FOOTNOTES:[14]A paper read before the Superintendents' Section of the Illinois State Teachers' Association, December 29, 1910.
[14]A paper read before the Superintendents' Section of the Illinois State Teachers' Association, December 29, 1910.
[14]A paper read before the Superintendents' Section of the Illinois State Teachers' Association, December 29, 1910.
One way to be definite in education is to formulate as clearly as we can the aims that we hope to realize in every stage of our work. The task of teaching is so complex that, unless we strive earnestly and persistently to reduce it to the simplest possible terms, we are bound to work blindly and ineffectively.
It is only one phase of this topic that I wish to discuss with you this morning. My plea for the definite in education will be limited not only to the field of educational aims and values, but to a small corner of that field. Your morning's program has dealt with the problem of teaching history in the elementary school. I should like, if you are willing, to confine my remarks to this topic, and to attack the specific question, What is the history that we teach in the grades to do for the pupil? I wish to make this limitation, not only because what I have to say will be related to the other topics on the program, but also because this very subject ofhistory is one which the lack of a definite standard of educational value has been keenly felt.
I should admit at the outset that my interest in history is purely educational. I have had no special training in historical research. As you may perhaps infer from my discussion, my acquaintance with historical facts is very far from comprehensive. I speak as a layman in history,—and I do it openly and, perhaps, a little defiantly, for I believe that the last person to pass adequate judgment upon the general educational value of a given department of knowledge is a man who has made the department a life study. I have little faith in what the mathematician has to say regarding the educational value of mathematicsfor the average elementary pupil, because he is a special pleader and his conclusions cannot escape the coloring of his prejudice. I once knew an enthusiastic brain specialist who maintained that, in every grade of the elementary school, instruction should be required in the anatomy of the human brain. That man was an expert in his own line. He knew more about the structure of the brain than any other living man. But knowing more about brain morphology also implied that he knew less about many other things, and among the things that he knew little about were the needs and capacities of children in the elementary school. He was a special pleader; he had been dealing with his special subject so long that it had assumed a disproportionate value in his eyes. Brainmorphology had given him fame, honor, and worldly emoluments. Naturally he would have an exaggerated notion of its value.
It is the same with any other specialist. As specialists in education, you and I are likely to overemphasize the importance of the common school in the scheme of creation. Personally I am convinced that the work of elementary education is the most profoundly significant work in the world; and yet I can realize that I should be no fit person to make comparisons if the welfare of a number of other professions and callings were at stake. I should let an unbiased judge make the final determination.
The first question for which we should seek an answer in connection with the value of any school subject is this: How does it influence conduct? Let me insist at the outset that we cannot be definite by saying simply that we teach history in order to impart instruction. If there is one thing upon which we are all agreed to-day it is this: that it is what our pupils do that counts, not what they know. The knowledge that they may possess has value only in so far as it may directly or indirectly be turned over into action.
Let us not be mistaken upon this point. Knowledge is of the utmost importance, but it is important only as a means to an end—and the end is conduct. If mypupils act in no way more efficiently after they have received my instruction than they would have acted had they never come under my influence, then my work as a teacher is a failure. If their conduct is less efficient, then my work is not only a failure,—it is a catastrophe. The knowledge that I impart may be absolutely true; the interest that I arouse may be intense; the affection that my pupils have for me may be genuine; but all these are but means to an end, and if the end is not attained, the means have been futile.
We have faith that the materials which we pour in at the hopper of sense impression will come out sooner or later at the spout of reaction, transformed by some mysterious process into efficient conduct. While the machinery of the process, like the mills of the gods, certainly grinds slowly, it is some consolation to believe that, at any rate, itdoesgrind; and we are perhaps fain to believe that the exceeding fineness of the grist is responsible for our failure to detect at the spout all of the elements that we have been so careful to pour in at the hopper. What I should like to do is to examine this grinding process rather carefully,—to gain, if possible, some definite notion of the kind of grist we should like to produce, and then to see how the machinery may be made to produce this grist, and in what proportions we must mix the material that we pour into the hopper in order to gain the desired result.
I have said that we must ask of every subject thatwe teach, How does it influence conduct? Now when we ask this question concerning history a variety of answers are at once proposed. One group of people will assert that the facts of history have value because they can be directly applied to the needs of contemporary life. History, they will tell us, records the experiences of the race, and if we are to act intelligently we must act upon the basis of this experience. History informs us of the mistakes that former generations have made in adjusting themselves to the world. If we know history, we can avoid these mistakes. This type of reasoning may be said to ascribe a utilitarian value to the study of history. It assumes that historical knowledge is directly and immediately applicable to vital problems of the present day.
Now the difficulty with this value, as with many others that seem to have the sanction of reason, is that it does not possess the sanction of practical test. While knowledge doubtless affects in some way the present policy of our own government, it would be very hard to prove that the influence is in any way a direct influence. It is extremely doubtful whether the knowledge that the voters have of the history of their country will be recalled and applied at the ballot box next November. I do not say that the study of history that has been going on in the common schools for a generation will be entirely without effect upon the coming election. I simply maintain that this influencewill be indirect,—but I believe that it will be none the less profound. One's vote at the next election will be determined largely by immediate and present conditions. But the way in which one interprets these conditions cannot help being profoundly influenced by one's historical study or lack of such study.
If it is clear, then, that the study of history cannot be justified upon a purely utilitarian basis, we may pass to the consideration of other values that have been proposed. The specialist in history, whose right to legislate upon this matter I have just called into question, will probably emphasize the disciplinary value of this study. Specialists are commonly enthusiastic over the disciplinary value of their special subjects. Their own minds have been so well developed by the pursuit of their special branches that they are impelled to recommend the same discipline for all minds. Again, we must not blame the specialist in history, for you and I think the same about our own special type of activity.
From the disciplinary point of view, the study of history is supposed to give one the mastery of a special method of reasoning. Historical method involves, above all else, the careful sifting of evidence, the minutest scrutiny of sources in order to judge whether or not the records are authentic, and the utmost care in coming to conclusions. Now it will be generally agreed that these are desirable types of skill to possess whether one is an historian or a lawyer or a teacher or a man ofbusiness. And yet, as in all types of discipline, the difficulty lies, not so much in acquiring the specific skill, as in transferring the skill thus acquired to other fields of activity. Skill of any sort is made up of a multitude of little specific habits, and it is a current theory that habit functions effectively only in the specific situation in which it has been built up, or in situations closely similar. But whether this is true or not it is obvious that the teaching of elementary history provides very few opportunities for this type of training.
A third view of the way in which historical knowledge is thought to work into action may be discussed under the head of the cultural value. History, like literature, is commonly assumed to give to the individual who studies it, a certain amount of that commodity which the world calls culture. Precisely what culture consists in, no one, apparently, is ready to tell us, but we all admit that it is real, if not tangible and definable, nor can we deny that the individual who possesses culture conducts himself, as a rule, differently from the individual who does not possess it. In other words, culture is a practical thing, for the only things that are practical are the things that modify or control human action.
It is doubtless true that the study of history does add to this intangible something that we call "culture," but the difficulty with this value lies in the fact that, even after we have accepted it as valid, we are in noway better off regarding our methods. Like many other theories, its truth is not to be denied, but its truth gives us no inkling of a solution of our problem. What we need is an educational value of history, the recognition of which will enable us to formulate a method for realizing the value.
The unsatisfactory character of these three values that have been proposed for history—the utilitarian, the disciplinary, and the cultural—is typical of the values that have been proposed for other subjects. Unless the aim of teaching any given subject can be stated in definite terms, the teacher must work very largely in the dark; his efforts must be largely of the "hit-or-miss" order. The desired value may be realized under these conditions, but, if it is realized, it is manifestly through accident, not through intelligent design. It is needless to point out the waste that such a blundering and haphazard adjustment entails. We all know how much of our teaching fails to hit the mark, even when we are clear concerning the result that we desire; we can only conjecture how much of the remainder fails of effect because we are hazy and obscure concerning its purpose.
Let us return to our original basic principle and see what light it may throw upon our problem. We have said that the efficiency of teaching must always bemeasured by the degree in which the pupil's conduct is modified. Taking conduct as our base, then, let us reason back and see what factors control conduct, and, if possible, how these "controls" may be influenced by the processes of education working through the lesson in history.
I shall start with a very simple and apparently trivial example. When I was living in the Far West, I came to know something of the Chinese, who are largely engaged, as you know, in domestic service in that part of the country. Most of the Chinese servants that I met corresponded very closely with what we read concerning Chinese character. We have all heard of the Chinese servant's unswerving adherence to a routine that he has once established. They say in the West that when a housewife gives her Chinese servant an object lesson in the preparation of a certain dish, she must always be very careful to make her demonstration perfect the first time. If, inadvertently, she adds one egg too many, she will find that, in spite of her protestations, the superfluous egg will always go into that preparation forever afterward. From what I know of the typical Oriental, I am sure that this warning is not overdrawn.
Now here is a bit of conduct, a bit of adjustment, that characterizes the Chinese cook. Not only that, but, in a general way, it is peculiar to all Chinese, and hence may be called a national trait. We might callit a vigorous national prejudice in favor of precedent. But whatever we call it, it is a very dominant force in Chinese life. It is the trait that, perhaps more than any other, distinguishes Chinese conduct from European or American conduct. Now one might think this trait to be instinctive,—to be bred in the bone rather than acquired,—but this I am convinced is not altogether true. At least one Chinese whom I knew did not possess it at all. He was born on a western ranch and his parents died soon after his birth. He was brought up with the children of the ranch owner, and is now a prosperous rancher himself. He lacks every characteristic that we commonly associate with the Chinese, save only the physical features. His hair is straight, his skin is saffron, his eyes are slightly aslant,—but that is all. As far as his conduct goes,—and that is the essential thing,—he is an American. In other words, his traits, his tendencies to action, are American and not Chinese. His life represents the triumph of environment over heredity.
When you visit England you find yourselves among a people who speak the same language that you speak,—or, perhaps it would be better to say, somewhat the same; at least you can understand each other. In a great many respects, the Englishman and the American are similar in their traits, but in a great many other respects they differ radically. You cannot, from your knowledge of American traits, judge what an Englishman's conduct will be upon every occasion. If you happened on Piccadilly of a rainy morning, for example, you would see the English clerks and storekeepers and professional men riding to their work on the omnibuses that thread their way slowly through the crowded thoroughfare. No matter how rainy the morning, these men would be seated on the tops of the omnibuses, although the interior seats might be quite unoccupied. No matter how rainy the morning, many of these men would be faultlessly attired in top hats and frock coats, and there they would sit through the drizzling rain, protecting themselves most inadequately with their opened umbrellas. Now there is a bit of conduct that you cannot find duplicated in any American city. It is a national habit,—or, perhaps, it would be better to say, it is an expression of a national trait,—and that national trait is a prejudice in favor of convention. It is the thing to do, and the typical Englishman does it, just as, when he is sent as civil governor to some lonely outpost in India, with no companions except scantily clad native servants, he always dresses conscientiously for dinner and sits down to his solitary meal clad in the conventional swallow-tail coat of civilization.
Now the way in which a Chinese cook prepares a custard, or the way in which an English merchant rides in an omnibus, may be trivial and unimportant matters in themselves, and yet, like the straw that shows whichway the wind blows, they are indicative of vast and profound currents. The conservatism of the Chinese empire is only a larger and more comprehensive expression of the same trait or prejudice that leads the cook to copy literally his model. The present educational situation in England is only another expression of that same prejudice in favor of the established order, which finds expression in the merchant on the Piccadilly omnibus.
Whenever you pass from one country to another you will find this difference in tendencies to action. In Germany, for example, you will find something that amounts almost to a national fervor for economy and frugality. You will find it expressing itself in the care with which the German housewife does her marketing. You will find it expressing itself in the intensive methods of agriculture, through which scarcely a square inch of arable land is permitted to lie fallow,—through which, for example, even the shade trees by the roadside furnish fruit as well as shade, and are annually rented for their fruit value to industrious members of the community,—and it is said in one section of Germany that the only people known to steal fruit from these trees along the lonely country roads are American tourists, who, you will see, also have their peculiar standards of conduct. You will find this same fervor for frugality and economy expressing itself most extensively in that splendid forest policy by means ofwhich the German states have conserved their magnificent timber resources.
But, whatever its expression, it is the same trait,—a trait born of generations of struggle with an unyielding soil, and yet a trait which, combined with the German fervor for science and education, has made possible the marvelous progress that Germany has made within the last half century.
What do we mean by national traits? Simply this: prejudices or tendencies toward certain typical forms of conduct, common to a given people. It is this community of conduct that constitutes a nation. A country whose people have different standards of action must be a divided country, as our own American history sufficiently demonstrates. Unless upon the vital questions of human adjustment, men are able to agree, they cannot live together in peace. If we are a distinctive and unique nation,—if we hold a distinctive and unique place among the nations of the globe,—it is because you and I and the other inhabitants of our country have developed distinctive and unique ideals and prejudices and standards, all of which unite to produce a community of conduct. And once granting that our national characteristics are worth while, that they constitute a distinct advance over the characteristics of the other nations of the earth, it becomes the manifest duty of the school to do its share in perpetuating these ideals and prejudices and standards. Oncelet these atrophy through disuse, once let them fail of transmission because of the decay of the home, or the decay of the school, or the decay of the social institutions that typify and express them, and our country must go the way of Greece and Rome, and, although our blood may thereafter continue pure and unmixed, and our physical characteristics may be passed on from generation to generation unchanged in form, our nation will be only a memory, and its history ancient history. Some of the Greeks of to-day are the lineal descendants of the Athenians and Spartans, but the ancient Greek standards of conduct, the Greek ideals, died twenty centuries ago, to be resurrected, it is true, by the renaissance, and to enjoy the glorious privilege of a new and wider sphere of life,—but among an alien people, and under a northern sun.
And so the true aim of the study of history in the elementary school is not the realization of its utilitarian, its cultural, or its disciplinary value. It is not a mere assimilation of facts concerning historical events, nor the memorizing of dates, nor the picturing of battles, nor the learning of lists of presidents,—although each of these factors has its place in fulfilling the function of historical study. The true function of national history in our elementary schools is to establish in the pupils' minds those ideals and standards of action which differentiate the American people from the rest of the world, and especially to fortify these ideals and standards by a description of the events and conditions through which they developed. It is not the facts of history that are to be applied to the problems of life; it is rather the emotional attitude, the point of view, that comes not from memorizing, but from appreciating, the facts. A mere fact has never yet had a profound influence over human conduct. A principle that is accepted by the head and not by the heart has never yet stained a battle field nor turned the tide of a popular election. Men act, not as they think, but as they feel, and it is not the idea, but the ideal, that is important in history.
But what are the specific ideals and standards for which our nation stands and which distinguish, in a very broad but yet explicit manner, our conduct from the conduct of other peoples? If we were to ask this question of an older country, we could more easily obtain an answer, for in the older countries the national ideals have, in many cases, reached an advanced point of self-consciousness. The educational machinery of the German empire, for example, turns upon this problem of impressing the national ideals. It is one aim of the official courses of study, for instance, that history shall be so taught that the pupils will gain an overweening reverence for the reigning house of Hohenzollern. Nor is that newer ideal of national unity which had its seedsown in the Franco-Prussian War in any danger of neglect by the watchful eye of the government. Not only must the teacher impress it upon every occasion, but every attempt is also made to bring it daily fresh to the minds of the people through great monuments and memorials. Scarcely a hamlet is so small that it does not possess its BismarckDenkmal, often situated upon some commanding hill, telling to each generation, in the sublime poetry of form, the greatness of the man who made German unity a reality instead of a dream.
But in our country, we do not thus consciously formulate and express our national ideals. We recognize them rather with averted face as the adolescent boy recognizes any virtue that he may possess, as if half-ashamed of his weakness. We have monuments to our heroes, it is true, but they are often inaccessible, and as often they fail to convey in any adequate manner, the greatness of the lessons which the lives of these heroes represent. Where Germany has a hundred or more impressive memorials to the genius of Bismarck, we have but one adequate memorial to the genius of Washington, while for Lincoln, who represents the typical American standards of life and conduct more faithfully than any other one character in our history, we have no memorial that is at all adequate,—and we should have a thousand. Some day our people will awake to the possibilities that inhere in these palpable expressions of the impalpable things for which our country stands.We shall come to recognize the vast educative importance of perpetuating, in every possible way, the deep truths that have been established at the cost of so much blood and treasure.
To embody our national ideals in the personages of the great figures of history who did so much to establish them is the most elementary method of insuring their conservation and transmission. We are beginning to appreciate the value of this method in our introductory courses of history in the intermediate and lower grammar grades. The historical study outlined for these grades in most of our state and city school programs includes mainly biographical materials. As long as the purpose of this study is kept steadily in view by the teacher, its value may be very richly realized. The danger lies in an obscure conception of the purpose. We are always too prone to teach history didactically, and to teach biographical history didactically is to miss the mark entirely. The aim here is not primarily instruction, but inspiration; not merely learning, but also appreciation. To tell the story of Lincoln's life in such a way that its true value will be realized requires first upon the part of the teacher a sincere appreciation of the great lesson of Lincoln's life. Lincoln typifies the most significant and representative of American ideals. His career stands for and illustrates the greatest of our national principles,—the principle of equality,—not the equality of birth, not the equality of social station,but the equality of opportunity. That a child of the lowliest birth, reared under conditions apparently the most unfavorable for rich development, limited by the sternest poverty, by lack of formal education, by lack of family pride and traditions, by lack of an environment of culture, by the hard necessity of earning his own livelihood almost from earliest childhood,—that such a man should attain to the highest station in the land and the proudest eminence in its history, and should have acquired from the apparently unfavorable environment of his early life the very qualities that made him so efficient in that station and so permanent in that eminence,—this is a miracle that only America could produce. It is this conception that the teacher must have, and this he must, in some measure, impress upon his pupils.
In the teaching of history in the elementary school, the biographical treatment is followed in the later grammar grades by a systematic study of the main events of American history. Here the method is different, but the purpose is the same. This purpose is, I take it, to show how our ideals and standards have developed, through what struggles and conflicts they have become firmly established; and the aim must be to have our pupils relive, as vividly as possible, the pain and the struggles and the striving and the triumph, to the endthat they may appreciate, however feebly, the heritage that is theirs.
Here again it is not the facts as such that are important, but the emotional appreciation of the facts, and to this end, the coloring must be rich, the pictures vivid, the contrasts sharply drawn. The successful teacher of history has the gift of making real the past. His pupils struggle with Columbus against a frightened, ignorant, mutinous crew; they toil with the Pilgrim fathers to conquer the wilderness; they follow the bloody trail of the Deerfield victims through the forest to Canada; they too resist the encroachments of the Mother Country upon their rights as English citizens; they suffer through the long winter at Valley Forge and join with Washington in his midnight vigils; they rejoice at Yorktown; they dream with Jefferson and plead with Webster; their hearts are fired with the news of Sumter; they clinch their teeth at Bull Run; they gather hope at Donelson, but they shudder at Shiloh; they struggle through the Wilderness with Grant; tired but triumphant, they march home from Appomattox; and through it all, in virtue of the limitless capacities of vicarious experience, they have shared the agonies of Lincoln.
Professor Mace, in his essay onMethod in History, tells us that there are two distinct phases to every historical event. These are the event itself and the human feeling that brought it forth. It has seemed tome that there are three phases,—the event itself, the feeling that brought it forth, and the feeling to which it gave birth; for no event is historically important unless it has transformed in some way the ideals and standards of the people,—unless it has shifted, in some way, their point of view, and made them act differently from the way in which they would have acted had the event never occurred. One leading purpose in the teaching of history is to show how ideals have been transformed, how we have come to have standards different from those that were once held.
Many of our national ideals have their roots deep down in English history. Not long ago I heard a seventh-grade class discussing the Magna Charta. It was a class in American history, and yet the events that the pupils had been studying occurred three centuries before the discovery of America. They had become familiar with the long list of abuses that led to the granting of the charter. They could tell very glibly what this great document did for the English people. They traced in detail the subsequent events that led to the establishment of the House of Commons. All this was American history just as truly as if the events described had occurred on American soil. They were gaining an appreciation of one of the most fundamental of our national ideals,—the ideal of popular government. And not only that, but they were studying popular government in its simplest form, uncomplicatedby the innumerable details and the elaborate organizations which characterize popular government to-day.
And when these pupils come to the time when this ideal of self-government was transplanted to American soil, they will be ready to trace with intelligence the changes that it took on. They will appreciate the marked influence which geographical conditions exert in shaping national standards of action. How richly American history reveals and illustrates this influence we are only just now beginning to appreciate. The French and the English colonists developed different types of national character partly because they were placed under different geographical conditions. The St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes gave the French an easy means of access into the vast interior of the continent, and provided innumerable temptations to exploitation rather than a few incentives to development. Where the French influence was dispersed over a wide territory, the English influence was concentrated. As a consequence, the English energy went to the development of resources that were none too abundant, and to the establishment of permanent institutions that would conserve these resources. The barrier of the Appalachians hemmed them in,—three hundred miles of alternate ridge and valley kept them from the West until they were numerically able to settle rather than to exploit this country. Not a little credit for the ultimate English domination of the continent must be given to these geographical conditions.
But geography does not tell the whole story. The French colonists differed from the English colonists from the outset in standards of conduct. They had brought with them the principle of paternalism, and, in time of trouble, they looked to France for support. The English colonists brought with them the principle of self-reliance and, in time of trouble, they looked only to themselves. And so the old English ideals had a new birth and a broader field of application on American soil. There is nothing finer in our country's history than the attitude of the New England colonists during the intercolonial wars. Their northern frontier covering two hundred miles of unprotected territory was constantly open to the incursions of the French from Canada and their Indian allies, to appease whom the French organized their raids. And yet, so deeply implanted was this ideal of self-reliance that New England scarcely thought of asking aid of the mother country and would have protested to the last against the permanent establishment of a military garrison within her limits. For a period extending over fifty years, New England protected her own borders. She felt the terrors of savage warfare in its most sanguinary forms. And yet, uncomplaining, she taxed herself to repel the invaders. The people loved their own independence too much to part with it, even for the sake of peace,prosperity, and security. At a later date, unknown to the mother country, they raised and equipped from their own young men and at their own expense, the punitive expedition that, in the face of seemingly certain defeat, captured the French fortress at Louisburg, and gave to English military annals one of its most brilliant victories. To get the pupil to live through these struggles, to feel the impetus of idealism upon conduct, to appreciate what that almost forgotten half-century of conflict meant to the development of our national character, would be to realize the greatest value that colonial history can have for its students. It lays bare the source of that strength which made New England preëminent in the Revolution, and which has placed the mint mark of New England idealism upon the coin of American character. Could a pupil who has lived vicariously through such experiences as these easily forsake principle for policy?
A newspaper cartoon published a year or so ago, gives some notion of the danger that we are now facing of losing that idealism upon which our country was founded. The cartoon represents the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The worthies are standing about the table dressed in the knee breeches and flowing coats of the day, with wigs conventionally powdered and that stately bearing which characterizes the typical historical painting. John Hancock is seated at the table prepared to make his name immortal. A figure, however, has justappeared in the doorway. It is the cartoonist's conventional conception of the modern Captain of Industry. His silk hat is on the back of his head as if he had just come from his office as fast as his forty-horse-power automobile could carry him. His portly form shows evidences of intense excitement. He is holding his hand aloft to stay the proceedings, while from his lips comes the stage whisper: "Gentlemen, stop! You will hurt business!" What would those old New England fathers think, could they know that such a conception may be taken as representing a well-recognized tendency of the present day? And remember, too, that those old heroes had something of a passion for trade themselves.
But when we seek for the source of our most important national ideal,—the ideal that we have called equality of opportunity,—we must look to another part of the country. The typical Americanism that is represented by Lincoln owes its origin, I believe, very largely to geographical factors. It could have been developed only under certain conditions and these conditions the Middle West alone provided. The settling of the Middle West in the latter part of the eighteenth and the early part of the nineteenth centuries was part and parcel of a rigid logic of events. As Miss Semple so clearly points out in her work on the geographic conditions of American history, the Atlantic seaboard sloped toward the sea and its people held their faces eastward. They were never cut off from easy communication with the Old World,and consequently they were never quite freed from the Old World prejudices and standards. But the movement across the mountains gave rise to a new condition. The faces of the people were turned westward, and cut off from easy communication with the Old World, they developed a new set of ideals and standards under the stress of new conditions. Chief among these conditions was the immensity and richness of the territory that they were settling. The vastness of their outlook and the wealth of their resources confirmed and extended the ideals of self-reliance that they had brought with them from the seaboard. But on the seaboard, the Old World notion of social classes, the prestige of family and station, still held sway. The development of the Middle West would have been impossible under so severe a handicap. With resources so great, every stimulus must be given to individual achievement. Nothing must be permitted to stand in its way. The man who could do things, the man who could most effectively turn the forces of nature to serve the needs of society, was the man who was selected for preferment, no matter what his birth, no matter what the station of his family.
We might, in a similar fashion, review the various other ideals, which have grown out of our history, but, as I have said, my purpose is not historical but educational, and the illustrations that I have given may suffice to make my contention clear. I have attempted to show that the chief purpose of the study of history in the elementaryschool is to establish and fortify in the pupils' minds the significant ideals and standards of conduct which those who have gone before us have gleaned from their experience. I have maintained that, to this end, it is not only the facts of history that are important, but the appreciation of these facts. I have maintained that these prejudices and ideals have a profound influence upon conduct, and that, consequently, history is to be looked upon as a most practical branch of study.
The best way in this world to be definite is to know our goal and then strive to attain it. In the lack of definite standards based upon the lessons of the past, our dominant national ideals shift with every shifting wind of public sentiment and popular demand. Are we satisfied with the individualistic and self-centered idealism that has come with our material prosperity and which to-day shames the memory of the men who founded our Republic? Are we negligent of the serious menace that confronts any people when it loses its hold upon those goods of life that are far more precious than commercial prestige and individual aggrandizement? Are we losing our hold upon the sterner virtues which our fathers possessed,—upon the things of the spirit that are permanent and enduring?
A study of history cannot determine entirely the dominant ideals of those who pursue it. But the study of history if guided in the proper spirit and dominated bythe proper aim may help. For no one who gets into the spirit of our national history,—no one who traces the origin and growth of these ideals and institutions that I have named,—can escape the conviction that the elemental virtues of courage, self-reliance, hardihood, unselfishness, self-denial, and service lie at the basis of every forward step that this country has made, and that the most precious part of our heritage is not the material comforts with which we are surrounded, but the sturdy virtues which made these comforts possible.
FOOTNOTES:[15]An address delivered March 18, 1910, before the Central Illinois Teachers' Association.
[15]An address delivered March 18, 1910, before the Central Illinois Teachers' Association.
[15]An address delivered March 18, 1910, before the Central Illinois Teachers' Association.
The scientific method is the method of unprejudiced observation and induction. Its function in the scheme of life is to furnish man with facts and principles,—statements which mirror with accuracy and precision the conditions that may exist in any situation of any sort which man may have to face. In other words, the facts of science are important and worthy because they help us to solve the problems of life more satisfactorily. They are instrumental in their function. They are means to an end. And whenever we have a problem to solve, whenever we face a situation that demands some form of adjustment, the more accurate the information that we possess concerning this situation, the better we shall be able to solve it.
Now when I propose that we try to find out some facts about the teaching of English, and that we apply the scientific method in the discovery of these facts, I am immediately confronted with an objection. My opponent will maintain that the subject of English in our school curriculum is not one of the sciences. Taking English to mean particularly English literature rather than rhetoric or composition or grammar, it is clear that we do not teach literature as we teach the sciences. Its function differs from that of science in the curriculum. If there is a science of literature, that is not what we are teaching in the secondary schools, and that is not what most of us believe should be taught in the secondary schools. We think that the study of literature should transmit to each generation the great ideals that are crystallized in literary masterpieces. And we think that, in seeing to it that our pupils are inspired with these ideals, we should also teach literature in such a way that our pupils will be left with a desire to read good literature as a source of recreation and inspiration after they have finished the courses that we offer. When I speak of "inspiration," "appreciation," the development of "taste," and the like, I am using terms that have little direct relation to the scientific method; for, as I have said, science deals with facts, and the harder and more stubborn and more unyielding the facts become, the better they represent true science. What right have I, then, to speak of the scientific study of the teaching of English, when science and literature seem to belong to two quite separate rubrics of mental life?
I refer to this point of view, not because its inconsistencies are not fully apparent to you even upon the surface, but because it is a point of view that has hitherto interfered very materially with our educational progress. It has sometimes been assumed that, because we wish to study education scientifically, we wish to read out of it everything that cannot be reduced to a scientific formula,—that, somehow or other, we intend still further to intellectualize the processes of education and to neglect the tremendous importance of those factors that are not primarily intellectual in their nature, but which belong rather to the field of emotion and feeling.
I wish, therefore, to say at the outset that, while I firmly believe the hope of education to lie in the application of the scientific method to the solution of its problems, I still hold that neither facts nor principles nor any other products of the scientific method are the most important "goods" of life. The greatest "goods" in life are, and always must remain, I believe, its ideals, its visions, its insights, and its sympathies,—must always remain those qualities with which the teaching of literature is primarily concerned, and in the engendering of which in the hearts and souls of his pupils, the teacher of literature finds the greatest opportunity that is vouchsafed to any teacher.
The facts and principles that science has given us have been of such service to humanity that we are prone to forget that they have been of service because they have helped us more effectively to realize our ideals and attain our ends; and we are prone to forget also that,without the ideals and the ends and the visions, the facts and principles would be quite without function. I have sometimes been taken to account for separating these two factors in this way. But unless we do distinguish sharply between them, our educational thinking is bound to be hopelessly obscure.
You have all heard the story of the great chemist who was at work in his laboratory when word was brought him that his wife was dead. As the first wave of anguish swept over him, he bowed his head upon his hands and wept out his grief; but suddenly he lifted up his head, and held before him his hands wet with tears. "Tears!" he cried; "what are they? I have analyzed them: a little chloride of sodium, some alkaline salts, a little mucin, and some water. That is all." And he went back to his work.
The story is an old one, and very likely apocryphal, but it is not without its lesson to us in the present connection. Unless we distinguish between these two factors that I have named, we are likely either to take this man's attitude or something approaching it, or to go to the other extreme, renounce the accuracy and precision of the scientific method, and give ourselves up to the cult of emotionalism.
Now, while we do not wish to read out of the teaching of literature the factors of appreciation and inspiration, we do wish to find out how these important functions of our teaching may be best fulfilled. And it is here thatfacts and principles gained by the scientific method not only can but must furnish the ultimate solution. We have a problem. That problem, it is true, is concerned with something that is not scientific, and to attempt to make it scientific is to kill the very life that it is our problem to cherish. But in solving that problem, we must take certain steps; we must arrange our materials in certain ways; we must adjust hard and stubborn facts to the attainment of our end. What are these facts? What is their relation to our problem? What laws govern their operation? These are subordinate but very essential parts of our larger problem, and it is through the scientific investigation of these subordinate problems that our larger problem is to be solved.
Let me give you an illustration of what I mean. We may assume that every boy who goes out of the high school should appreciate the meaning and worth of self-sacrifice as this is revealed (not expounded) in Dickens's delineation of the character of Sidney Carton. There is our problem,—but what a host of subordinate problems at once confront us! Where shall we introduceThe Tale of Two Cities? Will it be in the second year, or the third, or the fourth? Will it be best preceded by the course in general history which will give the pupil a time perspective upon the crimson background of the French Revolution against which Dickens projected his master character? Or shall we putThe Tale of Two Citiesfirst for the sake of the heightened interest which the art ofthe novelist may lend to the facts of the historian? Again, how may the story be best presented? What part shall the pupils read in class? What part shall they read at home? What part, if any, shall we read to them? What questions are necessary to insure appreciation? How many of the allusions need be run down in order to give the maximal effect of the masterpiece? How may the necessarily discontinuous discussions of the class—one period each day for several days—be so counteracted as to insure the cumulative emotional effect which the appreciation of all art presupposes? Should the story be sketched through first, and then read in some detail, or will one reading suffice?
These are problems, I repeat, that stand to the chief problem as means stand to end. Now some of these questions must be solved by every teacher for himself, but that does not prevent each teacher from solving them scientifically. Others, it is clear, might be solved once and for all by the right kind of an investigation,—might result in permanent and universal laws which any one could apply.
There are, of course, several ways in which answers for these questions may be secured. One way is that ofa priorireasoning,—the deductive procedure. This method may be thoroughly scientific, depending of course upon the validity of our general principles as applied to the specific problem. Ordinarily this validity can be determined only by trial; consequently thesea prioriinferences should be looked upon as hypotheses to be tested by trial under standard conditions. For example, I might argue thatThe Tale of Two Citiesshould be placed in the third year because the emotional ferment of adolescence is then most favorable for the engendering of the ideal. But in the first place, this assumed principle would itself be subject to grave question and it would also have to be determined whether there is so little variation among the pupils in respect of physiological age as to permit the application to all of a generalization that might conceivably apply only to the average child. In other words, all of our generalizations applying to average pupils must be applied with a knowledge of the extent and range of variation from the average. Some people say that there is no such thing as an average child, but, for all practical purposes, the average child is a very real reality,—he is, in fact, more numerous than any other single class; but this does not mean that there may be not enough variations from the average to make unwise the application of our principle.
I refer to this hypothetical case to show the extreme difficulty of reaching anything more than hypotheses bya priorireasoning. We have a certain number of fairly well established general principles in secondary education. Perhaps those most frequently employed are our generalizations regarding adolescence and its influences upon the mental and especially the emotional life of high-schoolpupils. Stanley Hall's work in this field is wonderfully stimulating and suggestive, and yet we should not forget that most of his generalizations are, after all, only plausible hypotheses to be acted upon as tentative guides for practice and to be tested carefully under controlled conditions, rather than to be accepted as immutable and unchangeable laws. We sometimes assume that all high-school pupils are adolescents, when the likelihood is that an appreciable proportion of pupils in the first two years have not yet reached this important node of their development.
I say this not to minimize in any way the importance that attaches to adolescent characteristics, but rather to suggest that you who are daily dealing with these pupils can in the aggregate add immeasurably to the knowledge that we now have concerning this period. A tremendous waste is constantly going on in that most precious of all our possible resources,—namely, human experience. How many problems that are well solved have to be solved again and again because the experience has not been crystallized in a well-tested fact or principle; how many experiences that might be well worth the effort that they cost are quite worthless because, in undergoing them, we have neglected some one or another of the rules that govern inexorably the validity of our inferences and conclusions. That is all that the scientific method means in the last analysis: it is a system of principles that enable us to make our experience worth while in meetinglater situations. We all have the opportunity of contributing to the sum total of human knowledge, if only we know the rules of the game.
I said that one way of solving these subordinate problems that arise in the realization of our chief aims in teaching is thea priorimethod of applying general principles to the problems. Another method is to imitate the way in which we have seen some one else handle the situation. Now this may be the most effective way possible. In fact, if a sufficient number of generations of teachers keep on blindly plunging in and floundering about in solving their problems, the most effective methods will ultimately be evolved through what we call the process of trial and error. The teaching of the very oldest subjects in the curriculum is almost always the best and most effective teaching, for the very reason that the blundering process has at last resulted in an effective procedure. But the scientific method of solving problems has its very function in preventing the tremendous waste that this process involves. English literature is a comparatively recent addition to the secondary curriculum. Its possibilities of service are almost unlimited. Shall we wait for ten or fifteen generations of teachers to blunder out the most effective means of teaching it, or shall we avail ourselves of these simple principles which will enable us to concentrate this experience within one or two generations?
I should like to emphasize one further point. No onehas greater respect than I have for what we term experience in teaching. But let me say that a great deal of what we may term "crude" experience—that is, experience that has not been refined by the application of scientific method—is most untrustworthy,—unless, indeed, it has been garnered and winnowed and sifted through the ages. Let me give you an example of some accepted dictums of educational experience that controlled investigations have shown to be untrustworthy.
It is a general impression among teachers that specific habits may be generalized; that habits of neatness and accuracy developed in one line of work, for example, will inevitably make one neater and more accurate in other things. It has been definitely proved that this transfer of training does not take place inevitably, but in reality demands the fulfillment of certain conditions of which education has become fully conscious only within a comparatively short time, and as a result of careful, systematic, controlled experimentation. The meaning of this in the prevention of waste through inadequate teaching is fully apparent.
Again, it has been supposed by many teachers that the home environment is a large factor in the success or failure of a pupil in school. In every accurate and controlled investigation that has been conducted so far it has been shown that this factor in such subjects as arithmetic and spelling at least is so small as to be absolutely negligible in practice.
Some people still believe that a teacher is born and not made, and yet a careful investigation of the efficiency of elementary teachers shows that, when such teachers were ranked by competent judges, specialized training stood out as the most important factor in general efficiency. In this same investigation, the time-honored notion that a college education will, irrespective of specialized training, adequately equip a teacher for his work was revealed as a fallacy,—for twenty-eight per cent of the normal-school graduates among all the teachers were in the first and second ranks of efficiency as against only seventeen per cent of the college graduates; while, in the two lowest ranks, only sixteen per cent of the normal-school graduates are to be found as against forty-four per cent of the college graduates. These investigations, I may add, were made by university professors, and I am giving them here in a university classroom and as a university representative. And of course I shall hasten to add that general scholarship is one important essential. Our mistake has been in assuming sometimes that it is the only essential.
Very frequently the controlled experience of scientific investigation confirms a principle that has been derived from crude experience. Most teachers will agree, for example, that a certain amount of drill and repetition is absolutely essential in the mastery of any subject. Every time that scientific investigation has touched this problem it has unmistakably confirmed this belief. Some veryrecent investigations made by Mr. Brown at the Charleston Normal School show conclusively that five-minute drill periods preceding every lesson in arithmetic place pupils who undergo such periods far in advance of others who spend this time in non-drill arithmetical work, and that this improvement holds not only in the number habits, but also in the reasoning processes.
Other similar cases could be cited, but I have probably said enough to make my point, and my point is this: that crude experience is an unsafe guide for practice; that experience may be refined in two ways—first by the slow, halting, wasteful operation of time, which has established many principles upon a pinnacle of security from which they will never be shaken, but which has also accomplished this result at the cost of innumerable mistakes, blunders, errors, futile efforts, and heartbreaking failures; or secondly, by the application of the principles of control and test which are now at our service, and which permit present-day teachers to concentrate within a single generation the growth and development and progress that the empirical method of trial and error could not encompass in a millennium.
The teaching of English merits treatment by this method. I recommend strongly that you give the plan a trial. You may not get immediate results. You may not get valuable results. But in any case, if you carefully respect the scientific proprieties, your experience will be worth vastly more than ten times the amount ofcrude experience; and, whether you get results or not, you will undergo a valuable discipline from which may emerge the ideals of science if you are not already imbued with them. I always tell my students that, even in the study of science itself, it is the ideals of science,—the ideals of patient, thoughtful work, the ideals of open-mindedness and caution in reaching conclusions, the ideals of unprejudiced observation from which selfishness and personal desire are eliminated,—it is these ideals that are vastly more important than the facts of science as such,—and these latter are significant enough to have made possible our present progress and our present amenities of life.