the people.
-If he is given the power of appointment, he should be particularly
-enjoined by law to consider the fitness of individuals alone and pay no
-regard to party affiliations, unless it be to particularly see to it
-that no one political party has an overwhelming preponderance in the
-board. The mayor very commonly feels constrained, under the pressure
-of party expediency, to make so many questionable appointments, that
-he is only too glad, and particularly so when enjoined by the law, to
-make very acceptable appointments of members of school boards, in order
-that he may gratify the better sentiment of the city. We are confident
-that the problem of getting a representative board of education is
-not so difficult as many think, if the board is not permitted to
-make patronage of work and salaried positions at the disposal of the
-public-school system. Under such circumstances, and more and more so
-as we have approached such circumstances, appointment in the way we
-suggest has produced the best school boards in the larger cities of the
-country.
-
-The members of school boards should be representative of the whole
-population and of all their common educational interests, and should
-not be chosen to represent any ward or subdivision of the territory,
-or any party or element in the political, religious, or social life
-thereof. Where this principle is not enforced, the members will feel
-bound to gain what advantage they can for the district or interests
-they represent; bitter contests will ensue, and the common interests
-will suffer.
-
-Attempts to eliminate partisanship from school administration,
-by arraying an equal number of partisans against each other in
-school boards, do not, at best, lead to an ideal organization. In
-some instances they have proved fairly successful; in others, very
-mischievous. The true course is to insist that all who have any
-share in the management of the schools shall divest themselves of
-partisanship, whether political or religious, in such management, and
-give themselves wholly to the high interests entrusted to them. If
-it be said that this cannot be realized, it may be answered, without
-admitting it, that even if that were so, it would be no reason why
-the friends of the schools should not assert the sound principle and
-secure its enforcement as far as possible. We must certainly give no
-countenance to make-shifts, which experience has shown to be misleading
-and expensive. The right must prevail in the end, and the earlier and
-more strongly it is contended for, the sooner it will prevail.
-
-Relatively small boards are preferable to large ones. In a city of less
-than a half-million of inhabitants, the number should not exceed nine,
-and might well not exceed five. In the very largest cities it might be
-enlarged to fifteen.
-
-The term for which members are appointed should be a reasonably long
-one, say, five years.
-
-We think it an excellent plan to provide for two branches and sets of
-powers in the board of education; the one to have the veto power, or,
-at least, to act as a check upon the acts of the other. This may be
-accomplished by creating the office of school director and charging
-the incumbent with executive duties on the business side of the
-administration, and by giving him the veto power over the acts of the
-other branch of the board, which may be called the “School Council.”
-Beyond the care and conservation which is ensured by two sets of powers
-acting against each other, it has the advantage of giving the chief
-executive officer of the system just as high and good a title as that
-of members of the board, it is likely to secure a more representative
-man, and gives him larger prerogatives in the discharge of his
-executive duties and better standing among the people, particularly
-among the employees and teachers associated with the public-school
-system.
-
-If this plan is adopted, the school director should be required to
-give his entire time to the duties of his position, and be properly
-compensated therefor. He should be the custodian of all property and
-should appoint all assistants, janitors, and workmen, authorized by the
-board, for the care of the same. He should give bond, with sufficient
-sureties and penalties, for the faithful and proper discharge of all
-his duties. He should be authorized by law to expend funds, within a
-fixed limit, for repairs, appliances, and help, without the action of
-the board. All contracts should be made by him, and should run in his
-name, and he should be charged with the responsibility of seeing that
-they are faithfully and completely executed. All contracts involving
-more than a limited and fixed sum of money should be let upon bids
-to be advertised for and opened in public. He should have a seat in
-the board of education; should not vote, but should have the power to
-veto, either absolutely or conditionally, any of the acts of the board,
-through a written communication. This officer and the school council
-should together constitute the board of education.
-
-The board of education should be vested with legislative functions
-only, and be required to act wholly through formal and recorded
-resolutions. It should determine and direct the general policy of the
-school system. Within reasonable limits, as to amount, it should be
-given power, in its discretion, to levy whatever moneys may be needed
-for school purposes. It should control the expenditure of all moneys
-beyond a fixed and limited amount, which may safely and advantageously
-be left to the discretion of the chief executive business officer.
-It should authorize, by general resolutions, the appointment of
-necessary officers and employees in the business department, and
-the superintendent, assistants, and teachers in the department of
-instruction, but it should be allowed to make no appointments other
-than its own clerk. With this necessary exception, single officers
-should be charged with responsibility for all appointments.
-
-This plan, not in all, but in essential particulars, has been on trial
-in the city of Cleveland for nearly three years, and has worked with
-very general acceptability.
-
-If this plan is adopted, the chief executive officer of the system
-is already provided for and his duties have already been indicated.
-Otherwise it will be necessary for the board to appoint such an
-officer. In that event, the law should declare him independent, confer
-upon him adequate authority for the performance of executive duties,
-and charge him with responsibility. But we know of no statutory
-language capable of making an officer appointed by a board, and
-dependent upon the same board for supplies, independent in fact of the
-personal wishes of the members of that board. And right here is where
-the troubles rush in to discredit and damage the school system.
-
-We now come to the subject of paramount importance in making a plan
-for the school government in a great city, namely, the character of
-the teaching force and the quality of the instruction. A city school
-system may be able to withstand some abuses on the business side of its
-administration and continue to perform its functions with measurable
-success, but wrongs against the instruction must, in a little time,
-prove fatal. The strongest language is none too strong here. The
-safety of the republic, the security of American citizenship, are at
-stake. Government by the people has no more dangerous pitfall in its
-road than this, that in the mighty cities of the land the comfortable
-and intelligent masses, who are discriminating more and more closely
-about the education of their children, shall become dissatisfied with
-the social status of the teachers and the quality of the teaching in
-the common schools. In that event they will educate their children at
-their own expense, and the public schools will become only good enough
-for those who can afford no better. The only way to avert this is by
-maintaining the instruction upon a purely scientific and professional
-footing. This is entirely practicable, but it involves much care and
-expense in training teachers, the absolute elimination of favoritism
-from appointments, the security of the right to advancement after
-appointment, on the basis of merit, and a general leadership which
-is kindly, helpful, and stimulating to individuals, which can secure
-harmonious coöperation from all the members, and lends energy and
-inspiration to the whole body.
-
-This cannot be secured if there is any lack of authority, and
-experience amply proves that it will not be secured if there is any
-division of responsibility. The whole matter of instruction must
-be placed in the hands of a superintendent of instruction, with
-independent powers and adequate authority, who is charged with full
-responsibility.
-
-The danger of inconsiderate or improper action by one vested with
-such powers is, of course, possible, but it is remote. Regardless of
-the legal powers with which he may be individually vested, he is in
-fact and in law a part of a large system. He must act through others,
-and in the presence of multitudes. There is great publicity about all
-he does. When a single officer carries such responsibility, he is at
-the focus of all eyes. There are the strongest incentives to right
-action. He cannot act wrongfully without it is known, at least to many
-persons. If he is required to act under and pursuant to a plan, the
-details of which have been announced, and of which we shall speak in
-a moment, a wrongful act will be known to the world, and he must bear
-the responsibility of it, and the danger of maladministration is almost
-eliminated.
-
-Moreover, we must consider the alternative. It is not in doubt. All
-who have had any contact with the subject are familiar with it. It is
-administration by boards or committees, the members of which are not
-competent to manage professional matters and develop an expert teaching
-force. Though necessarily inexperienced, they frequently assume the
-knowledge of the most experienced. They over-ride and degrade a
-superintendent, when they have the power to do so, until he becomes
-their mere factotum. For the sake of harmony and the continuance of
-his position, he concedes, surrenders, and acquiesces in their acts,
-while the continually increasing teaching force becomes weaker and
-weaker, and the work poorer and poorer. If he refuses to do this, they
-precipitate an open rupture, and turn him out of his position. Then
-they cloud the issues and shift the responsibility from one to another.
-There are exceptions, of course, but they do not change the rule.
-
-It will be unprofitable to mince words about this all-important matter.
-If the course of study for the public schools of a great city is to
-be determined by laymen, it will not be suited to the needs of a
-community. If teachers are to be appointed by boards or committees,
-the members of which are particularly sensitive to the desires of
-people who have votes or influence, looseness of action is inevitable,
-and unworthy considerations will frequently prevail. If the action
-of a board or committee be conditioned upon the recommendation of a
-superintendent, the plan will not suffice. No one person is stronger
-than the system of which he is a part. Such a plan results in contests
-between the board and the superintendents, and such a contest is
-obviously an unequal one. There is little doubt of the outcome. In
-recommending for the appointment of teachers, the personal wishes of
-members of the board, in particular cases, will have to be acquiesced
-in. If a teacher, no matter how unfit, cannot be dropped from the list
-without the approval of a board or committee after they have heard
-from her friends and sympathizers, she will remain indefinitely in the
-service. This means a low tone in the teaching force and desolation in
-the work of the schools. If the superintendent accepts the situation,
-he becomes less and less capable of developing a professional teaching
-service. If he refuses to accept it, he is very likely to meet
-humiliation; dismissal is practically inevitable.
-
-The superintendent of instruction should be charged with no duty save
-the supervision of the instruction, but should be charged with the
-responsibility of making that professional and scientific, and should
-be given the position and authority to accomplish that end.
-
-If the board of education is constituted upon the old plan, he must
-be chosen by the board. If it is constituted upon the Cleveland plan,
-he may be appointed by the school director, with the approval of
-two-thirds or three-fourths of the council. The latter plan seems
-preferable, for it centralizes the main responsibility of this
-important appointment in a single individual. In either case, the law
-and the sentiment of the city should direct that the appointee shall be
-a person liberally educated, professionally trained; one who knows what
-good teaching is, but is also experienced in administration, in touch
-with public affairs, and in sympathy with popular feeling.
-
-The term of the superintendent of instruction should be from five
-to ten years, and until a successor is appointed. In our judgment,
-it should be determinate, so that there may be a time of public
-examination, but it should be sufficiently long to enable one to lay
-foundations and show results, without being carried under by the
-prejudices which always follow the first operation of efficient or
-drastic plans. The salary should be fixed by law, and not subject to
-change in the middle of a term or except by law.
-
-For reasons already suggested, the superintendent, once appointed,
-should have power to appoint, from an eligible list, all assistants and
-teachers authorized by the board, and unlimited authority to assign
-them to their respective positions, and reassign them or remove them
-from the force at his discretion.
-
-To secure a position upon the eligible list from which appointments
-may be made, a candidate, if without experience, should be required
-to complete the full four years’ course of the city high schools,
-or its equivalent, and in addition thereto pass the examination of
-the board of examiners, and complete at least a year’s course of
-professional training in a city normal training school under the
-direction of the superintendent. If the candidate has had, say, three
-years of successful experience as a teacher, he should be eligible
-to appointment by passing an examination held by a general examining
-board. This board may be appointed by the board of education, but
-should examine none but graduates of the high school and training
-school, unless specially requested so to do by the superintendent of
-instruction. The number admitted to the training schools should be
-limited, and the examinations should be gauged to the prospective needs
-of the elementary schools for new teachers. The supply of new teachers
-may well be largely, but should not be wholly, drawn from this local
-source. The force will gain fresh vitality by some appointments of good
-and experienced teachers from outside.
-
-The work of putting a large teaching force upon a professional basis,
-of making the teaching scientific and capable of arousing mind to
-action, is so difficult that a layman can scarcely appreciate it.
-It has hardly been commenced, it has only been made possible, when
-the avenues of approach to the service have been closed against the
-unqualified and unworthy. After that the supervision must be close
-and general, as well as sympathetic and decisive. The superintendent
-must have expert assistants enough to learn the characteristics and
-measure the work of every member of the force. They must help and
-encourage, advise and direct, according to the circumstances of each
-case. The work must be reduced to a system and the workers brought into
-harmonious relations. Each room must show neatness and life, and the
-whole force must show ardor and enthusiasm. By directing the reading,
-by encouraging an interchange of visits, by organizing clubs for
-self-improvement, by frequent class and grade and general meetings, the
-professional spirit may be aroused and the work energized.
-
-Those who show teaching power, versatility, amiability, reliability,
-steadiness, and growth must be rewarded with the highest positions:
-those who lack fibre, who have no energy, who are incapable of
-enthusiasm, who will not work agreeably with their associates, must
-go upon the retired list. Directness and openness must be encouraged.
-Attempts to invoke social, political, religious, or other outside
-influences to secure preferment must operate to close the door to
-advancement. In general and in particular, bad teaching must be
-prevented. In every room a firm and kindly management must prevail
-and good teaching must be apparent. All must work along common lines
-which will ensure general and essential ends. Until a teacher can do
-this and can be relied upon to do it, she must be helped and directed:
-when it is manifest that she cannot or will not do it, she must be
-dismissed; when she does show that she can do it and wants to do
-it, she must be left to exercise her own judgment and originality
-and do it in her own way. In the schoolroom the teacher must be
-secure against interference. In all the affairs of the school her
-judgment must be trusted to the utmost limit of safety. Then judgment
-will strengthen, and self-respect and public respect will grow. The
-qualities which develop in the teacher will develop in the school.
-To develop these qualities with any degree of uniformity, in a large
-teaching force, requires steady and uniform treatment through a long
-course of years under superintendence which is professional, strong,
-just, and courageous, which has ample assistance and authority, which
-is worthy of public confidence, and knows how to marshal facts,
-present arguments, and appeal to the intelligence and integrity of the
-community with success.
-
-It is the business of the plan of organization to secure such
-superintendence. It cannot be secured through an ordinary board
-of education operating on the old plan. It is well known what the
-influences are which are everywhere prevalent and must inevitably
-prevent it. It may be secured in the law, and it must be secured there,
-or it will not be secured at all.
-
-In concluding this portion of the report, the committee indicates
-briefly the principles which must necessarily be observed in framing a
-plan of organization and government in a large city school system.
-
-_First._--The affairs of the schools should not be mixed up with
-partisan contents or municipal business.
-
-_Second._--There should be a sharp distinction between legislative
-functions and executive duties.
-
-_Third._--Legislative functions should be clearly fixed by statute and
-be exercised by a relatively small board, each member of which board
-is representative of the whole city. This board, within statutory
-limitations, should determine the policy of the system, levy taxes,
-and control the expenditures. It should make no appointments. Every
-act should be by a recorded resolution. It is preferable that this
-board be created by appointment rather than election, and that it be
-constituted of two branches acting against each other.
-
-_Fourth._--Administration should be separated into two great
-independent departments, one of which manages the business interests
-and the other of which supervises the instruction. Each of these should
-be wholly directed by a single official, who is vested with ample
-authority and charged with full responsibility for sound administration.
-
-_Fifth._--The chief executive officer on the business side should be
-charged with the care of all property, and with the duty of keeping
-it in suitable condition; he should provide all necessary furnishings
-and appliances; he should make all agreements and see that they are
-properly performed; he should appoint all assistants, janitors, and
-workmen. In a word, he should do all that the law contemplates, and
-all that the board authorizes, concerning the business affairs of the
-school system, and when anything goes wrong, he should answer for it.
-He may be appointed by the board, but we think it preferable that he
-be chosen in the same way the members of the board are chosen, and be
-given a veto upon the acts of the board.
-
-_Sixth._--The chief executive officer of the department of instruction
-should be given a long term, and may be appointed by the board. If
-the board is constituted of two branches, he should be nominated by
-the business executive and confirmed by the legislative branch. Once
-appointed, he should be independent. He should appoint all authorized
-assistants and teachers from an eligible list, to be constituted as
-provided by law. He should assign to duties and discontinue services
-for cause at his discretion. He should determine all matters relating
-to instruction. He should be charged with the responsibility of
-developing a professional and enthusiastic teaching force and of
-making all the teaching scientific and forceful. He must perfect the
-organization of his department, and make and carry out plans to
-accomplish this. If he cannot do this in a reasonable time, he should
-be superseded by one who can.
-
-The government of a vast city school system comes to have an autonomy
-which is largely its own, and almost independent of direction or
-restraint. The volume of business which this government transacts is
-represented only by millions of dollars; it calls not only for the
-highest sagacity and the ripest experience, but also for much special
-information relating to school property and school affairs. Even
-more important than this is the fact that this government controls
-and determines the educational policy of the city and carries on the
-instruction of tens or hundreds of thousands of children, and this
-instruction is of little value, and perhaps vicious, unless it is
-professional and scientific. This government is representative. All
-citizens are compelled to support it, and all have large interests
-which it is bound to promote. Every parent has rights which it is the
-duty of this school government to protect and enforce. When government
-exacts our support of public education, when it comes into our homes
-and takes our children into its custody and instructs them according
-to its will, we acquire a right which is as exalted as any right of
-property, or of person, or of conscience can be, and that is the
-right to know that the environment is healthful, that the management
-is kindly and ennobling, and that the instruction is rational and
-scientific. It is needless to say to what extent these interests are
-impeded or blocked, or how commonly these rights of citizenship and of
-parentage are denied or defied, or how helpless the individual is who
-seeks their enforcement, under the system of school government which
-has heretofore obtained in some of the great cities of the country.
-This is not surprising. It is only the logical result of the rapid
-growth of cities, of a marvelous advance in knowledge of what is needed
-in the schools, of the antagonism of selfish interests, by which
-all public administration, and particularly school administration,
-is encompassed, and of the lack of plan and system, the confusion of
-powers, the absence of individual responsibility, in the government
-of a system of schools. By the census of 1890 there are seven cities
-in the United States each with a population greater than any one of
-sixteen states. The aggregate population of twelve cities exceeds
-the aggregate population of twenty states. Government for education
-certainly requires as strong and responsible an organization as
-government for any other purpose. These great centres of population,
-with their vast and complex educational problems, have passed the
-stage when government by the time-honored commission will suffice. No
-popular government ever determined the policy and administered the
-affairs of such large bodies of people successfully, ever transacted
-such a vast volume of business satisfactorily, ever promoted high
-and beneficent ends, ever afforded protection to the rights of each
-individual of the great multitude, unless in its plan of organization
-there was an organic separation of executive, legislative, and
-judicial functions and powers. All the circumstances of the case
-and the uniform experience of the world forbid our expecting any
-substantial solution of the problem we are considering until it is
-well settled in the sentiments of the people that the school systems
-of the greatest cities are only a part of the school systems of
-the states of which these cities form a part, and are subject to
-the legislative authority thereof; until there is a plan of school
-government in each city which differentiates executive acts from
-legislative functions; which emancipates the legislative branch of
-that government from the influence of pelf-seekers; which fixes upon
-individuals the responsibility for executive acts, either performed or
-omitted; which gives to the intelligence of the community the power to
-influence legislation and exact perfect and complete execution; which
-gives every citizen whose interests are ignored, or whose rights are
-invaded, a place for complaint and redress; and which puts the business
-interests upon a business footing, the teaching upon an expert basis,
-and gives to the instruction that protection and encouragement which is
-vital to the development of all professional and scientific work.
-
-
-
-
-On the Training of Teachers.
-
-BY SUPERINTENDENT H. S. TARBELL, PROVIDENCE.
-
-[Report of the Fifteen. Read at the Cleveland meeting of the Department
-of Superintendence, February 19, 1895.]
-
-
-This report treats of the training of elementary and secondary
-teachers, considering first that training which should precede teaching
-in elementary schools. By elementary schools are meant the primary and
-grammar departments of graded schools, and ungraded or rural schools.
-
-That teachers are “born, not made,” has been so fully the world’s
-thought until the present century that a study of subjects, without
-any study of principles or methods of teaching, has been deemed quite
-sufficient. Modern educational thought and modern practice, in all
-sections where excellent schools are found, confirm the belief that
-there is a profound philosophy on which educational methods are based,
-and that careful study of this philosophy and its application under
-expert guidance are essential to making fit the man born to teach.
-
-
-_Conditions for professional training--age and attainments._
-
-It is a widely prevalent doctrine, to which the customs of our best
-schools conform, that teachers of elementary schools should have a
-secondary or high school education, and that teachers of high schools
-should have a collegiate education. Your committee believe that these
-are the minimum acquirements that can generally be accepted, that
-the scholarship, culture, and power gained by four years of study in
-advance of the pupils are not too much to be rightfully demanded, and
-that as a rule no one ought to become a teacher who has not the age
-and attainments presupposed in the possessor of a high-school diploma.
-There are differences in high schools, it is true, and a high-school
-diploma is not a fixed standard of attainment; but in these United
-States it is one of the most definite and uniform standards that we
-possess, and varies less than college degrees vary or than elementary
-schools and local standards of culture vary.
-
-It is, of course, implied in the foregoing remarks that the high school
-from which the candidate comes is known to be a reputable school, and
-that its diploma is proof of the completion of a good four-years’
-course in a creditable manner. If these conditions do not exist,
-careful examination is the only recourse.
-
-If this condition, high-school graduation or proof by examination of
-equivalent scholarship, be accepted, the questions of the age and
-attainment to be reached before entering upon professional study and
-training are already settled. But if a more definite statement be
-desired, then it may be said that the candidate for admission to a
-normal or training school should be eighteen years of age and should
-have studied English, mathematics, and science to the extent usually
-pursued in high schools, should be able to write readily, correctly,
-and methodically upon topics within the teacher’s necessary range
-of thought and conversation, and should have studied, for two or
-more years, at least one language besides English. Skill in music
-and drawing is desirable, particularly ability to sketch readily and
-effectively.
-
-
-_Training schools._
-
-The training of teachers may be done in normal schools, normal classes
-in academies and high schools, and in city training schools. To all
-these the general term “training schools” will be applied. Those
-instructed in these schools will be called pupils while engaged in
-professional study, and pupil-teachers or teachers-in-training while
-in practice-teaching preparatory to graduation. Teachers whose work
-is to be observed by pupil-teachers will be called model-teachers;
-teachers in charge of pupil-teachers during their practice work will
-be called critic-teachers. In some institutions model-teachers and
-critic-teachers are the same persons. The studies usually pursued
-in academies and high schools will be termed academic, and those
-post-academic studies to be pursued before or during practice-teaching
-as a preparation therefor will be termed professional.
-
-
-_Academic studies._
-
-Whether academic studies have any legitimate place in a normal or
-training school is a question much debated. It cannot be supposed that
-your committee can settle in a paragraph a question upon which many
-essays have been written, many speeches delivered, and over which much
-controversy has been waged.
-
-If training schools are to be distinguished from other secondary
-schools, they must do a work not done in other schools. So far as they
-teach common branches of study, they are doing what other schools are
-doing, and have small excuse for existence; but it may be granted that
-methods can practically be taught only as to subjects, that the study
-done in professional schools may so treat of the subjects of study,
-not as objects to be required, but as objects to be presented, that
-their treatment shall be wholly professional.
-
-One who is to teach a subject needs to know it as a whole, made up of
-related and subordinate parts, and hence must study it by a method
-that will give this knowledge. It is not necessary to press the
-argument that many pupils enter normal and training schools with such
-slight preparation as to require instruction in academic subjects. The
-college with a preparatory department is, as a rule, an institution of
-distinctly lower grade than one without such a department. Academic
-work in normal schools that is of the nature of preparation for
-professional work lowers the standard and perhaps the usefulness of
-such a school; but academic work done as a means of illustrating or
-enforcing professional truth has its place in a professional school as
-in effect a part of the professional work. Professional study differs
-widely from academic study. In the one, a science is studied in its
-relation to the studying mind; in the other, in reference to its
-principles and applications. The aim of one kind of study is power to
-apply; of the other, power to present. The tendency of the one is to
-bring the learner into sympathy with the natural world, of the other
-with the child world. How much broader becomes the teacher who takes
-both the academic and the professional view! He who learns that he
-may know and he who learns that he may teach are standing in quite
-different mental attitudes. One works for knowledge of subject-matter,
-the other that his knowledge may have due organization, that he may
-bring to consciousness the apperceiving ideas by means of which matter
-and method may be suitably conjoined.
-
-How to study is knowledge indispensable to knowing how to teach. The
-method of teaching can best be illustrated by teaching. The attitude
-of a pupil in a training school must be that of a learner whose mental
-stores are expanding, who faces the great world of knowledge with the
-purpose to survey a portion of it. If we insist upon a sufficient
-preparation for admission, the question of what studies to pursue, and
-especially the controversy between professional and academic work, will
-be mainly settled.
-
-
-_Professional work._
-
-Professional training comprises two parts: (_a_) The science of
-teaching, and (_b_) the art of teaching.
-
-In the _science of teaching_ are included: (1) Psychology as a basis
-for principles and methods; (2) Methodology as a guide to instruction;
-(3) School economy, which adjusts the conditions of work; and (4)
-History of education, which gives breadth of view.
-
-The _art of teaching_ is best gained: (1) by observation of good
-teaching; (2) by practice-teaching under criticism.
-
-
-_Relative time._
-
-The existence and importance of each of these elements in the training
-of teachers are generally acknowledged. Their order and proportionate
-treatment give rise to differences of opinion. Some would omit the
-practice work entirely, launching the young teacher upon independent
-work directly from her pupilage in theory. Others, and much the greater
-number, advise some preparation in the form of guided experience before
-the training be considered complete. These vary greatly in their
-estimate of the proportionate time to be given to practice during
-training. The answers to the question “What proportion?” which your
-committee has received range from one-sixteenth to two-thirds as
-the proportion of time to be given to practice. The greater number,
-however, advocate a division of time about equal between theory and
-practice.
-
-The normal schools incline to the smallest proportion for
-practice-teaching, the city training-schools to the largest. It should
-be borne in mind, however, that city training-schools are a close
-continuation, usually, of high schools, and that the high-school
-courses give a more uniform and probably a more adequate preparation
-than the students entering normal schools have usually had. Their
-facilities for practice-teaching are much greater than normal schools
-can secure, and for this reason also practice is made relatively more
-important. As to the relative merits of city training-schools and
-normal schools, your committee does not desire to express an opinion;
-the conditions of education demand the existence of both, and both
-are necessities of educational advancement. It is important to add,
-however, that in the judgment of your committee not less than half of
-the time spent under training by the apprentice-teacher should be given
-to observation and practice, and that this practice in its conditions
-should be as similar as possible to the work she will later be required
-to do independently.
-
-
-_Science of teaching--psychology._
-
-The laws of apperception teach that one is ready to apprehend new
-truth most readily when he has already established a considerable and
-well-arranged body of ideas thereon.
-
-Suggestion, observation, and reflection are each most fruitful when
-a foundation of antecedent knowledge has been provided. Hence your
-committee recommends that early in their course of study teachers
-in training assume as true the well-known facts of psychology and
-the essential principles of education, and make their later study
-and practice in the light of these principles. These principles thus
-become the norm of educational thought, and their truth is continually
-demonstrated by subsequent experience. From this time theory and
-practice should proceed together in mutual aid and support.
-
-Most fundamental and important of the professional studies which
-ought to be pursued by one intending to teach is psychology. This
-study should be pursued at two periods of the training-school course,
-the beginning and the end, and its principles should be appealed to
-daily when not formally studied. The method of study should be both
-deductive and inductive. The terminology should be early learned
-from a suitable text-book, and significance given to the terms by
-introspection, observation, and analysis. Power of introspection should
-be gained, guidance in observation should be given, and confirmation
-of psychological principles should be sought on every hand. The habit
-of thinking analytically and psychologically should be formed by every
-teacher. At the close of the course a more profound and more completely
-inductive study of physiological psychology should be made. In this
-way, a tendency to investigate should be encouraged or created.
-
-
-_Study of children._
-
-Modern educational thought emphasizes the opinion that the child, not
-the subject of study, is the guide to the teacher’s efforts. To know
-the child is of paramount importance. How to know the child must be
-an important item of instruction to the teacher in training. The child
-must be studied as to his physical, mental, and moral condition. Is he
-in good health? Are his senses of sight and hearing normal, or in what
-degree abnormal? What is his temperament? Which of his faculties seem
-weak or dormant? Is he eye-minded or ear-minded? What are his powers of
-attention? What are his likes and dislikes? How far is his moral nature
-developed, and what are its tendencies? By what tests can the degree of
-difference between bright and dull children be estimated?
-
-To study effectively and observingly these and similar questions
-respecting children is a high art. No common-sense power of discerning
-human nature is sufficient; though common sense and sympathy go a
-long way in such study. Weighing, measuring, elaborate investigation
-requiring apparatus and laboratory methods, are for experts, not
-teachers in training. Above all, it must ever be remembered that the
-child is to be studied as a personality and not as an object to be
-weighed or analyzed.
-
-
-_Methodology._
-
-A part of the work under this head must be a study of the mental and
-moral effects of different methods of teaching and examination, the
-relative value of individual and class instruction at different periods
-of school life and in the study of different branches. The art of
-questioning is to be studied in its foundation principles and by the
-illustration of the best examples. Some review of the branches which
-are to be taught may be made, making the teacher’s knowledge of them
-ready and distinct as to the relations of the several parts of the
-subject to one another and of the whole to kindred subjects. These
-and many such subjects should be discussed in the class in pedagogy,
-investigation should be begun, and the lines on which it can be
-followed should be distinctly laid down.
-
-The laws of psychology, or the capabilities and methods of
-mind-activity, are themselves the fundamental laws of teaching, which
-is the act of exciting normal and profitable mind-action. Beyond
-these fundamental laws, the principles of education are to be derived
-inductively. These inductions when brought to test will be found to be
-rational inferences from psychological laws and thus founded upon and
-explained by them.
-
-
-_School economy._
-
-School economy, though a factor of great importance in the teacher’s
-training, can be best studied by the teacher of some maturity and
-experience, and is of more value in the equipment of secondary than
-of elementary teachers. Only its outlines and fundamental principles
-should be studied in the ordinary training-school.
-
-
-_History of education._
-
-Breadth of mind consists in the power to view facts and opinions from
-the standpoints of others. It is this truth which makes the study of
-history in a full, appreciative way so influential in giving mental
-breadth. This general advantage the history of education has in still
-larger degree, because our interest in the views and experiences of
-those engaged like us in training the young enables us to enter more
-fully into their thoughts and purposes than we could into those of
-the warrior or ruler. From the efforts of the man we imagine his
-surroundings, which, we contrast with our own. To the abstract element
-of theoretical truth is added the warm human interest we feel in the
-hero, the generous partisan of truth. The history of education is
-particularly full of examples of noble purpose, advanced thought, and
-moral heroism. It is inspiring to fill our minds with these human
-ideals. We read in the success of the unpractical Pestalozzi the award
-made to self-sacrifice, sympathy, and enthusiasm expended in giving
-application to a vital truth.
-
-But with enthusiasm for ideals history gives us caution, warns us
-against the moving of the pendulum, and gives us points of departure
-from which to measure progress. It gives us courage to attack difficult
-problems. It shows which the abiding problems are--those that can be
-solved only by waiting, and not tossed aside by a supreme effort. It
-shows us the progress of the race, the changing ideals of the perfect
-man, and the means by which men have sought to realize these ideals.
-We can from its study better answer the question, What is education,
-what may it accomplish, and how may its ideals be realized? It gives
-the evolution of the present and explains anomalies in our work. And
-yet the history of education is not a subject to be treated extensively
-in a training school. All but the outlines may better be reserved for
-later professional reading.
-
-
-_Training in teaching._
-
-Training to teach requires (1) schools for observation, and (2) schools
-for practice.
-
-Of necessity, these schools must be separate in purpose and in
-organization. A practice-school cannot be a model school. The
-pupil-teachers should have the opportunity to observe the best
-models of the teaching art; and the manner, methods, and devices of
-the model-teacher should be noted, discussed, and referred to the
-foundation principles on which they rest. Allowable modifications of
-this observed work may be suggested by the pupil-teacher and approved
-by the teacher in charge.
-
-There should be selected certain of the best teachers in regular
-school work, whom the pupil-teachers may be sent to observe. The
-pupil-teachers should take no part in the school work nor cause any
-change therein. They should, however, be told in advance by the
-teacher what purpose she seeks to accomplish. This excites expectation
-and brings into consciousness the apperceiving ideas by which the
-suggestions of the exercise, as they develop, may be seized and
-assimilated.
-
-At first these visits should be made in company with their teacher
-of methods, and the work of a single class in one subject should be
-first observed. After such visits the teacher of methods in the given
-subject should discuss with the pupil-teachers the work observed.
-The pupil-teachers should first describe the work they have seen and
-specify the excellences noted, and tell why these thing are commendable
-and upon what laws of teaching they are based. Next, the pupil-teachers
-should question the teacher of methods as to the cause, purpose, or
-influence of things noted, and matters of doubtful propriety--if
-there be such--should be considered. Then the teacher in turn should
-question her pupil-teachers as to matters that seem to have escaped
-their notice, as to the motive of the model-teacher, as to the reason
-for the order of treatment, or form of question, wherein lay the merit
-of her method, the secret of her power. When pupil-teachers have made
-such observations several times, with several teachers, and in several
-subjects, the broader investigation may be made as to the organization
-of one of the model rooms, its daily programme of recitations and of
-study, the methods of discipline, the relations between pupils and
-teacher, the “school spirit,” the school movements, and class progress.
-This work should be done before teaching groups or classes of pupils is
-attempted, and should form an occasional exercise during the period of
-practice-teaching as a matter of relief and inspiration. If an artist
-requires the suggestive help of a good example that stirs his own
-originality, why should not a teacher?
-
-
-_The practice-school._
-
-During the course in methodology certain steps preparatory to
-practice-teaching may be taken. 1. The pupil-teacher may analyze the
-topic to be taught, noting essentials and incidentals, seeking the
-connections of the subject with the mental possessions of the pupils
-to be considered and the sequences from these points of contact to the
-knowledge to be gained under instruction. 2. Next, plans of lessons may
-be prepared and series of questions for teaching the given subjects.
-3. Giving lessons to fellow pupil-teachers leads to familiarity with
-the mechanism of class work, such as calling, directing, and dismissing
-classes, gives the beginner ease and self-confidence, leads to careful
-preparation of lessons, gives skill in asking questions, and in the use
-of apparatus.
-
-The practice-teaching should be in another school, preferably in a
-different building, and should commence with group-teaching in a
-recitation-room apart from the schoolroom. Actual teaching of small
-groups of children gives opportunity for the study of the child-mind
-in its efforts at reception and assimilation of new ideas, and
-shows the modifications in lesson plans that must be made to adapt
-the subject-matter to the child’s tastes and activities. But the
-independent charge for a considerable time of a schoolroom with a full
-quota of pupils, the pupil-teacher and the children being much of
-the time the sole occupants of the room,--in short, the realization
-of ordinary school conditions, with the opportunity to go for advice
-to a friendly critic, is the most valuable practice; and no practice
-short of this can be considered of great value except as preparation
-for this chief form of preparatory practice. All this work should have
-its due proportion only, or evil may result. For example, lesson plans
-tend to formalism, to self-conceit, to work in few and narrow lines,
-to study of subjects rather than of pupils; lessons to fellow-pupils
-make one self-conscious, hinder the growth of enthusiasm in work, and
-are entirely barren if carried beyond a very few exercises; teaching
-groups of children for considerable time unfits the teacher for the
-double burden of discipline and instruction, to bear both of which
-simultaneously and easily is the teacher’s greatest difficulty and most
-essential power.
-
-A critic-teacher should be appointed to the oversight of two such
-pupil-teachers, each in charge of a schoolroom. The critic may also
-supervise one or more teachers practicing for brief periods daily with
-groups of children.
-
-The pupil-teachers are now to emphasize practice rather than theory,
-to work under the direction of one who regards the interests of the
-children quite as much as those of the teacher-in-training. The critic
-must admit the principles of education and general methods taught by
-the teacher of methodology, but she may have her own devices and even
-special methods that need not be those of the teacher of methodology.
-No harm will come to the teachers-in-training if they learn that
-principles must be assented to by all, but that methods may bear the
-stamp of the personality of the teacher; that all things must be
-considered from the point of view of their effect upon the pupils; the
-critic maintaining the claims of the children, the teacher of methods
-conforming to the laws of mind and the science of the subjects taught.
-The critics must teach for their pupil-teachers and show in action the
-justness of their suggestions. In this sense they are model-teachers as
-well as critics.
-
-The critic should, at the close of school, meet her pupil-teachers
-for a report of their experiences through the day: What they have
-attempted, how they have tried to do it, why they did so, and
-what success they gained. Advice as to overcoming difficulties,
-encouragement under trial, caution if need be, help for the work of
-to-morrow, occupy the hour. Above all, the critic should be a true
-friend, a womanly and cultivated woman, and an inspiring companion,
-whose presence is helpful to work and improving to personality.
-
-
-_Length of training-school course._
-
-There are three elements which determine the time to be spent in a
-training school--the time given to academic studies, the time given
-to professional studies, and the time given to practice. The sum of
-these periods will be the time required for the training course. Taking
-these in the inverse order, let us consider how much time is required
-for practice work with pupils. The time given to lesson outlines and
-practice with fellow pupil-teachers may be considered a part of the
-professional study rather than of practice-teaching. The period of
-practice with pupils must not be too short, whether we consider the
-interests of the pupils or of the teachers-in-training. An effort is
-usually made to counteract the effect upon the children of a succession
-of crude efforts of teachers beginning practice by strengthening the
-teaching and supervision through the employment of a considerable
-number of model and supervisory teachers, and by dividing the pupils
-into small groups, so that much individual work can be done. These
-arrangements, while useful for their purpose, destroy to a considerable
-degree the usual conditions under which school work is to be done, and
-tend to render the teachers-in-training formal and imitative.
-
-The practice room should be, as far as may be, the ordinary school,
-with the difficulties and responsibilities that will be met later.
-The responsibility for order, discipline, progress, records, reports,
-communication with parents and school authorities, must fall fully upon
-the young teacher, who has a friendly assistant to whom she can go for
-advice in the person of a wise and experienced critic, not constantly
-at hand, but constantly within reach.
-
-Between the critic and the teacher-in-training there should exist
-the most cordial and familiar relations. These relations are based
-on the one hand upon an appreciation of wisdom and kindness, on the
-other, upon an appreciation of sincerity and effort. The growth of
-such relations, and the fruitage which follows their growth, require
-time. A half-year is not too long to be allotted for them. During this
-half-year experience, self-confidence and growth in power have been
-gained; but the pupil-teacher is still not ready to be set aside to
-work out her own destiny. At this point she is just ready for marked
-advance, which should be helped and guided. To remain longer with her
-critic friend may cause imitation rather than independence, may lead to
-contentment and cessation of growth. She should now be transferred to
-the care of a second critic of a different personality, but of equal
-merit. The new critic is bound by her duty and her ambition to see
-that the first half year’s advancement is maintained in the second.
-The pupil-teacher finds that excellence is not all upon one model.
-The value of individuality impresses her. She gains a view of solid
-principles wrapped in diverse characteristics. Her own individuality
-rises to new importance, and the elements of a growth not at once to be
-checked start up within her. For the care of the second critic a second
-half year must be allowed, which extends the practice work with pupils
-through an entire school year. For the theoretical work a year is by
-general experience proven sufficient. The ideal training course is,
-then, one of two years’ length.
-
-Provision for the extended practice which is here recommended can
-be made only by city training-schools and by normal schools having
-connection with the schools of a city. To set apart a building of
-several rooms as a school of practice will answer the purpose only
-when there are very few teachers in training. In order to give each
-pupil-teacher a year of practice the number of practice rooms must
-equal the number of teachers to be graduated annually from the
-training-school, be the number ten, fifty, or five hundred. In any
-considerable city a school for practice will not suffice; many schools
-for practice must be secured. This can be done by selecting one
-excellent teacher in each of a sufficient number of school buildings,
-and making her a critic-teacher, giving her charge of two schoolrooms,
-in each of which is placed a pupil-teacher for training.
-
-This insures that the training shall be done as nearly as may be under
-ordinary conditions, brings the pupil-teachers at once into the general
-body of teachers, makes the corps of critics a leaven of zeal, and
-good teaching scattered among the schools. This body of critics will
-uplift the schools. More capable in the beginning than the average
-teacher, led to professional study, ambitious for the best things, they
-make greater progress than they otherwise would do, and are sufficient
-in themselves to inspire the general body of teachers. For the sake
-of the pupil-teachers, and the children, too, this plan is best. Its
-economy also will readily be apparent. This plan has been tried for
-several years in the schools of Providence, with results fully equal to
-those herein claimed.
-
-
-_Tests of success._
-
-The tests of success in practice-teaching are in the main those to be
-applied to all teaching. Do her pupils grow more honest, industrious,
-polite? Do they admire their teacher? Does she secure obedience and
-industry only while demanding it, or has she influence that reaches
-beyond her presence? Do her pupils think well and talk well? As to
-the teacher herself: Has she sympathy and tact, self-reliance and
-originality, breadth and intensity? Is she systematic, direct, and
-business-like? Is she courteous, neat in person and in work? Has
-she discernment of character and a just standard of requirement and
-attainment?
-
-These are some of the questions one must answer before he pronounces
-any teacher a success or a failure.
-
-Admission to a training school assumes that the pupil has good health,
-good scholarship, good sense, good ability, and devotion to the work
-of teaching. If all these continue to be exhibited in satisfactory
-degree and the pupil goes through the prescribed course of study
-and practice, the diploma of the school should naturally mark the
-completion of this work. If it appears on acquaintance that a serious
-mistake has been made in estimating any of these elements, then, so
-soon as the mistake is fairly apparent and is probably a permanent
-condition, the pupil should be requested to withdraw from the work.
-This is not a case where the wheat and the tares should grow together
-until the harvest at graduation day or the examination preceding it.
-With such a foundation continually maintained, it is the duty of the
-school to conquer success for each pupil.
-
-Teaching does not require genius. Indeed, genius, in the sense of
-erratic ability, is out of place in the teacher’s chair. Most good
-teachers at this close of the nineteenth century are made, not
-born; made from good material well fashioned. There is, however, a
-possibility that some idiosyncrasy of character, not readily discovered
-until the test is made, may rise between the prospective teacher and
-her pupils, making her influence over them small or harmful. Such a
-defect, if it exist, will appear during the practice-teaching, and the
-critic will discover it. This defect, on its first discovery, should be
-plainly pointed out to the teacher-in-training and her efforts should
-be joined with those of the critic in its removal.
-
-If this effort be a failure and the defect be one likely to harm the
-pupils hereafter to be taught, then the teacher-in-training should be
-informed and requested to withdraw from the school. There should be
-no test at the close of the school course to determine fitness for
-graduation. Graduation should find the teacher serious in view of her
-responsibilities, hopeful because she has learned how success is to be
-attained, inspired with the belief that growth in herself and in her
-pupils is the great demand and the great reward.
-
-
-_Training of teachers for secondary schools._
-
-Perhaps one-sixth of the great body of public school teachers in the
-United States are engaged in secondary work and in supervision. These
-are the leading teachers. They give educational tone to communities, as
-well as inspiration to the body of teachers.
-
-It is of great importance that they be imbued with the professional
-spirit springing from sound professional culture. The very difficult
-and responsible positions that they fill demand ripe scholarship, more
-than ordinary ability, and an intimate knowledge of the period of
-adolescence, which Rousseau so aptly styles the second birth.
-
-The elementary schools provide for the education of the masses. Our
-secondary schools educate our social and business leaders. The careers
-of our college graduates, who mainly fill the important places in
-professional and political life, are determined largely by the years
-of secondary training. The college or university gives expansion and
-finish, the secondary school gives character and direction.
-
-It should not be forgotten that the superintendents of public schools
-are largely taken from the ranks of secondary teachers, and that the
-scholarship, qualities, and training required for the one class are
-nearly equivalent to that demanded for the other.
-
-Our high schools, too, are the source of supply for teachers in
-elementary schools. Hence the pedagogic influences exerted in the high
-school should lead to excellence in elementary teaching.
-
-The superintendent who with long foresight looks to the improvement
-of his schools will labor earnestly to improve and especially to
-professionalize the teaching in his high school. The management which
-makes the high school an independent portion of the school system,
-merely attached and loftily superior, which limits the supervision and
-influence of the superintendent to the primary and grammar grades, is
-short-sighted and destructive.
-
-There ought also to be a place and a plan for the training of teachers
-for normal schools. The great body of normal and training schools
-in the United States are secondary schools. Those who are to teach
-in these schools need broad scholarship, thorough understanding of
-educational problems, and trained experience. To put into these schools
-teachers whose scholarship is that of the secondary school and whose
-training is that of the elementary is to narrow and depress, rather
-than broaden and elevate.
-
-If college graduates are put directly into teaching without special
-study and training, they will teach as they have been taught. The
-methods of college professors are not in all cases the best, and, if
-they were, high school pupils are not to be taught nor disciplined as
-college students are. High school teaching and discipline can be that
-neither of the grammar school nor of the college, but is _sui generis_.
-To recognize this truth and the special differences is vital to
-success. This recognition comes only from much experience at great loss
-and partial failure, or by happy intuition not usually to be expected,
-or by definite instruction and directed practice. Success in teaching
-depends upon conformity to principles, and these principles are not a
-part of the mental equipment of every educated person.
-
-These considerations and others are the occasion of a growing
-conviction, widespread in this land, that secondary teachers should be
-trained for their work even more carefully than elementary teachers are
-trained. This conviction is manifested in the efforts to secure normal
-schools adapted to training teachers for secondary schools, notably
-in Massachusetts and New York, and in the numerous professorships of
-pedagogy established in rapidly increasing numbers in our colleges and
-universities.
-
-The training of teachers for secondary schools is in several essential
-respects the same as that for teachers of elementary schools. Both
-demand scholarship, theory, and practice. The degree of scholarship
-required for secondary teachers is by common consent fixed at a
-collegiate education. No one--with rare exceptions--should be employed
-to teach in a high school who has not this fundamental preparation.
-
-It is not necessary to enter in detail into the work of theoretical
-instruction for secondary teachers. The able men at the head of
-institutions and departments designed for such work neither need nor
-desire advice upon this matter. And yet for the purposes of this
-report it may be allowable to point out a plan for the organization of
-a~secondary training school.
-
-Let it be supposed that two essentials have been found in one locality,
-(1) a college or university having a department of pedagogy and a
-department of post-graduate work; (2) a high school, academy, or
-preparatory school whose managers are willing to employ and pay a
-number of graduate students to teach under direction for a portion of
-each day. These two conditions being met, we will suppose that pedagogy
-is offered as an elective to the college seniors.
-
-Two years of instruction in the science and art of teaching are to be
-provided; one, mostly theory with some practice, elective during the
-senior year; the other, mostly practice with some theory, elective for
-one year as post-graduate work.
-
-During the senior year is to be studied:--
-
-
-_The science of teaching._
-
-The elements of this science are:--
-
-I. Psychology in its physiological, apperceptive, and experimental
-features. The period of adolescence here assumes the prominence that
-childhood has in the psychological study preparatory to teaching in
-lower schools. This is the period of beginnings, the beginning of a
-more ambitious and generous life, a life having the future wrapped up
-in it; a transition period, of mental storm and stress, in which egoism
-gives way to altruism, romance has charm, and the social, moral, and
-religious feelings bud and bloom. To guide youth at this formative
-stage, in which an active fermentation occurs that may give wine or
-vinegar according to conditions, requires a deep and sympathetic
-nature, and that knowledge of the changing life which supplies guidance
-wise and adequate.
-
-II. Methodology: A discussion of the principles of education and of the
-methods of teaching the studies of the secondary schools.
-
-III. School economy should be studied in a much wider and more thorough
-way than is required for elementary teachers. The school systems of
-Germany, France, England, and the leading systems of the United States
-should also be studied.
-
-IV. History of education, the tracing of modern doctrine back to its
-sources; those streams of influence now flowing and those that have
-disappeared in the sands of the centuries.
-
-V. The philosophy of education as a division of an all-involving
-philosophy of life and thought in which unity is found.
-
-
-_The art of teaching._
-
-This includes observation and practice. The observation should include
-the work of different grades and of different localities, with minute
-and searching comparison and reports upon special topics. How does
-excellent primary work differ from excellent grammar grade work? How
-do the standards of excellence differ between grammar grades and
-high school grades? Between high school and college work? What are
-the arguments for and against co-education in secondary schools, as
-determined by experience? What are the upper and lower limits of
-secondary education as determined by the nature of the pupil’s efforts?
-
-In the college class in pedagogy much more than in the elementary
-normal school can the class itself be made to afford a means of
-practice to its members. Quizzes may be conducted by students upon the
-chapters of the books read or the lectures of the professors. These
-exercises may have for their object review, or improved statement,
-or enlarged inference and application, and they afford an ample
-opportunity to cultivate the art of questioning, skill in which is the
-teacher’s most essential accomplishment.
-
-The head of the department of pedagogy will, of course, present the
-essential methods of teaching, and the heads of other departments may
-lecture on methods pertaining to their subject of study; or secondary
-teachers of known success may still better present the methods now
-approved in the several departments of secondary work.
-
-
-_Post-graduate year._
-
-To those graduates who have elected pedagogy in their senior year may
-be offered the opportunity of further study in this department, with
-such other post-graduate work as taste and opportunity permit. From
-those selecting advanced work in pedagogy the board in charge of the
-affiliated secondary school should elect as many teachers for its
-school as are needed, employing them for two-thirds time at one-half
-the usual pay for teachers without experience. Under the professor of
-pedagogy of the college, the principal, and the heads of departments
-of the school these student-teachers should do their work, receiving
-advice, criticism, and illustration as occasion requires. The time
-for which they are employed would provide for two hours of class work
-and about one hour of clerical work or study while in charge of a
-schoolroom. These student-teachers should be given abundant opportunity
-for the charge of pupils while reciting or studying, at recess and
-dismissals, and should have all the responsibilities of members of the
-faculty of this school. Their work should be inspected as frequently
-as may be by the heads of the departments in which they teach, by
-the principal of the school, and by the professor of pedagogy. These
-appointments would be virtually fellowships with an opportunity for
-most profitable experience.
-
-In the afternoon of each day these students should attend to college
-work and especially to instruction from the professor in pedagogy, who
-could meet them occasionally with the heads of the departments under
-whose direction they are working.
-
-On Saturdays a seminary of two hours’ duration might be held, conducted
-by the professor of pedagogy and attended by the student-teachers
-and the more ambitious teachers of experience in the vicinity. These
-seminaries would, doubtless, be of great profit to both classes of
-participants, and the greater to each because of the other. (Such
-a training school for secondary teachers in connection with Brown
-University and the Providence high school is contemplated for the
-coming year.)
-
-It will not be needful to specify further the advantages to the
-student-teachers. The arrangement likewise affords advantage to the
-affiliated school, especially in the breadth of view this work would
-afford to the heads of departments, the intense desire it would beget
-in them for professional skill, the number of perplexing problems which
-it would force them to attempt the solution of.
-
-The visits of the professor of pedagogy, and the constant comparison
-he would make between actual and ideal conditions, would lead him to
-seek the improvement, not only of the students in practice, but of the
-school as a whole.
-
-When several earnest and capable people unite in a mutual effort to
-improve themselves and their work, all the essential conditions of
-progress are present.
-
-        HORACE S. TARBELL, Chairman,
-  Superintendent of Schools, Providence, R. I.
-
-        EDWARD BROOKS,
-  Superintendent of Schools, Philadelphia, Pa.
-
-        THOMAS M. BALLIET,
-  Superintendent of Schools, Springfield, Mass.
-
-        NEWTON C. DOUGHERTY,
-  Superintendent of Schools, Peoria, Ill.
-
-        OSCAR H. COOPER,
-  Superintendent of Schools, Galveston, Tex.
-
-
-
-
-Dissent from Dr. Harris’ Report.
-
-BY JAMES M. GREENWOOD, OF KANSAS CITY.
-
-
-I dissent from the majority report of the Committee in regard to the
-following points:--
-
-
-_Arithmetic_
-
-1. AS TO FRACTIONS: In teaching arithmetic there does not exist any
-greater difficulty in getting small children to grasp the nature of
-the fraction as such than in getting them to grasp the idea of the
-simpler whole numbers. It is true that the fractions ½, ⅓, ¼, etc., as
-symbols, are a little more complex than are the single digits; but as
-to the real meaning, when once the fractional idea has been properly
-developed by the teacher and the significance of the idea apprehended
-by the pupil, it is as easily understood as any other simple truth.
-Children get the idea of half, third, or quarter of many things long
-before they enter school, and they will as readily learn to add,
-subtract, multiply, and divide fractions as they will whole numbers. In
-using fractions they will draw diagrams and pictures representing the
-processes of work as quickly and easily as they illustrate similar work
-with integers. It is, of course, assumed that the teacher knows how to
-teach arithmetic to children, or rather, how to teach the children how
-to teach themselves. There is really no valid argument why children in
-the second, third, and fourth years in school should not master the
-fundamental operations in fractions. Not only this, they will put the
-more common fractions into the technique of percentage, and do this
-as well in the second and third grades as at any other time in their
-future progress. There is only one new idea involved in this operation,
-and that consists in giving an additional term--per cent.--to the
-fractional symbol. When one number is a part of another, it may be
-regarded as a fractional part or as such a per cent. of it. A great
-deal of percentage is thus learned by the pupils early in the course.
-Children are not hurt by learning. Standing still and lost motion kill.
-
-Every recitation should reach the full swing of the learner’s mind,
-including all his acquisitions on any given topic. But if the teaching
-of fractions be deferred, as it usually is in most schools, the time
-may be materially shortened by teaching addition and subtraction of
-fractions together. This is simple enough if different fractions having
-common denominators are used at first, such as 6/2 + 5/2 = ?, and 6/2 -
-5/2 = ? Then the next step, after sufficient drill on this case, is to
-take two fractions (simple) of different units of value, as ½ + ⅓ = ?,
-and ½ - ⅓ = ? Multiplication and division may be treated similarly.
-
-In decimals, the pupil is really confronted by a simpler form of
-fractions than the varied forms of common fractions.
-
-Devices and illustrations of a material kind are necessary to build up
-in the pupil’s mind at the beginning a clear concept of a tenth, etc.,
-etc., and then to show that one-tenth written as a decimal is only a
-shorthand way of writing 1/10 as a common fraction, and so on. He sees
-very soon that the decimal is only a shorthand common fraction, and
-this notion he must hold to. This is the vital point in decimals. The
-idea that they can be changed into common fractions and the reverse
-at will establishes the fact in the pupil’s mind that they are common
-fractions and not uncommon ones. Fixing the decimal point will, in a
-short time, take care of itself.
-
-In teaching arithmetic the steps are: (1) developing the subject till
-each pupil gets a clear conception of it; (2) necessary drill to fix
-the process; (3) connecting the subject with all that has preceded it;
-(4) its applications; (5) the pupil’s ability to sum up clearly and
-concisely what he has learned.
-
-2. AS TO ABRIDGMENT: Under this head, I hold that a course in
-arithmetic, including simple numbers, fractions, tables of weights
-and measures, percentage, and interest, and numerical operations in
-powers, does not fit a pupil to begin the study of algebra. That while
-he may carry the book under his arm to the schoolroom, he is too poorly
-equipped to make headway on this subject, and instead of finishing up
-algebra in a reasonable length of time, he is kept too long at it, with
-a strong probability of his becoming disgusted with it.
-
-There are subjects, however, in the common school arithmetic that may
-be dropped out with great advantage, to wit, all but the simplest
-exercises in compound interest, foreign exchange, all foreign
-moneys (except reference tables of values), annuities, alligation,
-progression; and the entire subjects of percentage and interest should
-be condensed into about twenty pages.
-
-Cancellation, factoring, proportion, evolution, and involution should
-be retained. Cancellation and factoring should be strongly emphasized,
-owing to their immense value in shortening work in arithmetic, algebra,
-and in more advanced subjects. Some drill in the Metric System should
-not be omitted.
-
-3. AS TO MENTAL ARITHMETIC: Till the end of the fourth year the pupil
-does not need a text-book of mental arithmetic. So far his work
-in arithmetic should be about equally divided between written and
-mental. At the beginning of the fifth year, in addition to his written
-arithmetic, he should begin a mental arithmetic and continue it three
-years, reciting at least four mental arithmetic lessons each week. The
-length of the recitation should be twenty minutes. A pupil well drilled
-in mental arithmetic at the end of the seventh year, if the school age
-begins at six, is far better prepared to study algebra than the one who
-has not had such a drill. There are a few problems in arithmetic that
-can be solved more easily by algebra than by the ordinary processes of
-arithmetic, but there are many numerical problems in equations of the
-first degree that can be more easily handled by mental arithmetic than
-by algebra. To attack arithmetical problems by algebra is very much
-like using a tremendous lever to lift a feather. Those who have found a
-great stumbling-block in arithmetical “conundrums” have, if the inside
-facts were known, been looking in the wrong direction. A deficiency of
-“number-brain-cells” will afford an adequate explanation.
-
-4. REARRANGEMENT OF SUBJECTS: There should be a rearrangement of the
-topics in arithmetic so that one subject naturally leads up to the
-next. As an illustration, it is easily seen that whole numbers and
-fractions can be treated together, and that with U. S. money, when the
-dime is reached, is the proper time to begin decimals, and that when
-a “square” in surface measure first comes up, the next step is the
-square of a number as well as its square root, and that solid measure
-logically lands the learner among cubes and cube-roots. When he learns
-that 1728 cubic inches make one cubic foot he is prepared to find the
-edge of the cube. What is meant here is pointing the way to the next
-above. All depends upon the teacher’s ability to lead the pupil to see
-conditions and relations. My contention is that truth, so far as one is
-capable of taking hold of it when it is properly presented, is always a
-simple affair.
-
-5. AS TO ALGEBRA: If algebra be commenced at the middle of the seventh
-year, let the pupil go at it in earnest, and keep at it till he has
-mastered it. Here the best opportunities will be afforded him to
-connect his algebraic knowledge to his arithmetical knowledge. He
-builds the one on top of the other. The skillful teacher always insists
-that the learner shall establish and maintain this relationship between
-the two subjects. To switch around the other way appears to me to be
-the same as to omit certain exercises in the common algebra, because
-they are more briefly and elegantly treated in the calculus. It is
-admitted that a higher branch of mathematics often throws much light
-on the lower branches, but these side-lights should be employed for
-the purpose of leading the learner onward to broader generalizations.
-Unless one sees the lower clearly, the higher is obscure. Build solidly
-the foundation on arithmetic--written and mental--and the higher
-branches will be more easily mastered and time saved.
-
-
-_History of the United States._
-
-In teaching this branch in the public schools, there does not appear,
-so far as I can see, any substantial reason why the pupils should not
-study and recite the history of the Rebellion in the same manner that
-they do the Revolutionary War. The pupils discuss the late war and
-the causes that led to it with an impartiality of feeling that speaks
-more for their good sense and clear judgment than any other way by
-which their knowledge can be tested. They may not get hold of all the
-causes involved in that conflict, but they get enough to understand
-the motives which caused the armies to fight so heroically, and why
-the people, both North and South, staked everything on the issue. Just
-as the men who faced each other for four years and met so often in a
-death grapple will sit down now and quietly talk over their trials,
-sufferings, and conflicts, so do their children talk over these same
-stirring scenes. They, too, so far as my experience extends, are
-singularly free from bitterness and prejudice. It is certainly a period
-of history that they should study.
-
-
-_The spelling-book._
-
-In addition to the “spelling-lists,” I would supplement with a good
-spelling-book. So far, no “word-list,” however well selected, has
-supplied the place of a spelling-book. All those schools that threw
-out the spelling-book and undertook to teach spelling incidentally or
-by word-lists failed, and for the same reason that grammar, arithmetic,
-geography, and other branches cannot be taught incidentally as the
-pupil or the class reads Robinson Crusoe, or any similar work. It is an
-independent study and as such should be pursued.
-
-
-BY CHARLES B. GILBERT, OF ST. PAUL.
-
-While affixing my signature to the report of this Committee, as
-expressing substantial agreement with most of its leading propositions,
-I beg leave also to indicate my dissent from certain of its
-recommendations and to suggest certain additions which, in my judgment,
-the report requires.
-
-1. There are other forms of true correlation which should be included
-with the four mentioned in the first part of the report and which
-should be as clearly and fully treated as are these four.
-
-The first is that form of correlation which is popularly understood
-by the name, and which is also called by some writers concentration,
-co-ordination, unification, and alludes in general to a division of
-studies into content and form; by content meaning that upon which it is
-fitting that the mind of the child should dwell, and by form the means
-or modes of expression by which thoughts are communicated. Or, it may
-be thus expressed: The true content of education is (1), philosophy or
-the knowledge of man as to his motives and hidden springs of action
-indicated in history and literature, and (2) science, the knowledge
-of nature, and its manifestations and laws. Its form is art, which
-is the deliberate, purposeful, and effective expression to others of
-that which has been produced within man by contact with other men and
-with nature, and is commonly referred to as divided into various arts,
-such as reading, writing, drawing, making, and modeling. The relation
-of content and form is that of principle and subordinate, the latter
-receiving its chief value from the former. In a true education they
-are so presented to the mind of the child that he instinctively and
-unconsciously grasps this relation and is thereby lifted into a higher
-plane of thinking and living than if the various arts are taught, as
-they too commonly are, without reference to a noble content. This
-relation of form to content is vaguely referred to in the report, but
-nowhere definitely treated. It seems to me that it is a true form of
-correlation, and, as such, deserves special and definite treatment.
-Moreover, it is at present much in the minds of the teachers of this
-country, often in forms that are misleading and harmful. The fact that
-it adds the important element of interest to the dry details of common
-school life makes it especially attractive to progressive and earnest
-teachers, and this Committee should recognize its importance and make
-such an utterance upon it as will guide the average teacher to a clear
-comprehension of its meaning and to a wise use of it in the schoolroom.
-
-Second, there is a still higher form of correlation which is definitely
-referred to later in the report as that “of the several branches of
-human learning in the unity of the spiritual view furnished by religion
-to our civilization.” This in the report is assigned absolutely to the
-province of higher education. While I do not wish to dissent wholly
-from this view, since it is doubtless true that this higher unity
-cannot be comprehensively stated for the use of a child, yet a wise
-teacher can so present subjects to even a young child that a sense of
-the unity of all knowledge will, to a certain degree, be unconsciously
-developed in his mind. In regard to certain of the great divisions
-of human knowledge, this relation is so evident that they cannot be
-properly presented at all unless the relation be made clear. Such
-studies are history and geography.
-
-2. The recommendations upon the subject of language should be broadened
-to cover the production of good English by the child himself, with the
-suggestion of suitable topics and proper methods. This report confines
-itself to the absorptive side of education and ignores that development
-of power over nature, man, and self, which comes from free exercise
-of faculties and free expression of thought. The study of language as
-something for the child to use himself, the great means by which he is
-to assert his place in civilization, and exert his influence for good,
-is nowhere referred to except in the vaguest way. This statement in
-regard to language applies almost equally well to drawing, and here is
-made evident the importance of the form of correlation to which I have
-just referred. The proper material for the training of the child in
-expression is that which is furnished by the study of man and nature.
-His mind being filled with high themes, he asserts his individuality,
-expresses himself in regard to them, and thereby gains at once both a
-closer and clearer comprehension of what he has studied, and also the
-power by which he may become a factor in his generation.
-
-3. I would wish to omit the word “weekly” where it occurs in the
-discussion of the subjects of general history and science, unless it be
-understood to mean that an amount of time in the school year equivalent
-to sixty minutes weekly be given to each of these subjects. It is often
-better to condense these studies into certain portions of the year,
-giving more time to them each week, and using them as the basis, to
-a certain degree, of language work. I believe that, especially with
-young children, clearer concepts are produced by such connected study,
-pursued for fewer weeks, than by lessons seven days apart.
-
-4. In my judgment manual training should not be limited to the seventh
-and eighth grades, but should begin in the kindergarten with the
-simple study of form from objects and the reproduction in paper of the
-objects presented, and should extend, in a series of carefully graded
-lessons, through all the grades, leaving, however, the heavier tools,
-such as the plane, for the seventh and eighth grades. By these means an
-interest is kept up in the various human industries, sympathy for all
-labor is created, and a certain degree of skill is developed; moreover,
-the interest of the pupils in their school is greatly enhanced. Manual
-training has often proved the magnet by which boys at the restless age
-have been kept in school instead of leaving for some gainful occupation.
-
-5. I desire to suggest that geometry may be so taught as to be a better
-mathematical study than algebra to succeed or accompany arithmetic
-in the seventh and eighth grades. I do not refer particularly to
-inventional geometry, to which the Committee accords a slighting
-attention, but to constructive geometry and the simplest propositions
-in demonstrative geometry, thus involving the comprehension of the
-elementary geometric forms and their more obvious relations. This study
-may be made of special interest in connection with manual training and
-drawing, while it presents fewer difficulties to the immature mind than
-the abstractions of algebra, since it connects more directly with the
-concrete, by which its presentation may often be aided.
-
-6. While agreeing fully with the majority of the Committee that the
-full scientific method should not be applied to the study of elementary
-science by young children, yet I am compelled to favor more of
-experimentation and observation by the child, and less of telling by
-the teacher than the report would seem to favor.
-
-7. I would go farther than the majority of the Committee, and insist
-that, except in rare cases, there should be no specialization of the
-teaching force below the high school, and that even in the first years
-of the high school, so far as possible, specialization should be
-subordinated to a general care of the child’s welfare and oversight of
-his methods of study, which are impossible when a corps of teachers
-give instruction, each in one subject, and see the student only during
-the hour of recitation.
-
-8. While in the main I agree with the bald statements under the head
-“Correlation by synthesis of studies,” since reference is made to
-only a very artificial mode of synthesis not at all in vogue in this
-country, I must dissent emphatically from this portion of the report
-as by inference condemning a most important department of correlation,
-to which I have referred earlier. The doctrine of concentration is not
-necessarily artificial; rather it refers to the higher unity, of which
-this Committee has spoken in glowing terms as belonging to the province
-of higher education. It also includes the division of the school
-curriculum into content and form, which this Committee inferentially
-adopts in its treatment of language. I do not believe, any more than
-do the majority of the Committee, that the entire course of study can
-be literally and exactly centred about a single subject, nor do I
-believe in any artificial correlation; but there is a natural relation
-of all knowledges, which this Committee admits in various places, and
-which is the basis of a proper synthesis of studies, according to the
-psychological principle of apperception.
-
-9. If by the term “oral,” as applied to lessons in biography and in
-natural science, the Committee means, as the word would imply, that
-the instruction is to be given in the form of lectures by the teacher,
-I cannot in full agree with the Committee’s conclusions. As I have
-already stated, in natural science the work should be largely that of
-observation, and in history and biography, while in the very lowest
-grades the teachers should tell the children stories, as soon as it
-is possible the desired information should be obtained by the student
-through reading. To this end the reading lesson in school should be
-properly correlated with his other studies, and he should be advised
-as to his home reading. The information thus obtained should be the
-subject of conversation in the class, and should furnish the material
-for much of the written language work of the children.
-
-10. I must dissent emphatically and entirely from that portion of the
-report which recommends that a text-book in grammar be introduced into
-the fifth year of the child’s school life. It is a question in my mind
-whether it would not be better if the text-book were not introduced
-into the grades below the high school at all. Certainly it should not
-appear before the seventh year. Such knowledge of grammar as will
-familiarize the child with the structure of the sentence, the basis of
-all language and as will enable him to use correctly forms of speech
-which the necessities of expression require, should be given orally by
-the teacher in connection with the child’s written work, when needed;
-but against the introduction of a text-book upon grammar, the most
-abstruse of all the subjects of the school curriculum, when the pupil
-is not more than ten years old, I must protest. Instead of that, the
-child should devote much time, some every day, to writing upon proper
-themes in the best English he can command, furnishing occasion to the
-teacher to correct such errors as he may make, and acquiring by use
-acquaintance with the correct forms of grammar. If, as will doubtless
-be the case in most cities, local conditions render the introduction of
-Latin into the eighth grade inadvisable, this study of grammar may be
-made in that grade somewhat more intensive.
-
-11. If by a text-book in geography is meant that which is commonly
-understood by the term, and not simply geographical reading matter, in
-my judgment, it should not be introduced earlier than the fifth year.
-
-These suggestions and expressions of dissent, if approved by the
-Committee, would necessitate some change in the programme submitted,
-the most important of which would be the making room for the production
-of English in the grades. This could be provided in the first and
-second grades by taking some of the time devoted to penmanship and
-doing the work partly in connection with the reading classes. In the
-third and fourth grades it should take some of the time devoted to
-penmanship and should be studied also in connection with geography and
-reading, and in the fifth and sixth grades it should take all of the
-time given to grammar.
-
-I regret to be compelled to express dissent upon so many points, but
-as most of them appear to me vital and as the differences appear to be
-not merely superficial but fundamental, affecting and affected by one’s
-entire educational creed, I cannot do otherwise. To most of the report
-I most gladly give my assent and approval.
-
-
-BY L. H. JONES, OF CLEVELAND.
-
-I agree most heartily with the main features of the foregoing report
-of the sub-committee on correlation of studies. It is so admirable in
-its analysis of subjects and in its statement of comparative education
-values, and so suggestive in its practical applications to teaching,
-that I regret to find myself appearing in any way to dissent from its
-conclusions. Indeed, my principal objection is not against anything
-contained in the report (unless it be against a possible inference
-which might be drawn at one point), but it refers rather to what seems
-to me to be an omission.
-
-In addition to all the forms of correlation recommended in the
-report, it seems to me possible to make a correlation of subjects in
-a programme in such way that the selection of subject-matter may be
-to some extent from all fields of knowledge. These selections should
-be such as are related to one another so as to be mutually helpful
-in acquisition. They should be the main features of knowledge in the
-different departments.
-
-These different departments from which the chosen subjects should be
-taken must be fundamental ones and must be sufficiently numerous to
-represent universal culture. The report itself indicates conclusively
-what these are.
-
-Reference is made in the report to various attempts that have been made
-to correlate subjects of study.
-
-A very just criticism is made upon that attempt at correlation by the
-use of the story of Robinson Crusoe as a centre of correlation. It is
-distinctly pointed out in the report that the experiences of Robinson
-Crusoe are lacking in many of the elements of universal culture, and
-in many elements of education needed to adjust the individual properly
-to the civilization of our time and country. It is equally evident
-that the attempt to make this story the centre of correlation leads
-directly to trivial exercises in other subjects in order to make them
-“correlate” with Robinson Crusoe. It is also shown in the report that
-it naturally leads to fragmentary knowledge of many subjects very much
-inferior to that clear, logically connected knowledge of a subject
-which may be had by pursuing it without reference to correlating it
-with all others.
-
-It is at this point that in my judgment a wrong inference is permitted
-by the report.
-
-It does not, as it seems to me, follow that because correlation based
-on Robinson Crusoe is a failure, all correlations having the same
-general purpose will necessarily prove failures. For my own part,
-I do not believe that correlation needs any “centre,” outside the
-child and its natural activities. If, however, it seems wiser to give
-special prominence to any given field of acquisition, it should,
-in my judgment, be accorded to language and its closely related
-subjects--reading, spelling, writing, composing, study of literature,
-etc., etc. Indeed, language as a mode of expression is organically
-related to thinking, in all fields of knowledge, as form is related to
-content. A “system” or “programme” of correlation on this basis would
-seek for fundamental ideas in all the leading branches and make them
-themes of thought and occasions of language exercises. The selections
-would omit all trivialities in all subjects, and would not attempt to
-correlate for the mere sake of correlation; but would seek to correlate
-wherever by such correlation kindred themes may be made to illuminate
-one another. To illustrate, concrete problems in arithmetic would be
-sought that would clearly develop and illustrate mathematical ideas
-and their application; but in a secondary way these problems would be
-sought for in the various departments of concrete knowledge--geography,
-history, physics, chemistry, astronomy, meteorology, political,
-industrial, or domestic economy. But none of these themes would be so
-relied upon for problems as to compel one to choose unreasonable or
-trivial relations on which to base them. The problems themselves should
-represent true and important facts and relations of the other subjects
-as surely and rigidly as they should involve correct mathematical
-principles; and all such exercises should be rightly related to the
-child’s education in language.
-
-In like manner, when a child is engaged in nature study of any kind,
-some valuable problems in mathematics may be found rightly related
-both to the subject directly in hand and the child’s natural progress
-in arithmetic. Also many of the lessons in nature study are directly
-related to some of the finest literature ever produced, in which
-analogies of nature are made the means of expression for the finest and
-most delicate of the human experiences. When the child has mastered
-the physical facts on which the literary inspiration is based is the
-true time to give him the advantage of the study of such literature.
-These ideas are not only rightly related to one another, but to the
-mind itself. It is, so to speak, the nascent moment when the mind can
-easily and fully master what might else remain an impenetrable mystery;
-and all because subjects and occasion have come into happy conjunction.
-
-This is not the place in which to attempt any elaboration of such a
-system of correlation. But I feel that its absence from the report may
-make many persons feel that the latter is so far incomplete.
-
-
-BY WILLIAM H. MAXWELL, OF BROOKLYN.
-
-With the main lines of thought in this report I find myself in
-agreement. With many of its details, however, I am not in accord.
-I regret to have to express my dissent from its conclusions in the
-following particulars:--
-
-1. The report makes too little of the uses of grammar as supplying
-canons of criticism which enable the pupil to correct his own English,
-and as furnishing a key (grammatical analysis) that gives him the power
-to see the meaning of obscure or involved sentences.
-
-2. For the study of literature, complete works are to be preferred to
-the selections found in school readers.
-
-3. That species of language exercise known as paraphrasing I regard as
-harmful.
-
-4. The study of number should not be omitted from the first year in
-school. Practice in the primary operations of arithmetic should not
-be omitted from the seventh and eighth years. The quadratic equation
-should be reserved for the high school.
-
-5. The foreign language introduced into the elementary school course
-should be a modern language--French or German. Latin should be reserved
-for those who have time and opportunity to master its literature.
-
-6. In the general programme of studies, the school day is cut up into
-too many short periods. The tendency of such a programme as that in the
-text would be to destroy repose of mind and render reflection almost an
-impossibility.
-
-7. I desire to express my agreement with the opinions stated in
-Sections 2, 3, 6, and 9 of Mr. Gilbert’s dissenting opinion; and, in
-the main, with what Mr. Jones says on the correlation of studies.
-
-
-
-
-Dissent from Dr. Draper’s Report.
-
-BY EDWIN P. SEAVER, BOSTON.
-
-
-I find myself in general accord with the doctrines of the report. There
-is only one feature of it from which I feel obliged to dissent, and
-that is an important though not necessarily a vital one. I refer to the
-office of school director. I see no need of such an officer elected
-by the people, and I do see the danger of his becoming a part of the
-political organization for the dispensation of patronage.
-
-All power and authority in school affairs should reside ultimately
-in the board of education, consisting of not more than eight persons
-appointed by the mayor of the city, to hold office four years, two
-members retiring annually and eligible for reappointment once and no
-more. This board should appoint as its chief officer a superintendent
-of instruction, whose tenure should be during good behavior and
-efficiency, and whose powers and duties should be to a large extent
-defined by statute law, and not wholly or chiefly by the regulations
-of the board of education. The superintendent of instruction should
-have a seat and voice but not a vote in the board of education. The
-board of education should also appoint a business agent, and define his
-powers and duties in relation to all matters of buildings, repairs, and
-supplies, substantially as set forth in the report in relation to the
-school director.
-
-All teachers should be appointed and annually reappointed or
-recommended by the superintendent of instruction, until after a
-sufficient probation they are appointed on a tenure during good
-behavior and efficiency.
-
-All matters relating to courses of study, text-books, and examinations
-should be left to the superintendent and his assistants, constituting a
-body of professional experts who should be regarded as alone competent
-to deal with such matters, and should be held accountable therefor to
-the board of education only in a general way, and not in particular
-details.
-
-
-BY ALBERT G. LANE, CHICAGO.
-
-I concur in the recommendations of the sub-committee on the
-Organization of City School Systems as summarized in the concluding
-portion of the report, omitting in item THIRD the words, “And that
-it be constituted of two branches acting against each other.” Omit
-FIFTH, “But we think it preferable that he be chosen in the same way
-that members of the board are chosen and be given veto power upon the
-acts of the board.” I recommend that the veto power be given to the
-president of the board.
-
-
-
-
-Discussion on Report of Dr. Harris.
-
-
-FRANK M. MCMURRY, _Franklin School, Buffalo_: My remarks have no
-reference to the dissenting opinions, but will be confined to the
-correlation in the main body of the report. So far, we have listened
-to the definition of correlation; my remarks refer to that, and to its
-influence on the course of study.
-
-The address by Miss Arnold last night referred to correlation. That
-lecture is not in accord with the report of five in regard to this
-subject. We have been using two synonyms for correlation--coördination
-and concentration. Many persons have gotten their definition through
-their ideas of concentration. People have in mind, as I understand it,
-mainly the relation of studies to one another. Let me give one or two
-samples in addition to last night’s suggestions. Let me refer to Egypt.
-The geography will naturally take the Nile, the drawing will take up
-cardboard work, etc., the pupil will deal with the pyramid and the
-triangle in mathematics, and with language work in the whole subject. I
-give that as a simple illustration of concentration.
-
-I turn to the part of the report where they take up correlation by
-synthesis of studies; that, as I understand it, was the thought in the
-mind of Miss Arnold, and it is what is in my own mind. They take up the
-subject of Robinson Crusoe. I think they should look into it further,
-but it is not my purpose to defend Robinson Crusoe. They have taken
-the story of Robinson Crusoe as a type and they have condemned that as
-a type. We may think they aim mainly at the story of Robinson Crusoe
-alone, but they say, “Your committee would call attention in this
-connection to the importance of the pedagogical principle of analysis
-and isolation as preceding synthesis and correlation. There should
-be rigid isolation of the elements of each branch for the purpose of
-getting a clear perception of what is individual and peculiar in a
-special province of learning.”
-
-They warn us against having studies closely tied together. They do
-not realize, as it seems to me, that the chief fault of our present
-studies is that they do not support each other. The report is opposed
-from principle to this kind of correlation. They refer later to
-this matter in these words: “Your committee has already mentioned a
-species of faulty correlation wherein the attempt is made to study
-all the branches in each, misapplying Jacotot’s maxim, ‘all is in
-all.’” Farther than that, they show a large lack of sympathy with this
-point. They have no allusion to the fact that the different sciences
-have a relationship with one another. By their omissions, as well as
-their positive statements, they show their opposing attitude toward
-correlation.
-
-They talk about having a proper sequence in the studies,--they do not
-insist upon it from principle. They say, “The most practical knowledge
-of all, it will be admitted, is a knowledge of human nature,--a
-knowledge that enables one to combine with his fellow-men and to share
-with them the physical and spiritual wealth of the race. Of this
-high character as humanizing or civilizing are the favorite works of
-literature found in the school readers, about one hundred and fifty
-English and American writers being drawn upon for the material.” In
-other words, they are in sympathy with the text-book readers. In
-enforcing that point further, “In the first three years the reading
-should be limited to pieces in the colloquial style, but selections
-from the classics of the language in prose and poetry shall be read
-to the pupil from time to time.” “In the years from the fifth to
-the eighth there should be some reading of entire stories, such as
-Gulliver’s Travels, Robinson Crusoe,” and so forth.
-
-As I understand it, we should have wholes in literature from the
-beginning. There are sixty pages in this report, only two of them refer
-to the subject of concentration, and they condemn that subject from
-principle. They show that they do not, from principle, favor the idea
-of connected thought. That is my first point--opposition to the whole
-matter. [Applause.]
-
-The next point is, What do they discuss? [Laughter.] They have four
-points in their definition of correlation. The fourth point is the
-chief subject. “Your committee understands by correlation of studies
-the selection and arrangement in order of sequence of such objects of
-study as shall give the child an insight into the world that he lives
-in, and a command over his resources such as is obtained by healthful
-coöperation with one’s fellows. In a word, the chief consideration
-to which all others are to be subordinated, in the opinion of your
-committee, is this requirement of the civilization into which the
-child is born as determining what he shall study in school.” There is
-the old idea of study, in which, from the adult standpoint, we decide
-that what the child will use as a man shall constitute his course. We
-have had the three R’s and we have tended to kill the children. The
-new education is based on child study, apperception, and interest. We
-have reached the conclusion that knowledge is not primarily for the
-sake of knowledge, but for use, and the only condition under which the
-ideas will be active is that they shall appeal to the child and shall
-fit his nature. Child study, interest, and apperception demand that
-the chief factor shall be the nature of the child--that is not the
-attitude of this committee of five. “Your committee is of the opinion
-that psychology of both kinds, physiological and introspective, can
-hold only a subordinate place in the settlement of questions relating
-to the correlation of studies. The branches to be studied and the
-extent to which they are studied will be determined mainly by the
-demands of one’s civilization.” Psychology, in a plain statement, “will
-largely determine the methods of instruction, the order of taking up
-the several topics so as to adapt the school work to the growth of the
-pupil’s capacity.” In other words, the committee have failed to be
-influenced as to a course of study by other considerations than the
-demands of civilization. They state plainly that psychology shall be a
-subordinate matter in determining curriculum. The fact is to be seen
-in their course of study. Reading, nature study, and history are the
-principal subjects, but in the minds of the committee the principal
-subjects are reading, writing, etc., for the first three years. I do
-not believe it. In the first three years, reading pieces; in other
-words, the first three years do not deal primarily in rich ideas.
-One objection to Robinson Crusoe--“It omits cities, governments, the
-world commerce, the international process, the church, the newspaper,
-and book from view.” They are not in sympathy with the child. I would
-choose Robinson Crusoe because it does not deal with subjects which are
-outside the child’s interest.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-F. W. PARKER, _Cook County Normal, Chicago_: When I moved, two years
-ago, the appointment of this committee, I had in mind the careful
-study of the whole matter of correlation that teachers in this country
-should get from the highest sources the doctrine and the highest
-criticism,--that a report should be presented which should follow the
-greatest report upon education in this century,--the report of the
-Committee of Ten. I have not had time to study this report and can,
-therefore, say very little upon it. These subjects should be studied
-with the greatest care. It seems to me that there are some general
-criticisms which may be made in the brief time at my command.
-
-We cannot doubt that these gentlemen have made the most careful study
-of the doctrine of Herbert and of his disciples,--Ziller, Stoy, and
-Rein; they have also had their eye upon the distinguished students
-of this doctrine in this country. The failure of this report is that
-they haven’t even given us the fundamental doctrine of Herbert. There
-is no doubt that the Herbartian doctrine and all other doctrines of
-concentration are ignored in their fundamental essentials. That is what
-this committee has left out--it is the old story, the play of Hamlet
-with Hamlet left out, or to put it a little more mildly, Hamlet kicked
-out. It seems that this doctrine is the only doctrine which furnishes
-a grand working hypothesis to the teachers of the world. It should be
-examined most carefully, and what cannot bear the closest criticism
-should be rejected. The five, with the dissent of the Western men, have
-not deemed it worthy of this attention and have rejected it _in toto_.
-
-Poor old Robinson Crusoe bears the brunt, notwithstanding our esteemed
-friends of the Normal University, who wish to interest the children
-in something. Sometimes we go into schools where there is not much
-interest, especially in spelling and grammar. I leave the defense of
-Robinson Crusoe to Mr. McMurry.
-
-The other reference is to language. “It is not wise to stop a child to
-correct his mistakes in grammar”! “The development of language cannot
-be organically related to the development of thought”! It is one of
-the fundamental principles, if I understand it, that the development
-of thought should have as a necessity the evolution of language. This,
-says the report, cannot be done; grammar must be developed by itself
-and language by itself. If I am incorrect, I beg to be excused. I can
-only refer to a few features of this report in the tabulated programme.
-A course of study is absolutely necessary, but it should be marked
-“for this day only.” We take the subject of reading twice every day
-for the first two years, once a day for the next six years. Reading
-is thinking, it should be educated thinking. We cannot do thinking
-without the subjects to be learned--as geography and science. Science,
-according to the programme, is to be taught by oral lessons. The world
-is round, but children cannot reason. Would it not be well to go into
-the laboratory to see whether the children cannot reason? The child,
-by force of his nature, must reason--must find out these things. I
-am quoting from John Dewey. But we are told in this report that the
-subject of science, at least a few things in these subjects, must be
-told him first. I never knew a case of the kind, but it may be.
-
-Now, I would say to this committee of five, have your reading the best
-literature,--there should be nothing but literature. Should we not
-have literature from the beginning? is the question we are asking. It
-seems to be the case that this report leaves very little to ask. The
-child spends all his time in reading--reading what? Can the child learn
-to get thought in reading? Some of us think he can. Is it not well to
-follow here the scientific method and find out whether the child can
-learn to read beautifully and well? The same of writing. I see the
-millions bowed down for years to the copy books. Is there no way out?
-Is there no relief? Is it possible for the child to learn to write as
-he learns to talk, or must he be bound to the desk? [Time]
-
-I would simply say that this report should be entitled to the greatest
-respect. I shall go home and study it carefully and prayerfully. I move
-that a committee of fifteen be appointed to revise this report. [Great
-applause]
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-PRESIDENT CHARLES DE GARMO, _Swarthmore College, Pennsylvania_:
-Fellow-teachers: Those who are to discuss this question this morning
-are placed under a great embarrassment. The report should have been
-distributed before this meeting. That it has not been, I learn is not
-the fault of the officers of the department. [Applause]
-
-We might infer from what we have heard that the report is valueless.
-This is by no means the case. It is an estimate of educational values.
-Under the subject of language, I quote, “A survey of its educational
-value, subjective and objective, usually produces the conviction that
-it is to retain the first place.” Under arithmetic, “Side by side with
-language study is the study of mathematics in the school, claiming the
-second place in importance.” Under geography, “The educational value of
-geography, as it is and has been in elementary schools, is obviously
-very great. The educational value of geography is even more apparent
-if we admit the claims of those who argue that the present epoch is
-the beginning of an era.” As a critique of educational values the
-report is a very important one. I would like to call your attention
-to the correlation of the pupil to his environment. That, I think,
-is an important matter. They have departed, at least in principle,
-from that old formal discipline alone; this individual to be fitted
-for life must master his environment. The committee have examined the
-various studies as to their value, and that, I think, is a grand thing.
-I cannot see at all that it is a correlation of studies. It has been
-said in your hearing that the throwing of light by studies on each
-other was disregarded. The report presents a very different idea of
-the correlation of studies. The second address of last evening--by Miss
-Arnold--has been referred to as an illustration of bringing the studies
-together so that one throws light upon another. I think the idea that
-there is no need of reform will be reinforced by this report; that the
-report will have a reactionary effect upon those who think that way.
-The committee have denied that we need any reform, or have implied
-that we have the reform already. It seems that the name given to this
-report should be taken off and the heading “An essay on educational
-values” substituted instead. It is true that this committee have, at
-the beginning, laid down a principle that would make a correlation. The
-text is here, but the discussion is lacking. So far as I have read,
-I have found but little in the report which shows what the sequence
-of studies should be. There is a hint in arithmetic where it says,
-“Common fractions should come before decimals.” Is this attempt at the
-correlation of studies anything more than a series of tunnels through
-the educational fields with switch connections, so that if we start
-in at one end we are switched to this or that without any view of the
-whole journey? We may light these tunnels with electricity, perhaps,
-but, after all, we are spending eight years underground, switching from
-one tunnel to another. Now the other alternative is to go out into
-the world, out into the sunshine, and follow highways so clear that a
-child can examine all that is about them. It is possible to relate one
-subject to the other so that when it is dark the child, even if he has
-not the sun to lighten his eyes, can at least have some stars of hope
-above him.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-PRESIDENT OF THE DEPARTMENT: From the course the discussion has taken,
-it has seemed to me that Dr. Harris should say a word at this point and
-read some additional parts of the report.
-
-W. T. HARRIS, _Commissioner of Education_: I must set myself right
-on Herbart. The report does not allude to Herbart anywhere except in
-respectful terms. The criticism of the use of Robinson Crusoe does
-not attribute its mistakes to the Herbartians. Perhaps they would not
-recognize it as a true statement of their method. To make Herbart
-of use in pedagogy we must to some extent ignore his philosophy.
-His usefulness in education is proportioned to his uselessness as a
-philosopher. What can we do with a philosopher who omits the will
-from the three departments of the mind and retains only intellect and
-feeling? Herbart was obliged to explain how man comes to act without
-the will. He explains that desire can be aroused by interest in
-such a way that action will follow. With this great defect, however,
-Herbart is valuable in education. His doctrine of apperception does
-not need any correction. His doctrine of interest, however, needs some
-limitation, because the idea of the will and the idea of duty are
-omitted from his system. He must make up by the idea of desire and
-the idea of interest. I am surprised that the claim is made here that
-the report does not treat the subject assigned to it. Correlation of
-studies is assumed to mean concentration of studies. There is no such
-definition to the word “correlation” in any dictionary; only four or
-five obscure books in the English language give the word correlation
-the meaning of concentration. I was told of this sense of the word
-correlation, but did not believe for a moment that it had been the
-intention of the department of superintendents, in appointing a
-committee on this subject, to have a report on the Herbartian idea of
-concentration.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-CHARLES MCMURRY, _State Normal University, Normal, Ill._: In one of
-your statements read: “Your committee would call attention in this
-connection to the importance of the pedagogical principle of analysis
-and isolation as preceding synthesis and correlation.” Now, as I
-understand it, this is what this committee has attempted to report.
-Now, he says that this precedes synthesis or correlation. I would like
-to know if there is any dictionary or number of dictionaries to make
-correlation mean what this says--the analysis and isolation of subjects
-of study.
-
-I have been very much afraid that Dr. Harris would take refuge in the
-discussion of the subject of the will in which he distinguishes Herbart
-from others. The exclusion of the will is held as far as Herbart is
-concerned of moral education. Now I wish to say that Herbart has laid
-down more and better educational principles than any other philosopher.
-
-The more difficult thing is not exactly the best thing for the child in
-the first and second grades. There was an old theory among the Latins
-that if the child could be made to go through the difficulties of a
-Latin speech, it would prepare him for the difficult things to follow.
-Now, we wish to have life and not dead formalism. I believe that a
-thoughtful study of this report will convince any one who is interested
-in children that it is formal, and is a production of this old idea,
-based upon language as the foundation of all education.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-PRESIDENT W. H. HERVEY, _Teachers’ College, New York_: I find myself
-drawn in two directions on this question. I fain would cleave to
-everything that has been said this morning as containing the truth.
-I believe that, so far as this report and these remarks confine
-themselves to educational principles, any one of us may agree most
-heartily. Only where they descend to particular applications are
-we at variance. We always are at variance when we descend from the
-clouds, but that is no objection to the clouds. Now, I take it there
-are arrayed before us the two opposing camps,--the Hegelian and the
-Herbartian. What does the Hegelian say? In order that you may know the
-world you must turn your back upon yourself and lose yourself; you
-lose your life that you may save it. Yon leave your home plate, go
-to the second base, then to the third base, and you make a home run.
-That is a true type of all development. What, on the other hand, is
-the standpoint of the Herbartian? What we know depends upon what we
-have known. And that is true. And what we can do, according to this
-philosophy, depends upon the interest, the kinetic energy. About this
-matter of will, we have the Calvinistic theology set over against the
-Unitarian. Hegel’s Lord was a man of war. Herbart brings us to view the
-New Jerusalem. He shows us the church, not militant, but triumphant.
-Herbart distinguishes the good from the evil and makes it impossible
-for a man to do a wrong deed or to think a wrong thought, and that,
-I take it, is even a higher attainment than the Hegelian philosophy
-has thought of. Any one who develops the will by the man-of-war idea
-will have a sorry will upon his hands. There is, with the young child,
-certainly, a synthesis, a correlation, a development of taste where
-the analysis is suppressed and unconscious; and yet, my friends, if
-you attempt to educate a boy in the upper grammar grades or the high
-school according to the same principles as the primary grades, you make
-a sorry muss of it. If we would pass from the state of the child to the
-state of the man, it is necessary for us to go through the dry bones of
-analysis.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-DR. B. A. HINSDALE, _University of Michigan, Ann Arbor_: There are two
-things which I wish very briefly to touch. First, I do not understand
-Dr. Harris, in speaking of Herbart and the will, to leave the subject
-in the form in which Dr. McMurry understood that matter. I understand
-that Herbart does not base morals open the will, but rather upon the
-feeling and the desires. Now, whether the will or the desires furnish
-a proper basis is a question I do not wish to discuss. Certainly, when
-any one says that the Doctor declared that Herbart does not take the
-question of morals into account he makes a mistake. I understand him
-to say that Herbart does not place morals upon the proper foundation.
-In regard to courses of study, there is no such thing as considering
-this question apart from criteria. Now, what are our criteria to be?
-That I do not propose to discuss, but where are we to seek for our
-criteria? For myself, I have been in the habit of discussing that
-subject in this way. These are to be found, in the first place, in
-the constitution of the human soul, and second, in the facts that
-constitute the environment of men. I do not say which is below the
-other. I do say that a serious mistake will be made by that pedagogist
-who leaves out either of these or gives either a very inferior
-position. As to how either presupposes the other, that is a very
-important question, but I cannot discuss it at more length.
-
-Now as to the process of isolation--the first process of knowledge is
-to isolate things. We have certainly been taught that the first process
-of the mind is not a synthetic, but an analytic process. Every person
-coming into this hall took a view of it as a whole, and then began to
-isolate this thing from that, and then this process, after a time,
-ceased. But that there is to be no synthesis is a proposition which I
-do not understand to be in this report.
-
-When a child comes to school you may divide the subjects which occupy
-his attention into two groups. The first are the elementary school
-arts,--as the improving of speech, the studies of reading, writing,
-drawing, and numerical calculations, if he has never entered upon
-these. They are not studies, they are the arts of the elementary
-school. We teach them, not for their own sake, but that they may be
-used as instruments. [Time called by the chairman, and extended by vote
-of the house.]
-
-I wish, in the first instance, to express my sense of gratification. I
-felt that I was leaving the matter in a very imperfect form.
-
-Now, I had said all that I care to say about the arts in the elementary
-schools. There are the studies, I mean the real studies, those we study
-for the purpose of getting out of them all that there is in them. Now,
-there is a discussion as to the relation in which the two classes of
-studies shall stand at the beginning. Now, the old idea was, that
-some of the first time in school should be devoted to these arts, and
-the studies were permitted to fall into the background, or perhaps
-fall clear out. Now, if I understand some of the pedagogists, their
-idea is to put the beginner at the real thing, or perhaps I should
-say to keep him at the real thing, that the arts should be acquired
-during the studies. Now, the question occurs to me, whether, in the
-elementary schools, these arts can ever be successfully taught when we
-are pretending to teach something else? I must say that if the object
-were to have a pupil advance the greatest distance for the first three
-months or six months, you had better say nothing about the arts at all.
-But we put him at the arts, knowing that when we put these gifts into
-his hands we are giving him an instrument of power that he will be able
-to use throughout his whole life. [Applause.]
-
-Now, the question of concentration, so-called, is involved in this
-matter. I want to ask the question, and I would discuss it if I had a
-quarter of an hour,--I want to ask the question, how far it is possible
-to do two things in an intense manner at the same time. When I was
-superintendent of schools, a gentleman picked off the table a so-called
-physiological reader, and, looking at the title page, said, “For one,
-I could never teach physiology as a subject and reading as an art at
-the same time. The physiology is not and it cannot be made a proper
-material for a school reading book; a proper school reading book cannot
-be made a good physiology.” Yet I believe in concentration, if it
-means letting one subject assist and enforce another. I hope none of
-the brethren will become so enthusiastic as to assume that the whole
-round of information can be brought under the teaching of one subject.
-[Applause.]
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-DR. E. E. WHITE, _Columbus, O._: I have a little hesitation in speaking
-on this question, where I am only a learner. I am anxious to know what
-my young friends mean. I hope I shall get the correlation of their
-ideas in time. [Laughter.]
-
-As it seems to me, correlation, as a distinctive method, assumes to do
-more than it is possible for a method to accomplish. In my judgment,
-there is no one method of education, whether it be Herbartian or
-otherwise. To assume that a human soul is to be exclusively educated
-by the Herbartian method is a great assumption. I do not believe that
-we are to supplement and supplant now all that has been known in the
-education of the young based on the psychology which the defenders of
-this method are willing to discard. There are many of its methods we
-are willing to accept, but the Herbartian pedagogy is based on the
-Herbartian psychology, and if you discard that, you have no system of
-pedagogy, but you have many elements which you can utilize. Now, we
-make a mistake when we assume that there is only one method by which
-the young man in college and the children can be educated. The lady
-who spoke last night, Miss Arnold, had not such an idea. Now there is
-a blending in the primary grades which is not possible in the upper
-grades. That is emphasized completely in what we call the special
-courses in colleges. That blending may be on mere surface relations
-which will be discarded as soon as we pass above the primary grades.
-While we may concede that this is possible in one exercise, it is not
-possible in higher instruction. Our methods change, so let as not be
-too sweeping, too confident in our terms. Further, I think that Dr.
-Harris is entirely right in the position he has taken as to the meaning
-of coördination or correlation. He uses the term correlation, not only
-in its scientific, but in its recognized pedagogic sense. Concentration
-is a different process, and should receive separate consideration.
-May I add that the views I recently presented under what is called
-concentration seem to make class instruction impossible. They lead
-clearly to the one conclusion, that every child should be taught as an
-individual, by himself, and this means that all class instruction is
-to be given up. Individual instruction can alone meet the conditions
-assumed to be essential by concentration, as explained. What does this
-involve?
-
-There have been many scholars since the Flood,--scholars who have
-honored learning and widened its domain. How were they produced? Not
-by any one method, and certainly not by “concentration.” These hosts
-of scholars cannot be accounted for on any such assumption, for they
-were produced under very unlike systems of elementary training. The
-history of school education shows that we are not shut up to a diet of
-pedagogic hash on the one hand, or one of baked beans on the other.
-There is clearly no one universal method or process in education by
-which alone a human soul is to be brought to power.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-DR. NICHOLAS MURRY BUTLER, _Columbia College, New York_: This is an
-interesting and exciting field of battle; it has not been a Bull Run,
-and it is manifestly not an Appomattox. But let us be fair, and let us
-discuss the question that is presented by this report. I shall spend no
-time in eulogizing this report. I do say that such a report, presented
-at this time, dealing with this specific topic in these words, is
-little less than a misrepresentation.
-
-Such a document as this, presented at this particular time in the
-history of our educational development, and supposed to deal with
-the practical problem of the correlation of studies, is extremely
-unfortunate. This discussion has made it plain that there is among
-us a difference of opinion as to what the term “correlation of
-studies” means. This report interprets it to mean the correlation
-between the studies of the school curriculum and the intellectual
-environment of the pupil. Certainly that is not what the term is taken
-to mean in our current educational literature and in our current
-educational discussions. It has been claimed on this platform that
-those who use the phrase “correlation of studies,” in reference to
-the interdependence of school subjects one with another, are making a
-strained and improper use of the word. This criticism is not correct.
-The highest authority that we have, the “Century Dictionary,” gives
-as a definition of correlation, “the act of bringing into orderly
-connection or reciprocal relation.” It recites a passage from the
-great work of Grove, who first made this term familiar in English
-scientific literature, in illustration of the meaning of correlation.
-This is precisely the sense in which the word is used by Dr. McMurry
-and others, and it is precisely the sense in which we expect to find it
-used in this report. Therefore, I say I am disappointed, and grievously
-disappointed, that we have in these pages only a passing reference
-to the real problem of correlation or concentration as it is before
-American teachers at the present moment.
-
-I can find no fault with the use of the word selected by the Committee,
-but I do complain that they have not treated the problem, whatever
-name they choose to give to it, that we asked them to solve. Instead
-of that, they have given us a splendid and learned discussion
-of educational values, an analysis of the history of the school
-curriculum, and an elaborate defence of the _status quo_. It is
-apparent to me, therefore, that this report faces backward and forward.
-I Bay this despite the fact that it suggests and argues for more than
-one important innovation in the curriculum.
-
-For one hundred years, ever since the time of Pestalozzi, we have been
-trying to extract the curriculum from a philosophical discussion of
-this sort, but we have not succeeded in satisfying ourselves wholly.
-We have made great advance, and for that advance we in America are
-indebted more largely to Dr. Harris than to any other single person,
-living or dead. He has taught us to understand why certain specific
-branches of knowledge are selected for a place in the curriculum,
-and now we ask him to tell us how they are to be correlated, or
-coördinated, or concentrated, in practice, to meet the new demands that
-are made upon the school, and we get no answer in this report.
-
-The curriculum that this report recommends to us, and the methods that
-it outlines, are arrived by an analysis made from the adult point of
-view. Are we, then, to understand that child study is to be given
-no hearing? Are we shut up to formal analysis as the sole method in
-evolving a practical school plan? The newer education answers this
-question directly in the negative. It is putting the child in the place
-of honor and asking him to tell us what his nature demands and in what
-order it demands it. Dr. White has said that the legitimate result
-of this newer movement is individualism in teaching. I agree with him
-absolutely. We hope that the time will come when the individuality
-of every child will be respected. We want to rescue each child from
-the thraldom to which the formalism of the schoolroom has subjected
-him. For the sake of system we are reducing fifty, sixty, or seventy
-individual children in a schoolroom to a common denominator. It is
-true that there is no universal educational method, and that the
-Herbartians are as little likely as the Hegelians to provide us with a
-rule that shall know so exception. But in the point of view that they
-take, based upon the doctrine of apperception and upon the doctrine oi
-interest, they are absolutely right, and it is not what we expected
-from a committee of this kind to find this entire movement turned out
-of court without a hearing. Personally I am a slavish adherent of no
-school of thought and wear the badge of none, but I do say that we
-should not be prevented from giving to this great Herbartian movement
-prolonged and sympathetic examination. Why is it that we find the
-question of the correlation or the concentration of studies forced upon
-us at all? Certainly the normal child-mind sees the world about it as
-a correlated and concentrated whole. It is the adults and philosophers
-who have made the analysis that has resulted in separating what to the
-child is connected; so that, after all, the advocates of correlation
-are simply endeavoring to put the subjects of study back where they
-found them and to treat the curriculum from the child’s point of view.
-The adult is able to distinguish a physical fact from a chemical fact,
-a geographical fact from an historical fact, an arithmetical fact from
-an algebraical fact, but the child is not. He views them all simply
-as facts, and originally they are all on the same plane with regard
-to his intelligence. We must, therefore, seek the real unity that
-underlies the curriculum, and not proceed by making first an artificial
-separation of studies, and then a doubly artificial synthesis of them.
-
-A preceding speaker has sharply criticised the psychology of Herbart.
-It is undoubtedly true that we cannot accept Herbart’s psychology as
-a satisfactory explanation of mental life. But it is not necessary
-that we should do so in order to secure the benefit of the educational
-theory and the educational practice that bears Herbart’s name.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-SUPERINTENDENT S. T. DUTTON, _Brookline, Mass._: About all has been
-said that needs to be said now. It seems to me that the question takes
-this form--the same God that made the child made the world about him.
-The purpose of those who mean to work out something better is to find
-how the child should be taught. My friends, we do not recognize the
-value of this report. Dr. Harris said very distinctly that the course
-of study in point should include the whole round of human knowledge.
-Now, there are two things that have helped me in this matter. My view
-is singularly different from Dr. White’s. If correlation makes the
-kindergarten what it is, it seems to me that it should go on. It seems
-to me that, in a certain way, this is true in the first year, in the
-second, etc.
-
-This cross section brings in so many things we find imposed upon the
-schools that certain confusion and certain difficulties have been found
-in working out the Herbartian plan. The only way is the working out of
-these principles. If that is not done, we shall have reaction. I am not
-afraid that this work shall be retarded because of this report. Every
-teacher ought to understand this discussion of educational values. It
-ought to help us; it will help us. If this report is not complete, it
-will be completed in the good works of teachers in all this country.
-[The chair here announced that Colonel Parker and Dr. Harris would be
-asked to close the debate.]
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-COLONEL PARKER: Shall we study this question with open and unprejudiced
-minds? I am not a Herbartian. I simply ask the most careful study of
-all these questions and systems. There was a time when method seemed
-to be incarnated. Now, in regard to this report and the eminent
-philosopher who wrote it, I would not say one word except of the
-most profound respect. I am never going even to make a pun before a
-teachers’ meeting hereafter. When Dr. Harris says I do not believe in
-grammar, he should say that I do not believe in certain methods. I
-respect butterflies and grubs, but I respect language. When Dr. White
-says that certain things are plain by concentration, he says what I
-know nothing about. Herbart said of Pestalozzi that his great merit
-did not consist in his method and his means, but in his sublime zeal.
-He who faces this question of education faces infinity. I protest
-against unfair statement as to discipleship, following leader, and so
-forth, I acknowledge that I make such statements myself, but I hope
-to do better. When Dr. White speaks of the great giants, we have but
-to look at him and know it is true. But do we ever question what has
-been lost? We are facing the great problems of the twentieth century,
-and the present methods of teaching are not equal to their solution.
-Under God, let us find the truth and follow it. Let us have the means
-of knowing what each teacher and each superintendent is doing for the
-child. Let us not lay down a great educational doctrine and say that
-it is sufficient. The Sermon on the Mount is sufficient for nineteen
-centuries; but what we want is an application of Hegel, of Herbart, and
-of the wisdom of all other philosophers to the problems of the future.
-All hail the future!
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-DR. W. T. HARRIS: I wish to add one remark as to the meaning of
-correlation. I would call attention to its etymology, which makes it a
-bringing into relation of what is coördinate. I knew of the Herbartian
-idea of concentration of studies, but I was not familiar with the use
-of the word “correlation” in the same sense as concentration. I have
-given an example in discussing the methods of teaching geography of
-the application of the deeper doctrine of concentration. I have shown
-that we should start with the child and proceed in two directions, one
-towards the elements of difference in order to explain the obstacles
-which man has to overcome. On the other side, we should go towards the
-subjects of human industry, invention, and commerce, and learn the
-method by which man overcomes the “elements of difference.” Geography
-for the child should begin in the centre and move outward towards these
-extremes, including at every step a human side and a natural side. This
-is not a philosophical study of correlation, Hegelian or otherwise,
-although it has been called so in this debate, but a scientific study
-of the educational value of the branches of the course of study. I
-began it in 1870. Now, in a scientific study one does not allow his
-feelings of attraction or repulsion to cloud his reason. He assumes
-an unprejudiced attitude towards the object that he studies. Child
-study, as it is pursued by Dr. Stanley Hall, is pursued with this true
-scientific spirit. But child study is not the only thing in education,
-nor can education be founded on child study alone. The child is here
-to be correlated with the world. The educator must study the world and
-study the child, and correlate the one to the other. That is to say, he
-must bring the child into a knowledge of the world and a mastery of its
-appliances. The report, of course, assumes the value of child study,
-and in all the numerous places where attention is called to the danger
-of producing arrested development the results of child study are drawn
-upon; but, on the other hand, if you have a knowledge of the child,
-and do not have a knowledge of the significance of the branches of
-study and the way in which they unlock the world of reality, you cannot
-correlate the child with the world.
-
-
-[Transcriber's Note:
-
-Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation are as in the original.]
-
-
-
-
-
-End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Report of the Committee of Fifteen, by 
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