I. The school exists to assist and prepare children to live.II. Living involves three kinds of needs, which it is the duty of the school to understand and interpret.1. Needs which the child has because he is a physical being.2. Needs which result from the child’s surroundings.3. Needs which arise in connection with the things which the child hopes to do in life.
I. The school exists to assist and prepare children to live.
II. Living involves three kinds of needs, which it is the duty of the school to understand and interpret.
1. Needs which the child has because he is a physical being.2. Needs which result from the child’s surroundings.3. Needs which arise in connection with the things which the child hopes to do in life.
1. Needs which the child has because he is a physical being.
2. Needs which result from the child’s surroundings.
3. Needs which arise in connection with the things which the child hopes to do in life.
A further analysis of these groups of needs constitutes the subject matter of the next chapter.
FOOTNOTES:[19]Sacrificing Children, W. E. Chancellor, Journal of Education, Vol. 77, pp. 564-565 (May 22, 1913).
[19]Sacrificing Children, W. E. Chancellor, Journal of Education, Vol. 77, pp. 564-565 (May 22, 1913).
[19]Sacrificing Children, W. E. Chancellor, Journal of Education, Vol. 77, pp. 564-565 (May 22, 1913).
In the first place children have certain needs because in common with many other living creatures they develop through spontaneous, self-expressive activity. The growth of children is a growth in body, in mind and in soul.
During the first six years of life the bodies of children grow rapidly, and during these years we wisely make no attempt to train their minds. From six to twelve or thirteen body growth is slower, the mind is having its turn at development, and during these years the children start to school.
Then, at twelve or thirteen or fourteen, differing with different races and different individuals, all normal children enter the fairyland of adolescence. Life takes on new meanings, human relationships are closer, great currents of feeling run deep and strong through the child’s being, because there is coming into his life one of the most wonderful of human experiences—the dawning of sex consciousness.
This period of sex awakening produces a profound change in the lives of boys, but it works an even greater transformation in the lives of girls. For both sexes it is a time of rapid physical growth and of severe mental and spiritual strain. It is a time when the energies of the body are so entirely devoted to the development of sex functions that great mental stress should above allthings be avoided, yet it is at this very time—think of it!—when we send our boys and girls to high school, and force them to spend a great part of their waking hours in severe intellectual efforts.
Had we set out with the deliberate intention of torturing our children we could have devised no better method. If we had applied ourselves to physiology, found out the time when the child needed the most energy for physical growth and the most relief from mental strain, and had then set out to plan a course of study which would wreck his health, we should have built a school system which gave him the comparatively easy work of the elementary grades until he was fourteen, and then, at the most critical period of his life, sent him into a new system of schools to study new, abstract subjects.
What is it that our children must have before they can acquire anything else? Health! We cry the word aloud, emphasizing and exhorting—nothing without health! Yet, despite our protest, at a period of rapid physical growth, at the time of severe spiritual trial, there yawns the high school—grim for boys, ghastly for girls—with its ever-recurring demand: “Work, study; study, work.”
Considering the child’s physical welfare, the high school is placed at exactly the point (fourteen to eighteen years) where it is best calculated to destroy the delicate balance of sanity, rendering its victims unable to stand the burden and heat of life’s later day.
We cannot escape the fact that children have bodies. The first duty of the schools, therefore, is to recognize the existence of these bodies by giving them due attention, particularly at the crucial periods of physicalgrowth. Therefore every school must provide as much physical training as is necessary to insure normal body growth at each particular age.
Then there are certain rules of health—“hygiene,” they are called—which should be taught to every child. Since bodies do not stay normal if they are abused every child should have right ideas of body care.
Most important of all, the schools must instruct children in sex hygiene because the growth of sex consciousness is one of the most significant of the changes which occur in the life of a child.
“But must sex hygiene be taught in the school?” you will ask.
Undoubtedly it must. If it were a choice between sex instruction in the home or in the school, there would be no hesitation about delegating it to the home; but since most homes neglect the discussion of sex matters, leaving the children to gain their knowledge of sex from unreliable sources on the streets, the choice lies between the perversion of sex as it is taught on the streets, and the science of sex as it should be taught in the schools.
Children’s minds grow as well as their bodies—grow in retention, in grasp, and in power. Memory work (the learning of poems, songs, and formulas) helps to make minds more retentive, while all studies, but particularly number work, increase mental grasp and power.
Besides body growth and mind growth all children have soul growth. They develop human sympathy, and they are interested in esthetic things. To supply these needs the school must give the child literature and art. Simple these lessons must be, particularly in the elementary grades; but there is scarcely a child who will notrespond to the noble in literature or the beautiful in art if these things are presented to him in an understandable way.
The bodies, minds, and souls of children grow. They are all sacred. Each child needs a normal body, an active mind, a healthy and a beautiful soul. We dare not develop bodies at the expense of minds and souls, but neither may we educate minds at the expense of souls and bodies—a tendency which has been fearfully prevalent in American education.
The most valuable means of securing this all-important growth is “play,” which Froebel said contained the germinal leaves of all later life. Growth comes only through expression. One does not develop muscle by watching the strong man in the circus, but by exercising. The child’s chief means of expression is through play, hence play is the child’s method of securing growth.
In their earliest infancy children play. Their frolics and antics are really “puppy play,” the product of overflowing life and animal spirits. At this “puppy play” stage, when the child plays merely to work off surplus energy, the most essential thing is a place to play, and the school must meet this need by providing playgrounds.
As children grow older they turn to a more advanced type of play. Instead of romping and frolicking individually they play in groups. It is in these group plays that the child gets his first idea of the duty which he owes to his fellows, his first glimmering of a social sense. In the home and in the school he is in a subordinate position, but in the “gang,” or “set,” he is as good as the next. Group play teaches democracy. More than that, group play has a moral value. Each one mustplay fair. Those who do not are ruthlessly ostracized, so children learn to abide by the decision of the crowd. While children’s plays should be as untrammeled as possible, it is the duty of the school to stimulate group play by suggesting new games, organizing athletic meets, getting up interclass sports, and in other ways supervising and directing games and sports.
In the course of the child’s life play takes another form, the form of creative work. Boys build wagons and houses; girls cook, and make dolls. The “puppy play” of their early childhood has evolved into a form of creative activity that sooner or later grips every human creature. We want to plant, to build, to plan, to make. It is the creative power within us yearning for expression, hence the well-planned school will provide simple forms of manual training by means of which both boys and girls will be taught to use their hands so skillfully that they may translate an idea into a concrete product.
Civilization has been described as the art of playing. Big folks are apt to look down on play because most of it is done by children. But listen, big folks: When Anna plays dolls she does it in a frank, serious, whole-souled way that you seldom imitate. There is no activity so vital to the child as play, nor does any man succeed at his work unless he can “play at it” with the fervor and abandon of a child.
So much for the needs which a child has because he is a living creature. Suppose we turn now to some other needs—the needs which arise because the child is in a great universe and surrounded by his fellowmen. Wherever a child lives and whatever he does he must always face certain surrounding conditions. First among hissurroundings are people. No one except Robinson Crusoe can get away from people, and even Crusoe had his man Friday.
Since we are compelled, whether we like it or not, to live with people, the school must teach language (oral and written), in order that the children may learn to tell others what they think, and may likewise understand the thoughts of others. The better the language the more clearly can they understand each other.
In order that children may have a proper respect for the rights of others the school should teach ethics by means of simple stories about people. Teachers should explain how men live in groups, and how, if group life is to be tolerable, men must respect each other’s rights.
Perhaps in the upper elementary grades, and certainly in the high school, there should be some simple work in psychology in order that children may know how people’s minds work.
Then besides the people of the present there are the people of the past, and, because the things which they did enable us to live as we do, children should be taught history, particularly the history of their own country, state, and town.
The child comes into contact, in addition to people, with the institutions which people have constructed—the home, the school, the state, the industrial system. Every child who grows to maturity will participate in the activity of these institutions, hence every child should be taught about them. In the last two years of the elementary grades civics can be successfully taught, since even at twelve years children are interested in the things which are happening around them. In the high schools this work can be carried much further in the form of social and industrial problem courses.
The most universal and by far the largest of the child’s surroundings consist of the things about him. He lives in a world, a very little world to be sure, but to him it is great; and a knowledge of the world comes through a study of geography. Beginning with the geography of his native town (not with the basin of the Ganges) he can learn successively about the geography of the county, the state, the country, and then of the world.
Surrounding the child on every hand are plants and animals. Nature study gives him an intelligent interest in them. As he grows older general nature study may be subdivided into geology, botany, zoology; and the forces of nature may be examined in astronomy, chemistry, and physics: but most of these subjects are too specialized for the elementary grades, and should appear, if at all, in the high schools.
There is a group of courses which belongs in every school—elementary school as well as high school—namely, the courses which prepare children for life activity. Growth and training in the art of living enable children to fulfill the third function of their being—that of doing. Every man and every woman needs work in order to live, and it is a part of the duty of education to prepare them for that work.
First of all, as modern society has developed, every man and many women need an income-producing trade or occupation; hence it is the duty of the schools to provide trade and professional educations (really the same thing under different names). No child should be permitted to leave the schools until he is proficient in some income-giving work. The character of the teaching must be altered to suit the locality, but the principle is absolute.
Further, since men should not devote their entire lives to the same task, because they require a change of occupation, the school should aim to provide an avocation, or secondary occupation, which may occupy leisure hours. Manual training, agriculture, art work, and civics will supply different people with occupations for spare time.
Finally, since one of the chief duties of society is to insure a healthy and increasingly valuable supply of human beings, no one should leave the schools without a thorough domestic training, including training for parenthood. While this training should be given in a measure to boys, it should be intended primarily for girls, and should include biology, hygiene, chemistry, dietetics, psychology, and nursing. Although the elementary grades can provide only the simplest training along these lines that training should be given to every future housekeeper and mother.
If, up to this point, we have rightly described child needs, the school must be so organized as to provide for growth and play, for instructing the child in a knowledge of people, institutions, things and ideas, and for preparing every child to do his work in life.
These subjects must be so apportioned over the grades that each child has the benefit of them. The high school is a continuation of the elementary school. It is in the high school that children should begin to specialize, because specialization before the beginning of adolescence is undesirable; but since, in many localities, almost all of the children leave before reaching the high school, these subjects must be taught in the elementary grades. Certain things every child must know. If he is going to drop school at fourteen, as three-quarters of theAmerican school children do, he must be reached in the first eight school grades. If he goes to high school he may there be given an opportunity to complete and intensify the education which the elementary school has started.
We believe that these fundamental principles of education are sufficiently flexible to fit any community in the United States; they will apply to places of the most divergent school needs.
Let us begin by applying the scheme to a mining village of three thousand inhabitants, a typical industrial community.
In this village more than nine-tenths of the children leave school at or before fourteen years of age, so that whatever school training they get must be secured between the ages of six and fourteen.
The kind of activities that the children will take up in life is fixed by the custom of the town. The great majority of the boys go into the mines or shops, while practically all of the girls help around the home until they marry. A small number work in stores and factories.
The life is rather primitive; the houses are set far apart; the children have an abundance of play space; they are required to do chores in homes where they receive little home training. The town affords an unparalleled opportunity to learn nasty things in a nasty way.
Almost all of the educational work in such a town must be done in the elementary schools. While high school facilities may be afforded they will appeal to a vanishingly small percentage of the children.
The elementary schools in such a village must provide organized games for the younger children and organized sports for the older ones; a sufficient amount of physical training to insure robust bodies; careful instruction in physiology, body hygiene, and sex hygiene; simple manual training for the younger children; thorough preparation in the reading and writing of English; the fundamentals of numbers; geography with particular reference to the geographic conditions in the immediate locality; civics and history—particularly American history; a thorough drill in English and American literature; a minimum amount of instruction in fine art—drawing, painting, modeling; an extensive system of nature study, supplemented by field trips.
This course should be required of boys and girls alike. In addition to these studies the boys in a coal-mining village should receive careful instruction in geology, particularly in the mineralogy of the region in which the mine is located; technical training in mining, drafting, and shop work; and a sufficient training in agriculture to enable them to make good kitchen gardens, since gardening is one of the chief avocations of men in such a community.
Parallel to this special training for boys the schools should provide for girls a thorough course in domestic science, with particular emphasis on economical purchasing, and an education for parenthood, including hygiene, dietetics, psychology, and nursing.
Such a course of study given in a typical mining village would tend to make of the boys educated, trained workmen, and of the girls educated, trained mothers. To be sure this course would not make of the boys railroad presidents or United States senators; but even that is not a drawback because, incredible as it may soundto many old-fashioned ears, the vast majority of these boys will be miners and mechanics. The question is, therefore, Shall they be good miners or bad ones? United States senatorships bother them not a whit.
If there are, as there always will be in such a village, a few exceptional children who desire more advanced work, the teacher can do exactly what he does now—namely, give them special instruction.
Such an educational system as that outlined would require more training in the teachers, and an additional outlay for tools and school-rooms, but it would train the boys and girls of the village to live their lives effectively.
The mine-village educational problem is rendered especially easy of solution because the community is small in size, and because there are only two occupations, mining and homekeeping, into which the children go.
A similar situation may be found in most of the agricultural districts, except that the boys take up farming instead of mining, while the girls are called upon to participate in farm work to the extent of caring for chickens and pigs, and sometimes for milk. In such an agricultural community the same outline for study might apply, except that in training for occupations boys should be taught the facts regarding soil fertility, fruit culture, dairying, market gardening, and other agricultural problems, while girls need instruction which will fit them for domestic life and for parenthood.
In New York State a number of agricultural high schools giving a course such as the one just hinted at, have met with marked success. Most country children do not go to high school, however—although they are doing so in increasing numbers—and hence the necessity for shaping the elementary course along similar lines.
When the mining village and the farming district are replaced by the industrial town and the city, the school problem is greatly complicated by the crowding of many people into a small space and by the great diversity of occupations which the people pursue. The larger the town the worse the crowding and the greater the variety of jobs. Otherwise the problem of education remains largely the same.
The most apparent need of the town child is a place to play, and the plainest duty of the town elementary school is to provide play space. In thinly settled places there is no such need. In towns and cities there is no more imperative duty resting on the school than the furnishing of playgrounds and gymnasiums for children. The practice of building school houses without gymnasiums and without play spaces cannot be too strongly condemned. It is robbing children of the chance to grow into normal human beings.
The other side of the town problem—the question of occupations—has been settled in Germany, and more recently in certain American cities, by the “continuation” school, which unties the Gordian knot by cutting it. Instead of allowing children to stop school at fourteen the “continuation” system requires partial school attendance until they are eighteen.
Under this system, when children reach the end of the elementary schools they may either go on with a high school course for four years, or else they may take a “continuation” course for four years.
For example, if a boy elects to be a carpenter he spends forty hours a week as a carpenter’s apprentice. Then for fourteen hours a week he goes to a school where heis taught mechanical drawing, designing, the testing of materials, and any other subjects which bear on carpentering. The time he spends in school is credited on the time sheets of his employer.
So at the end of four years the boy, at eighteen, has been well trained in the practice of carpentering by working at his job, and well schooled in its theory by taking a “continuation” course which bore directly on his work. Thus wage-earning and education are united to produce a well-trained man.
The school problem of the city suburb is very different from that of the mining village, the rural community, the industrial town, or the city. The children have space, good homes, and abundant opportunity to go through high school and even through college. Under these conditions the elementary grades can be directly preparatory for high school work, since six or even seven out of ten children will go to high school.
In the city suburb there need be little specialization in the elementary grades. The high school, with a general course and two or three special courses, can be relied upon for all necessary specific training.
In the industrial town, in the city, and in the city suburb the high school is being looked to as the place where specialized training must be given. The trade school can succeed a little, but its effectiveness will always be limited by the narrow technical character of its instruction, which makes the “continuation” school generally preferable. The high school is not a separate institution, but an integral part of the school system. In a high school, therefore, the children should move naturally from the studies of the elementary gradesto more advanced studies, but the purpose of both elementary and high schools is the same—the preparation of children for living.
Children have needs which the schools are here to supply. Certain of these needs are common to all children, and to that extent all schools must provide similar training. Other needs, varying with the size and character of the community, call for a like variation in the course of study.
No single chapter can contain all of the progressive notes that are being sounded in American Elementary Education; yet it is possible, after some arbitrary picking and choosing, to describe a number of the most typical and most successful educational innovations. At the bottom of most up-to-date elementary school systems is the kindergarten. Not so often as it might be, but still frequently, the child begins school work there. The games, the songs, the children’s sports of these kindergarten years, make a joyous entry-way into the grades. In Gary the kindergarten child sees life. The flowers, leaves, grasses, lichens, fruits, butterflies, moths, and birds are usually brought to the classroom. The Gary children go on expeditions to explore nature’s wonderland, besides making excursions to squares, parks, and to the open country. The kindergartners of Cincinnati plant tulip bulbs in the city parks, and visit farms in order to have a chance to meet the farm animals. Singing, visiting, playing, shaping, building, the kindergarten child sees life on many sides. Perhaps, finally, other cities following the lead of Cincinnati will introduce the kindergarten spirit and kindergarten activities into the lower grades where they will clarify an atmosphere, fetid and dank with concepts which to the six-year-old are meaningless abstractions.
At best the kindergarten reaches but a few. Even in cities which boast of a system of organized kindergartens, only a small portion of the children attend them. On the other hand, since practically all school children enter the grades, it is on them that an inquiry into elementary education must be focused.
The time has passed when reading, writing, and arithmetic made up the entirety of a satisfactory elementary education. Like the kindergarten, the elementary school must touch life; like the kindergarten, it must provide for child needs. Everywhere schools are turning from the old methods of teaching spelling, multiplication, and syntax to the new methods of teaching children,—yes, and teaching them those things which they need, irrespective of name. Three R’s no longer suffice. The child requires training from the Alpha to the Omega of life.
Compare, for example, the old method of teaching geography with the new. Under the abandoned system, the child began with capes, peninsulas, continents, meridians, trade routes, rivers, boundaries and products. Under the new system, he begins with the town in which he lives. Each schoolroom in Newark, for example, is provided with a large map of the city. In addition to these complete maps, each child is given a series of small maps, each of which centers about a familiar square, store, or public building. Then, from this simple beginning, the child fills in the surrounding streets and buildings. Newark geography begins in the third grade with a description of the school yard and the surroundings of the school lot. After all, what more simple geography could be conceived than thegeography that you already know. Borneo and Beloochistan are abstractions except to the most traveled, but what child has not noted the red bricks and ugly iron fences surrounding his own school yard? Charity and geography both begin logically at home.
When in the later Newark grades the children are taught about Europe and Australasia, they are taught on a background of the geography of yards, alleys, squares, streets and playgrounds with which they are familiar. Geography thus concretely presented, becomes comprehensible to even the dullest mind.
The passing system of elementary mathematics took the innocents through addition, subtraction and the abatis of multiplication tables, until every child was fully convinced that
Multiplication is vexation,Division’s twice as bad,The rule of three perplexes me,And practice drives one mad.
Multiplication is vexation,Division’s twice as bad,The rule of three perplexes me,And practice drives one mad.
To-day arithmetic begins with life. The teachers at Gary organize games in which the children are divided into two sides. Some of the children play the game, while others keep score. Unconsciously, under the stress of the most gripping of impulses—the desire to win—these little scorekeepers learn addition. As they advance in the work, they take up practical problems—measure the room for flooring and measure the school pavement for cementing. At school No. 4, in Indianapolis, one of the teachers wanted a cold-frame and a hot-bed for use in connection with her nature work. The class in mathematics made the measurements; the drawing class provided the plans; the boys in the seventh and eighth grades dug the pit and constructed the beds.
The higher grade mathematics work in Indianapolis is extremely concrete. Prices and descriptions of materials are supplied, and the children are asked to compute given problems involving the buying of meats, groceries, and other household articles; the cost of heating and lighting the home; the cost of home furnishing; the construction of buildings; cost-keeping in various factories; the management of the city hospital; the taxation of Indianapolis; the estimation and construction of pavement; and, generally, the mathematical problems involved in the conduct of public and private business.
Mathematics is alive when it is joined to the problem of life. Well taught, it becomes a part of the real experiences of childhood and furnishes a foundation for the knowledge of later life.
Of all subjects taught in the schools, English is the most practical, because it is most used in life. We buy with it, sell with it, converse with it, write with it, adore with it, and protest with it. English is the open sesame of life in English-speaking countries. In some classes the English period would be fascinating even for adults.
What experience could be more delightful than a visit to a third or fourth grade room in which the children were writing original poems, fables and stories! The monotony of routine English work was completely broken down; the children were enthusiastic,—enthusiastic to such a degree that they had all written poetry.
Just before Halloween the teacher had distributed pictures of a witch on a broomstick, with a cat at her side,riding toward the moon. Each child was called upon for an original poem on this picture. One boy of eight wrote:—
There was an old witchWho flew up in the sky,To visit the moonThat was shining so high.
There was an old witchWho flew up in the sky,To visit the moonThat was shining so high.
Another child improved somewhat upon the versification—
The witch’s cat was as black as her hat,As black as her hat was he.He had yellow eyes which looked very wiseAs he sailed high over the trees.
The witch’s cat was as black as her hat,As black as her hat was he.He had yellow eyes which looked very wiseAs he sailed high over the trees.
How many of you mature men and women could have done a better piece of work than Dorothy Hall, nine and a half years old?
THE MOONLIGHT PEOPLEWhen the stars are twinkling,And the ground with snow is white,And we are just awakingFor to see the morning light;Little moonlight peopleAre dancing here and thereO’er a snow white carpet,Dancing everywhere.
THE MOONLIGHT PEOPLE
When the stars are twinkling,And the ground with snow is white,And we are just awakingFor to see the morning light;Little moonlight peopleAre dancing here and thereO’er a snow white carpet,Dancing everywhere.
This same class of little people, after learning Riley’s “Pixie People,” were asked to write down what they believed were the circumstances under which Riley composed the poem. Their reasons varied all the way from a dream of butterflies, to cornfields.
Seventh and eighth grade children in this same city (Newton, Mass.) write books, the titles of which are selected by the children with the approval of the teacher.“A Boy’s Life in New York,” “Fairy Stories,” “A Book About Airships,” “A Story of Boarding School Life,” are a few of the titles. Having chosen his title, the child outlines the work and then begins on it, writing it week by week, illustrating the text with drawings, illuminating and decorating the margins with water colors, painting a tasty cover, and at last, as the product of a year’s work in English, taking home a book written, hand printed, hand illumined, covered and bound by the author. Could you recognize in this fascinating task the dreaded English composition and spelling of your childhood days?
One eighth grade lad, who had always made a rather poor showing in school, decided to write his book on birds. As he worked into the subject it gradually got hold of him. In the early spring he found himself, at half past four, morning after morning, out in the squares, the parks and the fields, watching for the birds. He became absorbed in writing his book, but at the same time the teachers of other subjects found him taking additional interest in them. The whole tone of his school work improved; and when, in May, he delivered an illustrated lecture, before one of the teachers’ meetings, on the birds of Newton, he was triumphant. In less than a year he had vitalized his whole being with an interest in one study.
“In his talk to the teachers,” said Superintendent Spalding, “he showed a deeper knowledge of the subject than most of the teachers present possessed.”
Those who remember with a shiver of dread the syntax, parsing, sentence diagramming, paragraph dissecting, machine composition construction of the grammar grades, should have stepped with me into the class of an Indianapolis teacher of seventh grade English. Theteacher sat in the back of the room. The class bent forward, attentively listening while a roughly clad, uncouth boy, slipshod in attitude, stumbled through the broken periods of his ungrammatical sentences.
“And Esau went out after a venison,” he was saying, “and Jacob’s mother cooked up some goat’s meat till it smelled like a venison. And then Jacob, he took the venison—I mean the goat’s meat to Isaac, and Isaac couldn’t tell it wasn’t Esau because”—so the story continued for two or three minutes. When it was ended, the boy stood looking gloomily at the class.
“Well, class?” queried Miss Howes, “has any one any criticism to make?”
Instantly, three-quarters of the class was on its feet.
“Well, Edward.”
Edward, a manly fellow, spoke quietly to the boy who had told the story.
“Paul, you don’t talk quite loud enough. Then you should raise and lower your voice more.”
Several of the class (having intended to make the same criticism) sat down with Edward. The teacher turned.
“Yes, Mary.”
“Paul, your grammar wasn’t very good. You didn’t make periods.”
One by one, in a spirit of kindly helpfulness, criticisms were made. When the children had finished, Miss Howes said:
“Paul, you did very well. This is your first time in this class, isn’t it?”
“Yes’m.”
“Yes, Paul, you did very well; but, Paul”—and with care and precision she outlined his mistakes, suggesting in each case ways of avoiding them in the future.
Throughout the grades in Indianapolis the childrenhave some oral English work every day. When they reach the seventh and eighth years this oral work takes on quite pretentious forms. Beginning with Aesop’s Fables, the children tell fairy tales, Bible stories, Greek legends, Norse legends, animal stories, and any other stories that the teacher thinks appropriate. Each child may select in the particular group of stories whatever topic seems most interesting.
Each day has its written English work, too. On Monday, letters are written and criticized; Tuesday is composition day; on Wednesday each scholar writes a description of the day in a Season Journal; Thursday is set aside for the revision and correction of compositions; and on Friday, the letters for the following Monday are written. Wherever possible, the subjects for written work are selected with reference to the other studies which the child is taking.
The work is arranged primarily to arouse interest. At Halloween, the theme is timely, and one girl, Dorothy Morrison, selects as her title, “How the Witch got the Black Cat for her Prisoner.” Read this charming fairy tale—an original piece of work by a girl of twelve:
“Years ago, when the witch rode her broomstick, no snarling black cat accompanied her on her midnight rides. That wicked person was always planning and plotting how to get some nice young girl to go with her.“At this time there lived a beautiful fairy, who was condemned to death by a cruel magician, who had no reason to do so. This good fairy, Eilene, finally decided to take the shape of a bird and to fly through the tiny window of her prison to her old friend, Mr. Moon.“She did so, and when she arrived at her friend’s home she assumed the form of a fairy and entreated him to keep her safe from the cruel clutches of the magician.“He promised to do his best.“The next Halloween, the witch, Crono, rode up to the moon and on spying Eilene she exclaimed, ‘Aha, just what I have been looking for—a nice young maiden.’“Eilene became frightened at first and clutched the moon’s hand. Just then Crono grabbed at her, but she was too quick for her, for she changed herself into a bird and flew out of the reaches of the witch.“Shaking her fist at the girl she muttered, ‘I will get you yet.’“Then the witch returned to her caldron and Eilene returned to the moon. Mr. Moon then advised her to be careful for Crono wanted her for her prisoner. She did not heed this because she thought that she could outwit Crono with all her fairy power, but she was mistaken, for Crono had more power than she. One day, while sitting at the moon’s knee, listening to the story of how he got up in the sky, Eilene’s hands and feet were tied, and before Mr. Moon could help her, what little power that fat personage possessed was taken from him.“Crono transformed Eilene into a snarling black cat which now always accompanies her on her Halloween rides when she tells the grinning Jack-o’-Lanterns of how she captured Eilene.“Because Mr. Moon loved Eilene so well, Crono gave him a picture of the fairy, which he always keeps near him, and even to this day, if we look up at the moon, we can see the picture of Eilene. So let us remember that, although the black cat does appear fierce, she is really good at heart.”
“Years ago, when the witch rode her broomstick, no snarling black cat accompanied her on her midnight rides. That wicked person was always planning and plotting how to get some nice young girl to go with her.
“At this time there lived a beautiful fairy, who was condemned to death by a cruel magician, who had no reason to do so. This good fairy, Eilene, finally decided to take the shape of a bird and to fly through the tiny window of her prison to her old friend, Mr. Moon.
“She did so, and when she arrived at her friend’s home she assumed the form of a fairy and entreated him to keep her safe from the cruel clutches of the magician.
“He promised to do his best.
“The next Halloween, the witch, Crono, rode up to the moon and on spying Eilene she exclaimed, ‘Aha, just what I have been looking for—a nice young maiden.’
“Eilene became frightened at first and clutched the moon’s hand. Just then Crono grabbed at her, but she was too quick for her, for she changed herself into a bird and flew out of the reaches of the witch.
“Shaking her fist at the girl she muttered, ‘I will get you yet.’
“Then the witch returned to her caldron and Eilene returned to the moon. Mr. Moon then advised her to be careful for Crono wanted her for her prisoner. She did not heed this because she thought that she could outwit Crono with all her fairy power, but she was mistaken, for Crono had more power than she. One day, while sitting at the moon’s knee, listening to the story of how he got up in the sky, Eilene’s hands and feet were tied, and before Mr. Moon could help her, what little power that fat personage possessed was taken from him.
“Crono transformed Eilene into a snarling black cat which now always accompanies her on her Halloween rides when she tells the grinning Jack-o’-Lanterns of how she captured Eilene.
“Because Mr. Moon loved Eilene so well, Crono gave him a picture of the fairy, which he always keeps near him, and even to this day, if we look up at the moon, we can see the picture of Eilene. So let us remember that, although the black cat does appear fierce, she is really good at heart.”
When corn was sprouting, “Crows and Scarecrows” was announced as a topic, and one Irish lad, giving rein to his imagination, wrote:—
THE CROW AND THE SCARECROW“Having a story to write concerning a crow, I decided to go to the zoological gardens and seek an interview with one of the species. Accordingly I went, and after passing numerous cages containing all kinds of animals, I arrived at the bird cages. Here in one cage all by himself I met Mr. Crow. He was a big bird with coal-black feathers that glistened in the sunlight.“I made a bow, explained my errand and asked for a story. He cocked his head to one side, looked steadily for a few seconds and then actually winked at me. ‘Well, young man,’ he said in a throaty voice, ‘you have certainly come to the right place. But as it is near my lunch time I must be brief.“‘In the first place, I was the leader of as wild and mischievous a band of crows as you ever heard tell of. There was one particular farm in our territory we loved to visit. The owner’s name was Silas Whimple and he was the grouchiest, most miserly man in the county. He lived alone and what part of the ground that was tilled, he did it himself. As much to tease as to eat, we would pay him an occasional flying visit, digging up his newly planted seeds, nibbling at the young green shoots, or, later on, scratching up his potatoes. All his shouting and screaming did not scare us a bit. One day one of my companions came winging with the news that Silas had a farm hand. I laughed and said, “If there isanother man on the farm then Silas Whimple must be dead.” Off we flew to investigate. Sure enough, out in a patch of potatoes was a man. Watching him quite a while, I saw he did not move or make a noise as Silas would. He just stood still. I came down to take a closer look, when who should come to the doorway but Silas himself. He was laughing and shouting, “Now I have something to keep you away. The scarecrow shall keep you from bothering me any more.” He laughed and laughed, but I watched my chance and flew behind this being and scratched off his cap. Then the story was out. It was only a straw man. I went back to my companions and explained, and before evening we had picked the scarecrow to pieces. Next day I was unfortunate enough to put my foot in a wire trap and then they sent me up here for life.’“At this moment his keeper came up with something to eat, so I bade him good-bye and left.”
THE CROW AND THE SCARECROW
“Having a story to write concerning a crow, I decided to go to the zoological gardens and seek an interview with one of the species. Accordingly I went, and after passing numerous cages containing all kinds of animals, I arrived at the bird cages. Here in one cage all by himself I met Mr. Crow. He was a big bird with coal-black feathers that glistened in the sunlight.
“I made a bow, explained my errand and asked for a story. He cocked his head to one side, looked steadily for a few seconds and then actually winked at me. ‘Well, young man,’ he said in a throaty voice, ‘you have certainly come to the right place. But as it is near my lunch time I must be brief.
“‘In the first place, I was the leader of as wild and mischievous a band of crows as you ever heard tell of. There was one particular farm in our territory we loved to visit. The owner’s name was Silas Whimple and he was the grouchiest, most miserly man in the county. He lived alone and what part of the ground that was tilled, he did it himself. As much to tease as to eat, we would pay him an occasional flying visit, digging up his newly planted seeds, nibbling at the young green shoots, or, later on, scratching up his potatoes. All his shouting and screaming did not scare us a bit. One day one of my companions came winging with the news that Silas had a farm hand. I laughed and said, “If there isanother man on the farm then Silas Whimple must be dead.” Off we flew to investigate. Sure enough, out in a patch of potatoes was a man. Watching him quite a while, I saw he did not move or make a noise as Silas would. He just stood still. I came down to take a closer look, when who should come to the doorway but Silas himself. He was laughing and shouting, “Now I have something to keep you away. The scarecrow shall keep you from bothering me any more.” He laughed and laughed, but I watched my chance and flew behind this being and scratched off his cap. Then the story was out. It was only a straw man. I went back to my companions and explained, and before evening we had picked the scarecrow to pieces. Next day I was unfortunate enough to put my foot in a wire trap and then they sent me up here for life.’
“At this moment his keeper came up with something to eat, so I bade him good-bye and left.”
English, in these classes, is so alive with interest that the children write with ardor and read eagerly the literature which, improperly handled, they learn so soon to despise.
The time-honored studies of the old curriculum may be charged with interest if they are linked to life. The most irksome task has its pleasant aspects. Even the three R’s may be translated into current thought.
Even more significant for the future is the work which is being done in a few cities to train girls for their chief work in life—homemaking. The home schools at Indianapolis and Providence are, perhaps, typical. The Indianapolis School Board bought a number of wretched homes near one school in a crowded district. The boysin the school renovated the homes, converting one into a rug shop, another into a mop factory, and still a third into a shoe-shop. In these shops the children of the school did their trade work. Another house was made into a model home—(model for that quarter)—in which the domestic science department was located. Of this home the girls took entire charge, living in it by the day. There they were taught, by practical experience, the art of homemaking.
The home school of Providence, Rhode Island, under the direction of Mrs. Ada Wilson Trowbridge, has received nation-wide recognition. Six hundred dollars, appropriated by the Board of Education, renovated and furnished the flat on Willard Avenue in which the school is held.
The girls who elect to take work in the home school—the work is wholly elective—may come on Monday and Tuesday, or on Wednesday and Thursday. The hours are 4 to 6, or 7:30 to 9:30. On Friday, anyone comes who cares to. The day pupils are from the grammar schools and the evening pupils come from the factories and shops. Seventy-five names on the waiting list of day classes indicate the popularity of the school.
“We try to keep the school like the homes from which these girls come,” explained Mrs. Trowbridge, as she showed her tastefully arranged apartment. “The girls in the Technical High School worked out the color schemes, selected the patterns and bought the materials. We tried to get things which were good looking and durable.”
The three kinds of work, (1) Cooking, (2) Housekeeping, and (3) Sewing, are carried on in rotation, a girl spending one entire afternoon at cooking, the next at sewing and a third at housework. Thus each girldoes an afternoon’s job in each subject. The cooking class studies successively “breakfast,” “lunch” and “dinner,” in each case preparing menus and cooking the food. A meal is served nearly every day. The service falls to the housekeeping class, which is also responsible for cleaning up, tending the furnace, washing, ironing and the like. Included in this part of the work are a number of thorough discussions of personal hygiene and home sanitation. To the sewing class, the girls bring their home sewing problems. Certain classes darn stockings while a teacher reads to them. Some girls make underclothing and dresses. The beginners hem table cloths, napkins, towels, dustcloths, etc., for the school. The classes are small (ten to fifteen) making individual work possible.
“No, no,” protested Mrs. Trowbridge, “we have no course of study, or else, if you please, there are as many courses as there are girls. Each girl has her problems and we aim to meet them.”
The backyard, utilized as a garden, furnishes vegetables which the girls cook and can. These vegetables, together with canned fruits, jellies, jams and pickles, which the girls put up, give the school such an excellent source of revenue that last year it turned over $15 to the Superintendent of Schools.
The crowning work of the school was done in a bare upstairs room which the girls papered and painted themselves. “Two of them have since done the same thing with rooms at home,” declared Mrs. Trowbridge, happily. “Isn’t that good for a start?”
The home school stays close to home problems, dealing with the facts of life as the girls who come to school see them. It would hardly be fair to expect more of any school.
The regular work of the public school has been supplemented, of late years, by a number of significant innovations, of which the most far-reaching is, perhaps, a medical inspection of schools which involves a thorough physical examination of all school children by experts. By this scheme, the defect of the individual child is corrected, and the danger of widespread contagion or infection in the schoolroom is reduced to a minimum.
Following these physical examinations, the children who are clearly sub-normal are placed in special classes or special schools, where, under the direction of specially fitted teachers, they do any mental work for which they are fitted, in the interims of time between manual activities. Weaving, woodworking, folding and similar employments hold the attention of sub-normal children where intellectual work will not. The special school, freed from the throttling grip of an iron-clad course of study, studies the need of each child, and makes a course of study to fit the need. Although the special school has been used for incorrigibles, its real value rests in its care of the defective child.
Anaemic children and those who show a tubercular tendency are treated in open air schools. In Springfield a special school was constructed. In Providence an old building was employed. In all cases, however, the windows are notable by their absence. The school supplies caps and army blankets, a milk lunch in the middle of the forenoon and the afternoon, and a plain, wholesome dinner at noon. A few months of such treatment works wonders with most of the children. It seems only fair that the sick school child should be treated to fresh airand full nutrition, even though the well child is not so favored.
The open air school has borne fruit, however, in the establishment of numerous open-window classes. Against these classes, there seems to be only one complaint. The children are too lively. Fancy! They get a supply of oxygen sufficient to stimulate them into life during school hours. How tragic this must seem to the teacher who is in the habit of calming the troubled spirits of her class by a generous administration of closed windows and carbon dioxide.
A few cities are attempting to relieve underfeeding by the provision of wholesome school lunches at cost. Buffalo leads in the work, with Chicago, Philadelphia and a number of other cities trailing behind. When you remember that the Chicago School Board reported that in the Chicago schools there were “five thousand children who were habitually hungry,” while “ten thousand others do not have sufficient nourishing food,” you will perhaps agree that the time has come for some action.
Among the liveliest educational movements of the day is that of providing school children with a legitimate occupation and a convenient place to be occupied outside of school hours. Chicago, with an unequaled system of playgrounds, and Philadelphia, with a department devoted to school gardens, are leaders in two fields which promise great things for the future welfare of American city school children.
Not content with doing those needful things involved in the education of children of school age, the school is reaching far out into the community. Night schools came first, as a means of education for those who couldnot attend school during the daytime. Every progressive city and town has a night school now, and the scholars who come after working hours use the same expensive equipment that is furnished to the regular classes. Machines, cooking apparatus, maps and blackboard all do double duty. In the foreign quarters, particularly, the night schools attract a large following of adults, eager to learn the language and ways of the new land. Though many a one falls asleep over the tasks, who shall say that the spirit is not willing?
Public lectures are being used more and more as a means of public education. There is scarcely an up-to-date city that has not some public lectures connected with its school or library system, while in a center like New York, the Board of Education has established an elaborate organization for the delivery of lectures in public school buildings throughout the city. The lecture topics—widely advertised through the schools and elsewhere—cover every field of thought.
Perhaps the whole movement of the schools to influence the community may be summed up in the phrase, “A wider use of the school plant.” Why should not the schools be open, as they are in Gary, day and evening, too? Why should the mothers and fathers not be organized into “Home and School Leagues,” meeting in the schools as they do on a large scale in Philadelphia? Why should not the social sentiment of a community be crystallized around its schoolhouse, as it has been in Rochester? Is it better to have the children playing in the street in the summer time, or in the school yards and playgrounds, as they do in Minneapolis and St. Paul?
The billion dollars invested in the school plant must be made to yield a return in broader social service with each succeeding year.
Nor have progressive educators been satisfied to change the methods of teaching old subjects. More important still, they have introduced new courses which aim to open larger fields for child experience. Hygiene, nature study, civics, manual training and domestic science have all been called upon to enrich the elementary school curriculum.
The nineteenth century physiology—names of muscles and bones, symptoms of diseases and the like—has been replaced in the twentieth century schools by a physiology which aims to teach that the body is worth caring for and developing into something of which every boy and girl may be proud. Beginning with nature study and elementary science, the hygiene course in Indianapolis emphasizes, first, the care of the body and then, in the seventh and eighth grades, public health, private and public sanitation, etc. From nature and her doings, the child is led to see the application of the laws of physiology and hygiene to the life of the individual and of the community.
Nature study, elementary science, horticulture and school gardens have taken their place, on a small scale, in all progressive educational systems. There is an education in watching things grow; an education in the sequence and significance of the seasons, which brick and cement pavements can never afford.
Scattered attempts are being made to teach children the relation between individual and community life. All of the seventh and eighth grade children in Indianapolis visit the city bureaus—water, light, health, fire and police. Trips to factories teach them the relation between industry and the individual life, while social concepts are developed by newspaper and magazine reading, bookreading and class discussions of the articles and books which are read. At election time they discuss politics; they take up strikes and labor troubles; woman suffrage is occasionally touched upon; and they are even asked to suggest methods of making a given wage cover family needs.
The widespread introduction of domestic science and elementary manual training renders any special discussion of them unnecessary. In some instances, however, they are developed to a high degree. In Gary, Indianapolis and Cincinnati, seventh and eighth grade girls make their own garments, cook and serve meals to teachers or to other classes; while in the advanced grades the boys make furniture, sleds, derricks, bridges and telegraph instruments. Chair caning, weaving and clay modeling are also widely used in the hand work of both boys and girls.
Fitchburg, Mass., has developed a Practical Arts School, paralleling the seventh and eighth grades in the grammar school. The school includes a Commercial Course, a Practical Arts Course, a Household Arts Course and a Literary Course. The regular literature, composition, spelling, mathematics, geography, history and science of the seventh and eighth grades is supplemented by social dancing, physical training and music in all of these courses; and in addition for the Commercial Course by typewriting, shorthand, bookkeeping, business arithmetic and designing; for the Practical Arts Course, by drawing, designing, printing, making and repairing; for the Household Arts Course, by cooking, sewing, homekeeping and household arts; and for the Literary Course, by half-time in modern language and the other half in manual training and household arts.
At the end of the sixth year (at about twelve yearsof age) children in Fitchburg may elect to take this school of Practical Arts instead of the regular grammar school course. The results of this election are extraordinary. The practical course was planned for the children who expected to leave school at fourteen, or at the end of the eighth grade. Curiously enough, all types of children have flocked into it. Sons of doctors, lawyers and well-to-do business men; boys and girls preparing for college, and children who must stop school in a year or two are all clamoring for admission. In spite of the fact that pupils are kept in these schools six hours a day instead of five, as in the other schools, the attendance at the end of two years has outrun the accommodations. The children who leave this applied work and enter the high school are apparently not a whit less able to do the high school work than those children who have come up through the regular grades.
The new education is broader than the old, because it accepts and adopts any study which seems likely to meet the needs or wants of any class of children or of any individual child. The storehouse of the mind is to-day unlocked with educational keys of which educators in past generations scarcely dreamed.
For the present, at least, there are a great number of children who must leave school at fourteen, whether they have completed the grammar grades or not. With them, the problem of education shapes itself into this question: “Shall they be well or badly prepared for their work?” The boys enter the shops and mills; the girls marry and make homes. Are they to be efficient workers and housekeepers? The answer rests largely with the schools.
Ohio has provided, for the solution of the problem, acontinuation school law, modeled on the more extensive plans of the German Continuation School system. The law reads: “In case the board of education of any school district establishes part-time day schools for the instruction of youths over fourteen yearsofage who are engaged in regular employment, such board of education is authorized to require all youths who have not satisfactorily completed the eighth grade of the elementary schools to continue their schooling until they are sixteen years of age; provided, however, that such youths, if they have been granted Age and Schooling Certificates and are regularly employed, shall be required to attend school not to exceed eight hours a week between the hours of 8:00 A. M. to 5:00 P. M. during the school term.”
Cleveland and Cincinnati, acting under this authority, have established continuation schools. In Cleveland they are voluntary; in Cincinnati they are compulsory. In both cities, children between fourteen and sixteen may attend school, during factory time, for four hours each week.
Little enough, you protest. Yes, but it is a beginning.
The child in such a continuation school may choose between academic work, art, drawing and designing, shop-work, millinery, dressmaking and domestic science. In some cases a continuation course is possible. Thus far the system has worked admirably.
Equally significant are the Massachusetts Vocational Schools, which are intended to provide a technical training for the boys who wish to pass directly from the grammar school into industry.
Under the Massachusetts law, the state pays half of the running expenses of any vocational school which is organized with the approval of the State Director ofVocational Training. The Springfield school, under the supervision of E. E. MacNary, is housed on one floor of a factory building. The boys may not come at an earlier age than fourteen and Mr. MacNary insists, where possible, that they complete the regular seventh grade work before coming to him. His school, which includes pattern making, cabinet work, carpentry and machine shop work, is run on the “job” plan. That is, a boy is assigned to a job such as making a head-stock for a lathe. The boy makes his drawings, writes his specifications, orders his material and tools, estimates the cost of the job, makes the head-stock and then figures up his actual costs and compares them with the estimated cost. Not until he has gone through all of the operations, may he turn to a new piece of work.
“We tried the half-day and half-day in shop plan,” Mr. MacNary explains, “but it was not a success. It disturbed the boys too much. So we hit on the plan of letting each boy divide his time as he needed to. When he has drawing and estimating to do, he does that and when the time for lathe work comes, he turns to that. It breaks up any system in your school, but it gives the best chance to the individual boy.”
One day a week all of the boys meet the teachers in conference to discuss their work and to make and receive general suggestions.
The boys who come to Mr. MacNary’s school are boys who would probably leave the regular school at fourteen. Many boys come because they are discouraged with the grade work, and of these “grade failures,” many succeed admirably in the new school. During the two years of this shop-work, the boys get a training which enables them to take and hold good positions in the trades. As one foreman said, “A boy gets more training in the twoyears of that school than he gets in three years of any shop.”
These are but an index of the myriad of attempts which cities are making to bring school and shop together, to train for usefulness, to start boys in life.
There are other ways in which the school may help. For example, in the case of homework. On the one hand, homework for the sake of homework may be eliminated. On the other hand, children may be given half a chance to read and study.
One day in a squalid back street I glanced through the window of a corner house. The front of the house was a grocery store. The room into which I happened to look was a general dwelling room. On one side stood the kitchen stove; the floor was littered with children and rubbish, and just under the window a child sat, her book before her on the supper-covered dining table, doing multiplication examples—her homework. The well-to-do child, less than ten squares away, who bent over her problems in a quiet room, could scarcely appreciate the difficulties attached to homework, when the family lives in three rooms and does everything possible to reduce the bill for kerosene.
There is just one place in every neighborhood where the child can find light, air and quiet—that place is the school. Why then should the school not be open for the child? “Why, indeed,” asked the schoolmen of Newark, N. J. Passing from thought to deed, they opened schools in the crowded neighborhoods four nights a week from 7 to 9.
Into these evening study classes, in charge of advisory teachers, any child might come at all. The city librarian,generous in co-operation, lent library books in batches of forty, for two months at a time. Evening after evening, the boys and girls assemble and with text-books or library books, do those things in the school which are impossible in the home. For what other purpose should the school exist?
Another project, equally effective, involves the opening of schools during the summer time. The farmer needed his boy for the harvest, so summer vacations became the established rule, but the city street needs neither the boy nor the girl at any time of the year. Idleness and mischief link hands with street children and dance away toward delinquency. Then why not have school in the summer time? Why not?
The answer takes the form of vacation schools. In most cases the work of the vacation school is designed primarily to interest the child. Games, stories, gardening, manual work of various sorts, excursions and similar devices are relied upon to maintain interest.
A few cities, like Indianapolis, Worcester and Gary, on the other hand, have established vacation schools in which children may make up back work, or pursue studies in which they are especially interested.
As a means of bringing below-grade children up to the standard of affording an opportunity for the able children to advance more rapidly in school, and, in general, as a means of keeping city children usefully occupied during the summer months, the vacation school has won its place.
Newark, making an even more radical departure from tradition, runs some schools twelve months in the year. Edgar G. Pitkin, principal of a school in an immigrantdistrict, first put the idea into practice. At the end of the regular session in June, he announced to his children that school would start again on the following Monday. Fearfully he approached the building. The streets about the school seemed unusually deserted that Monday morning. Suppose no one should be there! When the gong sounded, however, more than seven-tenths of the two thousand children belonging in the school were in their places. The attendance that summer was ninety-two per cent, and the promotion ninety-five per cent. During the three summer months there were exactly two cases of discipline.
“You see what happened,” Mr. Pitkin explained. “All of the bright ambitious children came back and the loafers stayed away. From that picked crowd nothing but good work could be expected. There was no attendance officer on duty, but the children were regular. Order was so good that on hot days we put up the sashes between rooms, and on the second floor, where four class-rooms were thrown into one, four classes worked industriously under four teachers without the least friction.”
This school has been organized on a year schedule. If the children come four terms each year instead of three, they will reduce the time between the first and eighth grades by one-third, which means a saving to them and to the school. Since it is the able children who come, the twelve months’ school affords them an opportunity to go quickly through work on which the slower classmates must hold a more moderate pace.
It is a long step from the school of—