Another matter of interest these days is the educational survey that has been taken up by many progressive communities. The plan is, as many of you know, to subject the school system of a city or community to a searching investigation in order to discover, if possible, its weak points, if it has any, to the end of their betterment. Experts are brought in who, without fear or favor, examine the system from all possible points of view—location and arrangement of school buildings including heating, lighting, and general health conditions, adequacy of playground and athletic facilities, the extent to which the schools are satisfying community needs in the way of equipt workmen and the needs of the young people for equipment for suitable work, the cost of the system, attendance, methods of teaching and supervision, course of study, etc. Outside experts are brought in for various reasons: known to have no personal interest in the outcome, their reports are likely to be received with greater respect; and, too, a local committee, thru nearness and very familiarity, would fail to notice features, good as well as bad, that might at once attract the attention of strangers. Many cities, ranging from 2500 to half a million people, have already availed themselves of the survey with, in the main, very gratifying results. Not only have cities used the survey, but other units of educational administration. There have been a few very significant and interesting rural school surveys by counties in several states. A similar study has been made of several State universities, Wisconsin, Iowa, Nevada, for example. I notice that the legislature of Minnesota has just arranged for a survey of theirs. You all recall that such a survey was made of all the institutions of higher education of North Dakota only a short time ago. The general feeling is that it was well worth while. Such and even more extensive surveys have already been made in five other states—Oregon, Iowa, Washington, Colorado, and Wyoming. The end sought in each and all of these surveys, whether city schools, higher institutions, or state-wide systems, is greater efficiency—larger service to society. A survey of this character is usually followed by a detailed printed report that is generously distributed resulting in greater interest in the schools and a more intelligent appreciation of their work and their needs.
Much has been said in recent years about vocational education. The schools have been severely criticised for not teaching trades. Many have demanded that that be the dominating motive in all our schools, especially in the high schools. The educational press, for the last decade, has kept the matter in the limelight. Books have been written calling attention to the heavy dropping out of school of pupils even before reaching high school age wholly unfitted to do anything above the most menial and lowest-paid work. They have argued strenuously and sometimes logically for better things. To this program the objection has been raised that children in these early years are not yet ready to choose their work of life; that they do not yet sufficiently know themselves—their own tastes and capacities for such serious choice; it has also been urged that to place before children such attractive objective features would result in swerving many from the normal pathway of their development and check it midway. The result has been what might be called a compromise, and the firing-line activities have been somewhat modified. Not vocational education but vocational guidance is now more nearly the thought. And this has a much larger content, a background, a more scientific basis, and one organically connected with the larger movement of which I have already spoken—the social motive in education supplemented by the individual involving the discovery and development of taste and capacity.
I have already called attention to the high mortality of high school students. The reasons I have given are the lack of sympathy that the teacher has with the adolescent and the lack of meaning found in the work being done. The same facts account for the heavy elimination that takes place in the upper grades of the elementary school. But both are being remedied to some extent. The first thru the child-study movement and the second thru the matter of vocational guidance. And the two are very closely connected as one can see at a glance. Thru the child-study movement the teacher comes to know child nature so well that direct application can be made to the individual child and an intimate knowledge gained of his tastes, capacities, ambitions, and dominant interests. This will enable her to give the subject matter definite meaning in the early years, and, later on, when vocations begin to attract, the guiding may be intelligent and the final choice a suitable one. From the beginning of the adolescent period there should be opportunities furnished by the school or thru its co-operative effort for children to test themselves in various lines—academic lines, vocational lines. They should, in a word, be vocationally tempted in as many different directions as possible so as to come to know themselves so well that the final settling will not be haphazard. In these ways they should be guided into their vocations, definite ones, just as early in life as they can be adequately prepared for them. For example:—if his tastes and capacities fit a certainboy for merely a mechanical pursuit that requires but little academic learning, such as carpentry, plumbing, blacksmithing, brick laying, etc., he should, relatively early in the adolescent period, be thus guided, and not forced to attempt an academic course that can have no possible meaning to him. This would send him out, a productive member of society, happy in his work because suited to him and efficient in it because fitted for doing it well. If, on the other hand, tastes and capacities fit for academic or professional careers, such as medicine, law, teaching, or engineering, the principle would remain the same but the program would differ. The academic work, meaningless to the prospective plumber, or dressmaker, would be full of meaning to the embryo lawyer or teacher, and the period of preparation much prolonged.
Such are the points of view that teachers should hold, and such the opportunities that schools should offer. And it is all being found out on the firing lines. This program is being carried out to some extent in many places in different parts of the country. The time is not very far distant when something of the kind will be demanded in all our towns. For out in the front ranks the high school is no longer regarded chiefly as a preparatory for college. Out there it is seen to possess a much larger function—assisting the child—every child—to form its own acquaintance and to begin the planning of its future. In other words, the thought on the firing line is that the high school is an institution established by a community for community purposes—to take its young people—all of them—and guide them thru the difficult and transitional periodof adolescence, directing, inspiring, shaping, checking, developing for the largest manhood and womanhood possible and providing the community with efficient workmen in various lines.
While there are many other activities, significant and interesting, that might well be considered in such a treatment as this, I shall close with a very brief mention of one more—the place and work of the educational psychologist in our modern system.
One of the most significant of the newer movements in educational procedure is that termededucational mesurements, perhaps better called themesurement of intelligence. About a generation ago it began to be observed that many children did not pass thru the grades with the regularity that was thought normal or desirable. Many were obliged to repeat grades—they did not "pass," to use the language of the schools. The more the matter was investigated, the more serious was it seen to be. Investigation has gone on until at last carefully gathered statistics tell us that almost, if not quite, one-half of all the children in the schools fail to progress thru the grades at the expected rate. For some reason, or for some combination of reasons, they are retarded from one to three years. And of the $400,000,000 annually spent to carry on the work of the schools it is estimated that from $40,000,000 to $50,000,000 go every year in attempts to teach these retarded ones what they have already tried but failed to learn. Here was a double loss, a financial one of large proportions and a humanone of much more serious import. Why the retardation? And what could be done to check it?
Thoughtful consideration was given to the matter with the following revelation: it was seen that in educational procedure all matters of grading, promotion, even choice of subject matter where there was a choice, were being handled on the basis of results of tests of information—possession of knowledge facts—rather than of ability or intelligence. This might not be so bad if the knowledge sought in these tests were knowledge necessary to have in order to function adequately in the new or advanced environment. But usually no such relationship could be traced. It was but another illustration of no present meaning connected with the work of the school. A remedy was sought, and is being sought, in trying to substitute for the information test a test of intelligence. It is generally admitted that neither one is an adequate mesure of the other. A child may have a very high grade of intelligence and yet make a very poor showing in the ordinary schoolroom test for knowledge, not that he has been unable to learn such facts but merely that his interests and attention have not been thus focust. On the other hand, it is entirely possible for one of low-grade intelligence to receive a very creditable "mark" in a test for information since it is frequently a test of verbal memory, that "great simulator of intelligence," as Binet calls it.
One of the most interesting of the books bearing upon this new educational movement isThe Measurement of Intelligenceby Professor Terman of Leland Stanford University. In the thoughts just exprest I have used material found in this book.
So, for a few years now, educational psychologists have been trying to work out a series of tests of intelligence, so that children may be located on the basis of their general intelligence, or ability to accomplish results. The results so far are very promising as tending to eliminate much of the loss mentioned above. And out on our firing lines the educational psychologist is being looked upon as a necessity in any system looking forward to real efficiency. It is thought that thru the saving he could effect in the two directions cited his regular employment would be a matter of economic foresight. A few years ago it was the school physician who was being fought for out in the front ranks. He is now a fixture in every up-to-date school system, and it is the psychologist for whom battle is now being waged. And it is only a question of time when his position will be secure and the line pushed forward for another attack.
I have discust with you briefly some of the interesting points of view of the education of to-day. I have tried to place before you, first, what I think to be its dominant motive—social betterment, made effective thru discovery and development of the individual's tastes and dominant interests. To show how this program is becoming established and worked out, I have touched upon various new lines of activity in sympathy with and contributing to the general movement. Thus I discust briefly the great child-study movement having for its goal knowledge of the individual child as a basis for its educational treatment. Following this I spoke of physical education—its beginning in many places and the great need for extension. Another activity named was theeducational survey by means of which a community may have its own educational activity tested by impartial experts that its real efficiency may be known. Then followed brief discussion of the new movement for vocational guidance that is doing so much where being used to make the youth efficient and happy in his chosen and appropriate field of activity. I closed the discussion with a mention of a still newer movement having the same great ends in view—the employment of the educational psychologist. Firing-line activities all of these are, each vigorous and active in the great movement for educational betterment.
An Address delivered before the Annual Conference of the North Dakota Superintendents and Principals at the University of North Dakota, May 18, 1916
This is a topic of great interest to us all—to you in the field and to us here on the campus. The work of the two institutions is so closely related, each depends so much upon the other, that participation in the activities of one bespeaks interest in the other. But before we can discuss at all intelligently the matter of relationship it will be necessary to look at the two separately—objectively, as it were—to note the function of each and its place in the educational system of the State. What is the university? What is the high school? And what is the work of each? are questions that must first be answered.
In the first place, of course, the two are but parts of a still larger whole, neither being an independent, self-sufficing entity. The larger whole is the educational system of the State, of which there is one other part equally important with the two named, even the elementary school. And all three parts forming the whole are creations of the State, devised, controlled, and maintained for a very definite purpose—namely, the welfare and happiness of our people.
While it is true that the three parts are correlative, each supplementing the others and the systemincomplete without all three, it is also true that they are co-ordinate, no one of the three being,per se, in authority over any other, nor any one subordinate to another. Let me put before you, very briefly, that we may all be thinking together, the system in its outlines and then discuss each of its parts, trying to discover its function and its node of work. Then we shall pass to the matter of relationship.
The system as a whole covers and tries to provide for the entire school life of the individual. The elementary period, or department, includes, in the main, as now organized, the work of the first eight years of the child's school life and ministers to it from the age of six to fourteen years. The secondary, beginning where the elementary closes, carries on the work for four years and is followed by the higher, the colleges and the professional schools—the university.
It may clarify matters somewhat and thus give us a clearer perspective, if, before, entering upon the discussion, I account for the system as we have it to-day.
Our Colonial forefathers in the Old Bay State, back in the 17th century, in providing to meet the situation that prest upon them, unconsciously laid the foundations for an educational system that expanded with their expansion and developed with their development. But before taking the initial steps they did not wait to analyze the entire situation and upon logical or philosophical grounds map it out in its entirety. They had no such thought. They needed ministers of the Gospel and, since a knowledge of Latin was the one sure gateway to that profession, they established a Latin school almost as soonas they had set their own dwelling places in order. This was in 1635, and Harvard College followed the very next year to complete the preparation. It was an afterthought and came eleven years later when they legislated for an elementary school. And even tho we can see, in what they had then produced, the fundamental factors of our present somewhat complicated system, the people who were responsible for its organization were only dimly conscious of the significance of it all. They builded better than they knew. The broad outlines can not be improved. Details, of course, are ever changing as local conditions change, but from the very nature of things, the elementary, the secondary, and the higher schools have remained with us, each for a quite definite purpose and all working together for a common end. Let us look, therefore, for a moment, at each of the three and see for what it stands and what it should attempt to do.
The fundamental purpose of the elementary school in a democracy is well stated in the first legislation on the continent touching elementary education, tho not mentioning the elementary school. It was in the Massachusetts colonies in 1642. The General Court passed an ordinance of which the following quotation gives the substance:
"This Court, taking into consideration the great neglect of many parents and masters in the training of their children in labor and learning, and other employments which may be profitable to the commonwealth, do hereupon order and decree that in everytown the chosen men appointed for managing the prudential affairs of the same shall henceforth stand charged with the care of the redress of this evil ... and for this end they, or the greater number of them, shall have the power to take account, from time to time, of all parents and masters, and of their children, concerning their calling and employment of their children, especially of their ability to read and understand the principles of religion and the capital laws of this country; and they shall have power ... to put forth as apprentices the children of such as they shall find not to be able and fit to employ and to bring them up."
Here was compulsory elementary education, that children might know how to read, might "understand the principles of religion and the capital laws of the State," and also that they might be taught to work. And why? For their own present and future welfare, and that they might be "profitable to the commonwealth," the document reads.
It was for all the children of all the people. The same thought is with us to-day and, analyzed and stated in our present-day terminology, may be put about as follows:
The elementary school is for all the people and aims to do for all three things: first, exercise a positive directive influence over the child's physical development; second, carry on, in a more systematic, scientific manner the training of the sense organs already begun by the home, thus opening up the life to the beauties of nature, art, and other forms of truth, and so providing for the development of the inner life of each in accordance with inherent leaning and capability; and, third, equip them with the toolsof knowledge and give such knowledge facts and develop such points of view as will enable each to become a self-directing, constructive, and contributing member of his democratic community.
Attendance upon the elementary school should, in the interests of all as individuals and of the State as an organization, be compulsory.
The high school should likewise be for all, tho for a somewhat different purpose. While attendance should not be compulsory, the aim should be to make it universal. For a somewhat different purpose, I said; I should perhaps have said for an added purpose, because I would have the three ends of the elementary school kept constantly in view as fundamental bases. But, assuming that these things have been well done, the chief purpose of the high school should be to discover the child's latent powers, his dominant interests, and then, so far as these are wholesome, help him plan his education in their general direction. I might put it briefly thus: the chief function of the high school should be to help the child to become acquainted with himself and begin the planning of his future. Let us look at it carefully and see if it is not sound.
At the conclusion of the elementary school, at the age of 14, the boys and girls are still children; they are developing, not developed, in either body or mind. They have not yet reached, in the main, the period of rapid acceleration of physical growth, intellectual expansion, or moral development; they are just reaching it; they are now in the early stages ofthat wonderful period of adolescence when the boy is being transformed into the man and the girl into the woman. They are neither children nor adults, yet manifesting the characteristics of both. They do not know themselves, nor does any one else know them intimately. How can they? They are not yet formed. They are in the process of formation. What will emerge as a result of the process, we know only in broad outlines—not at all in minute detail. So many factors are at work and there are possible so many combinations of factors that no one can tell; for it is during the period of adolescence that hereditary characteristics show themselves. Up to this time the child is a child of the race; during this period it becomes the offspring of its parents. And the factors of heredity—father, mother, ancestry—are mingling and clashing and combining with the factors of environment, and what the outcome is going to be, nobody knows, in specific cases, in advance.
This is the period when the heart, the lungs, and the brain are being transformed, modified, whipt into shape for the performance of the duties of adulthood. It is a period when, in the intellectual realm, because of what is taking place in the physical, concepts are being clarified, relationships traced, ideas formed, things seen in the right perspective, and real reasoning begun. It is the period when, in the moral field, because of what is being accomplished in the physical and the intellectual, principles are being apprehended that will finally enable the individual to distinguish between right and wrong, to organize on principle rather than upon expediency his relationships with his fellows, and eventually to become afree moral agent, self-controlled and self-directed. It is the period, therefore, when ideals are being formed, habits fixt, character shaped, life plans matured, and professions chosen.
And so, with such an individual and during such a period, what other function of the high school can begin to compare, either in importance or in appropriateness, with the one stated?
It may be objected that I do not include in this function of the high school that which has been during a large portion of its history its foremost work—preparation for college. The seeming omission has not been accidental. I say theseemingomission because, even tho not specifically stated, it is there, for all who should be encouraged to prepare for college. But it has not been made prominent since, in my judgment, it is of minor importance. Note again the function as suggested—to help the child know himself, find out what he wants to do and what he can do best, and then begin getting ready for doing it well. If the specific form of future activity decided upon in a particular instance should call for the contribution of the college, then of course the plan mentioned would include appropriate preparation.
But from what point of view should the high school be regarded and for whom should it be planned? Should it be for the relatively few who go beyond, or for the great majority who do not? It is a fair question and admits of but one answer. The high schools of the State must, of course, give adequate preparation for entrance into the State university. Some of them must—not necessarily every one. It must be the preparatory school, sinceboth are State institutions and the only ones occupying the field. But it should do vastly more than that. Being of the people, by the people, and for the people, it should be so handled as to serve all, not merely a few, of the people. It is perfectly plain, therefore, where the emphasis should be placed.
Please do not misunderstand me; I am not looking upon this from any narrow point of view, I am not thinking merely of getting these children ready for jobs—certainly not all of them. I am not advocating the transforming of our high schools into trade schools—not at all. What I am urging primarily is a different point of view—and so enlarging and modifying our high school activities and equipment that all our children, instead of only a few, may find there a congenial atmosphere and activities suited to their tastes. If their tastes lie in the direction of carpentering, or of plumbing, or of dress-making, well and good; let them be thus developed and prepared to go out into their community somewhat equipt for remunerative toil and for community service. Why not? Are they not as worthy as those who have tastes and ambitions or a more literary character and who, therefore, look forward to the chair of the teacher, the office of the lawyer, or the practise of a physician? And is not the community under as much obligation to the one as to the other? Some fear that such a program would lessen the number preparing for college, that work of this objective character would be so attractive that all would choose it. These fears are groundless. Children are not all built that way. At any rate it would not lessen the number who ought to go to college—who are adapted to that kind of work. Itwould, of course, greatly increase the number attending high schools—holding those who now, because of lack of interest in the work offered, drop out of school entirely and thus swell the ranks of unskilled and unintelligent labor. And that is greatly worth while. My own feeling is, too, that out of the greatly increased attendance of the high school an even larger number than at present would find their way to the university, and that they would be better equipt in point of view and purpose than are many who enter under present conditions. This suggestion is made not to keep boys and girls out of the university, but to send them there with a purpose.
But there is oftentimes a misapprehension as to these two possible programs for the high schools. Preparation for college and preparation for life are by no means antagonistic. Preparation for college is the only kind of preparation for life for him who goes to college. And for him who, during his high school course, plans to go to college, but who at its close, finds himself unable to do so, for economic or other reasons, it should still be the best possible preparation for life that he could have made, and it will be if, as I am urging, it has all the time been based upon his own nature and seeking his normal development in the direction of his dominant interests. And preparation for life should be the very best kind of preparation for college, for him who later changes his plans and goes to college as well as for him who does not, since the college itself should be regarded as merely completing preparation for life. But a great many, the majority, no doubt, will not go to college, should not go to college, or to put it better, perhaps, need not go to college. The activities of life, psychical as well as manual, for which they are best adapted by native endowment, and in the performance of which they will, therefore, be happiest, and thru which they will, therefore, contribute most to the welfare of society, do not need for their satisfactory performance school preparation beyond the high school period. In other words, a great many boys and girls should not be urged to go to college. They should not if they do not have within them those characteristics of leadership which, developed, will make them leaders. The college graduate who, in later life, is a street car conductor, or a Pullman porter, or what-not, has largely wasted the time and money spent in college. And this is not because these occupations are not honorable, but because they do not call for that kind of preparation. And the kind of an individual who is at home as a street car conductor does not usually profit greatly by the work of the college. I will not put it as David Starr Jordan is said to have done, that "It does not pay to give a fifty-cent boy a five thousand dollar education." It is not a question of dollars and cents—rather one of fitness and of fitting. The so-called "fifty-cent boy" who may have been given the "five thousand dollar education" and because of its inappropriateness degenerated into a ten-cent man, might have been made into a thousand dollar man if he had been given the right kind of education. The boy who has the instincts of a blacksmith, who likes the shaping of iron and the shoeing of horses and the smell of the forge, will be a far happier and more useful member of society as a blacksmith than, made over by the college, as alawyer without clients, a physician without patients, or a teacher always hunting a new position.
I have discust the high school, as you see, from the point of view of the developmental needs of the children of the community. The outcome would have been practically the same had I looked upon it from the standpoint of the industrial needs of the community. I fully believe that a high school should be to-day just what it was originally planned to be back there in the first half of the nineteenth century—a school higher than the elementary, controlled by the community, in co-operation with the educational leaders of the State, serving the needs of the community, fitting its boys and girls for service in the community and discriminating, if at all, in the favor of the group of boys and girls who are not going to college, since that group is much the larger. Since boys and girls are nearer to us than industrial needs, I have chosen to look at the problem from that angle.
I am well aware that my point of view in this entire matter is not quite in accord with the present-day program. The American high school still has preparation for college as the one dominant object. Its curriculum is planned for that end. It is rated at first, second, or third class, depending upon the degree in which it meets college entrance requirements—not upon the degree in which it serves the community needs or develops the community's children.
I realize fully that the change suggested would involve quite a decided rearrangement of the ordinary high school program. With the time at my disposal it will be impossible to discuss the matter indetail, but it should be touched upon briefly to get the matter of relationship clearly before us.
The first change would be in the matter of organization: instead of having the elementary school, as now, covering eight years and closing with the child at the age of 14, it should cover but six years, sending the child to the high school at about the age of 12, at which time, approximately, begin those physical and psychological changes earlier spoken of, as belonging to adolescence. And that thought has taken root, as we all know, in the junior high school movement. Six years is long enough to do well all that the elementary school should be expected to do. It certainly is as long as children can be held interested in the kind of work thought necessary for the child, and as long as he can be happy in the atmosphere of the ordinary elementary school. It is long enough for the laying of foundations. It is time something else should be taken up.
Planning to meet the needs of adolescents, we must take the adolescents as they are—many of them not primarily students of books, but individuals of ceaseless activity, physical as well as mental, vastly more interested in the doing of things than in the learning of lessons. And we must provide a means whereby they can learn to do all sorts of things that have to be done in the community. The subject matter, the methods of handling young life, the atmosphere, the activities, and the ends in view, should be so changed or modified, or supplemented as to be appropriate to the new and changing personalities to be affected by them. The details would differ with different communities but the principle is adaptable to all.
With the functions of these two departments thus clearly in mind, let us look at the next in order—the State university. Fortunately this discussion need not detain us long since there is a quite well recognized unanimity of opinion in regard to its work.
While the State university does many things, and some of them well, and while it can be said to have many ends in view, its one all-inclusive function is to prepare leaders for society. It must prepare leaders in law, that justice may be done; leaders in medicine that health may be preserved; leaders in engineering that the State's resources may be developed; leaders in education that the youth of the State may be educated; leaders in research that the boundaries of knowledge may be pushed out—leaders all along the line that character may be formed, statesmanship developed, and the welfare of the people secured and preserved. And the preparation of all these is not, primarily, that those prepared may achieve fame or amass fortunes, but that society may be better served.
We are all agreed, in the United States, that elementary education should be universal. Many are now taking the position that I have already advanced that secondary education should likewise reach and serve all. But all stop at that point. No one even suggests a college education for every boy and girl. And the reason is found in the above statement of the function of the institution, since not all are suited to leadership. It takes only the relatively few who stand out clearly in their high school experiences as possessing the characteristics of leadership, and these few it develops, equips, locates.
Coming a little closer to our subject—tho I think we have not been very far from it at any time—let us inquire as to this relationship along some more specific lines.
It goes without saying that the relationship should be very cordial. The two institutions are creatures of the State, partners in the important work of educating the children of the State. Each has its own work to do, and neither has been given any authority over the other. At the same time each depends upon the other, neither being able to do its own work without the other's assistance. They should work hand in hand, each assisting the other in every possible way to realize its largest usefulness to the community and the State. In general, the high school should send its students to the university well equipt to do the lines of work for which they respectively apply. And the university, knowing in each case just what that work is to be, and the difficulties it presents, should be the judge as to the details of that equipment.
On the other hand, the university should not make requirements for beginning its work that are beyond the capacity of the ordinary high school student. Nor should it definitely require or legislate against specific subjects upon which there is no general agreement among educational leaders. Something is wrong somewhere, in the matter of educational values, when some colleges absolutely prescribe for entrance certain subjects for which others will give no credit at all: for example, at the present time 91 colleges in the United States require at least oneunit of natural science and 8 colleges will not accept a single unit; again, 13 require 2 units of natural science and 22 will not accept the two. Until we know a little better than we do at present what we are doing and why we are doing it, it might be well to move slowly in legislating for or against specific subjects. The university should keep in mind the fact that the high school has other duties to perform—and possibly more important ones—than preparing a few students for the university.
I am glad to say that in this matter of entrance requirements the two institutions are gradually coming closer together. The university is coming to have greater respect for and more confidence in the high school and its work. Whereas in the earlier days all entrance work was rigidly prescribed, now, in nearly all of our higher institutions, several units are open to free choice from a list of accepted subjects. In a goodly number these units may be chosen from any subjects offered by an approved high school. And, too, there are five institutions of good standing that allow the entire 15 units to be thus chosen. Our own, as you doubtless know, is much more generous in this matter than the great majority. It gives a margin of 5 units to be thus selected. I think there are but 9 institutions in the whole country more liberal. As you know, too, in all our colleges save Engineering we specifically require but 4 units—3 in English and 1 in mathematics. From the others free election among groups is allowed. The movement here and elsewhere seems to be in the direction of requiring the completion of a full four-year high school course, with increasing flexibility as to specific subjects. And that seems wise.
It gives me pleasure, at this point, to say that the relationship between the University of North Dakota and the high schools of the State has ever been most cordial. I think there has never been a time when the two, tho differing at times in details, have not co-operated in the most frank and cordial manner to bring about the best good of both and to secure the best service to the State. Neither one has been selfish, trying to secure undue advantage over the other. Where domination of the university over the high school can be seen—as it most certainly can be seen—and even tho, as I have said, the work of the high school is what it ought not to be—mainly a preparation for the university—thisUniversity andthesehigh schools are not at fault. It is not a local situation. It is nation-wide, and even nation-wide as it is, it does not include, consciously and directly, the State universities. The older colleges and universities did dominate, but the relation between the State university and the high school has ever been cordial. They have always recognized their partnership and have acted in accordance with it. But yet we have all been caught in the maelstrom, and it would be difficult for any one institution or any one State to get out of it. So no immediate or rapid change can be expected. Large bodies move slowly. The change will come, but it will come gradually thru claiming a little here and granting a little there.
But before leaving this topic of entrance requirements, I desire to refer to one of its broad factors and touch, incidentally, upon the large matter of university attendance in general. In discussing the high school, and again the university, I have tried to make clear the fact that not all high school students should be urged or expected to go on to the university. Remember that the high schools should be made to serve all the youth of the State but that the university's work is to take but the choice ones of these, or, better yet, the scholarly output of the high schools, and equip them for leadership in society, and the point is clear. It is a new problem but coming to be a very real one. Going to college is getting to be the fashion—almost a fad in some places. We all know that a goodly number of students, boys and girls alike, enter the universities, East and West, every year who have no characteristics of leadership, who are not fitted for real university work, either in academic equipment, maturity of judgment, point of view, or earnestness of purpose. Many of these young people are wholly worthy, well meaning, and ambitious in a weak way, but they have been misguided. They have listened to the attractive preaching of the popular but unintelligent gospel of college attendance for all and, caught by the glamor—the foot-ball, the track meet, the declamation contest, the fraternity pin, the Junior prom, etc.—have answered the hail of "All aboard for the University!" without knowing what university work really is or what it is for.
The college and the university are also coming to be thought a convenient place for rich fathers to dump their incorrigible sons and marriageable daughters for a few years. And in some sections these rich fathers are increasing in numbers at an alarming rate. The presence of all such people (they can not be called students) in various classes is a drag, and the wheels of the institution are clogged. These people themselves are soon disillusioned but ashamed to quit; the home people are dissatisfied with results; the university is unjustly blamed for not developing them into leaders—there is trouble all around. I am not speaking of our own institution alone; others are experiencing the same difficulty and are seeking a way out. Michigan University, for example, is now urging its alumni to discriminate carefully in sending students to their Alma Mater; it wants only those fitted by nature as well as by the preparatory school.
As said above, this is coming to be a real problem and difficult of solution. What shall be the relationship of the university to the high school touching these various classes of its graduates? Should it receive them all? If not, where shall the line be drawn? And who shall draw it? Shall one factor of the entrance requirements be the recommendation of the high school principal or superintendent? Would it be well for the high school to have two distinct grades: one for local graduation and a higher for university entrance? That is done in some places. The entire matter is worthy of careful thought of both high school and university.
With the discussion of one more point of contact, the preparation of teachers for the high schools, I am thru.
If, as stated above, the great function of the State university is to provide leaders for society, then, in a broad way it is easy to answer the question as to what it should do for the preparation of teachers for high schools—it should prepare them. For where else is clear-headed, unselfish leadership more needed than in the high schools from the students of which are being selected, thru direction and competition,the boys and girls who are to pass out to the colleges and then into the world as leaders? We all know that that is what happens. The man or woman, untouched by college or university, who yet occupies a responsible position of leadership is an exception to the rule. And where else than in a university can preparation for high school teaching be secured? But of what sort should be this preparation? The answer to the question in general has long been clear—it should be professional as well as academic in character. Mere acquaintance with the subject to be taught is no longer held adequate by people at all intelligent along educational lines. And during the progress of the movement that has demonstrated to us the need of professional preparation, there has been worked out also, along somewhat general lines, the details of this preparation. We are now, the country over, in approximate agreement that it should cover the History of Education, Philosophy of Education, Psychology, including the study of adolescence, and Methods of Teaching. Institutions differ somewhat in minor matters within these broad fields, but the development of the movement in the United States has resulted in approximately the above program—professional preparation for all teachers in the high school and that along the four lines suggested. But the movement has gone much farther than suggested by my statement. The results are found in something more authoritative and more permanent than tentative agreement among educational leaders, or even among educational institutions. The law-making bodies of the land have taken a part, and by legal enactment have required about what I have suggested. TheState of North Dakota, for example, requires professional equipment of every teacher within its borders—no, not quite, it does not require it of its teachers in the special schools—the reform school, the schools for the deaf, blind, and the feeble minded—nor in its institutions of higher education, including the normal schools and the University. And in this North Dakota does not differ from other states of the Union. But it is strange, isn't it? that the state absolutely requires professional preparation of all its elementary and secondary teachers and yet does not require it of those whom it engages to equip them? Some of them have it, of course, and the majority of those who give the specifically professional courses, but the greater number of all teachers in the higher institutions are lacking in this respect. That doesn't mean that all university teachers are poor teachers. Many of them have learned how to teach in the crude and expensive school of experience. They have, at last, the professional equipment, but gained at high cost. Perhaps this lack of professional equipment accounts, in a mesure, for the admittedly poor character of much of the teaching in our colleges, normal schools, and universities.
But to come back to the high school and the preparation of high school teachers. What does North Dakota require, and how does the University meet the requirement?
All teachers in classified high schools, save special teachers of music and drawing, are required to hold certificates that presuppose proficiency in psychology, history of education, principles of education, school administration, and methods. Special teachers in music and drawing are required to have covered in professional lines only psychology and pedagogy. But in cases where the certificate is granted on the basis of college work instead of on results of an examination, the law requires that the applicant shall have covered at least two year-courses, or sixteen semester hours, of professional work, and it recommends that this be distributed among the four great fields: history of education, principles of education, methods of teaching, and school management.
The School of Education has been organized within the University for the specific purpose of preparing teachers for the high schools of the State. To graduate from the School of Education and thus receive the B.A. degree and the Bachelor's Diploma in teaching, which is accredited by law as a first-grade professional certificate, and also to be recommended for teaching specific subjects in the high-school, an applicant is required, first, to have specialized, academically, in the subject to be taught. The amount of work required for this specializing varies with the different subjects, but in most cases it is from 20 to 24 semester hours. Recall what is meant by the work of a semester hour and you will easily see how broad our academic requirement is. It means that in addition to one's high school work he is required to carry the subject in practically daily recitation for from 2½ to 3 years in the University. To some that may seem too much, but we feel that the first requirement for teaching in the high school should be a thoro grounding in the subjects to be taught.
The academic matter thus disposed of, let us notethe professional. For this, in its various phases, we require 20 semester hours covering psychology, history of education, secondary education, philosophy of education, and methods of teaching academic subjects in which the student has been specializing and which he expects to teach. The course in methods includes observation and practise teaching of the same subjects in the Model High School under expert supervision. Many of our students voluntarily take more than 20 hours, but that is all that is required. We have cut down the professional requirement to the minimum so as to leave ample opportunity within the course for thoro mastery of the subjects to be taught, and also for general culture and the development of broad-mindedness, not being willing to send teachers into the high schools as narrow specialists.
Were there time I should like to go more into detail in regard to these various requirements and try to show the contribution of each; but I must pass on to speak of another way by means of which the University enables students to meet the legal requirements for teaching in the high schools—thru the College of Arts. A student who graduates from the College of Arts and who has had, during the progress of this course, 16 hours of Education is, upon application to the State Board of Education and the payment of a fee of $5, granted a first grade professional certificate. But this method of preparation is seen to be quite unsatisfactory when contrasted with the one just outlined. The Arts student is a relatively free lance, practically wholly so in the choice and arrangements of his professional work. In the School of Education the program is for allthe professional subjects, save general psychology, to be taken after the beginning of the junior year and so immediately prior to the actual work of teaching, and too, when the student is relatively mature. But with the Arts student, it may all be taken much earlier, during relative immaturity and making a long period elapse between it and the work of teaching—quite long enough for the influence of the professional atmosphere, always valuable in such matters, to be wholly lost. The question of the professional work of the School of Education student is carefully planned to meet the ends in view. Each course has its definite contribution. The Arts student may, and often does, select courses that are not the most appropriate for high school teaching: for example, instead of a course in adolescence he may select one in child study which deals only with the child in the grades. Instead of a special methods course in the subjects he plans to teach in high school, he may select a course in methods in elementary subjects; and he may not take any course in secondary education nor have any practise teaching in the Model High School. The work may be—quite often is—ill-arranged and of little value as a professional preparation for high school teacher.
I have dwelt upon this contrast because the University and its School of Education has suffered by the laxness of this second mode of preparation. Some of the people who thus go out are not good representative products of the institution's professional activity.
Just a closing word as to this phase of the subject. You see what we are trying to do and how we are trying to do it. From the work of the youngpeople whom we have sent you from time to time, how successful have we been? Our work as to time and content of courses and our general equipment are about the same as found in similar institutions in other states. We differ somewhat, of course, in personalities and in individual point of view but, taking everything together, we are doing the best we know how with the material that you send us as students. How does our product suit you? What criticism have you to make and what changes to suggest?
An Address delivered at the University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada, March 30, 1916, in the Exchange Lectureship existing between the University of Manitoba and the University of North Dakota. It was printed in the "American Schoolmaster," December, 1916
Having accepted the kind invitation of the University of Manitoba to be one of the exchange lecturers from the University of North Dakota, for the current year, I made inquiry as to the nature of the different groups of people whom I should be expected to address. I did this so as to be able to select appropriate themes for discussion.
For this gathering, therefore, semi-popular in character and made up, as I was told it would be, of the more thoughtful and intelligent people of the community, University, and city, I selected as my topic for discussion, "The University and the Teacher."
To a group of educated men and women who have visions—people who are characteristically looking beyond the present and trying to plan for the development of a great democratic state and for the welfare of a free people, I know of no line of thought more appropriate or suggestive. This is true because in such a state and with such a people, the state or provincial university is the recognized leader of thought and action. And this is true since the one great function of such an institution is to take the choice youth and maidens from the various sections of the state and, thru the work of the class room day in and day out, week by week,year after year, give them knowledge, shape their opinions, mold their characters, and develop their minds, and then send them back into society as recognized leaders of the next generation.
The topic is doubly suggestive when we stop to inquire as to what makes a university or any other institution of learning—what it is that really gives it its reputation, its character, its influence. What is it, anyway? Its towering brick walls? Its libraries and its laboratories? Its athletic prowess? Its beautiful campus? Why, no, of course not. Not any one of these nor all of them combined, complete and extended and excellent as they may be, or as useful as they all are, ever yet made or ever can make a great university. A real university, or any other institution of learning, is made up of the men and the women who form its student and its teaching bodies. The character of the institution, its very life blood, is drawn from them. Their points of view, their motives, their scholarships, their visions, their aspirations, make it what it is in every instance.
You recall that ex-President Garfield's description of a university included only two factors as essential—the teacher and the student. The external equipment—buildings, libraries, laboratories—what not—is merely a tool in their hands. Please do not misunderstand me. I am not inveighing against these things; they are necessary. What I am insisting upon is that notthingsbutteachersmake a university. And so my topic, "The University and the Teacher," launches us at once into the midst of a great big thought. So big, indeed, it is, that it goes without saying that it cannot be adequately handled in the brief space of a single address. Onlycertain phases of the large topic can be touched upon at all, and they treated but briefly.
But, after all, the function of a speaker, certainly upon such an occasion as this, is not merely to give information. It is not to speak with finality upon any subject. Is it not, rather, to direct the thoughts of the listeners along worthy lines? For any good that shall result from the meeting together of speaker and audience will be the direct outcome of their thoughts and not of his words. So, after having thus spoken briefly of the university as a whole—of its place in the state, its great influence and that of its teaching body—I invite you to think with me as I touch the subject here and there briefly discussing these three sub-topics: 1. The Kind of Teachers the University should Employ; 2. The University Teacher in His Classroom; 3. The University's Attitude Toward the Preparation of Teachers. Our first discussion, then, will be of
A few moments ago I said that the one great function of a State University was to provide the State with a competent leadership. That involves, however, a subsidiary function of such great importance, especially as we regard the teaching force, that an added word is needed both to prevent misunderstanding and to make clear the line of discussion of this sub-topic. The development of a competent leadershipisthe all-embracing function of such an institution, but that can not be done save as the institution is, at the same time, thru some or all ofits teachers, keeping fully abreast, or well in the lead, of the discovery of new knowledge and of new applications of knowledge in the various fields of human endeavor. And this is true because men can not be leaders in any field of action unless they possess the fullest and latest items of knowledge obtainable in that particular field, and again because real leadership can not be developed save thru the use, as educative material, of the fullest and latest.
What kind of teachers should the university employ? Clearly, teachers who can do these two things: men of open and enquiring minds, men of imagination, men who are hungry and thirsty for knowledge, men of research—men of the laboratory and the library. But that is but one side; we must also have men of vision, men of great breadth of view, men of broad human sympathies, men who can take this knowledge, old and new, and with it, as educative material, help to shape opinions, and mold characters, and fashion destinies, thus transforming crude, unstable, and immature youth into men and women of virtue, and knowledge, and courage, and sanity, and poise, into whose trust, therefore, can be placed the guiding of a great, free, developing people—men of the classroom, teachers and inspirers of youth.
The question may well be asked if I mean twogroupsof teachers, aresearchgroup and ateachinggroup, neither one acting within the field of the other. Not necessarily and certainly not absolutely. To quite an extent the two functions should overlap since each supplements the other. The man of research should also be a teacher in order both to keep his human sympathies alive and as a spur to stillfurther search. And every teacher should be, to some extent, a man of research so that thru his own joy in discovery he will be able to kindle a like fire in the minds of others, thus keeping the spirit of discovery alive and active in the land, and also that he may invite his students to drink at a living stream instead of a stagnant pool. The teacher who is not also a student, and continually working at it, is usually but a poor teacher. But while all this is true, it is probably true also that no person is equally successful in both fields. Some men are primarily teachers—are in their element in the classroom engaged with the problems of the student but only indifferently successful in the laboratory, while others, at home in the laboratory, are somewhat out of place and ill-at-ease in the classroom. I shall not attempt to say which of the two functions is the more important or the more useful. Both are needed and, as said before, both are needed, to some extent, in each. But, in the main, where characteristics are marked, the shoemaker should be allowed to stick to his last. It is a very wise procedure that is more and more being followed at the present time, in American universities, of recognizing such differences and making provision for research professorships that include no teaching duties whatever. The percentage of these should be small, of course.
What kind of a teacher should the university employ, then? The teacher who is eager to push the boundaries of human knowledge a little beyond the point yet reached and who also greatly desires to take knowledge as an instrument and with it develop boys and girls and equip them for leadership in the great world of action. So far as possible the twokinds of service should be performed by the same person, but yet that is immaterial—the material thing being that both kinds be performed.
What kind of teachers should the university employ? Why, teachers who not only desire to do these two things, but who also know how to do them. If one is to do research work, he should know how to do it, economically and efficiently. His preparation should have included a certain amount of reflection upon the reasons for research and of training in the manner of conducting the same. Likewise, if he is to be a teacher, he should be well grounded in the theory and art of teaching. If he is going to shape opinions, mold character, give points of view, develop human minds, then it goes without saying that his preparation should have included a very thoro study of the human mind in its various relationships, activities, and stages of development. If a teacher is expected to equip young men and women for the duties of life as leaders in the great social, economic, and political activities, he must also possess great stores of knowledge, and likewise know how to impart that knowledge so that it will become equally the possession of others.
The second of my three topics, "The University Teacher in His Classroom," is an even more intimate one than the one just treated. It is so intimate that perhaps discretion would be the better part of valor, but since I am at a considerable distance from the people and the institutions I am discussing, I feel that I can proceed with comparative safety.
There is abroad at the present time considerable hostile criticism of our higher education. Our graduates, it is said, are not able "to connect up"; "it takes them two or three years after they get out to find themselves"; "they first have to get rid of a lot of theoretical notions that have been given them before they can learn the practical things of life." President Foster of Reed College, Oregon, puts it thus: "It is possible to graduate from almost any college without an idea in one's head." Professor Wenley, Head of the Department of Philosophy in Michigan University, had about the same thought when he gave me his original definition of an American college as "A so-called institution of higher learning whose chief accomplishment is the inoculation of innocent youth against education." Or shall we put it in the words of our friend Mr. Dooley: "Nowadays when a lad goes to college, the prisidint takes him into a Turkish room, gives him a cigareet an' says: Me dear boy, what special branch iv larnin wud ye like to have studied f'r ye be our compitint perfessors?"
Such are some of the caustic remarks that we occasionally hear. Of course the situation is always exaggerated in such criticisms; but, as the old saw puts it, "Where there's so much smoke, there must be some fire." Where does the trouble lie? All sorts of guesses have been made, and some careful investigations entered into in an effort to discover the cause. The outcome of all such consideration, so far as I am able to learn, throws the responsibility upon the teacher rather than upon the institution as a whole, and upon his teaching ability rather than upon any lack of knowledge. We cannot teach, itis said. In spite of the knowledge that we possess, we do not know how to present that knowledge so that another can gain it. Nicholas Murray Butler, the brainy President of Columbia University, says, "The teaching of many very famous men [in colleges and universities] is distinctly poor; sometimes it is even worse."
These are rather interesting statements and worthy of thought. What is meant by teaching, anyway? Teaching involves a double process and two persons, both active upon the same matter. Both must be successful for either to be. Teaching is causing to learn, and when there is no learning, there can have been no teaching. "Learning is not merely the correlative idea of teaching, but is one of its constituent elements." No matter how much an instructor may know, no matter how much he may say nor what he may do, if he doesn't cause the student to put forth those mental activities that result in learning, he doesn't teach. And it is claimed that, in many cases, our university instructors do not know how to do this. He knows but he does not know how to cause another to know, is a common criticism.
I suppose it is true, tho loyalty makes me rather dislike to admit it, that with us the poorest teaching in our entire educational system is done in colleges and universities. My own observation both as a student and as a teacher all along the line leads me to say that, in the main, our best teaching is done in the elementary grades, second best in the high schools, and poorest in the higher institutions. Another puts it thus: "We have excellent teaching in the lower primary grades and in the graduateschools, but between these two extremes, we can call it teaching only by courtesy." Another, the president of a State University, is reported to have said, "I have resolved never again to turn my undergraduates over to young Ph. D.'s. It takes five years to make a commonsense teacher of a raw doctor fresh from three years of graduate work."
If these statements are true, and I am afraid that there's much of truth in them, the situation is rather serious. Still, it isn't at all surprising when one takes the whole matter into consideration. For relatively few university instructors have given any attention to the matter of teaching itself. They have studied the subject matter with which they are to deal. They have become proficient so far as knowledge is concerned. No fault can be found with them touching the matter of erudition. But they have not given any reflective thought to the art of teaching. They have not made a study of the human mind in its development in order to know how it receives knowledge as mental nourishment, and to understand the assimilative process; they have not given themselves to a systematic and scientific study of human life so as to know how to handle it in its various moods and characteristics. How differently these good people would have planned if they had expected to practise Law, or Medicine or to enter the Ministry! In every such case they would have made professional preparation for their work. Isn't it strange that any one should think that this profession—the most important—could be practised with success in its higher realms, by people who have never given its practise one moment's attention? President Butler, in giving reasons for poor collegeteaching, says, "Too few instructors are interested in education."
I am reminded of Socrates' shrewd parody of a supposed speech of Euthydemus who, totally ignorant of statecraft, desired election to an important position in the government of the city of Athens. It is suggestive here: "I, O man of Athens, have never learned the medical art from any one, nor have been desirous that any physician should be my instructor; for I have constantly been on my guard, not only against learning anything of the art from any one, but even against appearing to have learned anything; nevertheless confer on me this medical appointment, for I will endeavor to learn by making experiments upon you." Comment is unnecessary.
There are three kinds of knowledge that every teacher should possess, that every successful teacher does possess: first, knowledge of the subject matter with which he deals; second, knowledge of the human mind which he is trying to stimulate; and third, knowledge of the way to bring these two together in a helpful manner. Of the three, I am afraid that university instructors have, in the main, but the first. At any rate, all they know of the other two is of an empirical character and what they have picked up incidentally. There are exceptions, to be sure. Every worthy institution has them, striking exceptions, too, some of them are. A few of our older men have become good teachers thru practise and experiment, and an occasional young man now comes with professional preparation. But yet, as in so many other matters, the exceptions merely prove the rule.
Thus equipt, or rather with this serious lack ofequipment, the young university instructor begins his work. If he is, to use the words of the university president just quoted, "a raw doctor fresh from three years of graduate work," he probably begins by copying the methods of procedure of his own recent instructors. He tries to set these immature boys and girls at research problems and, in classroom, tries to impart information by the lecture method.
How well I remember such an instance in my own freshman days. I fell into the hands of such an instructor in Greek. We were reading that most charming of Greek stories—The Odyssey. Textual criticism was this man's hobby, and we were put to work trying to compare texts, to delve into the intricacies of form and structure—trying to improve upon Homer! Such information as we could not find he gave us, in the formal lecture, day after day. But when we got it, we did not want it because we did not know what to do with it. Now, I am not quarreling with textual criticism. It would have been all right for that young doctor (he was younger than I was at that time) to deal with the facts of textual criticism, with some people, at some time, but it was all wrong for him to attempt to give those facts to us in our freshman year in the College of Arts. They were not adapted to our intellectual needs. They did not fit into our mental stomachs. We could not keep them down, or in, or something. But the pathetic fact was that the instructor did not know that they did not fit. I, being older than many in the class and thus appreciating better the barrenness of the Greek pasture in which we were trying to graze, finally managed, by a little skilful maneuver, to escape and to join another group that happenedto be in the care of a real teacher who knew not only Homer but, as well, freshman boys and girls, the reasons for teaching Homer to freshmen boys and girls, and how to do it. He was acquainted with both the science and the art of teaching. Oh, how green was the pasture here, and how abundant and how nutritious the food! In all my university experience I recall nothing more delightful.
But this is ancient history? Yes, I know it is. But yet, I am sorry to say, history repeats itself. Those three great mistakes that that young doctor made in my Greek class some twenty or more years ago are being made this very year by young doctors and by old doctors and by many who are not doctors at all, in one subject or another, in well-nigh every college or university in the United States. Our instructors do not know well enough how to adapt knowledge to human needs; they have the erroneous notion that the chief function of an educational institution is to impart information; and, too, many of them are afflicted with the lecture craze.
Touching these three mistakes, let me say, briefly: first, as to the adaptation of knowledge: the wordeducationis derived from the Latineduco,educare, and meansto nourish, and nourishment, physical, mental, or moral, is never secured save as the food is adapted to the organism. And just as much care as our scientific dietitians give to our dining-room service, our university instructors should give to the mental and moral pabulum that they serve to their students, especially the lower classes if not the entire body of undergraduates. They should know this knowledge as mental nourishment; they should know the condition of the mind, and they shouldknow how to select and prepare this food for digestion and assimilation.
As to the second mistake, the undue emphasis upon the mere imparting of knowledge: let me quote a few words from President Wilson, uttered when President of Princeton University: "We should remember," said he, "that information is not education. The greater part of the work that we are doing in our colleges to-day is to impart information." I am afraid that he is correct. I am very much afraid that that is mainly what we are doing. But it is wrong. The greater part of our work should not be to impart knowledge. It should be to assist in interpreting the knowledge that the student himself gets—to fit it to his own life needs and to help him learn how to study and how to think for himself. In other words, this information in which we deal should not be an end in itself, but ameansto an end. And that end should be development, mental power, point of view—character. To be sure, we must deal in knowledge facts (do not, I beg of you, misunderstand me) but not for the mere possession of those facts.