{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_74376/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_74376","id":"gutenberg_74376","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/74376","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Teaching & Education","Education -- Philosophy","Educational sociology"],"text":"THE SCHOOL AND SOCIETY\n\n                     THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS\n                            CHICAGO, ILLINOIS\n\n                              [Illustration]\n\n                        THE BAKER & TAYLOR COMPANY\n                                 NEW YORK\n\n                      THE CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS\n                                  LONDON\n\n\n\n\n                                  _The_\n                                  SCHOOL\n                                  _and_\n                                 SOCIETY\n\n                             _By_ JOHN DEWEY\n\n                             REVISED EDITION\n\n                              [Illustration]\n\n                     THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS\n                            CHICAGO \u00b7 ILLINOIS\n\n               COPYRIGHT 1900 BY THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO\n                  COPYRIGHT 1900 AND 1915 BY JOHN DEWEY\n               ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. PUBLISHED NOVEMBER 1899\n                        SECOND EDITION AUGUST 1915\n                      FIFTEENTH IMPRESSION JULY 1942\n\n                              [Illustration]\n\n         COMPOSED AND PRINTED BY THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS\n                        CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, U.S.A.\n\n\n\n\n                                    TO\n                            MRS. EMMONS BLAINE\n                     TO WHOSE INTEREST IN EDUCATIONAL\n                                  REFORM\n                       THE APPEARANCE OF THIS BOOK\n                                  IS DUE\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n                                                         PAGE\n\n       I. THE SCHOOL AND SOCIAL PROGRESS                    3\n      II. THE SCHOOL AND THE LIFE OF THE CHILD             31\n     III. WASTE IN EDUCATION                               59\n      IV. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ELEMENTARY EDUCATION           87\n       V. FROEBEL\u2019S EDUCATIONAL PRINCIPLES                111\n      VI. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF OCCUPATIONS                   131\n     VII. THE DEVELOPMENT OF ATTENTION                    141\n    VIII. THE AIM OF HISTORY IN ELEMENTARY EDUCATION      155\n\n\n\n\nLIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS\n\n\n                            FACING PAGE\n\n    DRAWING OF A CAVE AND TREES      40\n    DRAWING OF A FOREST              42\n    DRAWING OF HANDS SPINNING        44\n    DRAWING OF A GIRL SPINNING       46\n\n\n\n\nPUBLISHER\u2019S NOTE\n\n\nThe first three chapters of this book were delivered as lectures before\nan audience of parents and others interested in the University Elementary\nSchool, in the month of April of the year 1899. Mr. Dewey revised them in\npart from a stenographic report, and unimportant changes and the slight\nadaptations necessary for the press have been made in his absence. The\nlectures retain therefore the unstudied character as well as the power of\nthe spoken word. As they imply more or less familiarity with the work of\nthe Elementary School, Mr. Dewey\u2019s supplementary statement of this has\nbeen added.\n\n\n\n\nAUTHOR\u2019S NOTE\n\n\nA second printing affords a grateful opportunity for recalling that this\nlittle book is a sign of the co-operating 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 whose\ntimely and persisting generosity has made possible the school which\ninspired and defined the ideas of these pages. These friends, I am sure,\nwould be the first to recognize the peculiar appropriateness of especial\nmention of the names of Mrs. Charles R. Crane and Mrs. William R. 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-operation of the diverse\nthoughts and deeds of many persons in undertaking to enlarge the life of\nthe child will abide.\n\n\n\n\nAUTHOR\u2019S NOTE TO SECOND EDITION\n\n\nThe present edition includes some slight verbal revisions of the three\nlectures constituting the first portion of the book. The latter portion\nis included for the first time, containing material borrowed, with some\nchanges, from the author\u2019s contributions to the _Elementary School\nRecord_, long out of print.\n\nThe writer may perhaps be permitted a word to express his satisfaction\nthat the educational point of view presented in this book is not so\nnovel as it was fifteen years ago; and his desire to believe that the\neducational experiment of which the book is an outgrowth has not been\nwithout influence in the change.\n\n                                                                     J. D.\n\nNEW YORK CITY July, 1915\n\n\n\n\nTHE SCHOOL AND SOCIAL PROGRESS\n\n\n\n\nI\n\nTHE 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\nthe work of the school. And rightly so. Yet the range of the outlook\nneeds to be enlarged. What the best and wisest parent wants for his own\nchild, that must the community want for all of its children. Any other\nideal for our schools is narrow and unlovely; acted upon, it destroys\nour democracy. All that society has accomplished for itself is put,\nthrough the agency of the school, at the disposal of its future members.\nAll its better 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;\nit will cease to be an affair which proceeds only from the over-ingenious\nminds of pedagogues dealing with particular pupils. It will appear as\npart and parcel of the whole social evolution, and, in its more general\nfeatures at least, as inevitable. Let us then ask after the main aspects\nof the social movement; and afterward turn to the school to find what\nwitness it gives of effort to put itself in line. And since it is quite\nimpossible to cover the whole ground, I shall for the most part confine\nmyself to one typical thing in the modern school movement\u2014that which\npasses under the name of manual training\u2014hoping if the relation of that\nto changed social conditions appears, we shall be ready to concede the\npoint as well regarding other educational innovations.\n\nI make no apology for not dwelling at length upon the social changes\nin question. Those I shall mention are writ so large that he who runs\nmay read. The change that comes first to mind, the one that overshadows\nand even 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\nis making over, even as to its physical forms; political boundaries\nare wiped out and moved about, as if they were indeed only lines on a\npaper map; population is hurriedly gathered into cities from the ends\nof the earth; habits of living are altered with startling abruptness\nand thoroughness; 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 some other than a formal and superficial\nfashion is 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\nthe center in which were carried on, or about which were clustered,\nall the typical forms of industrial occupation. The clothing worn was\nfor the most part made in the house; the members of the household were\nusually familiar also with the shearing of the sheep, the carding and\nspinning of the wool, and the plying of the loom. Instead of pressing\na button and flooding the house with electric light, the whole process\nof getting 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 building\nmaterials, of household furniture, even of metal ware, of nails, hinges,\nhammers, etc., was produced in the immediate neighborhood, in shops which\nwere constantly open to inspection and often centers of neighborhood\ncongregation. The entire industrial process stood revealed, from the\nproduction on the farm of the raw materials till the finished article was\nactually put to use. Not only this, but practically every member of the\nhousehold had his own share in the work. The children, as they gained in\nstrength and capacity, were gradually initiated into the mysteries of the\nseveral processes. It was a matter of immediate and personal concern,\neven to the point of actual participation.\n\nWe cannot overlook the factors of discipline and of character-building\ninvolved in this kind of life: training in habits of order and of\nindustry, and in the idea of responsibility, of obligation to do\nsomething, to produce something, in the world. There was always something\nwhich really needed to be done, and a real necessity that each member\nof the household should do his own part faithfully and in co-operation\nwith others. Personalities which became effective in action were bred and\ntested in the medium of action. Again, we cannot overlook the importance\nfor educational purposes of the close and intimate acquaintance got\nwith nature at first hand, with real things and materials, with the\nactual processes of their manipulation, and the knowledge of their\nsocial necessities 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 sawmill, the gristmill, the cooper shop, and the blacksmith forge,\nwere continuously operative.\n\nNo number of object-lessons, got up _as_ object-lessons for the sake\nof giving information, can afford even the shadow of a substitute for\nacquaintance with the plants and animals of the farm and garden acquired\nthrough actual living among them and caring for them. No training of\nsense-organs in school, introduced for the sake of training, can begin to\ncompete with the alertness and fulness of sense-life that comes through\ndaily intimacy and interest in familiar occupations. Verbal memory can be\ntrained in committing tasks, a certain discipline of the reasoning powers\ncan be acquired through lessons in science and mathematics; but, after\nall, this is somewhat remote and shadowy compared with the training of\nattention and of judgment that is acquired in having to do things with a\nreal motive behind and a real outcome ahead. At present, concentration\nof industry and division of labor have practically eliminated household\nand neighborhood occupations\u2014at least for educational purposes. But it\nis useless to bemoan the departure of the good old days of children\u2019s\nmodesty, reverence, and implicit obedience, if we expect merely by\nbemoaning and by exhortation to bring them back. It is radical conditions\nwhich have changed, and only an equally radical change in education\nsuffices. We must recognize our compensations\u2014the increase in toleration,\nin breadth of social judgment, the larger acquaintance with human nature,\nthe sharpened alertness in reading signs of character and interpreting\nsocial situations, greater accuracy of adaptation to differing\npersonalities, contact with greater commercial activities. These\nconsiderations mean much to the city-bred child of today. Yet there is\na real problem: how shall we retain these advantages, and yet introduce\ninto the school something representing the other side of life\u2014occupations\nwhich exact personal responsibilities and which train the child in\nrelation 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, shopwork, 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\nin the home, but rather by instinct, by experimenting and finding that\nsuch work takes a vital hold of pupils and gives them something which\nwas not to be got in any other way. Consciousness of its real import is\nstill so weak that the work is often done in a half-hearted, confused,\nand unrelated 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 the\nfull spontaneous interest and attention of the children. It keeps them\nalert and active, instead of passive and receptive; it makes them more\nuseful, more capable, and hence more inclined to be helpful at home; it\nprepares them to some extent for the practical duties of later life\u2014the\ngirls to be more efficient house managers, if not actually cooks and\nseamstresses; the boys (were our educational system only adequately\nrounded out into trade schools) for their future vocations. I do not\nunderestimate the worth of these reasons. Of those indicated by the\nchanged attitude of the children I shall indeed have something to say in\nmy next talk, when speaking directly of the relationship of the school\nto the child. But the point of view is, upon the whole, unnecessarily\nnarrow. We must conceive of work in wood and metal, of weaving, sewing,\nand cooking, as methods of living and learning, not as distinct studies.\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 school\nitself shall be made a genuine form of active community life, instead of\na 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 leaders\nand followers, mutual co-operation and emulation. In the schoolroom the\nmotive and the cement of social organization are alike wanting. Upon\nthe ethical side, the tragic weakness of the present school is that it\nendeavors to prepare future members of the social order in a medium in\nwhich the conditions of the social spirit are eminently 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\nis sure to give a shock. But the change in the social attitude is\nequally marked. The mere absorbing 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 prevailing 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-operation 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 of\nfree communication, of interchange of ideas, suggestions, results, both\nsuccesses and failures of previous experiences, becomes the dominating\nnote of the recitation. So far as emulation enters in, it is in the\ncomparison of individuals, not with regard to the quantity of information\npersonally absorbed, but with reference to the quality of work done\u2014the\ngenuine community standard of value. In an informal but all the more\npervasive way, the school life organizes itself on a social basis.\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-operation and community life, discipline must grow\nout of and be relative to such an aim. There is little of one sort of\norder where things are in process of construction; there is a certain\ndisorder in any busy workshop; there is not silence; persons are not\nengaged in maintaining certain fixed physical postures; their arms are\nnot folded; they are not holding their books thus and so. They are doing\na variety of things, and there is the confusion, the bustle, that results\nfrom activity. But out of the occupation, out of doing things that are\nto produce results, and out of doing these in a social and co-operative\nway, there is born a discipline of its own kind and type. Our whole\nconception of school discipline changes when we get this point of view.\nIn critical moments we all realize that the only discipline that stands\nby us, the only training that becomes intuition, is that got through life\nitself. That we learn from experience, and from books or the sayings of\nothers _only_ as they are related to experience, are not mere phrases.\nBut the school has been so set apart, so isolated from the ordinary\nconditions and motives of life, that the place where children are sent\nfor discipline is the one place in the world where it is most difficult\nto get experience\u2014the mother of all discipline worth the name. It is only\nwhen a narrow and fixed image of traditional school discipline dominates\nthat one is in any danger of overlooking that deeper and infinitely wider\ndiscipline that comes from having a part to do in constructive work,\nin contributing to a result which, social in spirit, is none the less\nobvious and tangible in form\u2014and hence in a form with reference to which\nresponsibility may be exacted and accurate judgment passed.\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 and\norderly streams of instruction. Under the industrial r\u00e9gime described,\nthe child, after all, shared in the work, not for the sake of the\nsharing, but for the sake of the product. The educational results secured\nwere real, yet incidental and dependent. But in the school the typical\noccupations followed are freed from all economic stress. The aim is not\nthe economic value of the products, but the development of social power\nand insight. It is this liberation from narrow utilities, this openness\nto the possibilities of the human spirit, that makes these practical\nactivities in the school allies of art and centers of science and history.\n\nThe unity of all the sciences is found in geography. The significance\nof geography 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,\nand plain, of which all our agriculture and mining and lumbering, all\nour manufacturing and distributing agencies, are but the partial\nelements and factors. It is through occupations determined by this\nenvironment that mankind has made its historical and political progress.\nIt is through 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, seamstresses, 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 occupations\nthe historic development of man is recapitulated. For example, the\nchildren are first given the raw material\u2014the flax, the cotton plant, the\nwool as it comes from the back of the sheep (if we could take them to the\nplace where the sheep are sheared, so much the better). Then a study is\nmade of these materials from the standpoint of their adaptation to the\nuses to which they may be put. For instance, a comparison of the cotton\nfiber with wool fiber is made. I did not know, until the children told\nme, that the reason for the late development of the cotton industry as\ncompared with the woolen is that the cotton fiber is so very difficult\nto free by hand from the seeds. The children in one group worked thirty\nminutes freeing cotton fibers from the boll and seeds, and succeeded\nin getting out less than one ounce. They could easily believe that one\nperson could gin only one pound a day by hand, and could understand why\ntheir ancestors wore woolen instead of cotton clothing. Among other\nthings discovered as affecting their relative utilities was the shortness\nof the cotton fiber as compared with that of wool, the former averaging,\nsay, one-third of an inch in length, while the latter run to three\ninches in length; also that the fibers of cotton are smooth and do not\ncling together, while the wool has a certain roughness which makes the\nfibers stick, thus assisting the spinning. The children worked this\nout for themselves with the actual material, aided by questions and\nsuggestions from the teacher.\n\nThey then followed the processes necessary for working the fibers up into\ncloth. They reinvented the first frame for carding the wool\u2014a couple of\nboards with sharp pins in them for scratching it out. They redevised the\nsimplest process for spinning the wool\u2014a pierced stone or some other\nweight through which the wool is passed, and which as it is twirled\ndraws out the fiber; next the top, which was spun on the floor, while\nthe children kept the wool in their hands until it was gradually drawn\nout and wound upon it. Then the children are introduced to the invention\nnext in historic order, working it out experimentally, thus seeing\nits necessity, and tracing its effects, not only upon that particular\nindustry, but upon modes of social life\u2014in this way passing in review the\nentire process up to the present complete loom, and all that goes with\nthe application of science in the use of our present available powers. I\nneed not speak of the science involved in this\u2014the study of the fibers,\nof geographical features, the conditions under which raw materials are\ngrown, the great centers of manufacture and distribution, the physics\ninvolved in the machinery of production; nor, again, of the historical\nside\u2014the influence which these inventions have had upon humanity. You\ncan concentrate the history of all mankind into the evolution of the\nflax, cotton, and wool fibers into clothing. I do not mean that this is\nthe only, or the best, center. But it is true that certain very real and\nimportant avenues to the consideration of the history of the race are\nthus opened\u2014that the mind is introduced to much more fundamental and\ncontrolling influences than appear in the political and chronological\nrecords that usually pass for history.\n\nNow, what is true of this one instance of fibers used in fabrics (and, of\ncourse, I have only spoken of one or two elementary phases of that) is\ntrue in its measure of every material used in every occupation, and of\nthe processes employed. The occupation supplies the child with a genuine\nmotive; it gives him experience at first hand; it brings him into contact\nwith realities. It does all this, but in addition it is liberalized\nthroughout by translation into its historic and social 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 of understanding\u2014and is\nthereby transformed.\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 in\nthe school, give the opportunity for the introduction of science which\nilluminates them, which makes them material, freighted with meaning,\ninstead of being mere devices of hand and eye; but that the scientific\ninsight thus gained becomes an indispensable instrument of free and\nactive participation in modern social life. Plato somewhere speaks of the\nslave as one who in his actions does not express his own ideas, but those\nof some other man. It is our social problem now, even more urgent than in\nthe time of Plato, that method, purpose, understanding, shall exist in\nthe consciousness of the one who does the work, that his activity shall\nhave 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\nare materialistic, 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\nfor the other is that each shall have had the education which enables\nhim to see 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 the r\u00e9gime which lays so much stress upon the products of\nthe 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 is, 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, magazines,\npapers were multiplied and cheapened. As a result of the locomotive and\ntelegraph, frequent, rapid, and cheap intercommunication by mails and\nelectricity was called into being. Travel has been rendered easy; freedom\nof movement, with its accompanying exchange of ideas, indefinitely\nfacilitated. The result has been an intellectual revolution. Learning has\nbeen put into circulation. While there still is, and probably always will\nbe, a particular class having the special business of inquiry in hand,\na distinctively learned class is henceforth out of the question. It is\nan anachronism. Knowledge is no longer an immobile solid; it has been\nliquefied. It is actively moving in all the currents 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 introduction\nof manual training, art, and science into the elementary, and even the\nsecondary, schools deprecated on the ground that they tend toward the\nproduction of specialists\u2014that they detract from our present scheme of\ngenerous, liberal culture. The point of this objection would be ludicrous\nif it were not often so effective as to make it tragic. It is our present\neducation which is highly specialized, one-sided, and narrow. It is\nan education dominated almost entirely by the mediaeval conception of\nlearning. It is something which appeals for the most part simply to the\nintellectual aspect of our natures, our desire to learn, to accumulate\ninformation, and to get control of the symbols of learning; not to our\nimpulses and tendencies to make, to do, to create, to produce, whether\nin the form of utility or of art. The very fact that manual training,\nart, and science are objected to as technical, as tending toward mere\nspecialism, is of itself as good testimony as could be offered to the\nspecialized aim which controls current education. Unless education had\nbeen virtually identified with the exclusively intellectual pursuits,\nwith learning as such, all these materials and methods would be welcome,\nwould be greeted with the utmost hospitality.\n\n[Illustration: CHILD\u2019S DRAWING OF A CAVE AND TREES]\n\nWhile training for the profession of learning is regarded as the type\nof culture, or a liberal education, the training of a mechanic, a\nmusician, a lawyer, a doctor, a farmer, a merchant, or a railroad manager\nis regarded as purely technical and professional. The result is that\nwhich we see about us everywhere\u2014the division into \u201ccultured\u201d people\nand \u201cworkers,\u201d the separation of theory and practice. Hardly 1 per cent\nof the entire school population ever attains to what we call higher\neducation; only 5 per cent to the grade of our high school; while much\nmore than half leave on or before the completion of the fifth year of the\nelementary grade. The simple facts of the case are that in the great\nmajority of human beings the distinctively intellectual interest is not\ndominant. They have the so-called practical impulse and disposition.\nIn many of those in whom by nature intellectual interest is strong,\nsocial conditions prevent its adequate realization. Consequently by far\nthe larger number of pupils leave school as soon as they have acquired\nthe rudiments of learning, as soon as they have enough of the symbols\nof reading, writing, and calculating to be of practical use to them in\ngetting a living. While our educational leaders are talking of culture,\nthe development of personality, etc., as the end and aim of education,\nthe great majority of those who pass under the tuition of the school\nregard it only as a narrowly practical tool with which to get bread and\nbutter enough to eke out a restricted life. If we were to conceive our\neducational end and aim in a less exclusive way, if we were to introduce\ninto educational processes the activities which appeal to those whose\ndominant interest is to do and to make, we should find the hold of the\nschool upon its members to be more vital, more prolonged, containing more\nof culture.\n\n[Illustration: CHILD\u2019S DRAWING OF A FOREST]\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\nour education is to have any meaning for life, it must pass through an\nequally complete transformation. This transformation is not something\nto appear suddenly, to be executed in a day by conscious purpose. It is\nalready in progress. Those modifications of our school system which often\nappear (even to those most actively concerned with them, to say nothing\nof their spectators) to be mere changes of detail, mere improvement\nwithin the school mechanism, are in reality signs and evidences of\nevolution. The introduction of active occupations, of nature-study, of\nelementary science, of art, of history; the relegation of the merely\nsymbolic and formal to a secondary position; the change in the moral\nschool atmosphere, in the relation of pupils and teachers\u2014of discipline;\nthe introduction of more active, expressive, and self-directing\nfactors\u2014all these are not mere accidents, they are necessities of the\nlarger social evolution. It remains but to organize all these factors,\nto appreciate them in their fulness of meaning, and to put the ideas and\nideals involved into complete, uncompromising possession of our school\nsystem. To do this means to make each one of our schools an embryonic\ncommunity life, active with types of occupations that reflect the life\nof the larger society and permeated throughout with the spirit of art,\nhistory, and science. When the school introduces and trains each child\nof society into membership within such a little community, saturating\nhim with the spirit of service, and providing him with the instruments of\neffective self-direction, we shall have the deepest and best guaranty of\na larger society which is worthy, lovely, and harmonious.\n\n[Illustration: CHILD\u2019S DRAWING OF HANDS SPINNING]\n\n[Illustration: CHILD\u2019S DRAWING OF A GIRL SPINNING]\n\n\n\n\nTHE SCHOOL AND THE LIFE OF THE CHILD\n\n\n\n\nII\n\nTHE 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 in\nthe school. As it is difficult to connect general principles with such\nthoroughly concrete things as little children, I have taken the liberty\nof introducing a great deal of illustrative matter from the work of the\nUniversity Elementary School, that in some measure you may appreciate the\nway in which the ideas presented work themselves out in actual 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 great 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. It\nis all made \u201cfor listening\u201d\u2014because 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 that\nhave to do with these processes have not even a definitely recognized\nplace in education. They are what the educational authorities who write\neditorials in the daily papers generally term \u201cfads\u201d and \u201cfrills.\u201d A lady\ntold me yesterday that she had been visiting different schools trying to\nfind one where activity on the part of the children preceded the giving\nof information on the part of the teacher, or where the children had some\nmotive for demanding the information. She visited, she said, twenty-four\ndifferent schools before she found her first instance. I may add that\nthat 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\nof children as possible; for dealing with children _en masse_, as an\naggregate of units; involving, again, that they be treated passively. The\nmoment children act they individualize themselves; they cease to be a\nmass and become the intensely distinctive beings that we are acquainted\nwith out of school, in the home, the family, on the playground, and in\nthe 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 accomplishments\nto be acquired by all children alike in a given time. It is in response\nto this demand that the curriculum has been developed from the elementary\nschool up through the college. There is just so much desirable knowledge,\nand there are just so many needed technical accomplishments in the\nworld. Then comes the mathematical problem of dividing this by the six,\ntwelve, or sixteen years of school life. Now give the children every\nyear just the proportionate fraction of the total, and by the time they\nhave finished they will have mastered the whole. By covering so much\nground during this hour or day or week or year, everything comes out with\nperfect evenness at the end\u2014provided the children have not forgotten\nwhat they have previously learned. The outcome of all this is Matthew\nArnold\u2019s report of the statement, proudly made to him by an educational\nauthority in France, that so many thousands of children were studying at\na given hour, say eleven o\u2019clock, just such a lesson in geography; and in\none of our own western cities this proud boast used to be repeated to\nsuccessive visitors by its superintendent.\n\nI may have exaggerated somewhat in order to make plain the typical points\nof the old education: its passivity of attitude, its mechanical massing\nof children, its uniformity of curriculum and method. It may be summed\nup by stating that the center of gravity is outside the child. It is in\nthe teacher, the textbook, anywhere and everywhere you please except in\nthe immediate instincts and activities of the child himself. On that\nbasis there is not much to be said about the _life_ of the child. A good\ndeal might be said about the studying of the child, but the school is\nnot the place where the child _lives_. Now the change which is coming\ninto our education is the shifting of the center of gravity. It is a\nchange, a revolution, not unlike that introduced by Copernicus when the\nastronomical center shifted from the earth to the sun. In this case the\nchild becomes the sun about which the appliances of education revolve; he\nis the center about which they are organized.\n\nIf we take an example from an ideal home, where the parent is intelligent\nenough to recognize what is best for the child, and is able to supply\nwhat is needed, we find the child learning through the social converse\nand constitution of the family. There are certain points of interest\nand value to him in the conversation carried on: statements are made,\ninquiries arise, topics are discussed, and the child continually learns.\nHe states his experiences, his misconceptions are corrected. Again the\nchild participates in the household occupations, and thereby gets habits\nof industry, order, and regard for the rights and ideas of others, and\nthe fundamental habit of subordinating his activities to the general\ninterest of the household. Participation in these household tasks becomes\nan opportunity for gaining knowledge. The ideal home would naturally have\na workshop where the child could work out his constructive instincts.\nIt would have a miniature laboratory in which his inquiries could be\ndirected. The life of the child would extend out of doors to the garden,\nsurrounding fields, and forests. He would have his excursions, his walks\nand talks, in which the larger world out of doors would open to him.\n\nNow, if we organize and generalize all of this, we have the ideal school.\nThere is no mystery about it, no wonderful discovery of pedagogy or\neducational theory. It is simply a question of doing systematically and\nin a large, intelligent, and competent way what for various reasons can\nbe done in most households only in a comparatively meager and haphazard\nmanner. In the first place, the ideal home has to be enlarged. The child\nmust be brought into contact with more grown people and with more\nchildren in order that there may be the freest and richest social life.\nMoreover, the occupations and relationships of the home environment are\nnot specially selected for the growth of the child; the main object is\nsomething else, and what the child can get out of them is incidental.\nHence the need of a school. In this school the life of the child becomes\nthe all-controlling aim. All the media necessary to further the growth of\nthe child center there. Learning? certainly, but living primarily, and\nlearning through and in relation to this living. When we take the life of\nthe child centered and organized in this way, we do not find that he is\nfirst of all a listening being; quite the contrary.\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 some\nhidden germ of activity. The child is already intensely active, and the\nquestion of education is the question of taking hold of his activities,\nof giving them direction. Through direction, through organized use, they\ntend toward valuable results, instead of scattering or being left to\nmerely 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 at\nthe 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 acquainted\nwith materials, exercising ingenuity, patience, persistence, alertness,\nit of necessity involves discipline\u2014ordering of power\u2014and supplies\nknowledge. Take the example of the little child who wants to make a box.\nIf he stops short with the imagination or wish, he certainly will not get\ndiscipline. But when he attempts to realize his impulse, it is a question\nof making his idea definite, making it into a plan, of taking the right\nkind of wood, measuring the parts needed, giving them the necessary\nproportions, etc. There is involved the preparation of materials, the\nsawing, planing, the sandpapering, making all the edges and corners\nto fit. Knowledge of tools and processes is inevitable. If the child\nrealizes his instinct and makes the box, there is plenty of opportunity\nto gain discipline and perseverance, to exercise effort in overcoming\nobstacles, 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\nlevel and simply humor that interest. But here, too, if the impulse\nis exercised, utilized, it runs up against the actual world of hard\nconditions, to which it must accommodate itself; and there again come\nin the 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 were\nthen quite willing to go on with the experimental work. To follow that\nwork will, indeed, give an illustration of just the point in question.\nTheir occupation happened that day to be the cooking of eggs, as making\na transition from the cooking of vegetables to that of meats. In order\nto get a basis of comparison they first summarized the constituent\nfood elements in the vegetables and made a preliminary comparison with\nthose found in meat. Thus they found that the woody fiber or cellulose\nin vegetables corresponded to the connective tissue in meat, giving\nthe element of form and structure. They found that starch and starchy\nproducts were characteristic of the vegetables, that mineral salts were\nfound in both alike, and that there was fat in both\u2014a small quantity in\nvegetable food and a large amount in animal. They were prepared then to\ntake up the study of albumen as the characteristic feature of animal\nfood, corresponding to starch in the vegetables, and were ready to\nconsider the conditions requisite for the proper treatment of albumen\u2014the\neggs serving as the material of experiment.\n\nThey experimented first by taking water at various temperatures, finding\nout when it was scalding, simmering, and boiling hot, and ascertained the\neffect of the various degrees of temperature on the white of the egg.\nThat worked out, they were prepared, not simply to cook eggs, but to\nunderstand the principle involved in the cooking of eggs. I do not wish\nto lose sight of the universal in the particular incident. For the child\nsimply to desire to cook an egg, and accordingly drop it in water for\nthree minutes, and take it out when he is told, is not educative. But for\nthe child to realize his own impulse by recognizing the facts, materials,\nand conditions involved, and then to regulate his impulse through that\nrecognition, is educative. This is the difference, upon which I wish\nto insist, between exciting or indulging an interest and realizing it\nthrough 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\nlet the 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 hillside in an impossible way. You see the\nconventional tree of childhood\u2014a 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,\nto compare 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 imagination.\nHe made again a free illustration, expressing his own imaginative\nthought, but controlled by detailed study of actual trees. The result was\na scene representing a bit of forest; so far as it goes, it seems to me\nto have as much poetic feeling as the work of an adult, while at the same\ntime its trees are, in their proportions, possible ones, not mere symbols.\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\nthe children as shown in conversation, personal intercourse, and\ncommunication. We all know how self-centered the little child is at\nthe age 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 infinite\nexpansion. The language instinct is the simplest form of the social\nexpression of the child. Hence it is a great, perhaps the greatest of all\neducational 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 child\nhas not much instinct for abstract inquiry. The instinct of investigation\nseems to grow out of the combination of the constructive impulse with\nthe conversational. There is no distinction between experimental science\nfor little children and the work done in the carpenter shop. Such work\nas they can do in physics or chemistry is not for the purpose of making\ntechnical generalizations or even arriving at abstract truths. Children\nsimply like to do things and watch to see what will happen. But this can\nbe taken advantage of, can be directed into ways where it gives results\nof value, as well as be allowed to go on 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\nthe twelve-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\nOne more instance of the connection of the art side with the constructive\nside: The children had been studying primitive spinning and carding, when\none of them, twelve years of age, made a picture of one of the older\nchildren spinning. Here is another piece of work which is not quite\naverage; it is better than the average. It is an illustration of two\nhands and the drawing out of the wool to get it ready for spinning. This\nwas done by a child eleven years of age. But, upon the whole, with the\nyounger children especially, the art impulse is connected mainly with the\nsocial instinct\u2014the desire to tell, to represent.\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 exercise\nof which depends the active growth of the child. I wish to give one or\ntwo illustrations, the first from the work of children seven years of\nage. It illustrates in a way the dominant desire of the children to\ntalk, particularly about folks and of things in relation to folks. If\nyou observe little children, you will find they are interested in the\nworld of things mainly in its connection with people, as a background and\nmedium of human concerns. Many anthropologists have told us there are\ncertain identities in the child interests with those of primitive life.\nThere is a sort of natural recurrence of the child mind to the typical\nactivities of primitive peoples; witness the hut which the boy likes\nto build in the yard, playing hunt, with bows, arrows, spears, and so\non. Again the question comes: What are we to do with this interest\u2014are\nwe to ignore it, or just excite and draw it out? Or shall we get hold\nof it and direct it to something ahead, something better? Some of the\nwork that has been planned for our seven-year-old children has the\nlatter end in view\u2014to utilize this interest so that it shall become a\nmeans of seeing the progress of the human race. The children begin by\nimagining present conditions taken away until they are in contact with\nnature at first hand. That takes them back to a hunting people, to a\npeople living in caves or trees and getting a precarious subsistence by\nhunting and fishing. They imagine as far as possible the various natural\nphysical conditions adapted to that sort of life; say, a hilly, woody\nslope, near mountains, and a river where fish would be abundant. Then\nthey go on in imagination through the hunting to the semi-agricultural\nstage, and through the nomadic to the settled agricultural stage. The\npoint I wish to make is that there is abundant opportunity thus given\nfor actual study, for inquiry which results in gaining information. So,\nwhile the instinct primarily appeals to the social side, the interest\nof the child in people and their doings is carried on into the larger\nworld of reality. For example, the children had some idea of primitive\nweapons, of the stone arrow-head, etc. That provided occasion for the\ntesting of materials as regards their friability, their shape, texture,\netc., resulting in a lesson in mineralogy, as they examined the different\nstones to find which was best suited to the purpose. The discussion\nof the iron age supplied a demand for the construction of a smelting\noven made out of clay and of considerable size. As the children did not\nget their drafts right at first, the mouth of the furnace not being in\nproper relation to the vent as to size and position, instruction in the\nprinciples of combustion, the nature of drafts and of fuel, was required.\nYet the instruction was not given ready-made; it was first needed, and\nthen arrived at experimentally. Then the children took some material,\nsuch as copper, and went through a series of experiments, fusing it,\nworking it into objects; and the same experiments were made with lead and\nother metals. This work has been also a continuous course in geography,\nsince the children have had to imagine and work out the various physical\nconditions necessary to the different forms of social life implied.\nWhat would be the physical conditions appropriate to pastoral life? to\nthe beginning of agriculture? to fishing? What would be the natural\nmethod of exchange between these peoples? Having worked out such points\nin conversation, 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 infinitely 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 observation\nand continuous reflection, than if they were put to working out arbitrary\nproblems simply for the sake of discipline.\n\nI should like at this point to refer to the recitation. We all know\nwhat it has been\u2014a place where the child shows off to the teacher\nand the other children the amount of information he has succeeded in\nassimilating from the textbook. From this other standpoint the recitation\nbecomes pre-eminently a social meeting-place; it is to the school what\nthe spontaneous conversation is at home, excepting that it is more\norganized, following definite lines. The recitation becomes the social\nclearing-house, where experiences and ideas are exchanged and subjected\nto criticism, where misconceptions are corrected, and new lines of\nthought 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\nr\u00e9gime it was unquestionably a most serious problem to give the children\na full and free use of language. The reason was obvious. The natural\nmotive for language was seldom offered. In the pedagogical textbooks\nlanguage is defined as the medium of expressing thought. It becomes that,\nmore or less, to adults with trained minds, but it hardly needs to be\nsaid that language is primarily a social thing, a means by which we give\nour experiences to others and get theirs again in return. When it is\ntaken away from its natural purpose, it is no wonder that it becomes a\ncomplex and difficult problem to teach language. Think of the absurdity\nof having to teach language as a thing by itself. If there is anything\nthe child will do before he goes to school, it is to talk of the things\nthat interest him. But when there are no vital interests appealed to in\nthe school, when language is used simply for the repetition of lessons,\nit is not surprising that one of the chief difficulties of school work\nhas come to be instruction in the mother-tongue. Since the language\ntaught is unnatural, not growing out of the real desire to communicate\nvital impressions and convictions, the freedom of children in its use\ngradually disappears, until finally the high-school teacher has to invent\nall kinds of devices to assist in getting any spontaneous and full use of\nspeech. Moreover, when the language instinct is appealed to in a social\nway, there is a continual contact with reality. The result is that the\nchild always has something in his mind to talk about, he has something to\nsay; he has a thought to express, and a thought is not a thought unless\nit is one\u2019s own. On the traditional method, the child must say something\nthat he has merely learned. There is all the difference in the world\nbetween having something to say and having to say something. The child\nwho has a variety of materials and facts wants to talk about them, and\nhis language 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_ way,\nas the outgrowth of the child\u2019s social desire to recount his experiences\nand get in return the experiences of others, directed always through\ncontact with the facts and forces which determine the truth communicated.\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\nbeen developed into something like scientifically directed inquiry, but\nI will 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\nme poetic as well as \u201cscientific.\u201d \u201cA long time ago when the earth\nwas new, when it was lava, there was no water on the earth, and there\nwas steam all round the earth up in the air, as there were many gases\nin the air. One of them was carbon dioxide. The steam became clouds,\nbecause the earth began to cool off, and after a while it began to\nrain, and the water came down and dissolved the carbon dioxide from the\nair.\u201d There is a good deal more science in that than probably would be\napparent at the outset. It represents some three months of work on the\npart of the child. The children kept daily and weekly records, but this\nis part of the summing up of the quarter\u2019s work. I call this language\npoetic, because the child has a clear image and has a personal feeling\nfor the realities imaged. I extract sentences from two other records\nto illustrate 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, _pulled_ 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\nof such 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\nare 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\nsimple apparatus\u2014a tumbler, lime water, and a glass tube\u2014precipitated\nthe calcium carbonate out of the water; and from this beginning went on\nto a study of the processes by which rocks of various sorts, igneous,\nsedimentary, etc., had been formed on the surface of the earth and\nthe places they occupy; then to points in the geography of the United\nStates, Hawaii, and Porto Rico; to the effects of these various bodies\nof rock, in their various configurations, upon the human occupations;\nso that this geological record finally rounded itself out into the life\nof man 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, than\nany other. One may be ready to admit that it would be most desirable\nfor the school to be a place in which the child should really live,\nand get a life-experience in which he should delight and find meaning\nfor its own sake. But then we hear this inquiry: How, upon this basis,\nshall the child get the needed information; how shall he undergo the\nrequired discipline? Yes, it has come to this, that with many, if not\nmost, people the normal processes of life appear to be incompatible with\ngetting information and discipline. So I have tried to indicate, in a\nhighly 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 medium,\nso to control their expression as not only to facilitate and enrich the\ngrowth of the individual child, but also to supply the same 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 of\nlater, adult life. \u201cLet us live with our children\u201d certainly means, first\nof all, that our children shall live\u2014not that they shall be hampered and\nstunted by being forced into all kinds of conditions, the most remote\nconsideration of which is relevancy to the present life of the child. If\nwe seek the kingdom of heaven, educationally, all other things shall be\nadded unto us\u2014which, being interpreted, is that if we identify ourselves\nwith the real instincts and needs of childhood, and ask only after its\nfullest assertion and growth, the discipline and information and culture\nof adult life shall all come in their due season.\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\nof his impulses toward saying, making, finding out, and creating. The\nreal child, it hardly need be said, lives in the world of imaginative\nvalues and ideas which find only imperfect outward embodiment. We hear\nmuch nowadays about the cultivation of the child\u2019s \u201cimagination.\u201d Then\nwe undo much of our own talk and work by a belief that the imagination\nis some special part of the child that finds its satisfaction in some\none particular 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 which 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 results,\nis the readjustment of mental attitude, the enlarged and sympathetic\nvision, the sense of growing power, and the willing ability to identify\nboth insight and capacity with the interests of the world and man. Unless\nculture be a superficial polish, a veneering of mahogany over common\nwood, it surely is this\u2014the growth of the imagination in flexibility,\nin scope, and in sympathy, till the life which the individual lives is\ninformed with the life of nature and of society. When nature and society\ncan live in the schoolroom, when the forms and tools of learning are\nsubordinated to the substance of experience, then shall there be an\nopportunity for this identification, and culture shall be the democratic\npassword.\n\n\n\n\nWASTE IN EDUCATION\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\nWASTE 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\nreadjustments 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\nas itself an institution, in relation both to society and to its own\nmembers\u2014the children. It deals with the question of organization, because\nall waste is the result of the lack of it, the motive lying behind\norganization being promotion of economy and efficiency. This question\nis not one of the waste of money or the waste of things. These matters\ncount; but the primary waste is that of human life, the life of the\nchildren while they are at school, and afterward because of inadequate\nand 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 organization\nis that of the school itself as a community of individuals, in its\nrelations to other forms of social life. All waste is due to isolation.\nOrganization is nothing but getting things into connection with one\nanother, so that they work easily, flexibly, and fully. Therefore in\nspeaking of this question of waste in education I desire to call your\nattention to the isolation of the various parts of the school system, to\nthe lack of unity in the aims of education, to the lack of coherence in\nits 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\nmy attempt to illustrate my point will simply prove the truth of his\nstatement.\n\n[Illustration: Chart I.]\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 in 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\nThe school system, upon the whole, has grown from the top down.\nDuring the Middle Ages it was essentially a cluster of professional\nschools\u2014especially law and theology. Our present university comes down to\nus from the Middle Ages. I will not say that at present it is a mediaeval\ninstitution, but it had its roots in the Middle Ages, and it has not\noutlived all mediaeval 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 highly\nromantic and symbolic philosophy. The elements that came from the actual\nstudy of child life\u2014the continuation of the nursery\u2014have remained a\nlife-bringing force in all education; the Schellingesque factors made an\nobstruction between it and the rest of the school system\u2014brought about\nisolations.\n\nThe line drawn over the top indicates that there is a certain interaction\nbetween the kindergarten and the primary school; for, so far as the\nprimary school remained in spirit foreign to the natural interests of\nchild life, it was isolated from the kindergarten, so that it is a\nproblem, at present, to introduce kindergarten methods into the primary\nschool; the problem of the so-called connecting class. The difficulty is\nthat the two are not one from the start. To get a connection the teacher\nhas had to climb over the wall instead of entering 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 perhaps\nthan the conditions out of which the primary school originated, and,\neven when contemporaneous, having a different ideal. It had to do with\nthe study of language in the higher sense; because, at the time of the\nRenaissance, Latin and Greek connected people with the culture of the\npast, 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, of\ncourse, mainly the development of nineteenth-century business conditions,\nas the primary school was the development of business conditions of the\nsixteenth century. The normal school arose because of the necessity for\ntraining teachers, with the idea partly of professional drill and partly\nthat of culture.\n\nWithout going more into 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 complete\nwhole. The great problem in education on the administrative side is how\nto 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 to\nthe minds of those to whom it is to be taught. In this division between\nwhat to teach and how to teach, each side suffers from the separation.\n\nIt is interesting to follow out the interrelation between primary,\ngrammar, and high schools. The elementary school has crowded up and taken\nmany subjects previously studied in the old New England grammar school.\nThe high school has pushed its subjects down. Latin and algebra have been\nput in the upper grades, so that the seventh and eighth grades are, after\nall, about all that is left of the old grammar school. They are a sort of\namorphous composite, being partly a place where children go on learning\nwhat they already have learned (to read, write, and figure), and partly a\nplace of preparation for the high school. The name in some parts of New\nEngland for these upper grades was \u201cIntermediate School.\u201d The term was a\nhappy one; the work was simply intermediate between something that had\nbeen and something that was going to be, having no special meaning on its\nown 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\nof culture, discipline, and utility. But the lack of fundamental unity\nis witnessed 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 culture;\nand so on. The unity of education is dissipated, and the studies become\ncentrifugal; so much of this study to secure this end, so much of that to\nsecure another, until the whole becomes a sheer compromise and patchwork\nbetween contending aims and disparate studies. The great problem in\neducation on the administrative side is to secure the unity of the whole,\nin the place of a sequence of more or less unrelated and overlapping\nparts, and thus to reduce the waste arising from friction, reduplication,\nand transitions that are not properly bridged.\n\n[Illustration: Chart II.]\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 as\na whole. (1) At one side we have the home, and the two arrows represent\nthe free interplay of influences, materials, and ideas between the home\nlife and that of the school. (2) Below we have the relation to the\nnatural environment, the great field of geography in the widest sense.\nThe school building has about it a natural environment. It ought to be in\na garden, and the children from the garden would be led on to surrounding\nfields, and then into the wider country, with all its facts and forces.\n(3) Above is represented business life, and the necessity for free play\nbetween the school and the needs and forces of industry. (4) On the other\nside is the university proper, with its various phases, its laboratories,\nits resources in the way of libraries, museums, and professional 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. When\nthe child gets into the schoolroom he has to put out of his mind a large\npart of the ideas, interests, and activities that predominate in his home\nand neighborhood. So the school, being unable to utilize this everyday\nexperience, sets painfully to work, on another tack and by a variety of\nmeans, to arouse in the child an interest in school studies. While I was\nvisiting in the city of Moline a few years ago, the superintendent told\nme that they found many children every year who were surprised to learn\nthat the Mississippi river in the textbook had anything to do with the\nstream of water flowing past their homes. The geography being simply a\nmatter of the schoolroom, it is more or less of an awakening to many\nchildren to find that the whole thing is nothing but a more formal and\ndefinite statement of the facts which they see, feel, and touch every\nday. When we think that we all live on the earth, that we live in an\natmosphere, that our lives are touched at every point by the influences\nof the soil, flora, and fauna, by considerations of light and heat, and\nthen think of what the school study of geography has been, we have a\ntypical idea of the gap existing between the everyday experiences of\nthe child and the isolated material supplied in such large measure in\nthe school. This is but an instance, and one upon which most of us may\nreflect long before we take the present artificiality of the school as\nother than a matter of course or necessity.\n\nThough there should be organic connection between the school and business\nlife, it is not meant that the school is to prepare the child for any\nparticular business, but that there should be a natural connection\nof the everyday life of the child with the business environment\nabout him, and that it is the affair of the school to clarify and\nliberalize this connection, to bring it to consciousness, not by\nintroducing special studies, like commercial geography and arithmetic,\nbut by keeping alive the ordinary bonds of relation. The subject of\ncompound-business-partnership is probably not in many of the arithmetics\nnowadays, though it was there not a generation ago, for the makers of\ntextbooks said that if they left out anything they could not sell their\nbooks. This compound-business-partnership originated as far back as\nthe sixteenth century. The joint-stock company had not been invented,\nand as large commerce with the Indies and Americas grew up, it was\nnecessary to have an accumulation of capital with which to handle it.\nOne man said, \u201cI will put in this amount of money for six months,\u201d and\nanother, \u201cSo much for two years,\u201d and so on. Thus by joining together\nthey got money enough to float their commercial enterprises. Naturally,\nthen, \u201ccompound partnership\u201d was taught in the schools. The joint-stock\ncompany was invented; compound partnership disappeared, but the problems\nrelating to it stayed in the arithmetics for two hundred years. They\nwere kept after they had ceased to have practical utility, for the sake\nof mental discipline\u2014they were \u201csuch hard problems, you know.\u201d A great\ndeal of what is now in the arithmetics under the head of percentage is\nof the same nature. Children of twelve and thirteen years of age go\nthrough gain and loss calculations, and various forms of bank discount so\ncomplicated that the bankers long ago dispensed with them. And when it is\npointed out that business is not done this way, we hear again of \u201cmental\ndiscipline.\u201d And yet there are plenty of real connections between the\nexperience of children and business conditions which need to be utilized\nand illuminated. The child should study his commercial arithmetic and\ngeography, not as isolated things by themselves, but in their reference\nto his social environment. The youth needs to become acquainted with the\nbank as a factor in modern life, with what it does, and how it does it;\nand then relevant arithmetical processes would have some meaning\u2014quite\nin contradistinction to the time-absorbing and mind-killing examples in\npercentage, partial payments, 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 education.\nWhen we investigate it, we find that it is full of facts taught that\nare not facts, which have to be unlearned later on. Now, this happens\nbecause the \u201clower\u201d parts of our system are not, in vital connection\nwith the \u201chigher.\u201d The university or college, in its idea, is a place\nof research, where investigation is going on: a place of libraries and\nmuseums, where the best resources of the past are gathered, maintained,\nand organized. It is, however, as true in the school as in the university\nthat the spirit of inquiry can be got only through and with the attitude\nof inquiry. The pupil must learn what has meaning, what enlarges his\nhorizon, instead of mere trivialities. He must become acquainted with\ntruths, instead of things that were regarded as such fifty years ago or\nthat are taken as interesting by the misunderstanding of a partially\neducated teacher. It is difficult to see how these ends can be reached\nexcept as the most advanced part of the educational system is in complete\ninteraction with the most rudimentary.\n\nThe next chart (III) is an enlargement of the second. The school building\nhas swelled out, so to speak, the surrounding environment remaining the\nsame, the home, the garden and country, the relation to business life\nand the university. The object is to show what the school must become to\nget out of its isolation and secure the organic connection with social\nlife of which we have been speaking. It is not our architect\u2019s plan for\nthe school building that we hope to have; but it is a diagrammatic\nrepresentation of the idea which we want embodied in the school building.\nOn the lower side you see the dining-room and the kitchen, at the top\nthe wood and metal shops and the textile room for sewing and weaving.\nThe center represents the manner in which all come together in the\nlibrary; that is to say, in a collection of the intellectual resources\nof all kinds that throw light upon the practical work, that give it\nmeaning and liberal value. If the four corners represent practice, the\ninterior represents the theory of the practical activities. In other\nwords, the object of these forms of practice in the school is not found\nchiefly in themselves, or in the technical skill of cooks, seamstresses,\ncarpenters, and masons, but in their connection, on the social side,\nwith the life without; while on the individual side they respond to the\nchild\u2019s need of action, of expression, of desire to do something, to be\nconstructive and creative, instead of simply passive and conforming.\nTheir great significance is that they keep the balance between the social\nand individual sides\u2014the chart symbolizing particularly the connection\nwith the social. Here on one side is the home. How naturally the lines\nof connection play back and forth between the home and the kitchen and\nthe textile room of the school! The child can carry over what he learns\nin the home and utilize it in the school; and the things learned in the\nschool he applies at home. These are the two great things in breaking\ndown isolation, in getting connection\u2014to have the child come to school\nwith all the experience he has got outside the school, and to leave it\nwith something to be immediately used in his everyday life. The child\ncomes to the traditional school with a healthy body and a more or less\nunwilling mind, though, in fact, he does not bring both his body and mind\nwith him; he has to leave his mind behind, because there is no way to\nuse it in the school. If he had a purely abstract mind, he could bring\nit to school with him, but his is a concrete one, interested in concrete\nthings, and unless these things get over into school life he cannot take\nhis mind with him. What we want is to have the child come to school with\na whole mind and a whole body, and leave school with a fuller mind and an\neven healthier body. And speaking of the body suggests that, while there\nis no gymnasium in these diagrams, the active life carried on in its four\ncorners brings with it constant physical exercise, while our gymnasium\nproper will deal with the particular weaknesses of children and their\ncorrection, and will attempt more consciously to build up the thoroughly\nsound body as the abode of the sound mind.\n\n[Illustration: Chart III.]\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 sciences\nthat find their unity in geography. Perhaps it generally has been taught\nwithout these connections being really made. But all the materials that\ncome into the kitchen have their origin in the country; they come from\nthe soil, are nurtured through the influences of light and water, and\nrepresent a great variety of local environments. Through this connection,\nextending from the garden into the larger world, the child has his most\nnatural introduction to the study of the sciences. Where did these things\ngrow? What was necessary to their growth? What their relation to the\nsoil? What the effect of different climatic conditions? and so on. We all\nknow what the old-fashioned botany was: partly collecting flowers that\nwere pretty, pressing and mounting them; partly pulling these flowers to\npieces and giving technical names to the different parts, finding all the\ndifferent leaves, naming all their different shapes and forms. It was a\nstudy of plants without any reference to the soil, to the country, or to\ngrowth. In contrast, a real study of plants takes them in their natural\nenvironment and in their uses as well, not simply as food, but in all\ntheir adaptations to the social life of man. Cooking becomes as well a\nmost natural introduction to the study of chemistry, giving the child\nhere also something which he can at once bring to bear upon his daily\nexperience. I once heard a very intelligent woman say that she could\nnot understand how science could be taught to little children, because\nshe did not see how they could understand atoms and molecules. In other\nwords, since she did not see how highly abstract facts could be presented\nto the child independently of daily experience, she could not understand\nhow science could be taught at all. Before we smile at this remark, we\nneed to ask ourselves if she is alone in her assumption, or whether it\nsimply formulates the principle of almost all our school practice.\n\nThe same relations with the outside world are found in the carpentry\nand the textile shops. They connect with the country, as the source of\ntheir materials, 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 university\non the side of its technological and engineering schools; with the\nlaboratory and its scientific methods and results.\n\nTo go back to the square which is marked the library (Chart III, A):\nif you imagine rooms half in the four corners and half in the library,\nyou will get the idea of the recitation room. That is the place where\nthe children bring the experiences, the problems, the questions,\nthe particular facts which they have found, and discuss them so that\nnew light 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 life.\nThis, I need hardly say, fixes the position of the \u201cbook\u201d or reading in\neducation. Harmful as a substitute for experience, it is all-important in\ninterpreting 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\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 botany\nand may be taken and studied by themselves. In a certain school in Boston\nscience work for months was centered in the growth of the cotton plant,\nand yet something new was brought in every day. We hope to do similar\nwork with all the types of plants that furnish materials for sewing and\nweaving. These examples will suggest, I hope, the relation which the\nlaboratories bear to the rest of the school.\n\n[Illustration: Chart IV.]\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 of\nthe manual arts of life. It did not spring up in a separate atmosphere,\nhowever ideal, but carried on to their spiritual meaning processes\nfound in homely and everyday forms of life. The school should observe\nthis relationship. The merely artisan side is narrow, but the mere art,\ntaken by itself, and grafted on from without, tends to become forced,\nempty, sentimental. I do not mean, of course, that all art work must be\ncorrelated in detail to the other work of the school, but simply that a\nspirit of union gives vitality to the art and depth and richness to the\nother work. All art involves physical organs\u2014the eye and hand, the ear\nand voice; and yet it is something more than the mere technical skill\nrequired by the organs of expression. It involves an idea, a thought, a\nspiritual rendering of things; and yet it is other than any number of\nideas by themselves. It is a living union of thought and the instrument\nof expression. This union is symbolized by saying that in the ideal\nschool the art work might be considered to be that of the shops, passed\nthrough 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\nin sewing, 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\nthe room itself. In the ideal school there would be something of this\nsort: first, a complete industrial museum, giving samples of materials\nin various stages of manufacture, and the implements, from the simplest\nto the most complex used in dealing with them; then a collection of\nphotographs and pictures illustrating the landscapes and the scenes\nfrom which the materials come, their native homes, and their places\nof manufacture. Such a collection would be a vivid and continual\nlesson in the synthesis of art, science, and industry. There would be,\nalso, samples of the more perfect forms of textile work, as Italian,\nFrench, Japanese, and Oriental. There would be objects illustrating\nmotives of design and decoration which have entered into production.\nLiterature would contribute its part in its idealized representation\nof the world-industries, as the Penelope in the _Odyssey_\u2014a classic in\nliterature 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 song\nat the wheel to the spinning song of Marguerite, or of Wagner\u2019s Senta.\nThe shop becomes a pictured museum, appealing to the eye. It would have\nnot only materials\u2014beautiful woods and designs\u2014but would give a synopsis\nof the historical evolution of architecture in its drawings and pictures.\n\nThus I have attempted to indicate how the school may be connected\nwith life 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 from\naspects of the one earth and the one life lived upon it. We do not have\na series of stratified earths, one of which is mathematical, another\nphysical, another historical, and so on. We should not be able to live\nvery long in any one taken by itself. We live in a world where all sides\nare bound 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 another\nanother. The growth of the child in the direction of social capacity and\nservice, his larger and more vital union with life, becomes the unifying\naim; and discipline, culture, and information fall into place as phases\nof 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\nwork of the University. Already we have much help from the University\nin scientific 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\nin the latter seventies. But there are only one or two that have tried\nto make a connection between theory and practice. They teach for the\nmost part by theory, by lectures, by reference to books, rather than\nthrough the actual work of teaching itself. At Columbia, through the\nTeachers College, 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 ideas\ndemonstrated, tested, criticized, enforced, and the evolution of new\ntruths. 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 railway\nand steamship system. Yet the laboratory is not a business enterprise;\nit does not aim to secure for itself the conditions of business life,\nnor does the commercial undertaking repeat the laboratory. There is a\ndifference between working out and testing a new truth, or a new method,\nand applying it on a wide scale, making it available for the mass of men,\nmaking it commercial. But the first thing is to discover the truth, to\nafford all necessary facilities, for this is the most practical thing\nin the world in the long run. We do not expect to have other schools\nliterally imitate what we do. A working model is not something to be\ncopied; it is to afford a demonstration of the feasibility of the\nprinciple, and of the methods which make it feasible. So (to come back\nto our own point) we want here to work out the problem of the unity, the\norganization of the school system in itself, and to do this by relating\nit so intimately to life as to demonstrate the possibility and necessity\nof such organization for all education.\n\n\n\n\nTHE PSYCHOLOGY OF ELEMENTARY EDUCATION\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\nTHE PSYCHOLOGY OF ELEMENTARY EDUCATION\n\n\nNaturally, most of the public is interested in what goes on day by day\nin a school in direct relation to the children there. This is true of\nparents who send their boys and girls for the sake of the personal\nresults they wish to secure, not for the sake of contributing to\neducational theory. In the main, it is true of visitors to a school who\nrecognize, in varying degrees, what is actually done with the children\nbefore their eyes, but who rarely have either the interest or the time\nto consider the work in relation to underlying problems. A school cannot\nlose sight of this aspect of its work, since only by attending to it can\nthe school retain the confidence of its patrons and the presence of its\npupils.\n\nNevertheless a school conducted by a department of a university must\nhave another aspect. From the university standpoint, the most important\npart of its work is the scientific\u2014the contribution it makes to the\nprogress of educational thinking. The aim of educating a certain number\nof children would hardly justify a university in departing from the\ntradition which limits it to those who have completed their secondary\ninstruction. Only the scientific aim, the conduct of a laboratory,\ncomparable to other scientific laboratories, can furnish a reason for the\nmaintenance by a university of an elementary school. Such a school is a\nlaboratory of applied psychology. That is, it has a place for the study\nof mind as manifested and developed in the child, and for the search\nafter materials and agencies that seem most likely to fulfil and further\nthe conditions of normal growth.\n\nIt is not a normal school or a department for the training of teachers.\nIt is not a model school. It is not intended to demonstrate any one\nspecial idea or doctrine. Its task is the problem of viewing the\neducation of the child in the light of the principles of mental activity\nand processes of growth made known by modern psychology. The problem\nby its nature is an infinite one. All that any school can do is to\nmake contributions here and there, and to stand for the necessity of\nconsidering education, both theoretically and practically, in this light.\nThis being the end, the school conditions must, of course, agree. To\nendeavor to study the process and laws of growth under such artificial\nconditions as prevent many of the chief facts of child life from showing\nthemselves is an obvious absurdity.\n\nIn its practical aspect, this laboratory problem takes the form of the\nconstruction of a course of study which harmonizes with the natural\nhistory of the growth of the child in capacity and experience. The\nquestion is the selection of the kind, variety, and due proportion of\nsubjects, answering most definitely to the dominant needs and powers of\na given period of growth, and of those modes of presentation that will\ncause the selected material to enter vitally into growth. We cannot admit\ntoo fully or too freely the limits of our knowledge and the depths of our\nignorance in these matters. No one has a complete hold scientifically\nupon the chief psychological facts of any one year of child life. It\nwould be sheer presumption to claim that just the material best fitted\nto promote this growth has as yet been discovered. The assumption of an\neducational laboratory is rather that enough is known of the conditions\nand modes of growth to make intelligent inquiry possible; and that it is\nonly by acting upon what is already known that more can be found out.\nThe chief point is such experimentation as will add to our reasonable\nconvictions. The demand is to secure arrangements that will permit and\nencourage freedom of investigation; that will give some assurance that\nimportant facts will not be forced out of sight; conditions that will\nenable the educational practice indicated by the inquiry to be sincerely\nacted upon, without the distortion and suppression arising from undue\ndependence upon tradition and preconceived notions. It is in this sense\nthat the school would be an experimental station in education.\n\nWhat, then, are the chief working hypotheses that have been adopted from\npsychology? What educational counterparts have been hit upon as in some\ndegree in line with the adopted psychology?\n\nThe discussion of these questions may be approached by pointing out a\ncontrast between contemporary psychology and the psychology of former\ndays. The contrast is a triple one. Earlier psychology regarded mind as\na purely individual affair in direct and naked contact with an external\nworld. The only question asked was of the ways in which the world and\nthe mind acted upon each other. The entire process recognized would have\nbeen in theory exactly the same if there were one mind living alone in\nthe universe. At present the tendency is to conceive individual mind as\na function of social life\u2014as not capable of operating or developing by\nitself, but as requiring continual stimulus from social agencies, and\nfinding its nutrition in social supplies. The idea of heredity has made\nfamiliar the notion that the equipment of the individual, mental as well\nas physical, is an inheritance from the race: a capital inherited by\nthe individual from the past and held in trust by him for the future.\nThe idea of evolution has made familiar the notion that mind cannot be\nregarded as an individual, monopolistic possession, but represents\nthe outworkings of the endeavor and thought of humanity; that it is\ndeveloped in an environment which is social as well as physical, and that\nsocial needs and aims have been most potent in shaping it\u2014and the chief\ndifference between savagery and civilization is not in the naked nature\nwhich each faces, but the social heredity and social medium.\n\nStudies of childhood have made it equally apparent that this socially\nacquired inheritance operates in the individual only under present social\nstimuli. Nature must indeed furnish its physical stimuli of light, sound,\nheat, etc., but the significance attaching to these, the interpretation\nmade of them, depends upon the ways in which the society in which the\nchild lives acts and reacts in reference to them. The bare physical\nstimulus of light is not the entire reality; the interpretation given to\nit through social activities and thinking confers upon it its wealth of\nmeaning. It is through imitation, suggestion, direct instruction, and\neven more indirect unconscious tuition, that the child learns to estimate\nand treat the bare physical stimuli. It is through the social agencies\nthat he recapitulates in a few short years the progress which it has\ntaken the race slow centuries to work out.\n\nEducational practice has exhibited an unconscious adaptation to and\nharmony with the prevailing psychology; both grew out of the same soil.\nJust as mind was supposed to get its filling by direct contact with the\nworld, so all the needs of instruction were thought to be met by bringing\nthe child mind into direct relation with various bodies of external\nfact labeled geography, arithmetic, grammar, etc. That these classified\nsets of facts were simply selections from the social life of the past\nwas overlooked; equally so that they had been generated out of social\nsituations and represented the answers found for social needs. No social\nelement was found in the subject-matter nor in the intrinsic appeal which\nit made to the child; it was located wholly outside in the teacher\u2014in\nthe encouragements, admonitions, urgings, and devices of the instructor\nin getting the child\u2019s mind to work upon a material which in itself was\nonly accidentally lighted up by any social gleam. It was forgotten that\nthe maximum appeal, and the full meaning in the life of the child, could\nbe secured only when the studies were presented, not as bare external\nstudies, but from the standpoint of the relation they bear to the life of\nsociety. It was forgotten that to become integral parts of the child\u2019s\nconduct and character they must be assimilated, not as mere items of\ninformation, but as organic parts of his present needs and aims\u2014which in\nturn are social.\n\nIn the second place, the older psychology was a psychology of knowledge,\nof intellect. Emotion and endeavor occupied but an incidental and\nderivative place. Much was said about sensations\u2014next to nothing about\nmovements. There was discussion of ideas and of whether they originated\nin sensations or in some innate mental faculty; but the possibility of\ntheir origin in and from the needs of action was ignored. Their influence\nupon conduct, upon behavior, was regarded as an external attachment. Now\nwe believe (to use the words of Mr. James) that the intellect, the sphere\nof sensations and ideas, is but a \u201cmiddle department which we sometimes\ntake to be final, failing to see, amidst the monstrous diversity of the\nlength and complications of the cogitations which may fill it, that\nit can have but one essential function\u2014the function of defining the\ndirection which our activity, immediate or remote, shall take.\u201d\n\nHere also was a pre-established harmony between educational practice\nand psychological theory. Knowledge in the schools was isolated and\nmade an end in itself. Facts, laws, information have been the staple of\nthe curriculum. The controversy in educational theory and practice was\nbetween those who relied more upon the sense element in knowledge, upon\ncontact with things, upon object-lessons, etc., and those who emphasized\nabstract ideas, generalizations, etc.\u2014reason, so called, but in reality\nother people\u2019s ideas as formulated in books. In neither case was\nthere any attempt to connect either the sense training or the logical\noperations with the problems and interests of the life of practice. Here\nagain an educational transformation is indicated if we are to suppose\nthat our psychological theories stand for any truths of life.\n\nThe third point of contrast lies in the modern conception of the mind as\nessentially a process\u2014a process of growth, not a fixed thing. According\nto the older view mind was mind, and that was the whole story. Mind was\nthe same throughout, because fitted out with the same assortment of\nfaculties whether in child or adult. If any difference was made it was\nsimply that some of these ready-made faculties\u2014such as memory\u2014came into\nplay at an earlier time, while others, such as judging and inferring,\nmade their appearance only after the child, through memorizing drills,\nhad been reduced to complete dependence upon the thought of others.\nThe only important difference that was recognized was one of quantity,\nof amount. The boy was a little man and his mind was a little mind\u2014in\neverything but the size the same as that of the adult, having its own\nready-furnished equipment of faculties of attention, memory, etc. Now\nwe believe in the mind as a growing affair, and hence as essentially\nchanging, presenting distinctive phases of capacity and interest\nat different periods. These are all one and the same in the sense\nof continuity of life, but all different, in that each has its own\ndistinctive claims and offices. \u201cFirst the blade, then the ear, and then\nthe full corn in the ear.\u201d\n\nIt is hardly possible to overstate the agreement of education and\npsychology at this point. The course of study was thoroughly, even if\nunconsciously, controlled by the assumption that since mind and its\nfaculties are the same throughout, the subject-matter of the adult,\nlogically arranged facts and principles, is the natural \u201cstudy\u201d of the\nchild\u2014simplified and made easier of course, since the wind must be\ntempered to the shorn lamb. The outcome was the traditional course of\nstudy in which again child and adult minds are absolutely identified,\nexcept as regards the mere matter of amount or quantity of power. The\nentire range of the universe is first subdivided into sections called\nstudies; then each one of these studies is broken up into bits, and some\none bit assigned to a certain year of the course. No order of development\nwas recognized\u2014it was enough that the earlier parts were made easier\nthan the later. To use the pertinent illustration of Mr. W. S. Jackman\nin stating the absurdity of this sort of curriculum: \u201cIt must seem to\ngeography teachers that Heaven smiled on them when it ordained but four\nor five continents, because starting in far enough along the course it\nwas so easy, that it really seemed to be natural, to give one continent\nto each grade, and then come out right in the eight years.\u201d\n\nIf once more we are in earnest with the idea of mind as growth, this\ngrowth carrying with it typical features distinctive of its various\nstages, it is clear that an educational transformation is again\nindicated. It is clear that the selection and grading of material in the\ncourse of study must be done with reference to proper nutrition of the\ndominant directions of activity in a given period, not with reference to\nchopped-up sections of a ready-made universe of knowledge.\n\nIt is, of course, comparatively easy to lay down general propositions\nlike the foregoing; easy to use them to criticize existing school\nconditions; easy by means of them to urge the necessity of something\ndifferent. But art is long. The difficulty is in carrying such\nconceptions into effect\u2014in seeing just what materials and methods, in\nwhat proportion and arrangement, are available and helpful at a given\ntime. Here again we must fall back upon the idea of the laboratory.\nThere is no answer in advance to such questions as these. Tradition does\nnot give it because tradition is founded upon a radically different\npsychology. Mere reasoning cannot give it because it is a question of\nfact. It is only by trying that such things can be found out. To refuse\nto try, to stick blindly to tradition, because the search for the truth\ninvolves experimentation in the region of the unknown, is to refuse the\nonly step which can introduce rational conviction into education.\n\nHence the following statement simply reports various lines of inquiry\nstarted during the last five years, with some of the results more\nrecently indicated. These results can, of course, make no claim to\nbe other than tentative, excepting in so far as a more definite\nconsciousness of what the problems are, clearing the way for more\nintelligent action in the future, is a definitive advance. It should\nalso be stated that practically it has not as yet been possible, in\nmany cases, to act adequately upon the best ideas obtained, because of\nadministrative difficulties, due to lack of funds\u2014difficulties centering\nin the lack of a proper building and appliances, and in inability to pay\nthe amounts necessary to secure the complete time of teachers in some\nimportant lines. Indeed, with the growth of the school in numbers, and\nin the age and maturity of pupils, it is becoming a grave question how\nlong it is fair to the experiment to carry it on without more adequate\nfacilities.\n\nIn coming now to speak of the educational answers which have been sought\nfor the psychological hypotheses, it is convenient to start from the\nmatter of the stages of growth. The first stage (found in the child say\nof from four to eight years of age) is characterized by directness\nof social and personal interests, and by directness and promptness\nof relationship between impressions, ideas, and action. The demand\nfor a motor outlet for expression is urgent and immediate. Hence the\nsubject-matter for these years is selected from phases of life entering\ninto the child\u2019s own social surroundings, and, as far as may be, capable\nof reproduction by him in something approaching social form\u2014in play,\ngames, occupations, or miniature industrial arts, stories, pictorial\nimagination, and conversation. At first the material is such as lies\nnearest the child himself, the family life and its neighborhood setting;\nit then goes on to something slightly more remote, social occupations\n(especially those having to do with the interdependence of city and\ncountry life), and then extends itself to the historical evolution of\ntypical occupations and of the social forms connected with them. The\nmaterial is not presented as lessons, as something to be learned, but\nrather as something to be taken up into the child\u2019s own experience,\nthrough his own activities, in weaving, cooking, shopwork, modeling,\ndramatic plays, conversation, discussion, story-telling, etc. These in\nturn are direct agencies. They are forms of motor or expressive activity.\nThey are emphasized so as to dominate the school program, in order that\nthe intimate connection between knowing and doing, so characteristic of\nthis period of child life, may be maintained. The aim, then, is not for\nthe child to go to school as a place apart, but rather in the school so\nto recapitulate typical phases of his experience outside of school, as to\nenlarge, enrich, and gradually formulate it.\n\nIn the second period, extending from eight or nine to eleven or twelve,\nthe aim is to recognize and respond to the change which comes into the\nchild from his growing sense of the possibility of more permanent and\nobjective results and of the necessity for the control of agencies for\nthe skill necessary to reach these results. When the child recognizes\ndistinct and enduring ends which stand out and demand attention on their\nown account, the previous vague and fluid unity of life is broken up. The\nmere play of activity no longer directly satisfies. It must be felt to\naccomplish something\u2014to lead up to a definite and abiding outcome. Hence\nthe recognition of rules of action\u2014that is, of regular means appropriate\nto reaching permanent results\u2014and of the value of mastering special\nprocesses so as to give skill in their use.\n\nHence, on the educational side, the problem is, as regards the\nsubject-matter, to differentiate the vague unity of experience into\ncharacteristic typical phases, selecting such as clearly illustrate the\nimportance to mankind of command over specific agencies and methods of\nthought and action in realizing its highest aims. The problem on the\nside of method is an analogous one: to bring the child to recognize the\nnecessity of a similar development within himself\u2014the need of securing\nfor himself practical and intellectual control of such methods of work\nand inquiry as will enable him to realize results for himself.\n\nOn the more direct social side, American history (especially that of the\nperiod of colonization) is selected as furnishing a typical example of\npatience, courage, ingenuity, and continual judgment in adapting means to\nends, even in the face of great hazard and obstacle; while the material\nitself is so definite, vivid, and human as to come directly within the\nrange of the child\u2019s representative and constructive imagination and thus\nbecomes, vicariously at least, a part of his own expanding consciousness.\nSince the aim is not \u201ccovering the ground,\u201d but knowledge of social\nprocesses used to secure social results, no attempt is made to go over\nthe entire history, in chronological order, of America. Rather a series\nof types is taken up: Chicago and the northwestern Mississippi valley;\nVirginia, New York, and the Puritans and Pilgrims in New England. The aim\nis to present a variety of climatic and local conditions, to show the\ndifferent sorts of obstacles and helps that people found, and a variety\nof historic traditions and customs and purposes of different people.\n\nThe method involves presentation of a large amount of detail, of minutiae\nof surroundings, tools, clothing, household utensils, foods, modes of\nliving day by day, so that the child can reproduce the material as\nlife, not as mere historic information. In this way, social processes\nand results become realities. Moreover, to the personal and dramatic\nidentification of the child with the social life studied, characteristic\nof the earlier period, there now supervenes an _intellectual_\nidentification\u2014the child puts himself at the standpoint of the problems\nthat have to be met and rediscovers, so far as may be, ways of meeting\nthem.\n\nThe general standpoint\u2014the adaptation of means to ends\u2014controls also the\nwork in science. For purposes of convenience, this may be regarded as\nnow differentiated into two sides\u2014the geographical and the experimental.\nSince, as just stated, the history work depends upon an appreciation of\nthe natural environment as affording resources and presenting urgent\nproblems, considerable attention is paid to the physiography, mountains,\nrivers, plains, and lines of natural travel and exchange, flora and fauna\nof each of the colonies. This is connected with field excursions in\norder that the child may be able to supply from observation, as far as\npossible, the data to be used by constructive imagination, in reproducing\nmore remote environments.\n\nThe experimental side devotes itself to a study of processes which yield\ntypical results of value to men. The activity of the child in the earlier\nperiod is directly productive, rather than investigative. His experiments\nare modes of active doing\u2014almost as much so as his play and games. Later\nhe tries to find out how various materials or agencies are manipulated\nin order to give certain results. It is thus clearly distinguished from\nexperimentation in the scientific sense\u2014such as is appropriate to the\nsecondary period\u2014where the aim is the discovery of facts and verification\nof principles. Since the practical interest predominates, it is a study\nof applied science rather than of pure science. For instance, processes\nare selected found to have been of importance in colonial life\u2014bleaching,\ndyeing, soap and candle-making, manufacture of pewter dishes, making\nof cider and vinegar, leading to some study of chemical agencies, of\noils, fats, elementary metallurgy. \u201cPhysics\u201d is commenced from the same\napplied standpoint. A study is made of the use and transfer of energy in\nthe spinning-wheel and looms; everyday uses of mechanical principles are\ntaken up\u2014in locks, scales, etc., going on later to electric appliances\nand devices\u2014bells, the telegraph, etc.\n\nThe relation of means to ends is emphasized also in other lines of work.\nIn art attention is given to practical questions of perspective, of\nproportion of spaces and masses, balance, effect of color combinations\nand contrasts, etc. In cooking, the principles of food-composition and\nof effects of various agencies upon these elements are taken up, so that\nthe children may deduce, as far as possible, their own rules. In sewing,\nmethods of cutting, fitting (as applied to dolls\u2019 clothing) come up, and\nlater on the technical sequence of stitches, etc.\n\nIt is clear that with the increasing differentiation of lines of work and\ninterest, leading to greater individuality and independence in various\nstudies, great care must be taken to find the balance between, on one\nside, undue separation and isolation, and, on the other, a miscellaneous\nand casual attention to a large number of topics, without adequate\nemphasis and distinctiveness to any. The first principle makes work\nmechanical and formal, divorces it from the life-experience of the child\nand from effective influence upon conduct. The second makes it scrappy\nand vague and leaves the child without definite command of his own powers\nor clear consciousness of purposes. It is perhaps only in the present\nyear that the specific principle of the conscious relation of means to\nends has emerged as the unifying principle of this period; and it is\nhoped that emphasis of this in all lines of work will have a decidedly\ncumulative and unifying effect upon the child\u2019s development.\n\nNothing has been said, as yet, of one of the most important agencies\nor means in extending and controlling experience\u2014command of the social\nor conventional symbols\u2014symbols of language, including those of\nquantity. The importance of these instrumentalities is so great that the\ntraditional or three R\u2019s curriculum is based upon them\u2014from 60 to 80 per\ncent of the time program of the first four or five years of elementary\nschools being devoted to them, the smaller figure representing selected\nrather than average schools.\n\nThese subjects are social in a double sense. They represent the tools\nwhich society has evolved in the past as the instruments of its\nintellectual pursuits. They represent the keys which will unlock to the\nchild the wealth of social capital which lies beyond the possible range\nof his limited individual experience. While these two points of view\nmust always give these arts a highly important place in education, they\nalso make it necessary that certain conditions should be observed in\ntheir introduction and use. In a wholesale and direct application of the\nstudies no account is taken of these conditions. The chief problem at\npresent relating to the three R\u2019s is recognition of these conditions and\nthe adaptation of work to them.\n\nThe conditions may be reduced to two: (1) The need that the child shall\nhave in his own personal and vital experience a varied background of\ncontact and acquaintance with realities, social and physical. This is\nnecessary to prevent symbols from becoming a purely second-hand and\nconventional substitute for reality. (2) The need that the more ordinary,\ndirect, and personal experience of the child shall furnish problems,\nmotives, and interests that necessitate recourse to books for their\nsolution, satisfaction, and pursuit. Otherwise, the child approaches\nthe book without intellectual hunger, without alertness, without a\nquestioning attitude, and the result is the one so deplorably common:\nsuch abject dependence upon books as weakens and cripples vigor of\nthought and inquiry, combined with reading for mere random stimulation of\nfancy, emotional indulgence, and flight from the world of reality into a\nmake-belief land.\n\nThe problem here is then (1) to furnish the child with a sufficiently\nlarge amount of personal activity in occupations, expression,\nconversation, construction, and experimentation, so that his\nindividuality, moral and intellectual, shall not be swamped by a\ndisproportionate amount of the experience of others to which books\nintroduce him; and (2) so to conduct this more direct experience as to\nmake the child feel the need of resort to and command of the traditional\nsocial tools\u2014furnish him with motives and make his recourse to them\nintelligent, an addition to his powers, instead of a servile dependency.\nWhen this problem shall be solved, work in language, literature, and\nnumber will not be a combination of mechanical drill, formal analysis,\nand appeal, even if unconscious, to sensational interests; and there will\nnot be the slightest reason to fear that books and all that relates to\nthem will not take the important place to which they are entitled.\n\nIt is hardly necessary to say that the problem is not yet solved. The\ncommon complaints that children\u2019s progress in these traditional school\nstudies is sacrificed to the newer subjects that have come into the\ncurriculum is sufficient evidence that the exact balance is not yet\nstruck. The experience thus far in the school, even if not demonstrative,\nindicates the following probable results: (1) the more direct modes of\nactivity, constructive and occupation work, scientific observation,\nexperimentation, etc., present plenty of opportunities and occasions\nfor the necessary use of reading, writing (and spelling), and number\nwork. These things may be introduced, then, not as isolated studies, but\nas organic outgrowths of the child\u2019s experience. The problem is, in a\nsystematic and progressive way, to take advantage of these occasions. (2)\nThe additional vitality and meaning which these studies thus secure make\npossible a very considerable reduction of the time ordinarily devoted to\nthem. (3) The final use of the symbols, whether in reading, calculation,\nor composition, is more intelligent, less mechanical; more active, less\npassively receptive; more an increase of power, less a mere mode of\nenjoyment.\n\nOn the other hand, increasing experience seems to make clear the\nfollowing points: (1) that it is possible, in the early years, to appeal,\nin teaching the recognition and use of symbols, to the child\u2019s power\nof production and creation; as much so in principle as in other lines\nof work seemingly much more direct, and that there is the advantage\nof a limited and definite result by which the child may measure his\nprogress. (2) Failure sufficiently to take account of this fact resulted\nin an undue postponement of some phases of these lines of work, with\nthe effect that the child, having progressed to a more advanced plane\nintellectually, feels what earlier might have been a form of power and\ncreation to be an irksome task. (3) There is a demand for periodic\nconcentration and alternation in the school program of the time devoted\nto these studies\u2014and of all studies where mastery of technique or special\nmethod is advisable. That is to say, instead of carrying all subjects\nsimultaneously and at an equal pace upon the program, at times one must\nbe brought to the foreground and others relegated to the background,\nuntil the child is brought to the point of recognizing that he has a\npower or skill which he can now go ahead and use independently.\n\nThe third period of elementary education is upon the borderland of\nsecondary. It comes when the child has a sufficient acquaintance of a\nfairly direct sort with various forms of reality and modes of activity;\nand when he has sufficiently mastered the methods, the tools of thought,\ninquiry, and activity, appropriate to various phases of experience,\nto be able profitably to specialize upon distinctive studies and arts\nfor technical and intellectual aims. While the school has a number of\nchildren who are in this period, the school has not, of course, been\nin existence long enough so that any typical inferences can be safely\ndrawn. There certainly seems to be reason to hope, however, that with\nthe consciousness of difficulties, needs, and resources gained in the\nexperience of the last five years, children can be brought to and through\nthis period without sacrifice of thoroughness, mental discipline, or\ncommand of technical tools of learning, and with a positive enlargement\nof life, and a wider, freer, and more open outlook upon it.\n\n\n\n\nFROEBEL\u2019S EDUCATIONAL PRINCIPLES\n\n\n\n\nV\n\nFROEBEL\u2019S EDUCATIONAL PRINCIPLES\n\n\nOne of the traditions of the Elementary School of the University of\nChicago is of a visitor who, in its early days, called to see the\nkindergarten. On being told that the school had not as yet established\none, she asked if there were not singing, drawing, manual training, plays\nand dramatizations, and attention to the children\u2019s social relations.\nWhen her questions were answered in the affirmative, she remarked, both\ntriumphantly and indignantly, that that was what she understood by a\nkindergarten, and that she did not know what was meant by saying that the\nschool had no kindergarten. The remark was perhaps justified in spirit,\nif not in letter. At all events, it suggests that in a certain sense\nthe school endeavors throughout its whole course\u2014now including children\nbetween four and thirteen\u2014to carry into effect certain principles which\nFroebel was perhaps the first consciously to set forth. Speaking still in\ngeneral, these principles are:\n\n1. That the primary business of school is to train children in\nco-operative and mutually helpful living; to foster in them the\nconsciousness of mutual interdependence; and to help them practically in\nmaking the adjustments that will carry this spirit into overt deeds.\n\n2. That the primary root of all educative activity is in the instinctive,\nimpulsive attitudes and activities of the child, and not in the\npresentation and application of external material, whether through the\nideas of others or through the senses; and that, accordingly, numberless\nspontaneous activities of children, plays, games, mimic efforts, even the\napparently meaningless motions of infants\u2014exhibitions previously ignored\nas trivial, futile, or even condemned as positively evil\u2014are capable of\neducational use; nay, are the foundation-stones of educational method.\n\n3. That these individual tendencies and activities are organized and\ndirected through the uses made of them in keeping up the co-operative\nliving already spoken of; taking advantage of them to reproduce on the\nchild\u2019s plane the typical doings and occupations of the larger, maturer\nsociety into which he is finally to go forth; and that it is through\nproduction and creative use that valuable knowledge is secured and\nclinched.\n\nSo far as these statements correctly represent Froebel\u2019s educational\nphilosophy, the School should be regarded as its exponent. An attempt\nis making to act upon them with as much faith and sincerity in their\napplication to children of twelve as to children of four. This attempt,\nhowever, to assume what might be called the kindergarten attitude\nthroughout the whole school makes necessary certain modifications of\nthe work done in what is more technically known as the kindergarten\nperiod\u2014that is, with the children between the ages of four and six. It\nis necessary only to state reasons for believing that in spite of the\napparently radical character of some of them they are true to the spirit\nof Froebel.\n\n\nAS REGARDS PLAY AND GAMES\n\nPlay is not to be identified with anything which the child externally\ndoes. It rather designates his mental attitude in its entirety and in its\nunity. It is the free play, the interplay, of all the child\u2019s powers,\nthoughts, and physical movements, in embodying, in a satisfying form,\nhis own images and interests. Negatively, it is freedom\u2014from economic\npressure\u2014the necessities of getting a living and supporting others\u2014and\nfrom the fixed responsibilities attaching to the special callings of the\nadult. Positively, it means that the supreme end of the child is fulness\nof growth\u2014fulness of realization of his budding powers, a realization\nwhich continually carries him on from one plane to another.\n\nThis is a very general statement, and taken in its generality, is so\nvague as to be innocent of practical bearing. Its significance in detail,\nin application, however, means the possibility, and in many respects\nthe necessity, of quite a radical change of kindergarten procedure. To\nstate it baldly, the fact that \u201cplay\u201d denotes the psychological attitude\nof the child, not his outward performances, means complete emancipation\nfrom the necessity of following any given or prescribed system, or\nsequence of gifts, plays, or occupations. The judicious teacher will\ncertainly look for suggestions to the activities mentioned by Froebel (in\nhis _Mother-Play_ and elsewhere), and to those set forth in such minute\ndetail by his disciples; but she will also remember that the principle of\nplay requires her carefully to investigate and criticize these things,\nand decide whether they are really activities for her own children, or\njust things which may have been vital in the past to children living\nin different social conditions. So far as occupations, games, etc.,\nsimply perpetuate those of Froebel and his earlier disciples, it may\nfairly be said that in many respects the presumption is against them\u2014the\npresumption is that in the worship of the external doings discussed by\nFroebel we have ceased to be loyal to his principle.\n\nThe teacher must be absolutely free to get suggestions from any and from\nevery source, asking herself but these two questions: Will the proposed\nmode of play appeal to the child as his own? Is it something of which\nhe has the instinctive roots in himself, and which will mature the\ncapacities that are struggling for manifestation in him? And again: Will\nthe proposed activity give that sort of expression to these impulses that\nwill carry the child on to a higher plane of consciousness and action,\ninstead of merely exciting him and then leaving him just where he was\nbefore, plus a certain amount of nervous exhaustion and appetite for more\nexcitation in the future?\n\nThere is every evidence that Froebel studied carefully\u2014inductively we\nmight now say\u2014the children\u2019s plays of his own time, and the games which\nmothers played with their infants. He also took great pains\u2014as in his\n_Mother-Play_\u2014to point out that certain principles of large import were\ninvolved. He had to bring his generation to consciousness of the fact\nthat these things were not merely trivial and childish because done by\nchildren, but were essential factors in their growth. But I do not see\nthe slightest evidence that he supposed that just these plays, and only\nthese plays, had meaning, or that his philosophic explanation had any\nmotive beyond that just suggested. On the contrary, I believe that he\nexpected his followers to exhibit their following by continuing his own\nstudy of contemporary conditions and activities, rather than by literally\nadhering to the plays he had collected. Moreover, it is hardly likely\nthat Froebel himself would contend that in his interpretation of these\ngames he did more than take advantage of the best psychological and\nphilosophical insight available to him at the time; and we may suppose\nthat he would have been the first to welcome the growth of a better\nand more extensive psychology (whether general, experimental, or as\nchild study), and would avail himself of its results to reinterpret\nthe activities, to discuss them more critically, going from the new\nstandpoint into the reasons that make them educationally valuable.\n\n\nSYMBOLISM\n\nIt must be remembered that much of Froebel\u2019s symbolism is the product of\ntwo peculiar conditions of his own life and work. In the first place,\non account of inadequate knowledge at that time of the physiological\nand psychological facts and principles of child growth, he was often\nforced to resort to strained and artificial explanations of the value\nattaching to the plays, etc. To the impartial observer it is obvious\nthat many of his statements are cumbrous and far-fetched, giving\nabstract philosophical reasons for matters that may now receive a\nsimple, everyday formulation. In the second place, the general political\nand social conditions of Germany were such that it was impossible to\nconceive continuity between the free, co-operative social life of the\nkindergarten and that of the world outside. Accordingly, he could not\nregard the \u201coccupations\u201d of the schoolroom as literal reproductions of\nthe ethical principles involved in community life\u2014the latter were often\ntoo restricted and authoritative to serve as worthy models.\n\nAccordingly he was compelled to think of them as symbolic of abstract\nethical and philosophical principles. There certainly is change enough\nand progress enough in the social conditions of the United States of\ntoday, as compared with those of the Germany of his day, to justify\nmaking kindergarten activities more natural, more direct, and more\nreal representations of current life than Froebel\u2019s disciples have\ndone. Even as it is, the disparity of Froebel\u2019s philosophy with German\npolitical ideals has made the authorities in Germany suspicious of\nthe kindergarten, and has been undoubtedly one force operating in\ntransforming its social simplicity into an involved intellectual\ntechnique.\n\n\nIMAGINATION AND PLAY\n\nAn excessive emphasis on symbolism is sure to influence the treatment of\nimagination. It is of course true that a little child lives in a world\nof imagination. In one sense, he can only \u201cmake believe.\u201d His activities\nrepresent or stand for the life that he sees going on around him. Because\nthey are thus representative they may be termed symbolic, but it should\nbe remembered that this make-believe or symbolism has reference to\nthe activities suggested. Unless they are, to the child, as real and\ndefinite as the adult\u2019s activities are to him, the inevitable result\nis artificiality, nervous strain, and either physical and emotional\nexcitement or else deadening of powers.\n\nThere has been a curious, almost unaccountable, tendency in the\nkindergarten to assume that because the value of the activity lies in\nwhat it stands for to the child, therefore the materials used must be\nas artificial as possible, and that one must keep carefully away from\nreal things and real acts on the part of the child. Thus one hears\nof gardening activities which are carried on by sprinkling grains of\nsand for seeds; the child sweeps and dusts a make-believe room with\nmake-believe brooms and cloths; he sets a table using only paper cut\nin the flat (and even then cut with reference to geometric design,\nrather then to dishes), instead of toy tea things with which the child\noutside of the kindergarten plays. Dolls, toy locomotives, and trains\nor cars, etc., are tabooed as altogether too grossly real\u2014and hence not\ncultivating the child\u2019s imagination.\n\nAll this is surely mere superstition. The imaginative play of the\nchild\u2019s mind comes through the cluster of suggestions, reminiscences,\nand anticipations that gather about the things he uses. The more natural\nand straightforward these are, the more definite basis there is for\ncalling up and holding together all the allied suggestions which make his\nimaginative play really representative. The simple cooking, dishwashing,\ndusting, etc., which children do are no more prosaic or utilitarian to\nthem than would be, say, the game of the Five Knights. To the children\nthese occupations are surcharged with a sense of the mysterious values\nthat attach to whatever their elders are concerned with. The materials,\nthen, must be as \u201creal,\u201d as direct and straightforward, as opportunity\npermits.\n\nBut the principle does not end here\u2014the reality symbolized must also lie\nwithin the capacities of the child\u2019s own appreciation. It is sometimes\nthought the use of the imagination is profitable in the degree it stands\nfor very remote metaphysical and spiritual principles. In the great\nmajority of such cases it is safe to say that the adult deceives himself.\nHe is conscious of both the reality and the symbol, and hence of the\nrelation between them. But since the truth or reality represented is far\nbeyond the reach of the child, the supposed symbol is not a symbol to him\nat all. It is simply a positive thing on its own account. Practically\nabout all he gets out of it is its own physical and sensational meaning,\nplus, very often, a glib facility in phrases and attitudes that he\nlearns are expected of him by the teacher\u2014without, however, any mental\ncounterpart. We often teach insincerity, and instil sentimentalism, and\nfoster sensationalism when we think we are teaching spiritual truths\nby means of symbols. The realities reproduced, therefore, by the child\nshould be of as familiar, direct, and real a character as possible. It is\nlargely for this reason that in the kindergarten of our School the work\ncenters so much about the reproduction of home and neighborhood life.\nThis brings us to the topic of\n\n\nSUBJECT-MATTER\n\nThe home life in its setting of house, furniture, utensils, etc.,\ntogether with the occupations carried on in the home, offers,\naccordingly, material which is in a direct and real relationship to the\nchild, and which he naturally tends to reproduce in imaginative form.\nIt is also sufficiently full of ethical relations and suggestive of\nmoral duties to afford plenty of food for the child on his moral side.\nThe program is comparatively unambitious compared with that of many\nkindergartens, but it may be questioned whether there are not certain\npositive advantages in this limitation of the subject-matter. When\nmuch ground is covered (the work going over, say, industrial society,\narmy, church, state, etc.), there is a tendency for the work to become\nover-symbolic. So much of this material lies beyond the experience and\ncapacities of the child of four and five that practically all he gets\nout of it is the physical and emotional reflex\u2014he does not get any real\npenetration into the material itself. Moreover, there is danger, in these\nambitious programs, of an unfavorable reaction upon the child\u2019s own\nintellectual attitude. Having covered pretty much the whole universe in a\npurely make-believe fashion, he becomes blas\u00e9, loses his natural hunger\nfor the simple things of direct experience, and approaches the material\nof the first grades of the primary school with a feeling that he has\nhad all that already. The later years of a child\u2019s life have their own\nrights, and a superficial, merely emotional anticipation is likely to do\nthe child serious injury.\n\nMoreover, there is danger that a mental habit of jumping rapidly from\none topic to another be induced. The little child has a good deal of\npatience and endurance of a certain type. It is true that he has a liking\nfor novelty and variety; that he soon wearies of an activity that does\nnot lead out into new fields and open up new paths for exploration. My\nplea, however, is not for monotony. There is sufficient variety in the\nactivities, furnishings, and instrumentalities of the homes from which\nthe children come to give continual diversity. It touches the civic and\nthe industrial life at this and that point; these concerns can be brought\nin, when desirable, without going beyond the unity of the main topic.\nThus there is an opportunity to foster that sense which is at the basis\nof attention and of all intellectual growth\u2014a sense of continuity.\n\nThis continuity is often interfered with by the very methods that\naim at securing it. From the child\u2019s standpoint unity lies in the\nsubject-matter\u2014in the present case, in the fact that he is always dealing\nwith one thing: home life. Emphasis is continually passing from one\nphase of this life to another; one occupation after another, one piece\nof furniture after another, one relation after another, etc., receive\nattention; but they all fall into building up one and the same mode of\nliving, although bringing now this feature, now that, into prominence.\nThe child is working all the time _within a unity_, giving different\nphases of its clearness and definiteness, and bringing them into\ncoherent connection with each other. When there is a great diversity of\nsubject-matter, continuity is apt to be sought simply on the formal side;\nthat is, in schemes of sequence, \u201cschools of work,\u201d a rigid program of\ndevelopment followed with every topic, a \u201cthought for the day\u201d from which\nthe work is not supposed to stray. As a rule such sequence is purely\nintellectual, hence is grasped only by the teacher, quite passing over\nthe head of the child. Hence the program for the year, term, month, week,\netc., should be made out on the basis of estimating how much of the\ncommon subject-matter can be covered in that time, not on the basis of\nintellectual or ethical principles. This will give both definiteness and\nelasticity.\n\n\nMETHOD\n\nThe peculiar problem of the early grades is, of course, to get hold of\nthe child\u2019s natural impulses and instincts, and to utilize them so that\nthe child is carried on to a higher plane of perception and judgment,\nand equipped with more efficient habits; so that he has an enlarged\nand deepened consciousness and increased control of powers of action.\nWherever this result is not reached, play results in mere amusement and\nnot in educative growth.\n\nUpon the whole, constructive or \u201cbuilt up\u201d work (with, of course, the\nproper alternation of story, song, and game which may be connected, so\nfar as is desirable, with the ideas involved in the construction) seems\nbetter fitted than anything else to secure these two factors\u2014initiation\nin the child\u2019s own impulse and termination upon a higher plane. It\nbrings the child in contact with a great variety of material: wood, tin,\nleather, yarn, etc.; it supplies a motive for using these materials in\nreal ways instead of going through exercises having no meaning except\na remote symbolic one; it calls into play alertness of the senses and\nacuteness of observation; it demands clear-cut imagery of the ends to\nbe accomplished, and requires ingenuity and invention in planning; it\nmakes necessary concentrated attention and personal responsibility in\nexecution, while the results are in such tangible form that the child may\nbe led to judge his own work and improve his standards.\n\nA word should be said regarding the psychology of imitation and\nsuggestion in relation to kindergarten work. There is no doubt that\nthe little child is highly imitative and open to suggestions; there is\nno doubt that his crude powers and immature consciousness need to be\ncontinually enriched and directed through these channels. But on this\naccount it is imperative to discriminate between a use of imitation and\nsuggestion which is so external as to be thoroughly non-psychological,\nand a use which is justified through its organic relation to the child\u2019s\nown activities. As a general principle no activity should be _originated_\nby imitation. The start must come from the child; the model or copy may\nthen be supplied in order to assist the child in imaging more definitely\nwhat it is that he really wants\u2014in bringing him to consciousness. Its\nvalue is not as model to copy in action, but as guide to clearness and\nadequacy of conception. Unless the child can get away from it to his own\nimagery when it comes to execution, he is rendered servile and dependent,\nnot developed. Imitation comes in to reinforce and help out, not to\ninitiate.\n\nThere is no ground for holding that the teacher should not suggest\nanything to the child until he has _consciously_ expressed a want in that\ndirection. A sympathetic teacher is quite likely to know more clearly\nthan the child himself what his own instincts are and mean. But the\nsuggestion must _fit in_ with the dominant mode of growth in the child;\nit must serve simply as stimulus to bring forth more adequately what\nthe child is already blindly striving to do. Only by watching the child\nand seeing the attitude that he assumes toward suggestions can we tell\nwhether they are operating as factors in furthering the child\u2019s growth,\nor whether they are external, arbitrary impositions interfering with\nnormal growth.\n\nThe same principle applies even more strongly to so-called dictation\nwork. Nothing is more absurd than to suppose that there is no middle\nterm between leaving a child to his own unguided fancies and likes or\ncontrolling his activities by a formal succession of dictated directions.\nAs just intimated, it is the teacher\u2019s business to know what powers are\nstriving for utterance at a given period in the child\u2019s development,\nand what sorts of activity will bring these to helpful expression, in\norder then to supply the requisite stimuli and needed materials. The\nsuggestion, for instance, of a playhouse, the suggestion that comes from\nseeing objects that have already been made to furnish it, from seeing\nother children at work, is quite sufficient definitely to direct the\nactivities of a normal child of five. Imitation and suggestion come in\nnaturally and inevitably, but only as instruments to help him carry out\nhis own wishes and ideas. They serve to make him realize, to bring to\nconsciousness, what he already is striving for in a vague, confused,\nand therefore ineffective way. From the psychological standpoint it may\nsafely be said that when a teacher has to rely upon a series of dictated\ndirections, it is just because the child has no image of his own of what\nis to be done or why it is to be done. Instead, therefore, of gaining\npower of control by conforming to directions, he is really losing it\u2014made\ndependent upon an external source.\n\nIn conclusion, it may be pointed out that such subject-matter and the\nmethod connect directly with the work of the six-year-old children\n(corresponding to the first grade of primary work). The play reproduction\nof the home life passes naturally on into a more extended and serious\nstudy of the larger social occupations upon which the home is dependent;\nwhile the continually increasing demands made upon the child\u2019s own\nability to plan and execute carry him over into more controlled use of\nattention upon more distinctively intellectual topics. It must not be\nforgotten that the readjustment needed to secure continuity between\n\u201ckindergarten\u201d and \u201cfirst-grade\u201d work cannot be brought about wholly\nfrom the side of the latter. The school change must be as gradual and\ninsensible as that in the growth of the child. This is impossible unless\nthe subprimary work surrenders whatever isolates it, and hospitably\nwelcomes whatever materials and resources will keep pace with the full\ndevelopment of the child\u2019s powers, and thus keep him always prepared,\nready, for the next work he has to do.\n\n\n\n\nTHE PSYCHOLOGY OF OCCUPATIONS\n\n\n\n\nVI\n\nTHE PSYCHOLOGY OF OCCUPATIONS\n\n\nBy occupation is not meant any kind of \u201cbusy work\u201d or exercises that may\nbe given to a child in order to keep him out of mischief or idleness\nwhen seated at his desk. By occupation I mean a mode of activity on\nthe part of the child which reproduces, or runs parallel to, some form\nof work carried on in social life. In the University Elementary School\nthese occupations are represented by the shopwork with wood and tools; by\ncooking, sewing, and by the textile work herewith reported upon.\n\nThe fundamental point in the psychology of an occupation is that it\nmaintains a balance between the intellectual and the practical phases\nof experience. As an occupation it is active or motor; it finds\nexpression through the physical organs\u2014the eyes, hands, etc. But it also\ninvolves continual observation of materials, and continual planning\nand reflection, in order that the practical or executive side may be\nsuccessfully carried on. Occupation as thus conceived must, therefore, be\ncarefully distinguished from work which educates primarily for a trade.\nIt differs because its end is in itself; in the growth that comes from\nthe continual interplay of ideas and their embodiment in action, not in\nexternal utility.\n\nIt is possible to carry on this type of work in other than trade schools,\nso that the entire emphasis falls upon the manual or physical side. In\nsuch cases the work is reduced to a mere routine or custom, and its\neducational value is lost. This is the inevitable tendency wherever,\nin manual training for instance, the mastery of certain tools, or the\nproduction of certain objects, is made the primary end, and the child is\nnot given, wherever possible, intellectual responsibility for selecting\nthe materials and instruments that are most fit, and given an opportunity\nto think out his own model and plan of work, led to perceive his own\nerrors, and find out how to correct them\u2014that is, of course, within\nthe range of his capacities. So far as the external result is held in\nview, rather than the mental and moral states and growth involved in\nthe process of reaching the result, the work may be called manual, but\ncannot rightly be termed an occupation. Of course the tendency of all\nmere habit, routine, or custom is to result in what is unconscious and\nmechanical. That of occupation is to put the maximum of consciousness\ninto whatever is done.\n\nThis enables us to interpret the stress laid (_a_) upon personal\nexperimenting, planning, and reinventing in connection with the textile\nwork, and (_b_) its parallelism with lines of historical development.\nThe first requires the child to be mentally quick and alert at every\npoint in order that he may do the outward work properly. The second\nenriches and deepens the work performed by saturating it with values\nsuggested from the social life which it recapitulates.\n\nOccupations, so considered, furnish the ideal occasions for both\nsense-training and discipline in thought. The weakness of ordinary\nlessons in observation, calculated to train the senses, is that they have\nno outlet beyond themselves, and hence no necessary motive. Now, in the\nnatural life of the individual and the race there is always a reason for\nsense-observation. There is always some need, coming from an end to be\nreached, that makes one look about to discover and discriminate whatever\nwill assist him. Normal sensations operate as clues, as aids, as stimuli,\nin directing activity in what has to be done; they are not ends in\nthemselves. Separated from real needs and motives, sense-training becomes\na mere gymnastic and easily degenerates into acquiring what are hardly\nmore than mere knacks or tricks in observation, or else mere excitement\nof the sense organs.\n\nThe same principle applies in normal _thinking_. It also does not occur\nfor its own sake, nor end in itself. It arises from the need of meeting\nsome difficulty, in reflecting upon the best way of overcoming it, and\nthus leads to planning, to projecting mentally the result to be reached,\nand deciding upon the steps necessary and their serial order. This\nconcrete logic of action long precedes the logic of pure speculation or\nabstract investigation, and through the mental habits that it forms is\nthe best of preparations for the latter.\n\nAnother educational point upon which the psychology of occupations\nthrows helpful light is the place of interest in school work. One of the\nobjections regularly brought against giving in school work any large\nor positive place to the child\u2019s interest is the impossibility on such\na basis of proper selection. The child, it is said, has all kinds of\ninterests, good, bad, and indifferent. It is necessary to decide between\nthe interests that are really important and those that are trivial;\nbetween those that are helpful and those that are harmful; between those\nthat are transitory or mark immediate excitement, and those which endure\nand are permanently influential. It would seem as if we had to go beyond\ninterest to get any basis for using interest.\n\nNow, there can be no doubt that occupation work possesses a strong\ninterest for the child. A glance into any school where such work is\ncarried on will give sufficient evidence of this fact. Outside of the\nschool, a large portion of the children\u2019s plays are simply more or less\nminiature and haphazard attempts at reproducing social occupations.\nThere are certain reasons for believing that the type of interest which\nsprings up along with these occupations is of a thoroughly healthy,\npermanent, and really educative sort; and that by giving a larger place\nto occupations we should secure an excellent, perhaps the very best, way\nof making an appeal to the child\u2019s spontaneous interest, and yet have, at\nthe same time, some guaranty that we are not dealing with what is merely\npleasure-giving, exciting, or transient.\n\nIn the first place, every interest grows out of some instinct or\nsome habit that in turn is finally based upon an original instinct.\nIt does not follow that all instincts are of equal value, or that we\ndo not inherit many instincts which need transformation, rather than\nsatisfaction, in order to be useful in life. But the instincts which\nfind their conscious outlet and expression in occupation are bound to\nbe of an exceedingly fundamental and permanent type. The activities of\nlife are of necessity directed to bringing the materials and forces of\nnature under the control of our purposes; of making them tributary to\nends of life. Men have had to work in order to live. In and through\ntheir work they have mastered nature, they have protected and enriched\nthe conditions of their own life, they have been awakened to the sense\nof their own powers\u2014have been led to invent, to plan, and to rejoice\nin the acquisition of skill. In a rough way, all occupations may be\nclassified as gathering about man\u2019s fundamental relations to the world in\nwhich he lives through getting food to maintain life; securing clothing\nand shelter to protect and ornament it, and thus, finally, to provide a\npermanent home in which all the higher and more spiritual interests may\ncenter. It is hardly unreasonable to suppose that interests which have\nsuch a history behind them must be of the worthy sort.\n\nHowever, these interests as they develop in the child not only\nrecapitulate past important activities of the race, but reproduce those\nof the child\u2019s present environment. He continually sees his elders\nengaged in such pursuits. He daily has to do with things which are the\nresults of just such occupations. He comes in contact with facts that\nhave no meaning, except in reference to them. Take these things out of\nthe present social life and see how little would remain\u2014and this not\nonly on the material side, but as regards intellectual, aesthetic, and\nmoral activities, for these are largely and necessarily bound up with\noccupations. The child\u2019s instinctive interests in this direction are,\ntherefore, constantly reinforced by what he sees, feels, and hears going\non around him. Suggestions along this line are continually coming to\nhim; motives are awakened; his energies are stirred to action. Again,\nit is not unreasonable to suppose that interests which are touched so\nconstantly, and on so many sides, belong to the worthy and enduring type.\n\nIn the third place, one of the objections made against the principle\nof interest in education is that it tends to disintegration of mental\neconomy by constantly stirring up the child in this way or that,\ndestroying continuity and thoroughness. But an occupation (such as the\ntextile one herewith reported on) is of necessity a continuous thing. It\nlasts, not only for days, but for months and years. It represents, not\na stirring of isolated and superficial energies, but rather a steady,\ncontinuous organization of power along certain general lines. The same\nis true, of course, of any other form of occupation, such as shopwork\nwith tools, or as cooking. The occupations articulate a vast variety of\nimpulses, otherwise separate and spasmodic, into a consistent skeleton\nwith a firm backbone. It may well be doubted whether, wholly apart from\nsome such regular and progressive modes of action, extending as cores\nthroughout the entire school, it would be permanently safe to give the\nprinciple of \u201cinterest\u201d any large place in school work.\n\n\n\n\nTHE DEVELOPMENT OF ATTENTION\n\n\n\n\nVII\n\nTHE DEVELOPMENT OF ATTENTION\n\n\nThe subprimary or kindergarten department is undertaking the pedagogical\nproblems growing out of an attempt to connect kindergarten work\nintimately with primary, and to readapt traditional materials and\ntechnique to meet present social conditions and our present physiological\nand psychological knowledge. A detailed statement of the work will be\npublished later.\n\nLittle children have their observations and thoughts mainly directed\ntoward people: what they do, how they behave, what they are occupied\nwith, and what comes of it. Their interest is of a personal rather than\nof an objective or intellectual sort. Its intellectual counterpart\nis the story-form; not the task, consciously defined end, or\nproblem\u2014meaning by story-form something psychical, the holding together\nof a variety of persons, things, and incidents through a common idea\nthat enlists feeling; not an outward relation or tale. Their minds\nseek wholes, varied through episode, enlivened with action and defined\nin salient features\u2014there must be go, movement, the sense of use and\noperation\u2014inspection of things separated from the idea by which they\nare carried. Analysis of isolated detail of form and structure neither\nappeals nor satisfies.\n\nMaterial provided by existing social occupations is calculated to\nmeet and feed this attitude. In previous years the children have been\nconcerned with the occupations of the home, and the contact of homes\nwith one another and with outside life. Now they may take up typical\noccupations of society at large\u2014a step farther removed from the child\u2019s\negoistic, self-absorbed interest, and yet dealing with something personal\nand something which touches him.\n\nFrom the standpoint of educational theory, the following features may be\nnoted:\n\n1. The study of natural objects, processes, and relations is placed in a\nhuman setting. During the year, a considerably detailed observation of\nseeds and their growth, of plants, woods, stones, animals, as to some\nphases of structure and habit, of geographical conditions of landscape,\nclimate, arrangement of land and water, is undertaken. The pedagogical\nproblem is to direct the child\u2019s power of observation, to nurture his\nsympathetic interest in characteristic traits of the world in which he\nlives, to afford interpreting material for later more special studies,\nand yet to supply a carrying medium for the variety of facts and ideas\nthrough the dominant spontaneous emotions and thoughts of the child.\nHence their association with human life. Absolutely no separation is\nmade between the \u201csocial\u201d side of the work, its concern with people\u2019s\nactivities and their mutual dependencies, and the \u201cscience,\u201d regard for\nphysical facts and forces\u2014because the conscious distinction between man\nand nature is the result of later reflection and abstraction, and to\nforce it upon the child here is not only to fail to engage his whole\nmental energy, but to confuse and distract him. The environment is always\nthat in which life is situated and through which it is circumstanced; and\nto isolate it, to make it with little children an object of observation\nand remark by itself, is to treat human nature inconsiderately. At last,\nthe original open and free attitude of the mind to nature is destroyed;\nnature has been reduced to a mass of meaningless details.\n\nIn its emphasis upon the \u201cconcrete\u201d and \u201cindividual,\u201d modern pedagogical\ntheory often loses sight of the fact that the existence and presentation\nof an individual physical thing\u2014a stone, an orange, a cat\u2014is no guaranty\nof _concreteness_; that this is a psychological affair, whatever appeals\nto the mind as a whole, as a self-sufficient center of interest and\nattention. The reaction from this external and somewhat dead standpoint\noften assumes, however, that the needed clothing with human significance\ncan come only by direct personification, and we have that continued\nsymbolization of a plant, cloud, or rain which makes only pseudo-science\npossible; which, instead of generating love for nature itself, switches\ninterest to certain sensational and emotional accompaniments, and leaves\nit, at last, dissipated and burnt out. And even the tendency to approach\nnature through the medium of literature, the pine tree through the fable\nof the discontented pine, etc., while recognizing the need of the human\nassociation, fails to note that there is a more straightforward road\nfrom mind to the object\u2014direct through connection with life itself;\nand that the poem and story, the literary statement, have their place\nas reinforcements and idealizations, not as foundation stones. What is\nwanted, in other words, is not to fix up a connection of child mind and\nnature, but to give free and effective play to the connection already\noperating.\n\n2. This suggests at once the practical questions that are usually\ndiscussed under the name of \u201ccorrelation,\u201d questions of such interaction\nof the various matters studied and powers under acquisition as will\navoid waste and maintain unity of mental growth. From the standpoint\nadopted the problem is one of differentiation rather than of correlation\nas ordinarily understood. The unity of life, as it presents itself to\nthe child, binds together and carries along the different occupations,\nthe diversity of plants, animals, and geographic conditions; drawing,\nmodeling, games, constructive work, numerical calculations are ways of\ncarrying certain features of it to mental and emotional satisfaction\nand completeness. Not much attention is paid in this year to reading\nand writing; but it is obvious that if this were regarded as desirable,\nthe same principle would apply. It is the community and continuity of\nthe subject-matter that organizes, that correlates; correlation is\nnot through devices of instruction which the teacher employs in tying\ntogether things in themselves disconnected.\n\n3. Two recognized demands of primary education are often, at present,\nnot unified or are even opposed. The need of the familiar, the already\nexperienced, as a basis for moving upon the unknown and remote, is a\ncommonplace. The claims of the child\u2019s imagination as a factor is at\nleast beginning to be recognized. The problem is to work these two forces\ntogether, instead of separately. The child is too often given drill upon\nfamiliar objects and ideas under the sanction of the first principle,\nwhile he is introduced with equal directness to the weird, strange, and\nimpossible to satisfy the claims of the second. The result, it is hardly\ntoo much to say, is a twofold failure. There is no special connection\nbetween the unreal, the myth, the fairy tale, and the play of mental\nimagery. Imagination is not a matter of an impossible subject-matter,\nbut a constructive way of dealing with any subject-matter under the\ninfluence of a pervading idea. The point is not to dwell with wearisome\niteration upon the familiar and under the guise of object-lessons to\nkeep the senses directed at material which they have already made\nacquaintance with, but to enliven and illumine the ordinary, commonplace,\nand homely by using it to build up and appreciate situations previously\nunrealized and alien. And this also is culture of imagination. Some\nwriters appear to have the impression that the child\u2019s imagination has\noutlet only in myth and fairy tale of ancient time and distant place or\nin weaving egregious fabrications regarding sun, moon, and stars; and\nhave even pleaded for a mythical investiture of all \u201cscience\u201d\u2014as a way\nof satisfying the dominating imagination of the child. But fortunately\nthese things are exceptions, are intensifications, are relaxations of the\naverage child; not his pursuits. The John and Jane that most of us know\nlet their imaginations play about the current and familiar contacts and\nevents of life\u2014about father and mother and friend, about steamboats and\nlocomotives, and sheep and cows, about the romance of farm and forest, of\nseashore and mountain. What is needed, in a word, is to afford occasion\nby which the child is moved to educe and exchange with others his store\nof experiences, his range of information, to make new observations\ncorrecting and extending them in order to keep his images moving,\nin order to find mental rest and satisfaction in definite and vivid\nrealization of what is new and enlarging.\n\nWith the development of reflective attention come the need and the\npossibility of a change in the mode of the child\u2019s instruction. In the\nprevious paragraphs we have been concerned with the direct, spontaneous\nattitude that marks the child till into his seventh year\u2014his demand\nfor new experiences and his desire to complete his partial experiences\nby building up images and expressing them in play. This attitude is\ntypical of what writers call spontaneous attention, or, as some say,\nnon-voluntary attention.\n\nThe child is simply absorbed in what he is doing; the occupation in which\nhe is engaged lays complete hold upon him. He gives himself without\nreserve. Hence, while there is much energy spent, there is no _conscious_\neffort; while the child is intent to the point of engrossment, there is\nno _conscious_ intention.\n\nWith the development of a sense of more remote ends, and of the need\nof directing acts so as to make them means for these ends (a matter\ndiscussed in the second number), we have the transition to what is termed\nindirect, or, as some writers prefer to say, voluntary, attention. A\nresult is imaged, and the child attends to what is before him or what\nhe is immediately doing because it helps to secure the result. Taken by\nitself, the object or the act might be indifferent or even repulsive.\nBut because it is felt to belong to something desirable or valuable, it\nborrows the latter\u2019s attracting and holding power.\n\nThis is the transition to \u201cvoluntary\u201d attention, but only the transition.\nThe latter comes fully into being only when the child entertains results\nin the form of problems or questions, the solution of which he is to\nseek for himself. In the intervening stage (in the child from eight to,\nsay, eleven or twelve), while the child directs a series of intervening\nactivities on the basis of some end he wishes to reach, this end is\nsomething to be done or made, or some tangible result to be reached; the\nproblem is a practical difficulty, rather than an intellectual question.\nBut with growing power the child can conceive of the end as something to\nbe found out, discovered; and can control his acts and images so as to\nhelp in the inquiry and solution. This is reflective attention proper.\n\nIn history work there is change from the story and biography form, from\ndiscussion of questions that arise, to the formulation of questions.\nPoints about which difference of opinion is possible, matters upon which\nexperience, reflection, etc., can be brought to bear, are always coming\nup in history. But to use the discussion to develop this matter of\ndoubt and difference into a definite problem, to bring the child to feel\njust what the difficulty is, and then throw him upon his own resources\nin looking up material bearing upon the point, and upon his judgment in\nbringing it to bear, or getting a solution, is a marked intellectual\nadvance. So in the science there is a change from the practical attitude\nof making and using cameras to the consideration of the problems\nintellectually involved in this\u2014to principles of light, angular\nmeasurements, etc., which give the theory or explanation of the practice.\n\nIn general, this growth is a natural process. But the proper recognition\nand use of it is perhaps the most serious problem in instruction upon\nthe intellectual side. A person who has gained the power of reflective\nattention, the power to hold problems, questions, before the mind,\n_is_ in so far, intellectually speaking, educated. He has mental\ndiscipline\u2014power _of_ the mind and _for_ the mind. Without this the\nmind remains at the mercy of custom and external suggestions. Some of\nthe difficulties may be barely indicated by referring to an error that\nalmost dominates instruction of the usual type. Too often it is assumed\nthat attention can be given directly to any subject-matter, if only the\nproper will or disposition be at hand, failure being regarded as a sign\nof unwillingness or indocility. Lessons in arithmetic, geography, and\ngrammar are put before the child, and he is told to attend in order to\nlearn. But excepting as there is some question, some doubt, present in\nthe mind as a _basis_ for this attention, _reflective_ attention is\nimpossible. If there is sufficient _intrinsic_ interest in the material,\nthere will be direct or spontaneous attention, which is excellent so far\nas it goes, but which merely of itself does not give power of thought or\ninternal mental control. If there is not an inherent attracting power\nin the material, then (according to his temperament and training, and\nthe precedents and expectations of the school) the teacher will either\nattempt to surround the material with foreign attractiveness, making a\nbid or offering a bribe for attention by \u201cmaking the lesson interesting\u201d;\nor else will resort to counterirritants (low marks, threats of\nnon-promotion, staying after school, personal disapprobation, expressed\nin a great variety of ways, naggings, continuous calling upon the child\nto \u201cpay attention,\u201d etc.); or, probably, will use some of both means.\n\nBut (1) the attention thus gained is never more than partial, or divided;\nand (2) it always remains dependent upon something external\u2014hence, when\nthe attraction ceases or the pressure lets up, there is little or no gain\nin inner or intellectual control. And (3) such attention is always for\nthe sake of \u201clearning,\u201d i.e., _memorizing ready-made answers to possible\nquestions to be put by another_. True, reflective attention, on the other\nhand, always involves judging, reasoning, deliberation; it means that\nthe child has a _question of his own_ and is actively engaged in seeking\nand selecting relevant material with which to answer it, considering the\nbearings and relations of this material\u2014the kind of solution it calls\nfor. The problem is one\u2019s own; hence also the impetus, the stimulus\nto attention, is one\u2019s own; hence also the training secured is one\u2019s\nown\u2014it is discipline, or gain in power of control; that is, a _habit_ of\nconsidering problems.\n\nIt is hardly too much to say that in the traditional education so much\nstress has been laid upon the presentation to the child of ready-made\nmaterial (books, object-lessons, teacher\u2019s talks, etc.), and the child\nhas been so almost exclusively held to bare responsibility for reciting\nupon this ready-made material, that there has been only accidental\noccasion and motive for developing reflective attention. Next to no\nconsideration has been paid to the fundamental necessity\u2014leading the\nchild to realize a problem as his own, so that he is self-induced to\nattend in order to find out its answer. So completely have the conditions\nfor securing this self-putting of problems been neglected that the very\nidea of voluntary attention has been radically perverted. It is regarded\nas measured by unwilling effort\u2014as activity called out by foreign,\nand so repulsive, material under conditions of strain, instead of as\nself-initiated effort. \u201cVoluntary\u201d is treated as meaning the reluctant\nand disagreeable instead of the free, the self-directed, through personal\ninterest, insight, and power.\n\n\n\n\nTHE AIM OF HISTORY IN ELEMENTARY EDUCATION\n\n\n\n\nVIII\n\nTHE AIM OF HISTORY IN ELEMENTARY EDUCATION\n\n\nIf history be regarded as just the record of the past, it is hard to\nsee any grounds for claiming that it should play any large r\u00f4le in the\ncurriculum of elementary education. The past is the past, and the dead\nmay be safely left to bury its dead. There are too many urgent demands in\nthe present, too many calls over the threshold of the future, to permit\nthe child to become deeply immersed in what is forever gone by. Not so\nwhen history is considered as an account of the forces and forms of\nsocial life. Social life we have always with us; the distinction of past\nand present is indifferent to it. Whether it was lived just here or just\nthere is a matter of slight moment. It is life for all that; it shows\nthe motives which draw men together and push them apart, and depicts\nwhat is desirable and what is hurtful. Whatever history may be for the\nscientific historian, for the educator it must be an indirect sociology\u2014a\nstudy of society which lays bare its process of becoming and its modes of\norganization. Existing society is both too complex and too close to the\nchild to be studied. He finds no clues into its labyrinth of detail and\ncan mount no eminence whence to get a perspective of arrangement.\n\nIf the aim of historical instruction is to enable the child to appreciate\nthe values of social life, to see in imagination the forces which favor\nand let men\u2019s effective co-operation with one another, to understand\nthe sorts of character that help on and that hold back, the essential\nthing in its presentation is to make it moving, dynamic. History must be\npresented, not as an accumulation of results or effects, a mere statement\nof what happened, but as a forceful, acting thing. The motives\u2014that is,\nthe motors\u2014must stand out. To study history is not to amass information,\nbut to use information in constructing a vivid picture of how and why men\ndid thus and so; achieved their successes and came to their failures.\n\nWhen history is conceived as dynamic, as moving, its economic and\nindustrial aspects are emphasized. These are but technical terms which\nexpress the problem with which humanity is unceasingly engaged; how to\nlive, how to master and use nature so as to make it tributary to the\nenrichment of human life. The great advances in civilization have come\nthrough those manifestations of intelligence which have lifted man from\nhis precarious subjection to nature, and revealed to him how he may make\nits forces co-operate with his own purposes. The social world in which\nthe child now lives is so rich and full that it is not easy to see how\nmuch it cost, how much effort and thought lie back of it. Man has a\ntremendous equipment ready at hand. The child may be led to translate\nthese ready-made resources into fluid terms; he may be led to see man\nface to face with nature, without inherited capital, without tools,\nwithout manufactured materials. And, step by step, he may follow the\nprocesses by which man recognized the needs of his situation, thought out\nthe weapons and instruments that enable him to cope with them; and may\nlearn how these new resources opened new horizons of growth and created\nnew problems. The industrial history of man is not a materialistic or\nmerely utilitarian affair. It is a matter of intelligence. Its record\nis the record of how man learned to think, to think to some effect, to\ntransform the conditions of life so that life itself became a different\nthing. It is an ethical record as well; the account of the conditions\nwhich men have patiently wrought out to serve their ends.\n\nThe question of how human beings live, indeed, represents the dominant\ninterest with which the child approaches historic material. It is this\npoint of view which brings those who worked in the past close to the\nbeings with whom he is daily associated, and confers upon him the gift of\nsympathetic penetration.\n\nThe child who is interested in the way in which men lived, the tools\nthey had to do with, the new inventions they made, the transformations\nof life that arose from the power and leisure thus gained, is eager to\nrepeat like processes in his own action, to remake utensils, to reproduce\nprocesses, to rehandle materials. Since he understands their problems and\ntheir successes only by seeing what obstacles and what resources they\nhad from nature, the child is interested in field and forest, ocean and\nmountain, plant and animal. By building up a conception of the natural\nenvironment in which lived the people he is studying, he gets his hold\nupon their lives. This reproduction he cannot make excepting as he gains\nacquaintance with the natural forces and forms with which he is himself\nsurrounded. The interest in history gives a more human coloring, a\nwider significance, to his own study of nature. His knowledge of nature\nlends point and accuracy to his study of history. This is the natural\n\u201ccorrelation\u201d of history and science.\n\nThis same end, a deepening appreciation of social life, decides the place\nof the biographic element in historical instruction. That historical\nmaterial appeals to the child most completely and vividly when presented\nin individual form, when summed up in the lives and deeds of some heroic\ncharacter, there can be no doubt. Yet it is possible to use biographies\nso that they become a collection of mere stories, interesting, possibly,\nto the point of sensationalism, but yet bringing the child no nearer to\ncomprehension of social life. This happens when the individual who is\nthe hero of the tale is isolated from his social environment; when the\nchild is not brought to feel the social situations which evoked his acts\nand the social progress to which his deeds contributed. If biography\nis presented as a dramatic summary of social needs and achievements,\nif the child\u2019s imagination pictures the social defects and problems\nthat clamored for the man and the ways in which the individual met the\nemergency, then the biography is an organ of social study.\n\nA consciousness of the social aim of history prevents any tendency to\nswamp history in myth, fairy story, and merely literary renderings. I\ncannot avoid the feeling that much as the Herbartian school has done\nto enrich the elementary curriculum in the direction of history, it\nhas often inverted the true relationship existing between history and\nliterature. In a certain sense the motif of American colonial history\nand of De Foe\u2019s _Robinson Crusoe_ are the same. Both represent man\nwho has achieved civilization, who has attained a certain maturity of\nthought, who has developed ideals and means of action, but suddenly\nthrown back upon his own resources, having to cope with a raw and often\nhostile nature, and to regain success by sheer intelligence, energy,\nand persistence of character. But when _Robinson Crusoe_ supplies the\nmaterial for the curriculum of the third- or fourth-grade child, are\nwe not putting the cart before the horse? Why not give the child the\nreality with its much larger sweep, its intenser forces, its more vivid\nand lasting value for life, using the _Robinson Crusoe_ as an imaginative\nidealization in a particular case of the same sort of problems and\nactivities? Again, whatever may be the worth of the study of savage life\nin general, and of the North American Indians in particular, why should\nthat be approached circuitously through the medium of _Hiawatha_, instead\nof at first hand? employing indeed the poem to furnish the idealized and\nculminating touches to a series of conditions and struggles which the\nchild has previously realized in more specific form. Either the life of\nthe Indian presents some permanent questions and factors in social life,\nor it has next to no place in a scheme of instruction. If it has such\na value, this should be made to stand out on its own account, instead\nof being lost in the very refinement and beauty of a purely literary\npresentation.\n\nThe same end, the understanding of character and social relations\nin their natural dependence, enables us, I think, to decide upon\nthe importance to be attached to chronological order in historical\ninstruction. Considerable stress has of late been laid upon the supposed\nnecessity of following the development of civilization through the\nsuccessive steps in which it actually took place\u2014beginning with the\nvalleys of the Euphrates and the Nile, and coming on down through Greece,\nRome, etc. The point urged is that the present depends upon the past and\neach phase of the past upon a prior past.\n\nWe are here introduced to a conflict between the logical and\npsychological interpretation of history. If the aim be an appreciation of\nwhat social life is and how it goes on, then, certainly, the child must\ndeal with what is near in spirit, not with the remote. The difficulty\nwith the Babylonian or Egyptian life is not so much its remoteness in\ntime, as its remoteness from the present interests and aims of social\nlife. It does not simplify enough and does not generalize enough; or,\nat least, it does not do so in the right way. It does it by omission\nof what is significant now, rather than by presenting these factors\narranged on a lower scale. Its salient features are hard to get at and\nto understand, even by the specialist. It undoubtedly presents factors\nwhich contributed to later life, and which modified the course of events\nin the stream of time. But the child has not arrived at a point where he\ncan appreciate abstract causes and specialized contributions. What he\nneeds is a picture of typical relations, conditions, and activities. In\nthis respect, there is much of prehistoric life which is much closer to\nhim than the complicated and artificial life of Babylon or of Egypt. When\na child is capable of appreciating institutions, he is capable of seeing\nwhat special institutional idea each historic nation stands for, and what\nfactor it has contributed to the present complex of institutions. But\nthis period arrives only when the child is beginning to be capable of\nabstracting causes in other realms as well; in other words, when he is\napproaching the time of secondary education.\n\nIn this general scheme three periods or phases are recognized: first\ncomes the generalized and simplified history\u2014history which is hardly\nhistory at all in the local or chronological sense, but which aims at\ngiving the child insight into, and sympathy with, a variety of social\nactivities. This period includes the work of the six-year-old children\nin studying typical occupations of people in the country and city at\npresent; of the seven-year-old children in working out the evolution\nof inventions and their effects upon life, and of the eight-year-old\nchildren in dealing with the great movements of migration, exploration,\nand discovery which have brought the whole round world into human ken.\nThe work of the first two years is evidently quite independent of any\nparticular people or any particular person\u2014that is, of historical data\nin the strict sense of the term. At the same time, plenty of scope is\nprovided through dramatization for the introduction of the individual\nfactor. The account of the great explorers and the discoverers serves to\nmake the transition to what is local and specific, that which depends\nupon certain specified persons who lived at certain specified places and\ntimes.\n\nThis introduces us to the second period where local conditions\nand the definite activities of particular bodies of people become\nprominent\u2014corresponding to the child\u2019s growth in power of dealing with\nlimited and positive fact. Since Chicago, since the United States,\nare localities with which the child can, by the nature of the case,\nmost effectively deal, the material of the next three years is derived\ndirectly and indirectly from this source. Here, again, the third year\nis a transitional year, taking up the connections of American life with\nEuropean. By this time the child should be ready to deal, not with social\nlife in general, or even with the social life with which he is most\nfamiliar, but with certain thoroughly differentiated and, so to speak,\npeculiar types of social life; with the special significance of each\nand the particular contribution it has made to the whole world-history.\nAccordingly, in the next period the chronological order is followed,\nbeginning with the ancient world about the Mediterranean and coming\ndown again through European history to the peculiar and differentiating\nfactors of American history.\n\nThe program is not presented as the only one meeting the problem, but\nas a contribution; the outcome, not of thought, but of considerable\nexperimenting and shifting of subjects from year to year, to the problem\nof giving material which takes vital hold upon the child and at the same\ntime leads on, step by step, to more thorough and accurate knowledge of\nboth the principles and facts of social life, and makes a preparation for\nlater specialized historic studies.\n\n                          PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.","title":"The school and society","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":33615}