The Project Gutenberg eBook ofThe New EducationThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: The New EducationAuthor: Scott NearingRelease date: October 14, 2008 [eBook #26919]Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Chris Curnow, Matt Mello and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NEW EDUCATION ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: The New EducationAuthor: Scott NearingRelease date: October 14, 2008 [eBook #26919]Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Chris Curnow, Matt Mello and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
Title: The New Education
Author: Scott Nearing
Author: Scott Nearing
Release date: October 14, 2008 [eBook #26919]
Language: English
Credits: Produced by Chris Curnow, Matt Mello and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NEW EDUCATION ***
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE:Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as possible; please seelist of printing issuesat the end, after the Index.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE:
Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as possible; please seelist of printing issuesat the end, after the Index.
Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
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ChicagoNew York
ROW, PETERSON & COMPANY
Copyright, 1915ROW, PETERSON & COMPANY
During 1910, 1911, and 1912, as a part of a general plan to write a book on education, I reread a great deal of the classical educational literature, and carefully perused most of the current material in magazine and book form. An interest aroused by undergraduate and graduate work in the department of pedagogy had been whetted by the revolutionary activity in every field of educational endeavor. The time seemed ripe for an effective piece of constructive educational writing, yet I could not see my way clear to begin it. Glaring faults there were; remedies appeared ready at hand and easy of application; the will of an aroused public opinion alone seemed to be lacking. By what method could this wheel horse of reform best be harnessed to the car of educational progress?
I was still seeking for an answer to this riddle when the editors of “The Ladies’ Home Journal” asked me to consider the preparation of a series of articles. “We have done some sharp destructive work in our criticisms of the schools,” they said. “Now we are going to do some constructive writing. We are in search of two things:—first, a constructive article outlining in general a possible scheme for reorganizing the course of study; second, a series of articles describing in a readable way the most successful public school work now being done in the United States. We want you to visit the schools, study them at first-hand, and bring back a report of the best that they have to offer. When your investigationis completed, we shall expect you to write the material up in such a form that each reader, after finishing an article, will exclaim,—‘Thereis something that we must introduce into our schools.’”
That was my opportunity. Instead of writing a book to be read by a thousand persons, I could place a number of constructive articles before two million readers. The invitation was a godsend.
The articles, when completed, formed a natural sequence. First there was the general article (Chapter 3) suggesting the reorganization. Then followed descriptions of the schools in which some such reorganizations had been effected. Prepared with the same point of view, the articles constituted an acceptable series, having a general object and a connecting idea running throughout. What more natural than to write a few words of introduction and conclusion, and put the whole in book form? The style of the articles has been changed somewhat, and considerable material has been added to them; but, in the main, they stand as they were written—simple descriptions of some of the most advanced school work now being done in the United States.
Looked at from any standpoint, this study is a collection of articles rather than a book, yet there is sufficient relation between the articles to give a measure of continuity to the thought which they convey. In no sense is the work pedagogical or theoretical. It is, on the contrary, a record of the impressions made on a traveler by a number of school systems and schools. The articles purported to cover the most progressive work which is being done in the most progressive schools. Although the selection of successful schools was made only after a careful canvass among the leading educators of thecountry, there are undoubtedly many instances, still at large, which are in every sense as worthy of commendation as any here recorded. This fact does not in any way vitiate the purpose of the original articles, which was to set down a statement of some educational successes in such a way that the lay reader, grasping the significance of these ventures, might see in them immediate possibilities for the schools in his locality.
Behind all of the chapters is the same idea—the idea of educating children—an idea which has taken firm hold of the progressive educators in every section of the community. The schoolmaster is breaking away from the traditions of his craft. He has laid aside the birch, the three “R’s,” the categorical imperative, and a host of other instruments invented by ancient pedagogical inquisitors, and with an open mind is going up and down the world seeking to reshape the schools in the interests of childhood. The task is Herculean, but the enthusiasm and energy which inspire his labors are sufficient to overcome even those obstacles which are apparently insurmountable.
PAGEIntroduction. The Old Education11I.The Critical Spirit and the Schools11II.Some Harsh Words from the Inside12III.A Word from Huxley and Spencer15IV.Some Honest Facts17V.Have We Fulfilled the Object of Education?22Chapter I. The New Basis for Education24I.Can There Be a New Basis?24II.Social Change25III.Keeping Up With the Times26IV.Education in the Early Home27V.City Life and the New Basis for Education28Chapter II. Teaching Boys and Girls32I.The New School Machinery32II.Rousseau Versus a Class of Forty33III.The Fallacious “Average"34IV.The Five Ages of Childhood35V.Age Distribution in One Grade36VI.Shall Child or Subject Matter Come First?39VII.The Vicious Practices of One “Good" School40VIII.Boys and Girls—The One Object of Educational Activity42Chapter III. Fitting Schools to Children44I.Child Growth—A Primary Factor in Child Life44II.Children Need Health First45III.Play as a Means to Growth46IV.Some Things Which a Child Must Learn48V.What Schools Must Provide to Meet Child Needs51VI.The Educational Work of the Small Town52VII.The Educational Problems of an Industrial Community55VIII.Beginning With Child Needs56Chapter IV. Progressive Notes in Elementary Education58I.The Kindergarten58II.Translating the Three R’s59III.Playing at Mathematics60IV.A Model English Lesson61V.An Original Fairy Story65VI.The Crow and the Scarecrow67VII.School and Home68VIII.Breaking New Ground71IX.The School and the Community72X.New Keys for Old Locks74XI.School and Shop76XII.Half a Chance to Study79XIII.Thwarting Satan in the Summer Time80XIV.Sending the Whole Child to School81XV.Smashing the School Machine84XVI.All Hands Around for an Elementary School86XVII.From a Blazed Trail to a Paved Highway90Chapter V. Keeping the High School in Step With Life92I.The Responsibility of the High School92II.An Experiment in Futures92III.The Success Habit95IV.The Help-out Spirit97V.Joining Hands With the Elementary Schools98VI.The Abolition of “Mass Play"101VII.Experimental Democracy103VIII.Breaching[the]Chinese Wall of High School Classicism105IX.An Up-to-Date High School107X.From School to Shop and Back Again109XI.Fitting the High School Graduate Into Life110XII.The High School as a Public Servant114Chapter VI. Higher Education at Lowville116I.Lowville and the Neighborhood116II.Lowville Academy117III.The School’s Opportunity119IV.Field Work as Education120V.Real Domestic Science122VI.One Instance of Success123Chapter VII. A Great City School System125I.“Co-operation” and “Progressivism”125II.An Educational Creed127III.Vitalizing the Kindergarten129IV.Regenerating the Grades132V.Popularizing High School Education137VI.A City University140VII.Special Schools for Special Classes141VIII.Special Schools for Special Children144IX.Playground and Summer Schools145X.Mr. Dyer and the Men Who Stood With Him147Chapter VIII. The Oyler School of Cincinnati153I.An Experiment in Social Education153II.An Appeal for Applied Education156III.Solving a Local Problem157IV.Domestic Science Which Domesticates159V.Making Commercial Products in the Grades161VI.A Real Interest in School162VII.The Mothers’ Club163VIII.The Disappearance of “Discipline”165IX.The Spirit of Oyler167Chapter IX. Vitalizing Rural Education170I.The Call of the Country170II.Making Bricks With Straw171III.Making the One-Room Country School Worth While182IV.Repainting the Little Red Schoolhouse187V.A Fairyland of Rural Education188VI.The Task of the Country School193Chapter X. Out of the Mouths of Babes and Sucklings195I.Miss Belle195II.Going to Work Through the Children196III.Beginning on Muffins197IV.Taking the Boys in Hand200V.“Busy Work” as an Asset201VI.Marguerite203VII.Winning Over the Families204Chapter XI. Wide-Awake Sleepy Eye207I.Fitting Schools to Needs207II.Getting the Janitor in Line208III.The Department of Agriculture209IV.A Short Course for Busy People212V.Letting the Boys Do It214VI.A Look at the Domestic Science214VII.How It Works Out216VIII.Theoretical and Practical217Chapter XII. The South for the New Education220I.A Dream of Empire220II.Finding the Way222III.Jem’s Father224IV.Club Life Militant228V.Canning Clubs234VI.Recognition Day for Boys and Girls235VII.Teaching Grown-Ups to Read236VIII.George Washington, Junior237IX.A Step Toward Good Health239X.Theory and Practice242XI.A People Coming to Its Own249Chapter XIII. The Spirit of the New Education251I.The Standard of Education251II.Standardization Was a Failure252III.Education as Growth254IV.Child Needs and Community Needs255V.The Final Test of Education257
“Everybody is doing it,” said a high school principal the other day. “I look through the new books and I find it; it stands out prominently in technical as well as in popular magazines; even the educational papers are taking it up,—everybody seems to be whacking the schools. Yesterday I picked up a funny sheet on which there were four raps at the schools. One in particular that I remember ran something like this,—
“‘James,’ said the teacher, ‘if Thomas has three red apples and William has five yellow apples, how many apples have Thomas and William?’
“James looked despondent.
“‘Don’t you know?’ queried the teacher, ‘how much three plus five is?’
“‘Oh, yes, ma’am, I know the answer, but the formula, ma’am,—it’s the formula that appals me.’
“Probably nine-tenths of the people who read that story enjoyed it hugely,” continued the schoolman, “and they enjoyed it because it struck a responsive chord in their memories. At one time or another in their school lives, they, too, bowed in dejection before the tyranny of formulas.”
This criticism of school formulas is not confined to popular sources. Prominent authorities in every fieldwhich comes in contact with the school are barbarous in their onslaughts. State and city superintendents, principals, teachers, parents, employers,—all have made contribution to the popular clamor. On every hand may be gleaned evidences of an unsatisfied critical spirit.
The Commissioner of Education of New York State writes of the schools,—[1]“A child is worse off in a graded school than in an ungraded one, if the work of a grade is not capable of some specific valuation, and if each added grade does not provide some added power. The first two grades run much to entertainment and amusement. The third and fourth grades repeat the work supposed to have been done in the first two. Too many unimportant and unrelated facts are taught. It is like the wearying orator who reels off stories only to amuse, seems incapable of choosing an incident to enforce a point, and makes no progress toward a logical conclusion.
“When but one-third of the children remain to the end of the elementary course, there is something the matter with the schools. When half of the men who are responsible for the business activities and who are guiding the political life of the country tell us that children from the elementary schools are not able to do definite things required in the world’s real affairs, there is something the matter with the schools. When work seeks workers, and young men and women are indifferent to it or do not know how to do it, there is something the matter with the schools.[2]
“There is a waste of time and productivity in all of the grades of the elementary schools.”[3]“The things that are weighing down the schools are the multiplicity of studies which are only informatory, the prolongation of branches so as to require many text-books, and the prolixity of treatment and illustration that will accommodate psychological theory and sustain pedagogical methods which have some basis of reason, but which have been most ingeniously overdone.”[4]
Former United States Commissioner of Education, E. E. Brown, is responsible for the statement that,—“With all that we have done to secure regular and continuous attendance at school, it is still a mark of distinction when any city is able to keep even one-half of the pupils who are enrolled in its schools until they have passed even the seventh grade.”[5]
Here is an illustration, from the pen of a widely known educational expert, of the character of educational facilities in the well-to-do suburb of an Eastern city. After describing two of the newer schools (1911) Prof. Hanus continues,—“The Maple Avenue School is too small for its school population, without a suitable office for the principal or a common room for the teachers, and, of course, very inadequately equipped for the work it ought to do; it ought, therefore, to be remodeled and added to without delay. The Chestnut Street School is old, gloomy, crowded, badly ventilated, and badly heated, has steep and narrow stairways, and it would be dangerous in case of fire. There are fire escapes, to be sure,but the access to some of these, though apparently easy in a fire drill, might be seriously inadequate and dangerous in case of haste or panic due to a real fire. In such a building sustained good work by teachers and pupils is very difficult....
“The High School is miserably housed. It is dingy, badly lighted and badly ventilated. These defects constitute a serious menace to the physical welfare of pupils and teachers and, of course, seriously interfere with good work. It is crowded. Intercommunication is devious and inconvenient. The building is quite unfit for high school uses. Some of the school furniture is very poor; the physical and chemical classrooms and laboratories are very unsatisfactory, and its biological laboratory and equipment scarcely less so. The assembly room is too small, badly arranged, and badly furnished. There are no toilet-rooms for the teachers, and there is no common room. There is no satisfactory or adequate lunch-room. The library is in crowded quarters; the principal’s office space is altogether too small, and his private office almost derisively so.”[6]
Overwork in the school is said to be alarmingly prevalent. “It is generally recognized by physicians and educators to-day that many children in the schools are being seriously injured through nervous overstrain. Throughout the world there is a developing conviction that one of the most important duties of society is to determine how education may be carried on without depriving children of their health. It is probable that we are not requiring too much work of our pupils, but they are not accomplishing their tasks economically in respect to the expenditure of nervous energy. Someexperiments made at home and abroad seem to indicate that children could accomplish as much intellectually, with far less dissipation of nervous energy, if they were in the schoolroom about one-half the time which they now spend there. German educators and physicians are convinced that a fundamental reform in this respect is needed. In fact, among school children we are learning the same lesson as among factory employees, viz., that high pressure and long hours are not economy but waste of time.”[7]
The school has been rendered monotonous. “We have worked for system till the public schools have become machines. It has been insistently proclaimed that all children must do things the same way for so long a time, that many of us have actually come to believe it. Children unborn are predestined to work after the same fashion that their grandparents did.”[8]
These are typical of a host of similar criticisms of the schools which leading educators, men working within the school system, are directing against it. Out of the fullness of their experience they spread the conviction that the school often fails to prepare for life, that it frequently distorts more effectively than it builds. The thought is not new. Thomas Huxley asked, years ago, whether education should not be definitely related to life. He wrote,—“If there were no such things as industrial pursuits, a system of education which does nothing for the faculties of observation, which trainsneither the eye nor the hand, and is compatible with utter ignorance of the commonest natural truths, might still be reasonably regarded as strangely imperfect. And when we consider that the instruction and training which are lacking are exactly those which are of most importance for the great mass of our population, the fault becomes almost a crime, the more so in that there is no practical difficulty in making good these defects.”[9]
Approaching the matter from another side, Tyler puts a pertinent question in his “Growth and Education,—” “In the grammar grade is learning and mental discipline of chief importance to the girl, or is care of the body and physical exercise absolutely essential at this period? No one seems to know, and very few care. What would nature say?”[10]
Herbert Spencer answers Tyler’s question in spirited fashion. “While many years are spent by a boy in gaining knowledge, of which the chief value is that it constitutes ‘the education of a gentleman;’ and while many years are spent by a girl in those decorative acquirements which fit her for evening parties; not an hour is spent by either of them in preparation for that gravest of all responsibilities—the management of a family.”[11]“For shoe-making or house-building, for the management of a ship or a locomotive-engine, a long apprenticeship is needful. It is, then, that the unfolding of a human being in body and mind, may we superintend and regulate it with no preparation whatever?”[12]
One fact is self-evident,—the existence of a body of criticism and hostility is prima facia evidence of weakness on the part of the institution criticised, particularly when the criticism comes strong and sharp from school-men themselves. The extent and severity of school criticism certainly bespeaks the careful consideration of those most interested in maintaining the efficiency of the school system.
Let us face the facts honestly. If you include country schools, and they must be included in any discussion of American Education, the school mortality,—i. e., the children who drop out of school between the first and eighth years—is appalling. We may quarrel over percentages, but the dropping out is there.
The United States Commissioner of Education writes,—[13]“Of twenty-five million children of school age (5 to 18), less than twenty million are enrolled in schools of all kinds and grades, public and private; and the average daily attendance does not exceed fourteen million, for an average school term of less than 8 months of 20 days each. The average daily attendance of those enrolled in the public schools is only 113 days in the year, less than 5¾ months. The average attendance of the entire school population is only 80½ days, or 4 months of 20 days each. Assuming that this rate of attendance shall continue through the 13 school years (5 to 18), the average amount of schooling received by each child of the school population will be 1,046 days, or a little more than 5 years of 10 school months. Thisbureau has no reliable statistics on the subject, but it is quite probable that less than half the children of the country finish successfully more than the first 6 grades; only about one-fourth of the children ever enter high school; and less than 8 in every 100 do the full 4 years of high school work. Fewer than 5 in 100 receive any education above the high school.”
Taking this dropping out into consideration, it is probable that the majority of children who enter American schools receive no more education than will enable them to read clumsily, to write badly, to spell wretchedly, and to do the simplest mathematical problems (addition, subtraction, etc.) with difficulty. In any real sense of the word, they are neither educated nor cultured.
Judge Draper, Superintendent of Public Instruction in New York State, writes,—[14]“We cannot exculpate the schools. They are as wasteful of child life as are the homes. From the bottom to the top of the American educational system we take little account of the time of the child.... We have eight or nine elementary grades for work which would be done in six if we were working mainly for productivity and power. We have shaped our secondary schools so that they confuse the thinking of youth and break the equilibrium between education and vocations, and people and industries.... In the graded elementary schools of the State of New York, less than half of the children remain to the end of the course. They do not start early enough. They do not attend regularly enough. The course is too fullof mere pedagogical method, exploitation and illustration, if not of kinds and classes of work. The terms are too short and the vacations too long.... More than half of the children drop out by the time they are fourteen or fifteen, the limits of the compulsory attendance age, because the work of the schools is behind the age of the pupils, and we do not teach them the things which lead them and their parents to think it will be worth their while to remain.”
Observe that Judge Draper writes of the graded schools only. Could you conceive of a more stinging rebuke to an institution from a man who is making it his business to know its innermost workings?
These statements refer, not to the small percentage of children who go to high school, but to that great mass of children who leave the school at, or before, fourteen years of age. If you do not believe them, go among working children and find out what their intellectual qualifications really are.
One fact must be clearly borne in mind,—the school system is a social institution. In the schools are the people’s children. Public taxes provide the funds for public education. Perhaps no great institution is more generally a part of community interest and experience than the public school system.
The most surprising thing about the school figures is the overwhelming proportion of students in the elementary grades—17,050,441 of the 18,207,803. If you draw three lines, the first representing the number of children in the elementary schools, the second showing the number in the high school, and the third the number of students in colleges, professional and normal schools, the contrast is astonishing.
It is perfectly evident, therefore, that the real workof education must be done in the elementary grades. The high schools with a million students, and the universities, colleges, professional and normal schools with three hundred thousand more, constitute an increasingly important factor in education; at the same time, for every seven students in these higher schools, there are ninety-three children in the elementary grades. The proportion is so unexpected that it staggers us—more than nine-tenths of the children who attend school in the United States are in the elementary grades! Can this be the school system of which our forefathers dreamed when they established a universal, free education nearly a hundred years ago? Did they foresee that such an overwhelming proportion of American children would never have an opportunity to secure more than the rudiments of an education?
Be that as it may, the facts glower menacingly at us from city, town and countryside,—the overcrowded elementary grades and the higher schools with but a scant proportion of the students. So, if we wish to educate the great mass of American children, we must go to the primary grades to do it.
There are, in the public schools, 533,606 teachers, four-fifths of whom are women. These teachers are at work in 267,153 school buildings having a total value of $1,221,695,730. Each year some four hundred and fifty million dollars are devoted to maintaining and adding to this educational machine.
The school system is the greatest saving fund which the American people possess. The total value of school property is greater than the entire fortune of the richest American. Each year the people spend upon their schools a sum sufficient to construct a Panama Canal or a transcontinental railway system. Thus the publicschool is the greatest public investment in the United States.
It is one thing to invest, and quite a different matter to be assured a fair return on the investment. Nevertheless, the individual investor believes in his right to a fair return. From their public investments, the people, in fairness, can demand no more; in justice to themselves, they may accept no less. Are they receiving a fair return? The people of the United States have invested nearly a billion dollars in the public school system; each year they contribute nearly half a billion dollars more toward the same end. Are they getting what they pay for?
Turn to another section of the Report of the Commissioner of Education, and note how, in mild alarm, he protests against teachers’ salaries so low “that it is clearly impossible to hire the services of men and women of good native ability and sufficient scholarship, training and experience to enable them to do satisfactory work;” against the schoolhouses, which are “cheap, insanitary, uncomfortable and unattractive;” against “thousands of schools” in which “one teacher teaches from twenty to thirty classes a day;” against “courses of study ill-adapted to the interest of country children or the needs of country life;” against “a small enrollment of the total children of school age,” and a school attendance so low that “the average of the entire school population is only 80½ days per year.”[15]
The tone of these statements is certainly not reassuring. Perhaps it is high time that the citizens inquired into the status of their educational securities—their public school system.
The object of education is complete living. A perfect educational system would prepare those participating in it to live every phase of their lives, and to derive from life all possible benefit. Any educational system which enables men to live completely is therefore fulfilling its function. On the other hand, an educational system which does not prepare for life is not meeting the necessary requirements.
Charles Dickens, in his characteristic way, thus describes in “Hard Times” a public school class under the title “Murdering the Innocents:”