{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_53910/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_53910","id":"gutenberg_53910","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/53910","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Sociology","Category: Teaching & Education","Education","Education -- Philosophy","Educational psychology","University of Chicago. University Elementary School"],"text":"THE SCHOOL AND SOCIETY\n\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\n\n\n                    THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS\n                           CHICAGO, ILLINOIS\n\n\n                                 Agents\n\n                     THE CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS\n                          LONDON AND EDINBURGH\n\n                      THE MARUZEN-KABUSHIKI-KAISHA\n                          TOKYO, OSAKA, KYOTO\n\n                           KARL W. HIERSEMANN\n                                LEIPZIG\n\n                       THE BAKER & TAYLOR COMPANY\n                                NEW YORK\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\n\n\n                                 _The_\n                                _SCHOOL_\n                                 _and_\n                               _SOCIETY_\n                         _BEING THREE LECTURES_\n\n\n                                  _by_\n\n                               JOHN DEWEY\n\n                           _SUPPLEMENTED BY_\n            A STATEMENT OF THE UNIVERSITY ELEMENTARY SCHOOL\n\n                    THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS\n                           CHICAGO, ILLINOIS\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\n\n\n                           COPYRIGHT 1900 BY\n                               JOHN DEWEY\n\n                          All Rights Reserved\n\n      FIRST EDITION       -\u20131,000 copies. Printed November, 1899.\n      SECOND IMPRESSION   -\u20131,500 copies. Printed February, 1900.\n      THIRD IMPRESSION    -\u20135,000 copies. Printed July, 1900.\n      FOURTH IMPRESSION   -\u20131,000 copies. Printed June, 1904.\n      FIFTH IMPRESSION    -\u20132,500 copies. Printed February, 1905.\n      SIXTH IMPRESSION    -\u20132,500 copies. Printed August, 1907.\n      SEVENTH IMPRESSION  -\u20131,000 copies. Printed September, 1909.\n      EIGHTH IMPRESSION   -\u20131,000 copies. Printed August, 1910.\n      NINTH IMPRESSION    -\u20131,000 copies. Printed August, 1911.\n      TENTH IMPRESSION    -\u20131,000 copies. Printed March, 1912.\n      ELEVENTH IMPRESSION -\u20132,000 copies. Printed August, 1913.\n\n\n                        Composed and Printed By\n                    The University of Chicago Press\n                       Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\n\n\n                                   TO\n\n                           MRS. EMMONS BLAINE\n\n                    TO WHOSE INTEREST IN EDUCATIONAL\n                                 REFORM\n                      THE APPEARANCE OF THIS BOOK\n                                 IS DUE\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\n\n\n                                CONTENTS\n\n\n                                                                    PAGE\n   I. THE SCHOOL AND SOCIAL PROGRESS                                  19\n\n  II. THE SCHOOL AND THE LIFE OF THE CHILD                            47\n\n III. WASTE IN EDUCATION                                              77\n\n  IV. THREE YEARS OF THE UNIVERSITY ELEMENTARY SCHOOL                113\n\n\n\n\n                         LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS\n\n\n                                            FACING PAGE\n\n                DRAWING OF A CAVE AND TREES          56\n\n                DRAWING OF A FOREST                  58\n\n                DRAWING OF HANDS SPINNING            60\n\n                DRAWING OF A GIRL SPINNING           62\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\n\n\n                            PUBLISHER\u2019S NOTE\n\n\nThe three lectures presented in the following pages were delivered\nbefore an audience of parents and others interested in the University\nElementary School, in the month of April of the year 1899. Mr. Dewey\nrevised them in part from a stenographic report, and unimportant changes\nand the slight adaptations necessary for the press have been made in his\nabsence. The lectures retain therefore the unstudied character as well\nas the power of the spoken word. As they imply more or less familiarity\nwith the work of the Elementary School, Mr. Dewey\u2019s supplementary\nstatement of this has been added.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\n\n\n                             AUTHOR\u2019S NOTE\n\n\nA second edition affords a grateful opportunity for recalling that this\nlittle book is a sign of the co\u00f6perating thoughts and sympathies of many\npersons. Its indebtedness to Mrs. Emmons Blaine is partly indicated in\nthe dedication. From my friends, Mr. and Mrs. George Herbert Mead, came\nthat interest, unflagging attention to detail, and artistic taste which,\nin my absence, remade colloquial remarks until they were fit to print,\nand then saw the results through the press with the present attractive\nresult\u2014a mode of authorship made easy, which I recommend to others\nfortunate enough to possess such friends.\n\nIt would be an extended paragraph which should list all the friends\nwhose timely and persisting generosity has made possible the school\nwhich inspired and defined the ideas of these pages. These friends, I am\nsure, would be the first to recognize the peculiar appropriateness of\nespecial mention of the names of Mrs. Charles R. Crane and Mrs. William\nR. Linn.\n\nAnd the school itself in its educational work is a joint undertaking.\nMany have engaged in shaping it. The clear and experienced intelligence\nof my wife is wrought everywhere into its texture. The wisdom, tact and\ndevotion of its instructors have brought about a transformation of its\noriginal amorphous plans into articulate form and substance with life\nand movement of their own. Whatever the issue of the ideas presented in\nthis book, the satisfaction coming from the co\u00f6peration of the diverse\nthoughts and deeds of many persons in undertaking to enlarge the life of\nthe child will abide.\n\n                                                         January 5, 1900\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\n\n\n                                   I\n                     THE SCHOOL AND SOCIAL PROGRESS\n\n\nWe are apt to look at the school from an individualistic standpoint, as\nsomething between teacher and pupil, or between teacher and parent. That\nwhich interests us most is naturally the progress made by the individual\nchild of our acquaintance, his normal physical development, his advance\nin ability to read, write, and figure, his growth in the knowledge of\ngeography and history, improvement in manners, habits of promptness,\norder, and industry\u2014it is from such standards as these that we judge the\nwork of the school. And rightly so. Yet the range of the outlook needs\nto be enlarged. What the best and wisest parent wants for his own child,\nthat must the community want for all of its children. Any other ideal\nfor our schools is narrow and unlovely; acted upon, it destroys our\ndemocracy. All that society has accomplished for itself is put, through\nthe agency of the school, at the disposal of its future members. All its\nbetter thoughts of itself it hopes to realize through the new\npossibilities thus opened to its future self. Here individualism and\nsocialism are at one. Only by being true to the full growth of all the\nindividuals who make it up, can society by any chance be true to itself.\nAnd in the self-direction thus given, nothing counts as much as the\nschool, for, as Horace Mann said, \u201cWhere anything is growing, one former\nis worth a thousand re-formers,\u201d\n\nWhenever we have in mind the discussion of a new movement in education,\nit is especially necessary to take the broader, or social view.\nOtherwise, changes in the school institution and tradition will be\nlooked at as the arbitrary inventions of particular teachers; at the\nworst transitory fads, and at the best merely improvements in certain\ndetails\u2014and this is the plane upon which it is too customary to consider\nschool changes. It is as rational to conceive of the locomotive or the\ntelegraph as personal devices. The modification going on in the method\nand curriculum of education is as much a product of the changed social\nsituation, and as much an effort to meet the needs of the new society\nthat is forming, as are changes in modes of industry and commerce.\n\nIt is to this, then, that I especially ask your attention: the effort to\nconceive what roughly may be termed the \u201cNew Education\u201d in the light of\nlarger changes in society. Can we connect this \u201cNew Education\u201d with the\ngeneral march of events? If we can, it will lose its isolated character,\nand will cease to be an affair which proceeds only from the\nover-ingenious minds of pedagogues dealing with particular pupils. It\nwill appear as part and parcel of the whole social evolution, and, in\nits more general features at least, as inevitable. Let us then ask after\nthe main aspects of the social movement; and afterwards turn to the\nschool to find what witness it gives of effort to put itself in line.\nAnd since it is quite impossible to cover the whole ground, I shall for\nthe most part confine myself to one typical thing in the modern school\nmovement\u2014that which passes under the name of manual training, hoping if\nthe relation of that to changed social conditions appears, we shall be\nready to concede the point as well regarding other educational\ninnovations.\n\nI make no apology for not dwelling at length upon the social changes in\nquestion. Those I shall mention are writ so large that he who runs may\nread. The change that comes first to mind, the one that overshadows and\neven controls all others, is the industrial one\u2014the application of\nscience resulting in the great inventions that have utilized the forces\nof nature on a vast and inexpensive scale: the growth of a world-wide\nmarket as the object of production, of vast manufacturing centers to\nsupply this market, of cheap and rapid means of communication and\ndistribution between all its parts. Even as to its feebler beginnings,\nthis change is not much more than a century old; in many of its most\nimportant aspects it falls within the short span of those now living.\nOne can hardly believe there has been a revolution in all history so\nrapid, so extensive, so complete. Through it the face of the earth is\nmaking over, even as to its physical forms; political boundaries are\nwiped out and moved about, as if they were indeed only lines on a paper\nmap; population is hurriedly gathered into cities from the ends of the\nearth; habits of living are altered with startling abruptness and\nthoroughness; the search for the truths of nature is infinitely\nstimulated and facilitated and their application to life made not only\npracticable, but commercially necessary. Even our moral and religious\nideas and interests, the most conservative because the deepest-lying\nthings in our nature, are profoundly affected. That this revolution\nshould not affect education in other than formal and superficial fashion\nis inconceivable.\n\nBack of the factory system lies the household and neighborhood system.\nThose of us who are here today need go back only one, two, or at most\nthree generations, to find a time when the household was practically the\ncenter in which were carried on, or about which were clustered, all the\ntypical forms of industrial occupation. The clothing worn was for the\nmost part not only made in the house, but the members of the household\nwere usually familiar with the shearing of the sheep, the carding and\nspinning of the wool, and the plying of the loom. Instead of pressing a\nbutton and flooding the house with electric light, the whole process of\ngetting illumination was followed in its toilsome length, from the\nkilling of the animal and the trying of fat, to the making of wicks and\ndipping of candles. The supply of flour, of lumber, of foods, of\nbuilding materials, of household furniture, even of metal ware, of\nnails, hinges, hammers, etc., was in the immediate neighborhood, in\nshops which were constantly open to inspection and often centers of\nneighborhood congregation. The entire industrial process stood revealed,\nfrom the production on the farm of the raw materials, till the finished\narticle was actually put to use. Not only this, but practically every\nmember of the household had his own share in the work. The children, as\nthey gained in strength and capacity, were gradually initiated into the\nmysteries of the several processes. It was a matter of immediate and\npersonal concern, even to the point of actual participation.\n\nWe cannot overlook the factors of discipline and of character-building\ninvolved in this: training in habits of order and of industry, and in\nthe idea of responsibility, of obligation to do something, to produce\nsomething, in the world. There was always something which really needed\nto be done, and a real necessity that each member of the household\nshould do his own part faithfully and in co\u00f6peration with others.\nPersonalities which became effective in action were bred and tested in\nthe medium of action. Again, we cannot overlook the importance for\neducational purposes of the close and intimate acquaintance got with\nnature at first hand, with real things and materials, with the actual\nprocesses of their manipulation, and the knowledge of their social\nnecessities and uses. In all this there was continual training of\nobservation, of ingenuity, constructive imagination, of logical thought,\nand of the sense of reality acquired through first-hand contact with\nactualities. The educative forces of the domestic spinning and weaving,\nof the saw-mill, the gristmill, the cooper shop, and the blacksmith\nforge, were continuously operative.\n\nNo number of object-lessons, got up _as_ object-lessons for the sake of\ngiving information, can afford even the shadow of a substitute for\nacquaintance with the plants and animals of the farm and garden,\nacquired through actual living among them and caring for them. No\ntraining of sense-organs in school, introduced for the sake of training,\ncan begin to compete with the alertness and fullness of sense-life that\ncomes through daily intimacy and interest in familiar occupations.\nVerbal memory can be trained in committing tasks, a certain discipline\nof the reasoning powers can be acquired through lessons in science and\nmathematics; but, after all, this is somewhat remote and shadowy\ncompared with the training of attention and of judgment that is acquired\nin having to do things with a real motive behind and a real outcome\nahead. At present, concentration of industry and division of labor have\npractically eliminated household and neighborhood occupations\u2014at least\nfor educational purposes. But it is useless to bemoan the departure of\nthe good old days of children\u2019s modesty, reverence, and implicit\nobedience, if we expect merely by bemoaning and by exhortation to bring\nthem back. It is radical conditions which have changed, and only an\nequally radical change in education suffices. We must recognize our\ncompensations\u2014the increase in toleration, in breadth of social judgment,\nthe larger acquaintance with human nature, the sharpened alertness in\nreading signs of character and interpreting social situations, greater\naccuracy of adaptation to differing personalities, contact with greater\ncommercial activities. These considerations mean much to the city-bred\nchild of today. Yet there is a real problem: how shall we retain these\nadvantages, and yet introduce into the school something representing the\nother side of life\u2014occupations which exact personal responsibilities and\nwhich train the child with relation to the physical realities of life?\n\nWhen we turn to the school, we find that one of the most striking\ntendencies at present is toward the introduction of so-called manual\ntraining, shop-work, and the household arts\u2014sewing and cooking.\n\nThis has not been done \u201con purpose,\u201d with a full consciousness that the\nschool must now supply that factor of training formerly taken care of in\nthe home, but rather by instinct, by experimenting and finding that such\nwork takes a vital hold of pupils and gives them something which was not\nto be got in any other way. Consciousness of its real import is still so\nweak that the work is often done in a half-hearted, confused, and\nunrelated way. The reasons assigned to justify it are painfully\ninadequate or sometimes even positively wrong.\n\nIf we were to cross-examine even those who are most favorably disposed\nto the introduction of this work into our school system, we should, I\nimagine, generally find the main reasons to be that such work engages\nthe full spontaneous interest and attention of the children. It keeps\nthem alert and active, instead of passive and receptive; it makes them\nmore useful, more capable, and hence more inclined to be helpful at\nhome; it prepares them to some extent for the practical duties of later\nlife\u2014the girls to be more efficient house managers, if not actually\ncooks and sempstresses; the boys (were our educational system only\nadequately rounded out into trade schools) for their future vocations. I\ndo not underestimate the worth of these reasons. Of those indicated by\nthe changed attitude of the children I shall indeed have something to\nsay in my next talk, when speaking directly of the relationship of the\nschool to the child. But the point of view is, upon the whole,\nunnecessarily narrow. We must conceive of work in wood and metal, of\nweaving, sewing, and cooking, as methods of life not as distinct\nstudies.\n\nWe must conceive of them in their social significance, as types of the\nprocesses by which society keeps itself going, as agencies for bringing\nhome to the child some of the primal necessities of community life, and\nas ways in which these needs have been met by the growing insight and\ningenuity of man; in short, as instrumentalities through which the\nschool itself shall be made a genuine form of active community life,\ninstead of a place set apart in which to learn lessons.\n\nA society is a number of people held together because they are working\nalong common lines, in a common spirit, and with reference to common\naims. The common needs and aims demand a growing interchange of thought\nand growing unity of sympathetic feeling. The radical reason that the\npresent school cannot organize itself as a natural social unit is\nbecause just this element of common and productive activity is absent.\nUpon the playground, in game and sport, social organization takes place\nspontaneously and inevitably. There is something to do, some activity to\nbe carried on, requiring natural divisions of labor, selection of\nleaders and followers, mutual co\u00f6peration and emulation. In the\nschoolroom the motive and the cement of social organization are alike\nwanting. Upon the ethical side, the tragic weakness of the present\nschool is that it endeavors to prepare future members of the social\norder in a medium in which the conditions of the social spirit are\neminently wanting.\n\nThe difference that appears when occupations are made the articulating\ncenters of school life is not easy to describe in words; it is a\ndifference in motive, of spirit and atmosphere. As one enters a busy\nkitchen in which a group of children are actively engaged in the\npreparation of food, the psychological difference, the change from more\nor less passive and inert recipiency and restraint to one of buoyant\noutgoing energy, is so obvious as fairly to strike one in the face.\nIndeed, to those whose image of the school is rigidly set the change is\nsure to give a shock. But the change in the social attitude is equally\nmarked. The mere absorption of facts and truths is so exclusively\nindividual an affair that it tends very naturally to pass into\nselfishness. There is no obvious social motive for the acquirement of\nmere learning, there is no clear social gain in success thereat. Indeed,\nalmost the only measure for success is a competitive one, in the bad\nsense of that term\u2014a comparison of results in the recitation or in the\nexamination to see which child has succeeded in getting ahead of others\nin storing up, in accumulating the maximum of information. So thoroughly\nis this the prevalent atmosphere that for one child to help another in\nhis task has become a school crime. Where the school work consists in\nsimply learning lessons, mutual assistance, instead of being the most\nnatural form of co\u00f6peration and association, becomes a clandestine\neffort to relieve one\u2019s neighbor of his proper duties. Where active work\nis going on all this is changed. Helping others, instead of being a form\nof charity which impoverishes the recipient, is simply an aid in setting\nfree the powers and furthering the impulse of the one helped. A spirit\nof free communication, of interchange of ideas, suggestions, results,\nboth successes and failures of previous experiences, becomes the\ndominating note of the recitation. So far as emulation enters in, it is\nin the comparison of individuals, not with regard to the quantity of\ninformation personally absorbed, but with reference to the quality of\nwork done\u2014the genuine community standard of value. In an informal but\nall the more pervasive way, the school life organizes itself on a social\nbasis.\n\nWithin this organization is found the principle of school discipline or\norder. Of course, order is simply a thing which is relative to an end.\nIf you have the end in view of forty or fifty children learning certain\nset lessons, to be recited to a teacher, your discipline must be devoted\nto securing that result. But if the end in view is the development of a\nspirit of social co\u00f6peration and community life, discipline must grow\nout of and be relative to this. There is little order of one sort where\nthings are in process of construction; there is a certain disorder in\nany busy workshop; there is not silence; persons are not engaged in\nmaintaining certain fixed physical postures; their arms are not folded;\nthey are not holding their books thus and so. They are doing a variety\nof things, and there is the confusion, the bustle, that results from\nactivity. But out of occupation, out of doing things that are to produce\nresults, and out of doing these in a social and co\u00f6perative way, there\nis born a discipline of its own kind and type. Our whole conception of\nschool discipline changes when we get this point of view. In critical\nmoments we all realize that the only discipline that stands by us, the\nonly training that becomes intuition, is that got through life itself.\nThat we learn from experience, and from books or the sayings of others\n_only_ as they are related to experience, are not mere phrases. But the\nschool has been so set apart, so isolated from the ordinary conditions\nand motives of life, that the place where children are sent for\ndiscipline is the one place in the world where it is most difficult to\nget experience\u2014the mother of all discipline worth the name. It is only\nwhere a narrow and fixed image of traditional school discipline\ndominates, that one is in any danger of overlooking that deeper and\ninfinitely wider discipline that comes from having a part to do in\nconstructive work, in contributing to a result which, social in spirit,\nis none the less obvious and tangible in form\u2014and hence in a form with\nreference to which responsibility may be exacted and accurate judgment\npassed.\n\nThe great thing to keep in mind, then, regarding the introduction into\nthe school of various forms of active occupation, is that through them\nthe entire spirit of the school is renewed. It has a chance to affiliate\nitself with life, to become the child\u2019s habitat, where he learns through\ndirected living; instead of being only a place to learn lessons having\nan abstract and remote reference to some possible living to be done in\nthe future. It gets a chance to be a miniature community, an embryonic\nsociety. This is the fundamental fact, and from this arise continuous\nand orderly sources of instruction. Under the industrial _r\u00e9gime_\ndescribed, the child, after all, shared in the work, not for the sake of\nthe sharing, but for the sake of the product. The educational results\nsecured were real, yet incidental and dependent. But in the school the\ntypical occupations followed are freed from all economic stress. The aim\nis not the economic value of the products, but the development of social\npower and insight. It is this liberation from narrow utilities, this\nopenness to the possibilities of the human spirit that makes these\npractical activities in the school allies of art and centers of science\nand history.\n\nThe unity of all the sciences is found in geography. The significance of\ngeography is that it presents the earth as the enduring home of the\noccupations of man. The world without its relationship to human activity\nis less than a world. Human industry and achievement, apart from their\nroots in the earth, are not even a sentiment, hardly a name. The earth\nis the final source of all man\u2019s food. It is his continual shelter and\nprotection, the raw material of all his activities, and the home to\nwhose humanizing and idealizing all his achievement returns. It is the\ngreat field, the great mine, the great source of the energies of heat,\nlight, and electricity; the great scene of ocean, stream, mountain, and\nplain, of which all our agriculture and mining and lumbering, all our\nmanufacturing and distributing agencies, are but the partial elements\nand factors. It is through occupations determined by this environment\nthat mankind has made its historical and political progress. It is\nthrough these occupations that the intellectual and emotional\ninterpretation of nature has been developed. It is through what we do in\nand with the world that we read its meaning and measure its value.\n\nIn educational terms, this means that these occupations in the school\nshall not be mere practical devices or modes of routine employment, the\ngaining of better technical skill as cooks, sempstresses, or carpenters,\nbut active centers of scientific insight into natural materials and\nprocesses, points of departure whence children shall be led out into a\nrealization of the historic development of man. The actual significance\nof this can be told better through one illustration taken from actual\nschool work than by general discourse.\n\nThere is nothing which strikes more oddly upon the average intelligent\nvisitor than to see boys as well as girls of ten, twelve, and thirteen\nyears of age engaged in sewing and weaving. If we look at this from the\nstandpoint of preparation of the boys for sewing on buttons and making\npatches, we get a narrow and utilitarian conception\u2014a basis that hardly\njustifies giving prominence to this sort of work in the school. But if\nwe look at it from another side, we find that this work gives the point\nof departure from which the child can trace and follow the progress of\nmankind in history, getting an insight also into the materials used and\nthe mechanical principles involved. In connection with these\noccupations, the historic development of man is recapitulated. For\nexample, the children are first given the raw material\u2014the flax, the\ncotton plant, the wool as it comes from the back of the sheep (if we\ncould take them to the place where the sheep are sheared, so much the\nbetter). Then a study is made of these materials from the standpoint of\ntheir adaptation to the uses to which they may be put. For instance, a\ncomparison of the cotton fiber with wool fiber is made. I did not know\nuntil the children told me, that the reason for the late development of\nthe cotton industry as compared with the woolen is, that the cotton\nfiber is so very difficult to free by hand from the seeds. The children\nin one group worked thirty minutes freeing cotton fibers from the boll\nand seeds, and succeeded in getting out less than one ounce. They could\neasily believe that one person could only gin one pound a day by hand,\nand could understand why their ancestors wore woolen instead of cotton\nclothing. Among other things discovered as affecting their relative\nutilities, was the shortness of the cotton fiber as compared with that\nof wool, the former being one-tenth of an inch in length, while that of\nthe latter is an inch in length; also that the fibers of cotton are\nsmooth and do not cling together, while the wool has a certain roughness\nwhich makes the fibers stick, thus assisting the spinning. The children\nworked this out for themselves with the actual material, aided by\nquestions and suggestions from the teacher.\n\nThey then followed the processes necessary for working the fibers up\ninto cloth. They re-invented the first frame for carding the wool\u2014a\ncouple of boards with sharp pins in them for scratching it out. They\nre-devised the simplest process for spinning the wool\u2014a pierced stone or\nsome other weight through which the wool is passed, and which as it is\ntwirled draws out the fiber; next the top, which was spun on the floor,\nwhile the children kept the wool in their hands until it was gradually\ndrawn out and wound upon it. Then the children are introduced to the\ninvention next in historic order, working it out experimentally, thus\nseeing its necessity, and tracing its effects, not only upon that\nparticular industry, but upon modes of social life\u2014in this way passing\nin review the entire process up to the present complete loom, and all\nthat goes with the application of science in the use of our present\navailable powers. I need not speak of the science involved in this\u2014the\nstudy of the fibers, of geographical features, the conditions under\nwhich raw materials are grown, the great centers of manufacture and\ndistribution, the physics involved in the machinery of production; nor,\nagain, of the historical side\u2014the influence which these inventions have\nhad upon humanity. You can concentrate the history of all mankind into\nthe evolution of the flax, cotton, and wool fibers into clothing. I do\nnot mean that this is the only, or the best, center. But it is true that\ncertain very real and important avenues to the consideration of the\nhistory of the race are thus opened\u2014that the mind is introduced to much\nmore fundamental and controlling influences than usually appear in the\npolitical and chronological records that pass for history.\n\nNow, what is true of this one instance of fibers used in fabrics (and,\nof course, I have only spoken of one or two elementary phases of that)\nis true in its measure of every material used in every occupation, and\nof the processes employed. The occupation supplies the child with a\ngenuine motive; it gives him experience at first hand; it brings him\ninto contact with realities. It does all this, but in addition it is\nliberalized throughout by translation into its historic values and\nscientific equivalencies. With the growth of the child\u2019s mind in power\nand knowledge it ceases to be a pleasant occupation merely, and becomes\nmore and more a medium, an instrument, an organ\u2014and is thereby\ntransformed.\n\nThis, in turn, has its bearing upon the teaching of science. Under\npresent conditions, all activity, to be successful, has to be directed\nsomewhere and somehow by the scientific expert\u2014it is a case of applied\nscience. This connection should determine its place in education. It is\nnot only that the occupations, the so-called manual or industrial work\nin the school, give the opportunity for the introduction of science\nwhich illuminates them, which makes them material, freighted with\nmeaning, instead of being mere devices of hand and eye; but that the\nscientific insight thus gained becomes an indispensable instrument of\nfree and active participation in modern social life. Plato somewhere\nspeaks of the slave as one who in his actions does not express his own\nideas, but those of some other man. It is our social problem now, even\nmore urgent than in the time of Plato, that method, purpose,\nunderstanding, shall exist in the consciousness of the one who does the\nwork, that his activity shall have meaning to himself.\n\nWhen occupations in the school are conceived in this broad and generous\nway, I can only stand lost in wonder at the objections so often heard,\nthat such occupations are out of place in the school because they are\nmaterialistic, utilitarian, or even menial in their tendency. It\nsometimes seems to me that those who make these objections must live in\nquite another world. The world in which most of us live is a world in\nwhich everyone has a calling and occupation, something to do. Some are\nmanagers and others are subordinates. But the great thing for one as for\nthe other is that each shall have had the education which enables him to\nsee within his daily work all there is in it of large and human\nsignificance. How many of the employed are today mere appendages to the\nmachines which they operate! This may be due in part to the machine\nitself, or to the _r\u00e9gime_ which lays so much stress upon the products\nof the machine; but it is certainly due in large part to the fact that\nthe worker has had no opportunity to develop his imagination and his\nsympathetic insight as to the social and scientific values found in his\nwork. At present, the impulses which lie at the basis of the industrial\nsystem are either practically neglected or positively distorted during\nthe school period. Until the instincts of construction and production\nare systematically laid hold of in the years of childhood and youth,\nuntil they are trained in social directions, enriched by historical\ninterpretation, controlled and illuminated by scientific methods, we\ncertainly are in no position even to locate the source of our economic\nevils, much less to deal with them effectively.\n\nIf we go back a few centuries, we find a practical monopoly of learning.\nThe term _possession_ of learning was, indeed, a happy one. Learning was\na class matter. This was a necessary result of social conditions. There\nwere not in existence any means by which the multitude could possibly\nhave access to intellectual resources. These were stored up and hidden\naway in manuscripts. Of these there were at best only a few, and it\nrequired long and toilsome preparation to be able to do anything with\nthem. A high-priesthood of learning, which guarded the treasury of truth\nand which doled it out to the masses under severe restrictions, was the\ninevitable expression of these conditions. But, as a direct result of\nthe industrial revolution of which we have been speaking, this has been\nchanged. Printing was invented; it was made commercial. Books,\nmagazines, papers were multiplied and cheapened. As a result of the\nlocomotive and telegraph, frequent, rapid, and cheap intercommunication\nby mails and electricity was called into being. Travel has been rendered\neasy; freedom of movement, with its accompanying exchange of ideas,\nindefinitely facilitated. The result has been an intellectual\nrevolution. Learning has been put into circulation. While there still\nis, and probably always will be, a particular class having the special\nbusiness of inquiry in hand, a distinctively learned class is henceforth\nout of the question. It is an anachronism. Knowledge is no longer an\nimmobile solid; it has been liquefied. It is actively moving in all the\ncurrents of society itself.\n\nIt is easy to see that this revolution, as regards the materials of\nknowledge, carries with it a marked change in the attitude of the\nindividual. Stimuli of an intellectual sort pour in upon us in all kinds\nof ways. The merely intellectual life, the life of scholarship and of\nlearning, thus gets a very altered value. Academic and scholastic,\ninstead of being titles of honor, are becoming terms of reproach.\n\nBut all this means a necessary change in the attitude of the school, one\nof which we are as yet far from realizing the full force. Our school\nmethods, and to a very considerable extent our curriculum, are inherited\nfrom the period when learning and command of certain symbols, affording\nas they did the only access to learning, were all-important. The ideals\nof this period are still largely in control, even where the outward\nmethods and studies have been changed. We sometimes hear the\nintroduction of manual training, art and science into the elementary,\nand even the secondary schools, deprecated on the ground that they tend\ntoward the production of specialists\u2014that they detract from our present\nscheme of generous, liberal culture. The point of this objection would\nbe ludicrous if it were not often so effective as to make it tragic. It\nis our present education which is highly specialized, one-sided and\nnarrow. It is an education dominated almost entirely by the medi\u00e6val\nconception of learning. It is something which appeals for the most part\nsimply to the intellectual aspect of our natures, our desire to learn,\nto accumulate information, and to get control of the symbols of\nlearning; not to our impulses and tendencies to make, to do, to create,\nto produce, whether in the form of utility or of art. The very fact that\nmanual training, art and science are objected to as technical, as\ntending toward mere specialism, is of itself as good testimony as could\nbe offered to the specialized aim which controls current education.\nUnless education had been virtually identified with the exclusively\nintellectual pursuits, with learning as such, all these materials and\nmethods would be welcome, would be greeted with the utmost hospitality.\n\nWhile training for the profession of learning is regarded as the type of\nculture, as a liberal education, that of a mechanic, a musician, a\nlawyer, a doctor, a farmer, a merchant, or a railroad manager is\nregarded as purely technical and professional. The result is that which\nwe see about us everywhere\u2014the division into \u201ccultured\u201d people and\n\u201cworkers,\u201d the separation of theory and practice. Hardly one per cent.\nof the entire school population ever attains to what we call higher\neducation; only five per cent. to the grade of our high school; while\nmuch more than half leave on or before the completion of the fifth year\nof the elementary grade. The simple facts of the case are that in the\ngreat majority of human beings the distinctively intellectual interest\nis not dominant. They have the so-called practical impulse and\ndisposition. In many of those in whom by nature intellectual interest is\nstrong, social conditions prevent its adequate realization. Consequently\nby far the larger number of pupils leave school as soon as they have\nacquired the rudiments of learning, as soon as they have enough of the\nsymbols of reading, writing, and calculating to be of practical use to\nthem in getting a living. While our educational leaders are talking of\nculture, the development of personality, etc., as the end and aim of\neducation, the great majority of those who pass under the tuition of the\nschool regard it only as a narrowly practical tool with which to get\nbread and butter enough to eke out a restricted life. If we were to\nconceive our educational end and aim in a less exclusive way, if we were\nto introduce into educational processes the activities which appeal to\nthose whose dominant interest is to do and to make, we should find the\nhold of the school upon its members to be more vital, more prolonged,\ncontaining more of culture.\n\nBut why should I make this labored presentation? The obvious fact is\nthat our social life has undergone a thorough and radical change. If our\neducation is to have any meaning for life, it must pass through an\nequally complete transformation. This transformation is not something to\nappear suddenly, to be executed in a day by conscious purpose. It is\nalready in progress. Those modifications of our school system which\noften appear (even to those most actively concerned with them, to say\nnothing of their spectators) to be mere changes of detail, mere\nimprovement within the school mechanism, are in reality signs and\nevidences of evolution. The introduction of active occupations, of\nnature study, of elementary science, of art, of history; the relegation\nof the merely symbolic and formal to a secondary position; the change in\nthe moral school atmosphere, in the relation of pupils and teachers\u2014of\ndiscipline; the introduction of more active, expressive, and\nself-directing factors\u2014all these are not mere accidents, they are\nnecessities of the larger social evolution. It remains but to organize\nall these factors, to appreciate them in their fullness of meaning, and\nto put the ideas and ideals involved into complete, uncompromising\npossession of our school system. To do this means to make each one of\nour schools an embryonic community life, active with types of\noccupations that reflect the life of the larger society, and permeated\nthroughout with the spirit of art, history, and science. When the school\nintroduces and trains each child of society into membership within such\na little community, saturating him with the spirit of service, and\nproviding him with the instruments of effective self-direction, we shall\nhave the deepest and best guarantee of a larger society which is worthy,\nlovely, and harmonious.\n\n\n\n\n                                   II\n                  THE SCHOOL AND THE LIFE OF THE CHILD\n\n\nLast week I tried to put before you the relationship between the school\nand the larger life of the community, and the necessity for certain\nchanges in the methods and materials of school work, that it might be\nbetter adapted to present social needs.\n\nToday I wish to look at the matter from the other side, and consider the\nrelationship of the school to the life and development of the children\nin the school. As it is difficult to connect general principles with\nsuch thoroughly concrete things as little children, I have taken the\nliberty of introducing a good deal of illustrative matter from the work\nof the University Elementary School, that in some measure you may\nappreciate the way in which the ideas presented work themselves out in\nactual practice.\n\nSome few years ago I was looking about the school supply stores in the\ncity, trying to find desks and chairs which seemed thoroughly suitable\nfrom all points of view\u2014artistic, hygienic, and educational\u2014to the needs\nof the children. We had a good deal of difficulty in finding what we\nneeded, and finally one dealer, more intelligent than the rest, made\nthis remark: \u201cI am afraid we have not what you want. You want something\nat which the children may work; these are all for listening.\u201d That tells\nthe story of the traditional education. Just as the biologist can take a\nbone or two and reconstruct the whole animal, so, if we put before the\nmind\u2019s eye the ordinary schoolroom, with its rows of ugly desks placed\nin geometrical order, crowded together so that there shall be as little\nmoving room as possible, desks almost all of the same size, with just\nspace enough to hold books, pencils and paper, and add a table, some\nchairs, the bare walls, and possibly a few pictures, we can reconstruct\nthe only educational activity that can possibly go on in such a place.\nIt is all made \u201cfor listening\u201d\u2014for simply studying lessons out of a book\nis only another kind of listening; it marks the dependency of one mind\nupon another. The attitude of listening means, comparatively speaking,\npassivity, absorption; that there are certain ready-made materials which\nare there, which have been prepared by the school superintendent, the\nboard, the teacher, and of which the child is to take in as much as\npossible in the least possible time.\n\nThere is very little place in the traditional schoolroom for the child\nto work. The workshop, the laboratory, the materials, the tools with\nwhich the child may construct, create, and actively inquire, and even\nthe requisite space, have been for the most part lacking. The things\nthat have to do with these processes have not even a definitely\nrecognized place in education. They are what the educational authorities\nwho write editorials in the daily papers generally term \u201cfads\u201d and\n\u201cfrills.\u201d A lady told me yesterday that she had been visiting different\nschools trying to find one where activity on the part of the children\npreceded the giving of information on the part of the teacher, or where\nthe children had some motive for demanding the information. She visited,\nshe said, twenty-four different schools before she found her first\ninstance. I may add that that was not in this city.\n\nAnother thing that is suggested by these schoolrooms, with their set\ndesks, is that everything is arranged for handling as large numbers of\nchildren as possible; for dealing with children _en masse_, as an\naggregate of units; involving, again, that they be treated passively.\nThe moment children act they individualize themselves; they cease to be\na mass, and become the intensely distinctive beings that we are\nacquainted with out of school, in the home, the family, on the\nplayground, and in the neighborhood.\n\nOn the same basis is explicable the uniformity of method and curriculum.\nIf everything is on a \u201clistening\u201d basis, you can have uniformity of\nmaterial and method. The ear, and the book which reflects the ear,\nconstitute the medium which is alike for all. There is next to no\nopportunity for adjustment to varying capacities and demands. There is a\ncertain amount\u2014a fixed quantity\u2014of ready-made results and\naccomplishments to be acquired by all children alike in a given time. It\nis in response to this demand that the curriculum has been developed\nfrom the elementary school up through the college. There is just so much\ndesirable knowledge, and there are just so many needed technical\naccomplishments in the world. Then comes the mathematical problem of\ndividing this by the six, twelve, or sixteen years of school life. Now\ngive the children every year just the proportionate fraction of the\ntotal, and by the time they have finished they will have mastered the\nwhole. By covering so much ground during this hour or day or week or\nyear, everything comes out with perfect evenness at the end\u2014provided the\nchildren have not forgotten what they have previously learned. The\noutcome of all this is Matthew Arnold\u2019s report of the statement, proudly\nmade to him by an educational authority in France, that so many\nthousands of children were studying at a given hour, say eleven o\u2019clock,\njust such a lesson in geography; and in one of our own western cities\nthis proud boast used to be repeated to successive visitors by its\nsuperintendent.\n\nI may have exaggerated somewhat in order to make plain the typical\npoints of the old education: its passivity of attitude, its mechanical\nmassing of children, its uniformity of curriculum and method. It may be\nsummed up by stating that the center of gravity is outside the child. It\nis in the teacher, the text-book, anywhere and everywhere you please\nexcept in the immediate instincts and activities of the child himself.\nOn that basis there is not much to be said about the _life_ of the\nchild. A good deal might be said about the studying of the child, but\nthe school is not the place where the child _lives_. Now the change\nwhich is coming into our education is the shifting of the center of\ngravity. It is a change, a revolution, not unlike that introduced by\nCopernicus when the astronomical center shifted from the earth to the\nsun. In this case the child becomes the sun about which the appliances\nof education revolve; he is the center about which they are organized.\n\nIf we take an example from an ideal home, where the parent is\nintelligent enough to recognize what is best for the child, and is able\nto supply what is needed, we find the child learning through the social\nconverse and constitution of the family. There are certain points of\ninterest and value to him in the conversation carried on: statements are\nmade, inquiries arise, topics are discussed, and the child continually\nlearns. He states his experiences, his misconceptions are corrected.\nAgain the child participates in the household occupations, and thereby\ngets habits of industry, order, and regard for the rights and ideas of\nothers, and the fundamental habit of subordinating his activities to the\ngeneral interest of the household. Participation in these household\ntasks becomes an opportunity for gaining knowledge. The ideal home would\nnaturally have a workshop where the child could work out his\nconstructive instincts. It would have a miniature laboratory in which\nhis inquiries could be directed. The life of the child would extend out\nof doors to the garden, surrounding fields, and forests. He would have\nhis excursions, his walks and talks, in which the larger world out of\ndoors would open to him.\n\nNow, if we organize and generalize all of this, we have the ideal\nschool. There is no mystery about it, no wonderful discovery of pedagogy\nor educational theory. It is simply a question of doing systematically\nand in a large, intelligent, and competent way what for various reasons\ncan be done in most households only in a comparatively meager and\nhaphazard manner. In the first place, the ideal home has to be enlarged.\nThe child must be brought into contact with more grown people and with\nmore children in order that there may be the freest and richest social\nlife. Moreover, the occupations and relationships of the home\nenvironment are not specially selected for the growth of the child; the\nmain object is something else, and what the child can get out of them is\nincidental. Hence the need of a school. In this school the life of the\nchild becomes the all-controlling aim. All the media necessary to\nfurther the growth of the child center there. Learning?\u2014certainly, but\nliving primarily, and learning through and in relation to this living.\nWhen we take the life of the child centered and organized in this way,\nwe do not find that he is first of all a listening being; quite the\ncontrary.\n\nThe statement so frequently made that education means \u201cdrawing out\u201d is\nexcellent, if we mean simply to contrast it with the process of pouring\nin. But, after all, it is difficult to connect the idea of drawing out\nwith the ordinary doings of the child of three, four, seven, or eight\nyears of age. He is already running over, spilling over, with activities\nof all kinds. He is not a purely latent being whom the adult has to\napproach with great caution and skill in order gradually to draw out\nsome hidden germ of activity. The child is already intensely active, and\nthe question of education is the question of taking hold of his\nactivities, of giving them direction. Through direction, through\norganized use, they tend toward valuable results, instead of scattering\nor being left to merely impulsive expression.\n\nIf we keep this before us, the difficulty I find uppermost in the minds\nof many people regarding what is termed the new education is not so much\nsolved as dissolved; it disappears. A question often asked is: if you\nbegin with the child\u2019s ideas, impulses and interests, all so crude, so\nrandom and scattering, so little refined or spiritualized, how is he\ngoing to get the necessary discipline, culture and information? If there\nwere no way open to us except to excite and indulge these impulses of\nthe child, the question might well be asked. We should either have to\nignore and repress the activities, or else to humor them. But if we have\norganization of equipment and of materials, there is another path open\nto us. We can direct the child\u2019s activities, giving them exercise along\ncertain lines, and can thus lead up to the goal which logically stands\nat the end of the paths followed.\n\n\u201cIf wishes were horses, beggars would ride.\u201d Since they are not, since\nreally to satisfy an impulse or interest means to work it out, and\nworking it out involves running up against obstacles, becoming\nacquainted with materials, exercising ingenuity, patience, persistence,\nalertness, it of necessity involves discipline\u2014ordering of power\u2014and\nsupplies knowledge. Take the example of the little child who wants to\nmake a box. If he stops short with the imagination or wish, he certainly\nwill not get discipline. But when he attempts to realize his impulse, it\nis a question of making his idea definite, making it into a plan, of\ntaking the right kind of wood, measuring the parts needed, giving them\nthe necessary proportions, etc. There is involved the preparation of\nmaterials, the sawing, planing, the sand-papering, making all the edges\nand corners to fit. Knowledge of tools and processes is inevitable. If\nthe child realizes his instinct and makes the box, there is plenty of\nopportunity to gain discipline and perseverance, to exercise effort in\novercoming obstacles, and to attain as well a great deal of information.\n\nSo undoubtedly the little child who thinks he would like to cook has\nlittle idea of what it means or costs, or what it requires. It is simply\na desire to \u201cmess around,\u201d perhaps to imitate the activities of older\npeople. And it is doubtless possible to let ourselves down to that level\nand simply humor that interest. But here, too, if the impulse is\nexercised, utilized, it runs up against the actual world of hard\nconditions, to which it must accommodate itself; and there again come in\nthe factors of discipline and knowledge. One of the children became\nimpatient recently, at having to work things out by a long method of\nexperimentation, and said: \u201cWhy do we bother with this? Let\u2019s follow a\nrecipe in a cook-book.\u201d The teacher asked the children where the recipe\ncame from, and the conversation showed that if they simply followed this\nthey would not understand the reasons for what they were doing. They\nwere then quite willing to go on with the experimental work. To follow\nthat work will, indeed, give an illustration of just the point in\nquestion. Their occupation happened that day to be the cooking of eggs,\nas making a transition from the cooking of vegetables to that of meats.\nIn order to get a basis of comparison they first summarized the\nconstituent food elements in the vegetables and made a preliminary\ncomparison with those found in meat. Thus they found that the woody\nfiber or cellulose in vegetables corresponded to the connective tissue\nin meat, giving the element of form and structure. They found that\nstarch and starchy products were characteristic of the vegetables, that\nmineral salts were found in both alike, and that there was fat in both\u2014a\nsmall quantity in vegetable food and a large amount in animal. They were\nprepared then to take up the study of albumen as the characteristic\nfeature of animal food, corresponding to starch in the vegetables, and\nwere ready to consider the conditions requisite for the proper treatment\nof albumen\u2014the eggs serving as the material of experiment.\n\n[Illustration: CHILD\u2019S DRAWING OF A CAVE AND TREES]\n\nThey experimented first by taking water at various temperatures, finding\nout when it was scalding, simmering, and boiling hot, and ascertained\nthe effect of the various degrees of temperature on the white of the\negg. That worked out, they were prepared, not simply to cook eggs, but\nto understand the principle involved in the cooking of eggs. I do not\nwish to lose sight of the universal in the particular incident. For the\nchild simply to desire to cook an egg, and accordingly drop it in water\nfor three minutes, and take it out when he is told, is not educative.\nBut for the child to realize his own impulse by recognizing the facts,\nmaterials and conditions involved, and then to regulate his impulse\nthrough that recognition, is educative. This is the difference, upon\nwhich I wish to insist, between exciting or indulging an interest and\nrealizing it through its direction.\n\nAnother instinct of the child is the use of pencil and paper. All\nchildren like to express themselves through the medium of form and\ncolor. If you simply indulge this interest by letting the child go on\nindefinitely, there is no growth that is more than accidental. But let\nthe child first express his impulse, and then through criticism,\nquestion, and suggestion bring him to consciousness of what he has done,\nand what he needs to do, and the result is quite different. Here, for\nexample, is the work of a seven-year-old child. It is not average work,\nit is the best work done among the little children, but it illustrates\nthe particular principle of which I have been speaking. They had been\ntalking about the primitive conditions of social life when people lived\nin caves. The child\u2019s idea of that found expression in this way: the\ncave is neatly set up on the hill side in an impossible way. You see the\nconventional tree of childhood; a vertical line with horizontal branches\non each side. If the child had been allowed to go on repeating this sort\nof thing day by day, he would be indulging his instinct rather than\nexercising it. But the child was now asked to look closely at trees, to\ncompare those seen with the one drawn, to examine more closely and\nconsciously into the conditions of his work. Then he drew trees from\nobservation.\n\nFinally he drew again from combined observation, memory, and\nimagination. He made again a free illustration, expressing his own\nimaginative thought, but controlled by detailed study of actual trees.\nThe result was a scene representing a bit of forest; so far as it goes,\nit seems to me to have as much poetic feeling as the work of an adult,\nwhile at the same time its trees are, in their proportions possible\nones, not mere symbols.\n\n[Illustration: CHILD\u2019S DRAWING OF A FOREST]\n\nIf we roughly classify the impulses which are available in the school,\nwe may group them under four heads. There is the social instinct of the\nchildren as shown in conversation, personal intercourse, and\ncommunication. We all know how self-centered the little child is at the\nage of four or five. If any new subject is brought up, if he says\nanything at all, it is: \u201cI have seen that;\u201d or, \u201cMy papa or mamma told\nme about that.\u201d His horizon is not large; an experience must come\nimmediately home to him, if he is to be sufficiently interested to\nrelate it to others and seek theirs in return. And yet the egoistic and\nlimited interest of little children is in this manner capable of\ninfinite expansion. The language instinct is the simplest form of the\nsocial expression of the child. Hence it is a great, perhaps the\ngreatest of all educational resources.\n\nThen there is the instinct of making\u2014the constructive impulse. The\nchild\u2019s impulse to do finds expression first in play, in movement,\ngesture, and make-believe, becomes more definite, and seeks outlet in\nshaping materials into tangible forms and permanent embodiment. The\nchild has not much instinct for abstract inquiry. The instinct of\ninvestigation seems to grow out of the combination of the constructive\nimpulse with the conversational. There is no distinction between\nexperimental science for little children and the work done in the\ncarpenter shop. Such work as they can do in physics or chemistry is not\nfor the purpose of making technical generalizations or even arriving at\nabstract truths. Children simply like to do things, and watch to see\nwhat will happen. But this can be taken advantage of, can be directed\ninto ways where it gives results of value, as well as be allowed to go\non at random.\n\nAnd so the expressive impulse of the children, the art instinct, grows\nalso out of the communicating and constructive instincts. It is their\nrefinement and full manifestation. Make the construction adequate, make\nit full, free, and flexible, give it a social motive, something to tell,\nand you have a work of art. Take one illustration of this in connection\nwith the textile work\u2014sewing and weaving. The children made a primitive\nloom in the shop; here the constructive instinct was appealed to. Then\nthey wished to do something with this loom, to make something. It was\nthe type of the Indian loom, and they were shown blankets woven by the\nIndians. Each child made a design kindred in idea to those of the Navajo\nblankets, and the one which seemed best adapted to the work in hand was\nselected. The technical resources were limited, but the coloring and\nform were worked out by the children. The example shown was made by the\ntwelve-year-old children. Examination shows that it took patience,\nthoroughness, and perseverance to do the work. It involved not merely\ndiscipline and information of both a historical sort and the elements of\ntechnical design, but also something of the spirit of art in adequately\nconveying an idea.\n\n[Illustration: CHILD\u2019S DRAWING OF HANDS SPINNING]\n\nOne more instance of the connection of the art side with the\nconstructive side. The children had been studying primitive spinning and\ncarding, when one of them, twelve years of age, made a picture of one of\nthe older children spinning. Here is another piece of work which is not\nquite average; it is better than the average. It is an illustration of\ntwo hands and the drawing out of the wool to get it ready for spinning.\nThis was done by a child eleven years of age. But, upon the whole, with\nthe younger children especially, the art impulse is connected mainly\nwith the social instinct\u2014the desire to tell, to represent.\n\n[Illustration: CHILD\u2019S DRAWING OF A GIRL SPINNING]\n\nNow, keeping in mind these fourfold interests\u2014the interest in\nconversation or communication; in inquiry, or finding out things; in\nmaking things, or construction; and in artistic expression\u2014we may say\nthey are the natural resources, the uninvested capital, upon the\nexercise of which depends the active growth of the child. I wish to give\none or two illustrations, the first from the work of children seven\nyears of age. It illustrates in a way the dominant desire of the\nchildren to talk, particularly about folks and of things in relation to\nfolks. If you observe little children, you will find they are interested\nin the world of things mainly in its connection with people, as a\nbackground and medium of human concerns. Many anthropologists have told\nus there are certain identities in the child interests with those of\nprimitive life. There is a sort or natural recurrence of the child mind\nto the typical activities of primitive peoples; witness the hut which\nthe boy likes to build in the yard, playing hunt, with bows, arrows,\nspears, and so on. Again the question comes: What are we to do with this\ninterest\u2014are we to ignore it, or just excite and draw it out? Or shall\nwe get hold of it and direct it to something ahead, something better?\nSome of the work that has been planned for our seven-year-old children\nhas the latter end in view\u2014to utilize this interest so that it shall\nbecome a means of seeing the progress of the human race. The children\nbegin by imagining present conditions taken away until they are in\ncontact with nature at first hand. That takes them back to a hunting\npeople, to a people living in caves or trees and getting a precarious\nsubsistence by hunting and fishing. They imagine as far as possible the\nvarious natural physical conditions adapted to that sort of life; say, a\nhilly, woody slope, near mountains and a river where fish would be\nabundant. Then they go on in imagination through the hunting to the\nsemi-agricultural stage, and through the nomadic to the settled\nagricultural stage. The point I wish to make is that there is abundant\nopportunity thus given for actual study, for inquiry which results in\ngaining information. So, while the instinct primarily appeals to the\nsocial side, the interest of the child in people and their doings is\ncarried on into the larger world of reality. For example, the children\nhad some idea of primitive weapons, of the stone arrowhead, etc. That\nprovided occasion for the testing of materials as regards their\nfriability, their shape, texture, etc., resulting in a lesson in\nmineralogy, as they examined the different stones to find which was best\nsuited to the purpose. The discussion of the iron age supplied a demand\nfor the construction of a smelting oven made out of clay, and of\nconsiderable size. As the children did not get their drafts right at\nfirst, the mouth of the furnace not being in proper relation to the\nvent, as to size and position, instruction in the principles of\ncombustion, the nature of drafts and of fuel, was required. Yet the\ninstruction was not given ready-made; it was first needed, and then\narrived at experimentally. Then the children took some material, such as\ncopper, and went through a series of experiments, fusing it, working it\ninto objects; and the same experiments were made with lead and other\nmetals. This work has been also a continuous course in geography, since\nthe children have had to imagine and work out the various physical\nconditions necessary to the different forms of social life implied. What\nwould be the physical conditions appropriate to pastoral life? to the\nbeginning of agriculture? to fishing? What would be the natural method\nof exchange between these peoples? Having worked out such points in\nconversation, they have afterward represented them in maps and\nsand-molding. Thus they have gained ideas of the various forms of the\nconfiguration of the earth, and at the same time have seen them in their\nrelation to human activity, so that they are not simply external facts,\nbut are fused and welded with social conceptions regarding the life and\nprogress of humanity. The result, to my mind, justifies completely the\nconviction that children, in a year of such work (of five hours a week\naltogether), get indefinitely more acquaintance with facts of science,\ngeography, and anthropology than they get where information is the\nprofessed end and object, where they are simply set to learning facts in\nfixed lessons. As to discipline, they get more training of attention,\nmore power of interpretation, of drawing inferences, of acute\nobservation and continuous reflection, than if they were put to working\nout arbitrary problems simply for the sake of discipline.\n\nI should like at this point to refer to the recitation. We all know what\nit has been\u2014a placer where the child shows off to the teacher and the\nother children the amount of information he has succeeded in\nassimilating from the text-book. From this other standpoint, the\nrecitation becomes pre\u00ebminently a social meeting place; it is to the\nschool what the spontaneous conversation is at home, excepting that it\nis more organized, following definite lines. The recitation becomes the\nsocial clearing-house, where experiences and ideas are exchanged and\nsubjected to criticism, where misconceptions are corrected, and new\nlines of thought and inquiry are set up.\n\nThis change of the recitation from an examination of knowledge already\nacquired to the free play of the children\u2019s communicative instinct,\naffects and modifies all the language work of the school. Under the old\n_r\u00e9gime_ it was unquestionably a most serious problem to give the\nchildren a full and free use of language. The reason was obvious. The\nnatural motive for language was seldom offered. In the pedagogical\ntext-books language is defined as the medium of expressing thought. It\nbecomes that, more or less, to adults with trained minds, but it hardly\nneeds to be said that language is primarily a social thing, a means by\nwhich we give our experiences to others and get theirs again in return.\nWhen it is taken from its natural basis, it is no wonder that it becomes\na complex and difficult problem to teach language. Think of the\nabsurdity of having to teach language as a thing by itself. If there is\nanything the child will do before he goes to school, it is to talk of\nthe things that interest him. But when there are no vital interests\nappealed to in the school, when language is used simply for the\nrepetition of lessons, it is not surprising that one of the chief\ndifficulties of school work has come to be instruction in the\nmother-tongue. Since the language taught is unnatural, not growing out\nof the real desire to communicate vital impressions and convictions, the\nfreedom of children in its use gradually disappears, until finally the\nhigh-school teacher has to invent all kinds of devices to assist in\ngetting any spontaneous and full use of speech. Moreover, when the\nlanguage instinct is appealed to in a social way, there is a continual\ncontact with reality. The result is that the child always has something\nin his mind to talk about, he has something to say; he has a thought to\nexpress, and a thought is not a thought unless it is one\u2019s own. On the\ntraditional method, the child must say something that he has merely\nlearned. There is all the difference in the world between having\nsomething to say and having to say something. The child who has a\nvariety of materials and facts wants to talk about them, and his\nlanguage becomes more refined and full, because it is controlled and\ninformed by realities. Reading and writing, as well as the oral use of\nlanguage, may be taught on this basis. It can be done in a _related_\nway, as the outgrowth of the child\u2019s social desire to recount his\nexperiences and get in return the experiences of others, directed always\nthrough contact with the facts and forces which determine the truth\ncommunicated.\n\nI shall not have time to speak of the work of the older children, where\nthe original crude instincts of construction and communication have been\ndeveloped into something like scientifically directed inquiry, but I\nwill give an illustration of the use of language following upon this\nexperimental work. The work was on the basis of a simple experiment of\nthe commonest sort, gradually leading the children out into geological\nand geographical study. The sentences that I am going to read seem to me\npoetic as well as \u201cscientific.\u201d \u201cA long time ago when the earth was new,\nwhen it was lava, there was no water on the earth, and there was steam\nall round the earth up in the air, as there were many gases in the air.\nOne of them was carbon dioxide. The steam became clouds, because the\nearth began to cool off, and after a while it began to rain, and the\nwater came down and dissolved the carbon dioxide from the air.\u201d There is\na good deal more science in that than probably would be apparent at the\noutset. It represents some three months of work on the part of the\nchild. The children kept daily and weekly records, but this is part of\nthe summing up of the quarter\u2019s work. I call this language poetic,\nbecause the child has a clear image and has a personal feeling for the\nrealities imaged. I extract sentences from two other records to\nillustrate further the vivid use of language when there is a vivid\nexperience back of it. \u201cWhen the earth was cold enough to condense, the\nwater, with the help of carbon dioxide, _pulls_ the calcium out of the\nrocks into a large body of water where the little animals could get it.\u201d\nThe other reads as follows: \u201cWhen the earth cooled, calcium was in the\nrocks. Then the carbon dioxide and water united and formed a solution,\nand, as it ran, it _tore_ out the calcium and carried it on to the sea,\nwhere there were little animals who took it out of solution.\u201d The use of\nsuch words as \u201cpulled\u201d and \u201ctore\u201d in connection with the process of\nchemical combination evidences a personal realization which compels its\nown appropriate expression.\n\nIf I had not taken so much time in my other illustrations, I should like\nto show how, beginning with very simple material things, the children\nwere led on to larger fields of investigation, and to the intellectual\ndiscipline that is the accompaniment of such research. I will simply\nmention the experiment in which the work began. It consisted in making\nprecipitated chalk, used for polishing metals. The children, with simple\napparatus\u2014a tumbler, lime water, and a glass tube\u2014precipitated the\ncalcium carbonate out of the water; and from this beginning went on to a\nstudy of the processes by which rocks of various sorts, igneous,\nsedimentary, etc., had been formed on the surface of the earth and the\nplaces they occupy; then to points in the geography of the United\nStates, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico; to the effects of these various bodies\nof rock, in their various configurations, upon the human occupations; so\nthat this geological record finally rounded itself out into the life of\nman at the present time. The children saw and felt the connection\nbetween these geologic processes taking place ages and ages ago, and the\nphysical conditions determining the industrial occupations of today.\n\nOf all the possibilities involved in the subject, \u201cThe School and the\nLife of the Child,\u201d I have selected but one, because I have found that\nthat one gives people more difficulty, is more of a stumbling-block,\nthan any other. One may be ready to admit that it would be most\ndesirable for the school to be a place in which the child should really\nlive, and get a life-experience in which he should delight and find\nmeaning for its own sake. But then we hear this inquiry: how, upon this\nbasis, shall the child get the needed information; how shall he undergo\nthe required discipline? Yes, it has come to this, that with many, if\nnot most, people the normal processes of life appear to be incompatible\nwith getting information and discipline. So I have tried to indicate, in\na highly general and inadequate way (for only the school itself, in its\ndaily operation, could give a detailed and worthy representation), how\nthe problem works itself out\u2014how it is possible to lay hold upon the\nrudimentary instincts of human nature, and, by supplying a proper\nmedium, so control their expression as not only to facilitate and enrich\nthe growth of the individual child, but also to supply the results, and\nfar more, of technical information and discipline that have been the\nideals of education in the past.\n\nBut although I have selected this especial way of approach (as a\nconcession to the question almost universally raised), I am not willing\nto leave the matter in this more or less negative and explanatory\ncondition. Life is the great thing after all; the life of the child at\nits time and in its measure, no less than the life of the adult. Strange\nwould it be, indeed, if intelligent and serious attention to what the\nchild _now_ needs and is capable of in the way of a rich, valuable, and\nexpanded life should somehow conflict with the needs and possibilities\nof later, adult life. \u201cLet us live with our children,\u201d certainly means,\nfirst of all, that our children shall live\u2014not that they shall be\nhampered and stunted by being forced into all kinds of conditions, the\nmost remote consideration of which is relevancy to the present life of\nthe child. If we seek the kingdom of heaven, educationally, all other\nthings shall be added unto us\u2014which, being interpreted, is that if we\nidentify ourselves with the real instincts and needs of childhood, and\nask only after its fullest assertion and growth, the discipline and\ninformation and culture of adult life shall all come in their due\nseason.\n\nSpeaking of culture reminds me that in a way I have been speaking only\nof the outside of the child\u2019s activity\u2014only of the outward expression of\nhis impulses toward saying, making, finding out, and creating. The real\nchild, it hardly need be said, lives in the world of imaginative values,\nand ideas which find only imperfect outward embodiment. We hear much\nnowadays about the cultivation of the child\u2019s \u201cimagination.\u201d Then we\nundo much of our own talk and work by a belief that the imagination is\nsome special part of the child, that finds its satisfaction in some one\nparticular direction\u2014generally speaking, that of the unreal and\nmake-believe, of the myth and made-up story. Why are we so hard of heart\nand so slow to believe? The imagination is the medium in which the child\nlives. To him there is everywhere and in everything that occupies his\nmind and activity at all, a surplusage of value and significance. The\nquestion of the relation of the school to the child\u2019s life is at bottom\nsimply this: shall we ignore this native setting and tendency, dealing\nnot with the living child at all, but with the dead image we have\nerected, or shall we give it play and satisfaction? If we once believe\nin life and in the life of the child, then will all the occupations and\nuses spoken of, then will all history and science, become instruments of\nappeal and materials of culture to his imagination, and through that to\nthe richness and the orderliness of his life. Where we now see only the\noutward doing and the outward product, there, behind all visible\nresults, is the re-adjustment of mental attitude, the enlarged and\nsympathetic vision, the sense of growing power, and the willing ability\nto identify both insight and capacity with the interests of the world\nand man. Unless culture be a superficial polish, a veneering of mahogany\nover common wood, it surely is this\u2014the growth of the imagination in\nflexibility, in scope, and in sympathy, till the life which the\nindividual lives is informed with the life of nature and of society.\nWhen nature and society can live in the schoolroom, when the forms and\ntools of learning are subordinated to the substance of experience, then\nshall there be an opportunity for this identification, and culture shall\nbe the democratic password.\n\n\n\n\n                                  III\n                           WASTE IN EDUCATION\n\n\nThe subject announced for today was \u201cWaste in Education.\u201d I should like\nfirst to state briefly its relation to the two preceding lectures. The\nfirst dealt with the school in its social aspects, and the necessary\nre-adjustments that have to be made to render it effective in present\nsocial conditions. The second dealt with the school in relation to the\ngrowth of individual children. Now the third deals with the school as\nitself an institution, both in relation to society and to its own\nmembers\u2014the children. It deals with the question of organization,\nbecause all waste is the result of the lack of it, the motive lying\nbehind organization being promotion of economy and efficiency. This\nquestion is not one of the waste of money or the waste of things. These\nmatters count; but the primary waste is that of human life, the life of\nthe children while they are at school, and afterward because of\ninadequate and perverted preparation.\n\nSo, when we speak of organization, we are not to think simply of the\nexternals; of that which goes by the name \u201cschool system\u201d\u2014the school\nboard, the superintendent, and the building, the engaging and promotion\nof teachers, etc. These things enter in, but the fundamental\norganization is that of the school itself as a community of individuals,\nin its relations to other forms of social life. All waste is due to\nisolation. Organization is nothing but getting things into connection\nwith one another, so that they work easily, flexibly, and fully.\nTherefore in speaking of this question of waste in education, I desire\nto call your attention to the isolation of the various parts of the\nschool system, to the lack of unity in the aims of education, to the\nlack of coherence in its studies and methods.\n\nI have made a chart (I) which, while I speak of the isolations of the\nschool system itself, may perhaps appeal to the eye and save a little\ntime in verbal explanations. A paradoxical friend of mine says there is\nnothing so obscure as an illustration, and it is quite possible that my\nattempt to illustrate my point will simply prove the truth of his\nstatement.\n\nThe blocks represent the various elements in the school system, and are\nintended to indicate roughly the length of time given to each division,\nand also the overlapping, both in time and subjects studied, of the\nindividual parts of the system. With each block is given the historical\nconditions in which it arose and its ruling ideal.\n\n[Illustration: Chart I]\n\n                                      Professional Schools\n                                    +---+---+---+---+---+---+\n                                    |///|///|///|///|///|   |\n                                    |///|///|///|///|///|   |\n                                    +---+---+---+---+---+---+\n                                  Medi\u00e6val  The 19^{th} Century\n                                  _Culture_      _Utility_\n\n                                               High School\n          Kindergarten      Primary-            or Academy\n          +---+--+--+  +--+--+---+---+---+  +---+---+---+---+\n          |   |  |//|  |//|  |   |   |///|  |///|   |   |///|\n          |   |  |//|  |//|  |   |   |///|  |///|   |   |///|\n          +---+--+--+  +--+--+---+---+---+  +---+---+---+---+\n         18^{th} Century   16^{th} Century       Renaissance\n           _Moral_         _Utility_            _Culture_\n                                              _Discipline_\n\n                                     University-     College\n                                      Graduate-------Schools\n                                    +---+---+---+---+---+---+\n                                    |///|///|   |   |   |   |\n                                    |///|///|   |   |   |   |\n                                    +---+---+---+---+---+---+\n                                             Medi\u00e6val\n                                             _Culture_\n                                             _Discipline_\n\n         Connecting        Grammar or\n           Class      Intermediate School        Normal\n           +----+      +---+---+---+---+--  +---+---+---+---+\n           |////|      |///|   |   |///|    |///|   |///|///|\n           |////|      |///|   |   |///|    |///|   |///|///|\n           +----+      +---+---+---+---+--  +---+---+---+---+\n         19^{th} Century     Renaissance         19th Century\n                              _Culture_           _Utility_\n                             _Discipline_         _Culture_\n\n                                          Technical Schools\n                                        +---+---+---+---+---+\n                                        |   |   |   |   |   |\n                                        |   |   |   |   |   |\n                                        +---+---+---+---+---+\n                                          19^{th} Century\n                                             _Utility_\n\nThe school system, upon the whole, has grown from the top down. During\nthe middle ages it was essentially a cluster of professional\nschools\u2014especially law and theology. Our present university comes down\nto us from the middle ages. I will not say that at present it is a\nmedi\u00e6val institution, but it had its roots in the middle ages, and it\nhas not outlived all medi\u00e6val traditions regarding learning.\n\nThe kindergarten, rising with the present century, was a union of the\nnursery and of the philosophy of Schelling; a wedding of the plays and\ngames which the mother carried on with her children, to Schelling\u2019s\nhighly romantic and symbolic philosophy. The elements that came from the\nactual study of child life\u2014the continuation of the nursery\u2014have remained\na life-bringing force in all education; the Schellingesque factors made\nan obstruction between it and the rest of the school system, brought\nabout isolations.\n\nThe line drawn over the top indicates that there is a certain\ninteraction between the kindergarten and the primary school; for, so far\nas the primary school remained in spirit foreign to the natural\ninterests of child life, it was isolated from the kindergarten, so that\nit is a problem, at present, to introduce kindergarten methods into the\nprimary school; the problem of the so-called connecting class. The\ndifficulty is that the two are not one from the start. To get a\nconnection the teacher has had to climb over the wall instead of\nentering in at the gate.\n\nOn the side of aims, the ideal of the kindergarten was the moral\ndevelopment of the children, rather than instruction or discipline; an\nideal sometimes emphasized to the point of sentimentality. The primary\nschool grew practically out of the popular movement of the sixteenth\ncentury, when along with the invention of printing and the growth of\ncommerce, it became a business necessity to know how to read, write, and\nfigure. The aim was distinctly a practical one; it was utility; getting\ncommand of these tools, the symbols of learning, not for the sake of\nlearning, but because they gave access to careers in life otherwise\nclosed.\n\nThe division next to the primary school is the grammar school. The term\nis not much used in the West, but is common in the eastern states. It\ngoes back to the time of the revival of learning\u2014a little earlier\nperhaps than the conditions out of which the primary school originated,\nand, even when contemporaneous, having a different ideal. It had to do\nwith the study of language in the higher sense; because, at the time of\nthe Renaissance, Latin and Greek connected people with the culture of\nthe past, with the Roman and Greek world. The classic languages were the\nonly means of escape from the limitations of the middle ages. Thus there\nsprang up the prototype of the grammar school, more liberal than the\nuniversity (so largely professional in character), for the purpose of\nputting into the hands of the people the key to the old learning, that\nmen might see a world with a larger horizon. The object was primarily\nculture, secondarily discipline. It represented much more than the\npresent grammar school. It was the liberal element in the college,\nwhich, extending downward, grew into the academy and the high school.\nThus the secondary school is still in part just a lower college (having\nan even higher curriculum than the college of a few centuries ago) or a\npreparatory department to a college, and in part a rounding up of the\nutilities of the elementary school.\n\nThere appear then two products of the nineteenth century, the technical\nand normal schools. The schools of technology, engineering, etc., are,\nof course, mainly the development of nineteenth-century business\nconditions, as the primary school was the development of business\nconditions of the sixteenth century. The normal school arose because of\nthe necessity for training teachers, with the idea partly of\nprofessional drill, and partly that of culture.\n\nWithout going into more detail, we have some eight different parts of\nthe school system as represented on the chart, all of which arose\nhistorically at different times, having different ideals in view, and\nconsequently different methods. I do not wish to suggest that all of the\nisolation, all of the separation, that has existed in the past between\nthe different parts of the school system still persists. One must,\nhowever, recognize that they have never yet been welded into one\ncomplete whole. The great problem in education on the administrative\nside is how to unite these different parts.\n\nConsider the training schools for teachers\u2014the normal schools. These\noccupy at present a somewhat anomalous position, intermediate between\nthe high school and the college, requiring the high-school preparation,\nand covering a certain amount of college work. They are isolated from\nthe higher subject-matter of scholarship, since, upon the whole, their\nobject has been to train persons _how_ to teach, rather than _what_ to\nteach; while, if we go to the college, we find the other half of this\nisolation\u2014learning _what_ to teach, with almost a contempt for methods\nof teaching. The college is shut off from contact with children and\nyouth. Its members, to a great extent, away from home and forgetting\ntheir own childhood, become eventually teachers with a large amount of\nsubject-matter at command, and little knowledge of how this is related\nto the minds of those to whom it is to be taught. In this division\nbetween what to teach and how to teach, each side suffers from the\nseparation.\n\nIt is interesting to follow out the inter-relation between primary,\ngrammar, and high schools. The elementary school has crowded up and\ntaken many subjects previously studied in the old New England grammar\nschool. The high school has pushed its subjects down. Latin and algebra\nhave been put in the upper grades, so that the seventh and eighth grades\nare, after all, about all that is left of the old grammar school. They\nare a sort of amorphous composite, being partly a place where children\ngo on learning what they already have learned (to read, write, and\nfigure), and partly a place of preparation for the high school. The name\nin some parts of New England for these upper grades was \u201cIntermediate\nSchool.\u201d The term was a happy one; the work was simply intermediate\nbetween something that had been and something that was going to be,\nhaving no special meaning on its own account.\n\nJust as the parts are separated, so do the ideals differ\u2014moral\ndevelopment, practical utility, general culture, discipline, and\nprofessional training. These aims are each especially represented in\nsome distinct part of the system of education; and with the growing\ninteraction of the parts, each is supposed to afford a certain amount of\nculture, discipline, and utility. But the lack of fundamental unity is\nwitnessed in the fact that one study is still considered good for\ndiscipline, and another for culture; some parts of arithmetic, for\nexample, for discipline and others for use, literature for culture,\ngrammar for discipline, geography partly for utility, partly for\nculture; and so on. The unity of education is dissipated, and the\nstudies become centrifugal; so much of this study to secure this end, so\nmuch of that to secure another, until the whole becomes a sheer\ncompromise and patchwork between contending aims and disparate studies.\nThe great problem in education on the administrative side is to secure\nthe unity of the whole, in the place of a sequence of more or less\nunrelated and overlapping parts and thus to reduce the waste arising\nfrom friction, reduplication and transitions that are not properly\nbridged.\n\n[Illustration: Chart II]\n\n                                      Business\n                                       | 3. ^\n                                       |    |\n                                       v    |\n                                +------------------+\n                                |                  |\n                                |                  |\n             Technical          |                  |\n              Research     ---> |                  |\n                                |                  |\n                                |                  | --->\n           4. University        |      School      |   1. Home\n                                |         A        | <---\n                                |                  |\n            Professional   <--- |                  |\n          Schools Teachers      |                  |\n                                |                  |\n                                |                  |\n                                +------------------+\n                                       ^  |\n                                       |  |\n                                       |  v\n                                    { Garden\n                                 2. { Park\n                                    { Country\n\nIn this second symbolic diagram (II) I wish to suggest that really the\nonly way to unite the parts of the system is to unite each to life. We\ncan get only an artificial unity so long as we confine our gaze to the\nschool system itself. We must look at it as part of the larger whole of\nsocial life. This block (A) in the center represents the school system\nas a whole. (1) At one side we have the home, and the two arrows\nrepresent the free interplay of influences, materials, and ideas between\nthe home life and that of the school. (2) Below we have the relation to\nthe natural environment, the great field of geography in the widest\nsense. The school building has about it a natural environment. It ought\nto be in a garden, and the children from the garden would be led on to\nsurrounding fields, and then into the wider country, with all its facts\nand forces. (3) Above is represented business life, and the necessity\nfor free play between the school and the needs and forces of industry.\n(4) On the other side is the university proper, with its various phases,\nits laboratories, its resources in the way of libraries, museums, and\nprofessional schools.\n\nFrom the standpoint of the child, the great waste in the school comes\nfrom his inability to utilize the experiences he gets outside the school\nin any complete and free way within the school itself; while, on the\nother hand, he is unable to apply in daily life what he is learning at\nschool. That is the isolation of the school\u2014its isolation from life.\nWhen the child gets into the schoolroom he has to put out of his mind a\nlarge part of the ideas, interests, and activities that predominate in\nhis home and neighborhood. So the school, being unable to utilize this\neveryday experience, sets painfully to work, on another tack and by a\nvariety of means, to arouse in the child an interest in school studies.\nWhile I was visiting in the city of Moline a few years ago, the\nsuperintendent told me that they found many children every year, who\nwere surprised to learn that the Mississippi river in the text-book had\nanything to do with the stream of water flowing past their homes. The\ngeography being simply a matter of the schoolroom, it is more or less of\nan awakening to many children to find that the whole thing is nothing\nbut a more formal and definite statement of the facts which they see,\nfeel, and touch every day. When we think that we all live on the earth,\nthat we live in an atmosphere, that our lives are touched at every point\nby the influences of the soil, flora, and fauna, by considerations of\nlight and heat, and then think of what the school study of geography has\nbeen, we have a typical idea of the gap existing between the everyday\nexperiences of the child, and the isolated material supplied in such\nlarge measure in the school. This is but an instance, and one upon which\nmost of us may reflect long before we take the present artificiality of\nthe school as other than a matter of course or necessity.\n\nThough there should be organic connection between the school and\nbusiness life, it is not meant that the school is to prepare the child\nfor any particular business, but that there should be a natural\nconnection of the everyday life of the child with the business\nenvironment about him, and that it is the affair of the school to\nclarify and liberalize this connection, to bring it to consciousness,\nnot by introducing special studies, like commercial geography and\narithmetic, but by keeping alive the ordinary bonds of relation. The\nsubject of compound-business-partnership is probably not in many of the\narithmetics nowadays, though it was there not a generation ago, for the\nmakers of text-books said that if they left out anything they could not\nsell their books. This compound-business-partnership originated as far\nback as the sixteenth century. The joint-stock company had not been\ninvented, and as large commerce with the Indies and Americas grew up, it\nwas necessary to have an accumulation of capital with which to handle\nit. One man said, \u201cI will put in this amount of money for six months,\u201d\nand another, \u201cSo much for two years,\u201d and so on. Thus by joining\ntogether they got money enough to float their commercial enterprises.\nNaturally, then, \u201ccompound partnership\u201d was taught in the schools. The\njoint-stock company was invented; compound partnership disappeared, but\nthe problems relating to it stayed in the arithmetics for two hundred\nyears. They were kept after they had ceased to have practical utility,\nfor the sake of mental discipline\u2014they were \u201csuch hard problems, you\nknow.\u201d A great deal of what is now in the arithmetics under the head of\npercentage is of the same nature. Children of twelve and thirteen years\nof age go through gain and loss calculations, and various forms of bank\ndiscount so complicated that the bankers long ago dispensed with them.\nAnd when it is pointed out that business is not done this way, we hear\nagain of \u201cmental discipline.\u201d And yet there are plenty of real\nconnections between the experience of children and business conditions\nwhich need to be utilized and illuminated. The child should study his\ncommercial arithmetic and geography, not as isolated things by\nthemselves, but in their reference to his social environment. The youth\nneeds to become acquainted with the bank as a factor in modern life,\nwith what it does, and how it does it; and then relevant arithmetical\nprocesses would have some meaning\u2014quite in contradistinction to the\ntime-absorbing and mind-killing examples in percentage, partial\npayments, etc., found in all our arithmetics.\n\nThe connection with the university, as indicated in this chart, I need\nnot dwell upon. I simply wish to indicate that there ought to be a free\ninteraction between all the parts of the school system. There is much of\nutter triviality of subject-matter in elementary and secondary\neducation. When we investigate it, we find that it is full of facts\ntaught that are not facts, which have to be unlearned later on. Now,\nthis happens because the \u201clower\u201d parts of our system are not in vital\nconnection with the \u201chigher.\u201d The university or college, in its idea, is\na place of research, where investigation is going on, a place of\nlibraries and museums, where the best resources of the past are\ngathered, maintained and organized. It is, however, as true in the\nschool as in the university that the spirit of inquiry can be got only\nthrough and with the attitude of inquiry. The pupil must learn what has\nmeaning, what enlarges his horizon, instead of mere trivialities. He\nmust become acquainted with truths, instead of things that were regarded\nas such fifty years ago, or that are taken as interesting by the\nmisunderstanding of a partially educated teacher. It is difficult to see\nhow these ends can be reached except as the most advanced part of the\neducational system is in complete interaction with the most rudimentary.\n\nThe next chart (III) is an enlargement of the second. The school\nbuilding has swelled out, so to speak, the surrounding environment\nremaining the same, the home, the garden and country, the relation to\nbusiness life and the university. The object is to show what the school\nmust become to get out of its isolation and secure the organic\nconnection with social life of which we have been speaking. It is not\nour architect\u2019s plan for the school building that we hope to have; but\nit is a diagrammatic representation of the idea which we want embodied\nin the school building. On the lower side you see the dining-room and\nthe kitchen, at the top the wood and metal shops, and the textile room\nfor sewing and weaving. The center represents the manner in which all\ncome together in the library; that is to say, in a collection of the\nintellectual resources of all kinds that throw light upon the practical\nwork, that give it meaning and liberal value. If the four corners\nrepresent practice, the interior represents the theory of the practical\nactivities. In other words, the object of these forms of practice in the\nschool is not found chiefly in themselves, or in the technical skill of\ncooks, seamstresses, carpenters and masons, but in their connection, on\nthe social side, with the life without; while on the individual side\nthey respond to the child\u2019s need of action, of expression, of desire to\ndo something, to be constructive and creative, instead of simply passive\nand conforming. Their great significance is that they keep the balance\nbetween the social and individual sides\u2014the chart symbolizing\nparticularly the connection with the social. Here on one side is the\nhome. How naturally the lines of connection play back and forth between\nthe home and the kitchen and the textile room of the school! The child\ncan carry over what he learns in the home and utilize it in the school;\nand the things learned in the school he applies at home. These are the\ntwo great things in breaking down isolation, in getting connection\u2014to\nhave the child come to school with all the experience he has got outside\nthe school, and to leave it with something to be immediately used in his\neveryday life. The child comes to the traditional school with a healthy\nbody and a more or less unwilling mind, though, in fact, he does not\nbring both his body and mind with him; he has to leave his mind behind,\nbecause there is no way to use it in the school. If he had a purely\nabstract mind, he could bring it to school with him, but his is a\nconcrete one, interested in concrete things, and unless these things get\nover into school life, he cannot take his mind with him. What we want is\nto have the child come to school with a whole mind and a whole body, and\nleave school with a fuller mind and an even healthier body. And speaking\nof the body suggests that, while there is no gymnasium in these\ndiagrams, the active life carried on in its four corners brings with it\nconstant physical exercise, while our gymnasium proper will deal with\nthe particular weaknesses of children and their correction, and will\nattempt more consciously to build up the thoroughly sound body as the\nabode of the sound mind.\n\n[Illustration: Chart III]\n\n                                      Business\n                                        |  |\n                                        |  |\n                         +------------+<=  =>+------------+\n                         |            |      |            |\n       Technical Schools |            |      |  Textile   |\n          Laboratory     |   Shop     |      | Industries |\n           Research      |            |      |            |\n                         |            +------+            |-----|\n                         |                                |     |\n                         +-------+                +-------+<==  |\n                                 |                |          |  =>\n                                 |    Library     |          Home\n                                 |       B        |          |  =>\n                         +-------+                +-------+<==  |\n       University        |                                |     |\n            Library      |            +------+            |-----|\n            Museum       |  Dining    |      |            |\n                         |   Room     |      |  Kitchen   |\n                         |            |      |            |\n                         |            |   ==>|            |\n                         +------------+   |  +------------+\n                                          |    |\n                                          |    |\n                                       Garden<==\n                                        Park\n                                       Country\n\nThat the dining-room and kitchen connect with the country and its\nprocesses and products it is hardly necessary to say. Cooking may be so\ntaught that it has no connection with country life, and with the\nsciences that find their unity in geography. Perhaps it generally has\nbeen taught without these connections being really made. But all the\nmaterials that come into the kitchen have their origin in the country;\nthey come from the soil, are nurtured through the influences of light\nand water, and represent a great variety of local environments. Through\nthis connection, extending from the garden into the larger world, the\nchild has his most natural introduction to the study of the sciences.\nWhere did these things grow? What was necessary to their growth? What\ntheir relation to the soil? What the effect of different climatic\nconditions? and so on. We all know what the old-fashioned botany was:\npartly collecting flowers that were pretty, pressing and mounting them;\npartly pulling these flowers to pieces and giving technical names to the\ndifferent parts, finding all the different leaves, naming all their\ndifferent shapes and forms. It was a study of plants without any\nreference to the soil, to the country, or to growth. In contrast, a real\nstudy of plants takes them in their natural environment and in their\nuses as well, not simply as food, but in all their adaptations to the\nsocial life of man. Cooking becomes as well a most natural introduction\nto the study of chemistry, giving the child here also something which he\ncan at once bring to bear upon his daily experience. I once heard a very\nintelligent woman say that she could not understand how science could be\ntaught to little children, because she did not see how they could\nunderstand atoms and molecules. In other words, since she did not see\nhow highly abstract facts could be presented to the child independently\nof daily experience, she could not understand how science could be\ntaught at all. Before we smile at this remark, we need to ask ourselves\nif she is alone in her assumption, or whether it simply formulates\nalmost all of our school practice.\n\nThe same relations with the outside world are found in the carpentry and\nthe textile shops. They connect with the country, as the source of their\nmaterials, with physics, as the science of applying energy, with\ncommerce and distribution, with art in the development of architecture\nand decoration. They have also an intimate connection with the\nuniversity on the side of its technological and engineering schools;\nwith the laboratory, and its scientific methods and results.\n\nTo go back to the square which is marked the library (Chart III, A): if\nyou imagine rooms half in the four corners and half in the library, you\nwill get the idea of the recitation room. That is the place where the\nchildren bring the experiences, the problems, the questions, the\nparticular facts which they have found, and discuss them so that new\nlight may be thrown upon them, particularly new light from the\nexperience of others, the accumulated wisdom of the world\u2014symbolized in\nthe library. Here is the organic relation of theory and practice; the\nchild not simply doing things, but getting also the _idea_ of what he\ndoes; getting from the start some intellectual conception that enters\ninto his practice and enriches it; while every idea finds, directly or\nindirectly, some application in experience, and has some effect upon\nlife. This, I need hardly say, fixes the position of the \u201cbook\u201d or\nreading in education. Harmful as a substitute for experience, it is\nall-important in interpreting and expanding experience.\n\nThe other chart (IV) illustrates precisely the same idea. It gives the\nsymbolic upper story of this ideal school. In the upper corners are the\nlaboratories; in the lower corners are the studios for art work, both\nthe graphic and auditory arts. The questions, the chemical and physical\nproblems, arising in the kitchen and shop, are taken to the laboratories\nto be worked out. For instance, this past week one of the older groups\n\n[Illustration: Chart IV]\n\n                          +------------+      +------------+\n                          |            |      |            |\n                          |  Physical  |      | Biological |\n           Laboratories   |and Chemical|      | Laboratory |\n             Research     |Laboratories|      |            |\n                          |            +------+            |\n                          |                                |\n                          +-------+                +-------+\n           University             |                |\n                                  |     Museum     |\n                                  |                |\n             Library      +-------+                +-------+\n             Museum       |                                |\n                          |            +------+            |\n                          |            |      |            |\n                          |    Art     |      |    Music   |\n                          |            |      |            |\n                          |            |      |            |\n                          +------------+      +------------+\n\nof children doing practical work in weaving which involved the use of\nthe spinning wheel, worked out the diagrams of the direction of forces\nconcerned in treadle and wheel, and the ratio of velocities between\nwheel and spindle. In the same manner, the plants with which the child\nhas to do in cooking, afford the basis for a concrete interest in\nbotany, and may be taken and studied by themselves. In a certain school\nin Boston science work for months was centered in the growth of the\ncotton plant, and yet something new was brought in every day. We hope to\ndo similar work with all the types of plants that furnish materials for\nsewing and weaving. These examples will suggest, I hope, the relation\nwhich the laboratories bear to the rest of the school.\n\nThe drawing and music, or the graphic and auditory arts, represent the\nculmination, the idealization, the highest point of refinement of all\nthe work carried on. I think everybody who has not a purely literary\nview of the subject recognizes that genuine art grows out of the work of\nthe artisan. The art of the Renaissance was great, because it grew out\nof the manual arts of life. It did not spring up in a separate\natmosphere, however ideal, but carried on to their spiritual meaning\nprocesses found in homely and everyday forms of life. The school should\nobserve this relationship. The merely artisan side is narrow, but the\nmere art, taken by itself, and grafted on from without, tends to become\nforced, empty, sentimental. I do not mean, of course, that all art work\nmust be correlated in detail to the other work of the school, but simply\nthat a spirit of union gives vitality to the art, and depth and richness\nto the other work. All art involves physical organs, the eye and hand,\nthe ear and voice; and yet it is something more than the mere technical\nskill required by the organs of expression. It involves an idea, a\nthought, a spiritual rendering of things; and yet it is other than any\nnumber of ideas by themselves. It is a living union of thought and the\ninstrument of expression. This union is symbolized by saying that in the\nideal school the art work might be considered to be that of the shops,\npassed through the alembic of library and museum into action again.\n\nTake the textile room as an illustration of such a synthesis. I am\ntalking about a future school, the one we hope, some time, to have. The\nbasal fact in that room is that it is a workshop, doing actual things in\nsewing, spinning, and weaving. The children come into immediate\nconnection with the materials, with various fabrics of silk, cotton,\nlinen and wool. Information at once appears in connection with these\nmaterials; their origin, history, their adaptation to particular uses,\nand the machines of various kinds by which the raw materials are\nutilized. Discipline arises in dealing with the problems involved, both\ntheoretical and practical. Whence does the culture arise? Partly from\nseeing all these things reflected through the medium of their scientific\nand historic conditions and associations, whereby the child learns to\nappreciate them as technical achievements, as thoughts precipitated in\naction; and partly because of the introduction of the art idea into the\nroom itself. In the ideal school there would be something of this sort:\nfirst, a complete industrial museum, giving samples of materials in\nvarious stages of manufacture, and the implements, from the simplest to\nthe most complex, used in dealing with them; then a collection of\nphotographs and pictures illustrating the landscapes and the scenes from\nwhich the materials come, their native homes, and their places of\nmanufacture. Such a collection would be a vivid and continual lesson in\nthe synthesis of art, science, and industry. There would be, also,\nsamples of the more perfect forms of textile work, as Italian, French,\nJapanese, and Oriental. There would be objects illustrating motives of\ndesign and decoration which have entered into production. Literature\nwould contribute its part in its idealized representation of the\nworld-industries, as the Penelope in the Odyssey\u2014a classic in literature\nonly because the character is an adequate embodiment of a certain\nindustrial phase of social life. So, from Homer down to the present\ntime, there is a continuous procession of related facts which have been\ntranslated into terms of art. Music lends its share, from the Scotch\nsong at the wheel to the spinning song of Marguerite, or of Wagner\u2019s\nSenta. The shop becomes a pictured museum, appealing to the eye. It\nwould have not only materials, beautiful woods and designs, but would\ngive a synopsis of the historical evolution of architecture in its\ndrawings and pictures.\n\nThus I have attempted to indicate how the school may be connected with\nlife so that the experience gained by the child in a familiar,\ncommonplace way is carried over and made use of there, and what the\nchild learns in the school is carried back and applied in everyday life,\nmaking the school an organic whole, instead of a composite of isolated\nparts. The isolation of studies as well as of parts of the school system\ndisappears. Experience has its geographical aspect, its artistic and its\nliterary, its scientific and its historical sides. All studies arise\nfrom aspects of the one earth and the one life lived upon it. We do not\nhave a series of stratified earths, one of which is mathematical,\nanother physical, another historical, and so on. We should not live very\nlong in any one taken by itself. We live in a world where all sides are\nbound together. All studies grow out of relations in the one great\ncommon world. When the child lives in varied but concrete and active\nrelationship to this common world, his studies are naturally unified. It\nwill no longer be a problem to correlate studies. The teacher will not\nhave to resort to all sorts of devices to weave a little arithmetic into\nthe history lesson, and the like. Relate the school to life, and all\nstudies are of necessity correlated.\n\nMoreover, if the school is related as a whole to life as a whole, its\nvarious aims and ideals\u2014culture, discipline, information, utility\u2014cease\nto be variants, for one of which we must select one study and for\nanother another. The growth of the child in the direction of social\ncapacity and service, his larger and more vital union with life, becomes\nthe unifying aim; and discipline, culture and information fall into\nplace as phases of this growth.\n\nI wish to say one word more about the relationship of our particular\nschool to the University. The problem is to unify, to organize\neducation, to bring all its various factors together, through putting it\nas a whole into organic union with everyday life. That which lies back\nof the pedagogical school of the University is the necessity of working\nout something to serve as a model for such unification, extending from\nwork beginning with the four-year-old child up through the graduate work\nof the University. Already we have much help from the University in\nscientific work planned, sometimes even in detail, by heads of the\ndepartments. The graduate student comes to us with his researches and\nmethods, suggesting ideas and problems. The library and museum are at\nhand. We want to bring all things educational together; to break down\nthe barriers that divide the education of the little child from the\ninstruction of the maturing youth; to identify the lower and the higher\neducation, so that it shall be demonstrated to the eye that there is no\nlower and higher, but simply education.\n\nSpeaking more especially with reference to the pedagogical side of the\nwork: I suppose the oldest university chair of pedagogy in our country\nis about twenty years old\u2014that of the University of Michigan, founded in\nthe latter seventies. But there are only one or two that have tried to\nmake a connection between theory and practice. They teach for the most\npart by theory, by lectures, by reference to books, rather than through\nthe actual work of teaching itself. At Columbia, through the Teachers\u2019\nCollege, there is an extensive and close connection between the\nUniversity and the training of teachers. Something has been done in one\nor two other places along the same line. We want an even more intimate\nunion here, so that the University shall put all its resources at the\ndisposition of the elementary school, contributing to the evolution of\nvaluable subject-matter and right method, while the school in turn will\nbe a laboratory in which the student of education sees theories and\nideas demonstrated, tested, criticised, enforced, and the evolution of\nnew truths. We want the school in its relation to the University to be a\nworking model of a unified education.\n\nA word as to the relation of the school to educational interests\ngenerally. I heard once that the adoption of a certain method in use in\nour school was objected to by a teacher on this ground: \u201cYou know that\nit is an experimental school. They do not work under the same conditions\nthat we are subject to.\u201d Now, the purpose of performing an experiment is\nthat other people need not experiment; at least need not experiment so\nmuch, may have something definite and positive to go by. An experiment\ndemands particularly favorable conditions in order that results may be\nreached both freely and securely. It has to work unhampered, with all\nthe needed resources at command. Laboratories lie back of all the great\nbusiness enterprises of today, back of every great factory, every\nrailway and steamship system. Yet the laboratory is not a business\nenterprise; it does not aim to secure for itself the conditions of\nbusiness life, nor does the commercial undertaking repeat the\nlaboratory. There is a difference between working out and testing a new\ntruth, or a new method, and applying it on a wide scale, making it\navailable for the mass of men, making it commercial. But the first thing\nis to discover the truth, to afford all necessary facilities, for this\nis the most practical thing in the world in the long run. We do not\nexpect to have other schools literally imitate what we do. A working\nmodel is not something to be copied; it is to afford a demonstration of\nthe feasibility of the principle, and of the methods which make it\nfeasible. So (to come back to our own point) we want here to work out\nthe problem of the unity, the organization of the school system in\nitself, and to do this by relating it so intimately to life as to\ndemonstrate the possibility and necessity of such organization for all\neducation.\n\n\n\n\n                                   IV\n           THREE YEARS OF THE UNIVERSITY ELEMENTARY SCHOOL[1]\n\n\nThe school was started the first week in January, three years ago. I\nshall try this afternoon to give a brief statement of the ideas and\nproblems that were in mind when the experiment was started, and a sketch\nof the development of the work since that time. We began in a small\nhouse in Fifty-seventh street, with fifteen children. We found ourselves\nthe next year with twenty-five children in Kimbark avenue, and then\nmoved in January to Rosalie court, the larger quarters enabling us to\ntake forty children. The next year the numbers increased to sixty, the\nschool remaining at Rosalie court. This year we have had ninety-five on\nthe roll at one time, and are located at 5412 Ellis avenue, where we\nhope to stay till we have a building and grounds of our own.\n\nFootnote 1:\n\n  Stenographic report of a talk by John Dewey at a meeting of the\n  Parents\u2019 Association of the University Elementary School, February,\n  1899; somewhat revised.\n\nThe children during the first year of the school were between the ages\nof six and nine. Now their ages range between four and thirteen\u2014the\nmembers of the oldest group being in their thirteenth year. This is the\nfirst year that we have children under six, and this has been made\npossible through the liberality of friends in Honolulu, H. I., who are\nbuilding up there a memorial kindergarten along the same lines.\n\nThe expenses of the school during the first year, of two terms only,\nwere between $1,300 and $1,400. The expenses this year will be about\n$12,000. Of this amount $5,500 will come from tuitions; $5,000 has been\ngiven by friends interested in the school, and there remains about\n$1,500 yet to be raised for the conduct of the school. This is an\nindication of the increase of expenses. The average expense per pupil is\nabout the same since the start, _i. e._, $120 per child per school year.\nRelatively speaking, this year the expenses of the school took something\nof a jump, through the expense of moving to a new building, and the\nrepairs and changes there necessary. An increase in the staff of\nteachers has also enlarged the work as well as the debits of the school.\nNext year (1899\u20131900) we hope to have about 120 children, and apparently\nthe expenses will be about $2,500 more than this. Of this amount $2,000\nwill be met by the increase in tuition from the pupils. The cost of a\nchild to the school, $120 a year, is precisely the tuition charged by\nthe University for students and is double the average tuition charged by\nthe school. But it is not expected that the University tuition will come\nanywhere near meeting the expense involved there. One reason for not\nincreasing the tuition here, even if it were advisable for other\nreasons, is that it is well to emphasize, from an educational point of\nview, that elementary as well as advanced education requires endowment.\nThere is every reason why money should be spent freely for the\norganization and maintenance of foundation work in education as well as\nfor the later stages.\n\nThe elementary school has had from the outset two sides: one, the\nobvious one of instruction of the children who have been intrusted to\nit; the other, relationship to the University, since the school is under\nthe charge, and forms a part of the pedagogical work of the University.\n\nWhen the school was started, there were certain ideas in mind\u2014perhaps it\nwould be better to say questions and problems; certain points which it\nseemed worth while to test. If you will permit one personal word, I\nshould like to say that it is sometimes thought that the school started\nout with a number of ready-made principles and ideas which were to be\nput into practice at once. It has been popularly assumed that I am the\nauthor of these ready-made ideas and principles which were to go into\nexecution. I take this opportunity to say that the educational conduct\nof the school, as well as its administration, the selection of\nsubject-matter, and the working out of the course of study, as well as\nactual instruction of children, have been almost entirely in the hands\nof the teachers of the school; and that there has been a gradual\ndevelopment of the educational principles and methods involved, not a\nfixed equipment. The teachers started with question marks, rather than\nwith fixed rules, and if any answers have been reached, it is the\nteachers in the school who have supplied them. We started upon the whole\nwith four such questions, or problems:\n\n1. What can be done, and how can it be done, to bring the school into\ncloser relation with the home and neighborhood life\u2014instead of having\nthe school a place where the child comes solely to learn certain\nlessons? What can be done to break down the barriers which have\nunfortunately come to separate the school life from the rest of the\neveryday life of the child? This does not mean, as it is sometimes,\nperhaps, interpreted to mean, that the child should simply take up in\nthe school things already experienced at home and study them, but that,\nso far as possible, the child shall have the same attitude and point of\nview in the school as in the home; that he shall find the same interest\nin going to school, and in there doing things worth doing for their own\nsake, that he finds in the plays and occupations which busy him in his\nhome and neighborhood life. It means, again, that the motives which keep\nthe child at work and growing at home shall be used in the school, so\nthat he shall not have to acquire another set of principles of actions\nbelonging only to the school\u2014separate from those of the home. It is a\nquestion of the unity of the child\u2019s experience, of its actuating\nmotives and aims, not of amusing or even interesting the child.\n\n2. What can be done in the way of introducing subject-matter in history\nand science and art, that shall have a positive value and real\nsignificance in the child\u2019s own life; that shall represent, even to the\nyoungest children, something worthy of attainment in skill or knowledge;\nas much so to the little pupil as are the studies of the high-school or\ncollege student to him? You know what the traditional curriculum of the\nfirst few years is, even though many modifications have been made. Some\nstatistics have been collected showing that 75 or 80 per cent. of the\nfirst three years of a child in school are spent upon the form\u2014not the\nsubstance\u2014of learning, the mastering of the symbols of reading, writing,\nand arithmetic. There is not much positive nutriment in this. Its\npurpose is important\u2014is necessary\u2014but it does not represent the same\nkind of increase in a child\u2019s intellectual and moral experience that is\nrepresented by positive truth of history and nature, or by added insight\ninto reality and beauty. One thing, then, we wanted to find out is how\nmuch can be given a child that is really worth his while to get, in\nknowledge of the world about him, of the forces in the world, of\nhistorical and social growth, and in capacity to express himself in a\nvariety of artistic forms. From the strictly educational side this has\nbeen the chief problem of the school. It is along this line that we hope\nto make our chief contribution to education in general; we hope, that\nis, to work out and publish a positive body of subject-matter which may\nbe generally available.\n\n3. How can instruction in these formal, symbolic branches\u2014the mastering\nof the ability to read, write, and use figures intelligently\u2014be carried\non with everyday experience and occupation as their background and in\ndefinite relations to other studies of more inherent content, and be\ncarried on in such a way that the child shall feel their necessity\nthrough their connection with subjects which appeal to him on their own\naccount? If this can be accomplished, he will have a vital motive for\ngetting the technical capacity. It is not meant, as has been sometimes\njocosely stated, that the child learn to bake and sew at school, and to\nread, write, and figure at home. It is intended that these formal\nsubjects shall not be presented in such large doses at first as to be\nthe exclusive objects of attention, and that the child shall be led by\nthat which he is doing to feel the need for acquiring skill in the use\nof symbols and the immediate power they give. In any school, if the\nchild realizes the motive for the use and application of number and\nlanguage he has taken the longest step toward securing the power; and he\ncan realize the motive only as he has some particular\u2014not some general\nand remote\u2014use for the symbols.\n\n4. Individual attention. This is secured by small groupings\u2014eight or ten\nin a class\u2014and a large number of teachers supervising systematically the\nintellectual needs and attainments and physical well-being and growth of\nthe child. To secure this we have now 135 hours of instructors\u2019 time per\nweek, that is, the time of nine teachers for three hours per day, or one\nteacher per group. It requires but a few words to make this statement\nabout attention to individual powers and needs, and yet the whole of the\nschool\u2019s aims and methods, moral, physical, intellectual, are bound up\nin it.\n\nI think these four points present a fair statement of what we have set\nout to discover. The school is often called an experimental school, and\nin one sense that is the proper name. I do not like to use it too much,\nfor fear parents will think we are experimenting upon the children, and\nthat they naturally object to. But it is an experimental school\u2014at least\nI hope so\u2014with reference to education and educational problems. We have\nattempted to find out by trying, by doing\u2014not alone by discussion and\ntheorizing\u2014_whether_ these problems may be worked out, and _how_ they\nmay be worked out.\n\nNext a few words about the means that have been used in the school in\norder to test these four questions, and to supply their answers, and\nfirst as to the place given to hand-work of different kinds in the\nschool. There are three main lines regularly pursued: (_a_) the\nshop-work with wood and tools, (_b_) cooking work, and (_c_) work with\ntextiles\u2014sewing and weaving. Of course, there is other hand-work in\nconnection with science, as science is largely of an experimental\nnature. It is a fact that may not have come to your attention that a\nlarge part of the best and most advanced scientific work involves a\ngreat deal of manual skill, the training of the hand and eye. It is\nimpossible for one to be a first-class worker in science without this\ntraining in manipulation, and in handling apparatus and materials. In\nconnection with the history work, especially with the younger children,\nhand-work is brought in in the way of making implements, weapons, tools,\netc. Of course, the art work is another side\u2014drawing, painting, and\nmodeling. Logically, perhaps, the gymnasium work does not come in here,\nbut as a means of developing moral and intellectual control through the\nmedium of the body it certainly does. The children have one-half hour\nper day of this form of physical exercise. Along this line we have found\nthat hand-work, in large variety and amount, is the most easy and\nnatural method of keeping up the same attitude of the child in and out\nof the school. The child gets the largest part of his acquisitions\nthrough his bodily activities, until he learns to work systematically\nwith the intellect. That is the purpose of this work in the school, to\ndirect these activities, to systematize and organize them, so that they\nshall not be as haphazard and as wandering as they are outside of\nschool. The problem of making these forms of practical activity work\ncontinuously and definitely together, leading from one factor of skill\nto another, from one intellectual difficulty to another, has been one of\nthe most difficult, and at the same time one in which we have been most\nsuccessful. The various kinds of work, carpentry, cooking, sewing, and\nweaving, are selected as involving different kinds of skill, and\ndemanding different types of intellectual attitude on the part of the\nchild, and because they represent some of the most important activities\nof the everyday outside world: the question of living under shelter, of\ndaily food and clothing, of the home, of personal movement and exchange\nof goods. He gets also the training of sense organs, of touch, of sight,\nand the ability to co\u00f6rdinate eye and hand. He gets healthy exercise;\nfor the child demands a much larger amount of physical activity than the\nformal program of the ordinary school permits. There is also a continual\nappeal to memory, to judgment, in adapting ends to means, a training in\nhabits of order, industry, and neatness in the care of the tools and\nutensils, and in doing things in a systematic, instead of a haphazard,\nway. Then, again, these practical occupations make a background,\nespecially in the earlier groups, for the later studies. The children\nget a good deal of chemistry in connection with cooking, of number work\nand geometrical principles in carpentry, and a good deal of geography in\nconnection with their theoretical work in weaving and sewing. History\nalso comes in with the origin and growth of various inventions, and\ntheir effects upon social life and political organization.\n\nPerhaps more attention, upon the whole, has been given to our second\npoint, that of positive subject-matter, than to any one other thing. On\nthe history side the curriculum is now fairly well worked out. The\nyounger children begin with the home and occupations of the home. In the\nsixth year the intention is that the children should study occupations\noutside the home, the larger social industries\u2014farming, mining, lumber,\netc.\u2014that they may see the complex and various social industries on\nwhich life depends, while incidentally they investigate the use of the\nvarious materials\u2014woods, metals, and the processes applied\u2014thus getting\na beginning of scientific study. The next year is given to the\nhistorical development of industry and invention\u2014starting with man as a\nsavage and carrying him through the typical phases of his progress\nupward, until the iron age is reached and man begins to enter upon a\ncivilized career. The object of the study of primitive life is not to\nkeep the child interested in lower and relatively savage stages, but to\nshow him the steps of progress and development, especially along the\nline of invention, by which man was led into civilization. There is a\ncertain nearness, after all, in the child to primitive forms of life.\nThey are much more simple than existing institutions. By throwing the\nemphasis upon the progress of man, and upon the way advance has been\nmade, we hope to avoid the objections that hold against paying too much\nattention to the crudities and distracting excitements of savage life.\n\nThe next two or three years, _i. e._, the fourth and fifth grades, and\nperhaps the sixth, will be devoted to American history. It is then that\nhistory, properly speaking, begins, as the study of primitive life can\nhardly be so called.\n\nThen comes Greek history and Roman, in the regular chronological order,\neach year having its own work planned with reference to what has come\nbefore and after.\n\nThe science work was more difficult to arrange and systematize, because\nthere was so little to follow\u2014so little that has been already done in an\norganized way. We are now at work upon a program,[2] and I shall not\nspeak in detail about it. The first two or three years cultivate the\nchildren\u2019s powers of observation, lead them to sympathetic interest in\nthe habits of plants and animals, and to look at things with reference\nto their uses. Then the center of the work becomes geographical\u2014the\nstudy of the earth, as the most central thing. From this almost all the\nwork grows out, and to it the work goes back. Another standpoint in the\nscience work is that of the application of natural forces to the service\nof man through machines. Last year a good deal of work was done in\nelectricity (and will be repeated this year), based on the telegraph and\ntelephone\u2014taking up the things that can easily be grasped.\n\nFootnote 2:\n\n  This year\u2019s program is published in the _Elementary School Record_.\n  Address The University of Chicago Press for particulars.\n\nIn mechanics they have studied locks and clocks with reference to the\nadaptation of the various parts of the machinery. All this work makes a\nmost excellent basis for more formal physics later on. Cooking gives\nopportunity for getting a great many ideas of heat and water, and of\ntheir effects. The scientific work taken up in the school differs mainly\nfrom that of other schools in having the experimental part\u2014physics and\nchemistry\u2014emphasized, and is not confined simply to nature study\u2014the\nstudy of plants and animals. Not that the latter is less valuable, but\nthat we find it possible to introduce the physical aspects from the\nfirst.\n\nIf I do not spend a large amount of time in speaking of the music and\nart work, it is not because they are not considered valuable and\nimportant\u2014certainly as much so as any other work done in the school, not\nonly in the development of the child\u2019s moral and \u00e6sthetic nature, but\nalso from a strictly intellectual point of view. I know of no work in\nthe school that better develops the power of attention, the habit of\nobservation and of consecutiveness, of seeing parts in relation to a\nwhole.\n\nI shall now say a few words about the administrative side of the school.\nAt the outset we mixed up the children of different ages and attainments\nas much as possible, believing there were mental advantages in the\ngive-and-take thus secured, as well as the moral advantages in having\nthe older assume certain responsibilities in the care of the younger. As\nthe school grew, it became necessary to abandon the method, and to group\nthe children with reference to their common capacities. These groupings,\nhowever, are based, not on ability to read and write, but upon\nsimilarity of mental attitude and interest, and upon general\nintellectual capacity and mental alertness. There are ways in which we\nare still trying to carry out the idea of mixing up the children, that\nwe may not build the rigid stepladder system of the \u201cgraded\u201d school. One\nstep in this direction is having the children move about and come in\ncontact with different teachers. While there are difficulties and evils\nconnected with this, I think one of the most useful things in the school\nis that children come into intimate relation with a number of different\npersonalities. The children also meet in general assemblies\u2014for singing,\nand for the report of the whole school work as read by members of the\ndifferent groups. The older children are also given a half hour a week\nin which to join some of the younger groups, and, if possible, as in\nhand-work, enter into the work of the younger children. In various ways\nwe are attempting to keep a family spirit throughout the school, and not\nthe feeling of isolated classes and grades.\n\nThe organization of the teaching force has gradually become\ndepartmental, as the needs of the work have indicated its chief\nbranches. So we now have recognized divisions of Science, History,\nDomestic or Household Arts, Manual Training in the limited sense (wood\nand metals), Music, Art (that is, drawing, water colors, clay modeling,\netc.), and Gymnasium. As the work goes on into the secondary period, the\nlanguages and mathematics will also of necessity assume a more\ndifferentiated and distinct position. As it is sometimes said that\ncorrelated or thoroughly harmonized work cannot be secured upon this\nbasis, I am happy to say that our experience shows positively that there\nare no intrinsic difficulties. Through common devotion to the best\ndevelopment of the child, through common loyalty to the main aims and\nmethods of the school, our teachers have demonstrated that in education,\nas in business, the best organization is secured through proper regard\nfor natural divisions of labor, interest, and training. The child\nsecures the advantage in discipline and knowledge of contact with\nexperts in each line, while the individual teachers serve the common\nthought in diverse ways, thus multiplying and reinforcing it.\n\nUpon the moral side, that of so-called discipline and order, where the\nwork of the University Elementary School has perhaps suffered most from\nmisunderstanding and misrepresentation, I shall say only that our ideal\nhas been, and continues to be, that of the best form of family life,\nrather than that of a rigid graded school. In the latter, the large\nnumber of children under the care of a single teacher, and the very\nlimited number of modes of activity open to the pupils, have made\nnecessary certain fixed and somewhat external forms of \u201ckeeping order.\u201d\nIt would be very stupid to copy these, under the changed conditions of\nour school, its small groups permitting and requiring the most intimate\npersonal acquaintance of child and teacher, and its great variety of\nforms of work, with their differing adaptations to the needs of\ndifferent children. If we have permitted to our children more than the\nusual amount of freedom, it has not been in order to relax or decrease\nreal discipline, but because under our particular conditions larger and\nless artificial responsibilities could thus be required of the children,\nand their entire development of body and spirit be more harmonious and\ncomplete. And I am confident that the parents who have intrusted their\nchildren to us for any length of time will agree in saying that, while\nthe children like, or love, to come to school, yet work, and not\namusement, has been the spirit and teaching of the school; and that this\nfreedom has been granted under such conditions of intelligent and\nsympathetic oversight as to be a means of upbuilding and strengthening\ncharacter.\n\nAt the end of three years, then, we are not afraid to say that some of\nour original questions have secured affirmative answers. The increase of\nour children from fifteen to almost one hundred, along with a practical\ndoubling of fees, has shown that parents are ready for a form of\neducation that makes individual growth its sole controlling aim. The\npresence of an organized corps of instructors demonstrates that\nthoroughly educated teachers are ready to bring to elementary education\nthe same resources of training, knowledge, and skill that have long been\nat the command of higher education. The everyday work of the school\nshows that children can live in school as out of it, and yet grow daily\nin wisdom, kindness, and the spirit of obedience\u2014that learning may, even\nwith little children, lay hold upon the substance of truth that\nnourishes the spirit, and yet the forms of knowledge be observed and\ncultivated; and that growth may be genuine and thorough, and yet a\ndelight.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\n\n\n                          TRANSCRIBER\u2019S NOTES\n\n\n 1. Silently corrected typographical errors.\n 2. Retained anachronistic and non-standard spellings as printed.\n 3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.","title":"The School and Society: Being three lectures","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":22900}