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EDUCATIONAL AIMS AND 
 EDUCATIONAL VALUES 
 
•*&&& 
 
EDUCATIONAL AIMS 
 
 AND 
 
 EDUCATIONAL VALUES 
 
 BY 
 
 PAUL H. HANUS 
 
 ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF THE HISTORY AND ART OF TEACHING, 
 HARVARD UNIVERSITY 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 LONDON : MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd. 
 1899 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
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 M&0. 
 
 Copyright, 1899, 
 By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 
 
 TWO CO?- S£$V£B. 
 
 Nortoooti Press 
 
 J. S. Cushing & Co. — Berwick & Smith 
 Norwood Mass. U.S.A. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 This book is written for laymen who are interested 
 in Education, as well as for professional students and 
 teachers. It consists of a series of essays on contem- 
 porary educational problems. In the first five chap- 
 ters the attempt is made to formulate the aims of 
 elementary and secondary education, and to describe 
 the scope and methods of an education that meets the 
 demands of modern life, both in its provisions for the 
 development of the individual and in its training for 
 social service. The remaining chapters deal with the 
 professional training of the college-bred teacher, and 
 with the services of John Amos Comenius who, in the 
 seventeenth century, advocated nineteenth-century edu- 
 cational reforms. 
 
 Though written at different times, and delivered as 
 lectures or addresses to various audiences of teachers 
 and laymen, and subsequently printed as independent 
 articles, these chapters really constitute — and this is 
 especially true of the first five chapters — a progressive 
 attempt to accomplish a single, somewhat comprehen- 
 sive, purpose ; namely, to disentangle from the con- 
 temporary educational confusion, in both theory and 
 
vi PREFACE 
 
 practice, our educational aims, and to examine these 
 aims in the light of present and future needs. 
 
 The reader will therefore find that there are occa- 
 sional repetitions; but he will also find, I think, that 
 these repetitions are essential to the full discussion of 
 the particular point then under consideration; they 
 are not repetitions pure and simple. 
 
 The first, third, fifth, and eighth chapters have been 
 printed, in nearly their present form, in the Educa- 
 tional Review ; and the second, fourth, and sixth 
 have similarly appeared in the School Review. 
 
 PAUL H. HANUS. 
 Harvard University, 
 May, 1899. 
 
CONTENTS 
 i 
 
 FAGB 
 
 Educational Aims and Educational Values . . i 
 
 II 
 
 A Recent Tendency in Secondary Education Examined 21 
 
 III 
 Attempted Improvements in the Course of Study . 43 
 
 IV 
 What should the Modern Secondary School aim to 
 
 Accomplish? 71 
 
 V 
 Secondary Education as a Unifying Force in Ameri- 
 can Life . in 
 
 VI 
 
 The Preparation /of the High-School Teacher of 
 
 Mathematics 139 
 
 VII 
 
 The Study of Education at Harvard University . 165 
 
 VIII 
 
 The Permanent Influence of John Amos Comenius . 193 
 
 vii 
 
EDUCATIONAL AIMS AND EDUCA- 
 TIONAL VALUES 
 
I 
 
 EDUCATIONAL AIMS AND EDUCA- 
 TIONAL VALUES 
 
 Of the questions underlying the making of courses 
 of study the question of educational values is among 
 the most important. Unless we are willing to adopt 
 blindly a recommended or prescribed course of study 
 which some one else has made, — some one, perhaps, 
 who has just as blindly followed some one else, — the 
 question of educational values must be intelligently 
 considered. If certain subjects are chosen for a course 
 of study because they are deemed suitable to occupy 
 the time and attention of children and youth, there 
 must be a reason for this choice — or there should be 
 — independent of personal prejudices or mere tradi- 
 tion. If other subjects are preferred, there should 
 likewise be a clear and valid reason for the prefer- 
 ence. Further, after a subject has been chosen, it is 
 not enough to recommend that it should be pursued 
 for four years or for three or two years: we need to 
 know why that subject may justly claim the proportion 
 of time allotted to it. 
 
 3 
 
4 EDUCATIONAL AIMS AND 
 
 That is to say : choice of subject-matter and rela- 
 tive time allotment being rationally dependent on the 
 educational values of ^the several subjects, the formu- 
 lation of these values constitutes educational principles 
 which we need in order to construct our programmes 
 on a rational basis. 
 
 In this chapter the attempt is made to find some of 
 these educational principles. The attempt is first made 
 to set forth, in general terms, the educational values 
 of all the subjects of instruction, and next, to deter- 
 mine the relative educational values of the different 
 subjects without explicitly taking into account the 
 stages of development through which the pupil passes. 
 The principles thus obtained are then applied to de- 
 termine the relative educational values of the different 
 subjects during the stages of elementary and secondary 
 education. 
 
 It goes without saying that the principles given 
 below are not regarded as a final solution of the 
 question of educational values. This question is too 
 comprehensive to make such a conclusion possible. 
 Moreover, much intelligent experimenting must ensue 
 before this theoretical solution can be verified in prac- 
 tice. Nevertheless, the principles referred to seem to 
 me to have a real value, because they offer at least 
 a provisional basis for the rational and not merely 
 imitative construction of courses of study. 
 
 With this explanation, I trust that the somewhat 
 
EDUCATIONAL VALUES 5 
 
 abstract and seemingly dogmatic form, in which for 
 the sake of brevity and, at the same time, of direct- 
 ness and clearness I have been obliged to present 
 the discussion, will not be misunderstood. It is not 
 possible, in the space at my disposal, to make any 
 extended argument for the positions taken. But I 
 can indicate the nature of the argument. 
 
 It is evident that any estimate of educational values 
 must ultimately depend on educational aims, The 
 studies chosen are the means (not the sole means, of 
 course, but the most important means) for the realiza- 
 tion of those aims. The conception of the end to be 
 attained must therefore determine the value of the 
 means proposed ; and any consideration of educa- 
 tional values must accordingly include a considera- 
 tion of educational aims. 
 
 By the educational value of a subject I mean its 
 efficacy in promoting the realization of the aim of 
 education) The aim of education is to prepare for 
 complete living.! To live completely means to be as 
 useful as possible and to be happy. / By usefulness is 
 meant service, i.e. any activity which promotes the 
 material or the spiritual interests of mankind, one or 
 both. To be happy one must enjoy both his work 
 and his leisure. 
 
6 EDUCATIONAL AIMS AND 
 
 One man's usefulness and happiness may be best pro- 
 moted through intellectual activity, another's through 
 the work of his hands ; one man may be most useful 
 and happy as an artist or a musician, another as a 
 moral or spiritual leader. It is not necessary to multi- 
 ply instances. The kind of work a man voluntarily 
 engages in, and its value for himself and for society, 
 will evidently always depend on his dominant inter- 
 ests, i.e. on his motives or incentives to activity, and 
 on his skill. Since skill is only fully developed power, 
 we may say, in general, that, physical vigor being 
 assumed, a man's usefulness and happiness depend 
 on intellectual incentives and power ; artistic or 
 aesthetic incentives and power ; constructive incen- 
 tives and power as applied to material things ; charac- 
 ter, comprising ethical incentives and conduct. 
 
 Although in what precedes the emphasis has been 
 laid on preparation for usefulness and the happiness 
 which depends on usefulness, it is evident that, while 
 a man's happiness depends in large part on his use- 
 fulness, it also depends on the proper and adequate 
 enjoyment of whatever leisure he may earn. Conse- 
 quently a man requires careful preparation for the 
 proper and adequate enjoyment of the refined pleas- 
 ures of cultivated life as well as for usefulness. But 
 this preparation obviously depends, like his prepara- 
 tion for usefulness, on the scope, kind, degree, and 
 permanence of his interests and power. 
 
EDUCATIONAL VALUES 7 
 
 ^'Consequently the educational values of different 
 subjects, i.e. their efficacy in promoting the realization 
 of the aim of education as denned above, consist 
 (a) in the scope, kind, strength, and permanence of 
 the incentives to activity; and (U) in the kind, degree, 
 and permanence of the power to think and to execute 
 that those subjects may develop. 
 
 Here, then, we have a common measure of educa- 
 tional value. Its factors are incentives and poiver. 
 The different kinds of incentives and power, and the 
 conditions under which they develop strength and per- 
 manence, next demand attention. 
 
 No one subject is capable of yielding all these 
 incentives equally, but they are found in varying 
 degrees in all subjects ; the desire to know, to under- 
 stand, to master the subject of pure mathematics or 
 of physics, for example, is nearly a purely intellectual 
 incentive; the desire to emulate the virtues of some 
 moral or spiritual leader, or the devotion to duty of 
 some hero of history or of literature is mainly an ethi- 
 cal incentive ; the charm of the fine arts, impelling to 
 exercise in the use of the pencil or the brush, is 
 chiefly an aesthetic or artistic incentive; the fascina- 
 tion of manual construction, impelling to. the use of 
 tools in shaping material things, is, similarly, mainly 
 a constructive incentive. It is evident, therefore, that 
 the kinds of incentives to activity, whether intellectual, 
 aesthetic, moral, or constructive, derivable from the 
 
8 EDUCATIONAL AIMS AND 
 
 course of study, depend on content (the nature of the 
 subject-matter). 
 
 Since incentives are impulses to activity growing 
 out of interest in the subject-matter, they will develop 
 strength and permanence when interest in the subject- 
 ) matter is strong, real, and permanent. Interest is 
 impossible unless the subject is understood to some 
 degree at least, and unless the pupil believes he has 
 some capacity for it. Sufficient time must always be 
 allowed in practice to determine whether the pupil's 
 interest is real or merely imitative and spurious. Real 
 interest will always be accompanied by capacity for 
 a subject, and may usually be recognized by persist- 
 ent, independent, and successful pursuit of a subject ; 
 for the pupil's spontaneous activity and achievement 
 will always be along the lines of his preferences. In- 
 dependent pursuit does not mean without the teacher's 
 guidance, but it does mean without the teacher's con- 
 stant urging or assistance. ; Real interest is accordingly 
 the sole condition of strong and permanent incentives. 
 J Power means ability to do something — to bring 
 about results. The results achieved will always be in 
 some one field of activity, however; and the kind of 
 power developed through the pursuit of a given sub- 
 ject will consequently be usually restricted to power 
 in dealing with data of a particular sort. That is to 
 say, power in physics is different from power in Latin ; 
 and these forms of power are different from power in 
 
EDUCATIONAL VALUES 9 
 
 plastic art or pure mathematics, as these last are differ- 
 ent from each other. There is no such thing as power 
 in general that can be cultivated through the pursuit 
 of any one subject, and can then be drawn upon at 
 any time for successful achievement in other subjects. 
 That a man shows power first in classics and afterward 
 in mathematics or botany, for example, does not prove 
 that the man's mathematical or scientific ability was 
 developed through the classics. It proves only that 
 the man has both linguistic and mathematical or sci- 
 entific ability. It does happen, of course, that differ- 
 ent subjects like mathematics and physics, or physics 
 and chemistry, or drawing and painting, are closely 
 related; and hence that the data of one subject are 
 often found to some extent in another, and also that 
 the method of one subject can be appropriately ap- 
 plied to another. In such cases the power developed 
 in the pursuit of one subject may, to some extent, be 
 carried over to related subjects. But, in general, the 
 relations of the subjects will not be close enough to 
 justify the assumption that power may be developed 
 through one subject for use in other subjects. 
 
 We may say, therefore, that the kinds of power 
 developed by a given subject will be: (a) specific — 
 depending on the particular data with which the sub- 
 ject deals (the nature of the subject-matter); and 
 (#) general — depending on the extent to which the 
 same or similar data are found in other subjects, and 
 
10 EDUCATIONAL AIMS AND 
 
 the extent to which the method of one subject may 
 be applied to other subjects. 
 
 The power developed- will always be chiefly specific : 
 but if, through correlation, the mutual ramification and 
 interdependence of subjects are traced; and further, if 
 the method of one subject is explicitly carried over to 
 other subjects to which it can be legitimately applied, the 
 power developed will also be, to. some extent, general. 
 
 The kinds of power developed through the different 
 subjects having been described, the conditions under 
 which power develops strength and permanence must 
 now be examined. Power is developed for the sake 
 of cultivating desirable habits of thought, expression 
 (in words or in some other appropriate way), achieve- 
 ment, and conduct ; since such habits constitute use- 
 fulness and usually bring happiness. 
 
 The degree and permanence of any power, and the 
 consequent inculcation of desirable habits of thought, 
 expression, achievement, and conduct, are developed 
 through continuity and intensiveness in the pursuit 
 of any of the subjects of instruction, each within its 
 own field ; but such power can be developed economi- 
 cally (advantageously) only through interest, i.e. only 
 when the subject actually yields one or more of the 
 incentives enumerated above; or, in other words, the 
 conditions under which strength and permanence of 
 power are developed are continuity and intensiveness 
 in the pursuit of any subject, based on interest. 
 
EDUCATIONAL VALUES II 
 
 It is, of course, true that power habitually exercised, 
 even without interest, may result in the attainment of 
 the beneficent "virtues of work" which, even when 
 acquired through mere drudgery, contribute to useful- 
 ness and happiness. It must be borne in mind, how- 
 ever, that work without interest is drudgery, whatever 
 the achievement may be; while work with interest is 
 a constant source of happiness. During the school 
 period the virtues of work cannot, however, be ad- 
 vantageously developed without interest, and it is 
 doubtful if they ever can. During the school period 
 aversion and evasion are more frequently cultivated 
 than power and skill through the forced pursuit 
 of permanently uninteresting subjects — subjects for 
 which the learner has no capacity. When that does 
 not happen, the pernicious habit of being satisfied 
 with inadequate or partial achievement is very likely 
 to be the result. In neither case does the individual 
 develop his real capacity, nor does he acquire right 
 habits. Occasionally, through some unusually strong 
 extraneous incentive, a pupil will pursue successfully 
 the apparently uninteresting, but such cases are rare 
 and usually temporary. In no case can the degree 
 of power thus developed be compared with the power 
 developed through real interest, and the only result- 
 ing permanence to be thought of is the permanence of 
 moderate instead of increasing power. Even in adult 
 life, without interest and capacity (for the two always 
 
12 EDUCATIONAL AIMS AND 
 
 go together), power and skill and the consequent 
 " virtues of work " must be developed, if at all, through 
 extraneous motives. It. must be evident, also, that, 
 without interest, both in youth and in adult life, power 
 is not advantageously nor economically cultivated, be- 
 cause the individual is not working along the lines of 
 least resistance; so that whatever power and skill he 
 may develop and however industrious he may be, his 
 accomplishment, both in respect to quantity and qual- 
 ity, will fall behind the accomplishment of others 
 possessing interest and capacity in the same field ; 
 and far behind what his own achievements might be 
 in the direction of his own interest and capacity. The 
 effect of such incomplete or reduced achievement, 
 both on the usefulness and consequent happiness of 
 an individual, is obvious. The fundamental condition 
 of the advantageous development of increasing power, 
 i.e. of the degree and permanence of power, is, accord- 
 ingly, interest. 
 
 II 
 
 From the foregoing it appears that incentives and 
 power may be cultivated by all the subjects in the 
 course of study, each subject yielding its own peculiar 
 incentives and power. Since these constitute our com- 
 mon measure of educational values, equal educational 
 values would be accorded to all subjects, provided 
 only that they develop interest; for, as we have seen, 
 
EDUCATIONAL VALUES 1 3 
 
 interest means incentives, and incentives lead to activ- 
 ity which may develop power. But we have still to 
 compare with each other the incentives developed 
 through the different subjects. If we find certain sub- 
 jects yielding higher incentives than others, or subjects 
 richer in incentives than others, we must accord to 
 such subjects a higher educational value than to the 
 others. 
 
 ^Character and disposition, so far as they are deter- 
 mined by education, depend on social and ethical in- 
 centives and wise discipline. Sound health, good 
 character, and a generous disposition being secured, the 
 extent and quality of a man's usefulness and happiness 
 are determined (1) by the harmony of his interest and 
 capacity with his life work, and (2) by the scope of his „ 
 participation in the varied interests of life. 
 
 Important aims of education must, therefore, be to - 
 subject- the pupil^ to the influence of social and ethical 
 incentives, to render him responsive to the varied 
 interests of life, and, as he grows older, to discover 
 what his permanent interests and capacities really are. 
 These aims can be promoted only by a wise use of the 
 ^ourse of study. Before we can make such a use of the 
 ^ course of study we must examine the different subjects 
 of instruction in order to ascertain, if possible, (1) the 
 characteristic incentives and (2) the kind or kinds of 
 power, which under good teaching (instruction and 
 discipline) the several subjects may develop. 
 
14 EDUCATIONAL AIMS AND 
 
 The subjects of instruction in the modern school 
 course of study deal with the institutions, ideals, and 
 conduct of men, and with external nature ; namely : 
 (i) Languages and literatures; (2) social studies — his- 
 tory (including the history of industry and commerce 
 as well as political history), government, descriptive eco- 
 nomics ; (3) art (including the history of art, as well as 
 drawing, painting, modelling, music) ; (4) mathematics ; 
 (5) physical and biological science ; (6) manual training. 
 / Of these subjects, literature and the social studies, 
 and some forms of art, besides being rich in incen- 
 tives, have an ethical content; they portray, either 
 directly or by contrast, the highest ideals of achieve- 
 ment) v "beauty, honor, duty, and love," and reveal 
 the effect of these ideals on human aspirations and 
 conduct. These ideals are the highest ideals of the 
 race. When they dominate the actions of men, they 
 usually insure the best and most complete usefulness 
 and happiness. The incentives growing out of these 
 ideals are therefore higher than all others. That is 
 to say, ethical incentives are the highest incentives. 
 Hence, when language and literature, history, the 
 social studies, and art develop interest, these subjects 
 have a higher educational value than all others ; for 
 they are not only rich in possible incentives, but they 
 embody also the highest incentives ; and through in- 
 terest they may develop permanent habits of thought 
 and action in harmony with those incentives. 
 
EDUCATIONAL VALUES 1 5 
 
 Without interest these subjects can have only a 
 moderate educational value in spite of their content; 
 for they cannot be economically employed to develop 
 desirable habits of thought, achievement, and conduct 
 that give promise of permanence. That is, they cannot 
 be advantageously employed to develop usefulness and 
 happiness. They have a moderate educational value, 
 even without interest, because, even without interest, 
 they may be used to develop, although wastefully, the 
 virtues of work through urgent extraneous motives. 
 Moreover, these subjects are needed for ethical and 
 social enlightenment. No human being should be a 
 stranger to the highest ideals of the race, since every 
 one can be influenced to some extent by them. Hence, 
 the subjects embodying these ideals have some educa- 
 tional value for all pupils, and all pupils should be re- 
 quired to give sufficient attention to them. 
 
 The other subjects named (mathematics, natural 
 science, and manual training) either have no social or 
 ethical content whatever, or involve social and ethical 
 incentives, i.e. incentives affecting human relations 
 only incidentally ; and mathematics is especially narrow 
 in the range of its possible incentives : Hence, without 
 interest, these subjects have only feeble educational 
 value of any sort. With interest, these subjects may 
 be advantageously used for the development of habits 
 of efficiency, i.e. of thorough and successful achieve- 
 ment. Such habits render their possessor useful, and 
 
16 EDUCATIONAL AIMS AND 
 
 usually happy ; and hence the subjects which develop 
 these habits possess an educational value dependent on 
 the kind and degree of usefulness and happiness which 
 they develop. But as the usefulness and happiness of 
 an individual are not of the highest order unless they 
 are determined by the highest ideals, and as these 
 ideals are usually not involved and are not necessarily 
 involved at all in the pursuit of the subjects now under 
 consideration, these subjects are, in general, inferior 
 in educational value to those of the group first 
 considered. 
 
 Ill 
 
 I have now formulated in general terms the educa- 
 tional values of all the subjects of instruction, and 
 I have found these values to consist in the incentives 
 Uto activity and the power based on these incentives 
 which they severally may develop. We have found 
 the relative educational values to consist in the rich- 
 ness of the several subjects in incentives, and in the 
 relative values of the incentives they are capable of 
 yielding. We have found the highest incentives and 
 the greatest variety of incentives in the group of sub- 
 jects dealing with human conduct and achievement, 
 and hence for those pupils in whom these subjects 
 develop interest we have found that these subjects 
 have a higher educational value than all others. It 
 remains to apply these results to obtain an estimate 
 
EDUCATIONAL VALUES 1 7 
 
 of the relative educational values of the different sub- 
 jects during the two stages of elementary and secondary 
 education. 
 
 The special aims of elementary education are : — 
 (a) To nourish the mind of the child through the 
 course of study which should comprise an orderly 
 presentation of the whole field of knowledge in its 
 elements, and to provide the opportunity for the exer- 
 cise of all his powers, mental, moral, aesthetic, manual, 
 or constructive, through good instruction and wise 
 discipline; {b) to guard and promote his normal 
 physical development. 
 
 In the earlier stages of this period there are not, 
 of course, distinct subjects at all : there is simply 
 the diversified field of closely correlated knowledge ; 
 and because everything is interesting and equally 
 yields incentives to activity, it is difficult, with pos- 
 sibly one exception, to think of different educational 
 values for the different forms of activity. The one 
 exception is the mother-tongue. This is the instru- 
 ment of all the pupil's acquisitions and of common 
 intercourse with his fellows. Moreover, it is the 
 embodiment of rich stores of information and of 
 the highest ideals of the race. If instruction in 
 the mother-tongue is not limited merely to the study 
 of its form and structure, but really serves, as it 
 should, as the means of exploring and interpreting 
 both the world of external nature and the world of 
 
1 8 EDUCATIONAL AIMS AND 
 
 man, the mother-tongue will be richer in incentives 
 and possess higher incentives than all other forms of 
 knowledge ; and it may therefore have a higher edu- 
 cational value than all other subjects. 
 
 Continuous development from the stage of early 
 childhood covered by the period of primary or ele- 
 mentary education into the stage of later childhood 
 and youth covered by the period of secondary educa- 
 tion 1 does not involve the abandonment of these 
 aims ; nor does it alter essentially the relative impor- 
 tance of the mother-tongue as the field of knowledge 
 gradually diverges into distinct subjects, until the 
 pupil arrives at the later stages of this period. On 
 the contrary, these aims must continue to influence 
 the pupil's education throughout the entire formative 
 period. But they are subject to some modification. 
 The pupil's mind must still be nourished, but it is no 
 longer possible, except within certain well-defined 
 limits, for him to pursue simultaneously the elements 
 of all knowledge, when that knowledge has diverged 
 into distinct subjects. During this stage, the pupil's 
 individuality, his own tastes and capacities, emerge, 
 as the knowledge to be acquired diverges more and 
 more into distinct subjects. 
 
 The distinct emergence of these tastes and capaci- 
 
 1 Roughly speaking, this period comprises the later years of what is 
 now the grammar school period and the whole of the high school period, 
 and often beyond. 
 
EDUCATIONAL VALUES 19 
 
 ties is natural and inevitable. The clear recognition 
 of them during the period of secondary education is 
 important for the sake of the ultimate organization 
 of the pupil's mental life through dominant groups 
 of ideas. Through these dominant groups of ideas, 
 i.e. through his permanent incentives, the pupil's 
 life habits are gradually formed, and his mental life 
 acquires the richness, stability, alertness, and vigor on 
 which his highest usefulness and happiness depend. 
 
 The special aim of secondary education and the 
 teacher's, greatest responsibility — a responsibility not 
 often recognized or acknowledged hitherto — there- 
 fore consist in the discovery and the special develop- 
 ment of each pupil's dominant, interests, in so far as 
 these interests represent possibilities of development 
 in harmony with the general aim of education, and in 
 the constant use of the course of study as a means 
 of intelligent experimentation until the pupil's self- 
 revelation is complete.f During this stage, therefore, 
 as the pupil advances, the relative educational values 
 of the different subjects for each pupil correspond 
 more and more to the relative degrees of interest 
 they develop. 
 
 It is manifest that, in the application of this princi- 
 ple to practice, great care must be taken that caprice 
 or chance interests do not dissipate the pupil's powers 
 or narrow the whole range of his development. Flexi- 
 ble programmes with a wide range of electives are 
 
20 EDUCATIONAL AIMS AND VALUES 
 
 needed ; but it must be remembered that the test of 
 real interest can only be revealed by intensiveness 
 and continuity in the . pursuit of a subject during a 
 sufficiently long period. What that period is, the 
 judgment of the teacher must decide in each case. 
 But the proper application of this principle will lead 
 to that supremely desirable, although, at present, ap- 
 parently unattainable result, that each man, while still 
 a youth, will learn to know his powers and defects, 
 and will be aided to select deliberately that calling 
 for which he is best fitted by nature. Though at pres- 
 ent apparently unattainable, this ideal, as a very im- 
 portant result of all our educational endeavor, does 
 not seem to me by any means beyond our reach. 
 Who can doubt that we should strive to attain it? 
 
II 
 
 A RECENT TENDENCY IN SECOND- 
 ARY EDUCATION EXAMINED 
 
II 
 
 A RECENT TENDENCY IN SECOND- 
 ARY EDUCATION EXAMINED 
 
 The recent history of secondary school programmes, 
 especially, of high school programmes, in this country, 
 reveals an interesting and significant tendency. Not 
 many years ago, the secondary school programme con- 
 sisted of a single course of study, or at most of two 
 courses of study, which must be pursued, as laid down, 
 by pupils who desired to graduate and obtain the di- 
 ploma of the school. The substance of the preferred 
 course of study was Latin, Greek, and Mathematics. 
 The programme usually comprised also a smattering of 
 general history, including the history of English litera- 
 ture, the writing of a few English essays or " composi- 
 tions," and occasionally political economy and "mental 
 science." This was the classical course always pur- 
 sued by those pupils who were going to college ; and to 
 it most other pupils possessing, or at least claiming to 
 possess, social and intellectual superiority also devoted 
 themselves. These pupils thus formed the fortunate 
 circle of the intellectual and social elite ; and by means 
 
 23 
 
24 A RECENT TENDENCY IN 
 
 of the classical course those pupils who were not yet of 
 this fortunate circle sought to gain admission to it. 
 
 The other course was either like the classical course 
 with the Greek left out, and French or German sub- 
 stituted in its place ; or it was a course in which 
 science and modern languages replaced both Latin and 
 Greek. In the latter case, i.e. when both Latin 
 and Greek were omitted, their places were often taken 
 by an ill-assorted aggregate of subjects treated rather 
 briefly, and called " English Branches." Because of 
 the usually scrappy character of the studies substi- 
 tuted for the classics, and because of the inferior in- 
 struction often given in these substituted subjects, the 
 non-classical course was, at first, and for a long time 
 afterward, almost always in fact, as always in reputa- 
 tion, inferior to the classical course. It was intended 
 for those pupils who had no hope of going to college, 
 for those who, presumably, had no "literary aspira- 
 tions " or had no reasonable expectation of rising above 
 their present social position, and for the hopelessly dull. 
 
 In spite, however - , of this original and not yet obsolete 
 inferiority, the non-classical course survived ; and it did 
 not merely survive, but it improved in quality, and at 
 the same time multiplied " by fission " as the biologists 
 would say ; so that in place of a single course, parallel 
 to the classical course, two or more such courses came 
 to be recognized. Through such changes the original 
 secondary school programme has become transformed 
 
SECONDARY EDUCATION EXAMINED 2$ 
 
 into a number of parallel courses of study- — there 
 being in some large schools as many as seven such 
 courses, each one of which leads to graduation and a 
 diploma. Moreover, as already intimated, the par- 
 tially or wholly non-classical courses have constantly 
 improved in quality through changes in the nature 
 and arrangement of the subject-matter, and through 
 improvements in the teaching, until, in some schools, 
 the original inferiority of these courses has wholly 
 disappeared; and they are recognized as, in all re- 
 spects, equal to the classical course in dignity and edu- 
 cational value. At the same time, the classical course 
 itself has undergone modifications through the incor- 
 poration of science and modern languages, subjects 
 at first regarded as essentially foreign to the nature 
 and scope of that course. 
 
 It appears, therefore, that in the recent history of 
 secondary education, we find a tendency toward the 
 multiplication of distinct parallel courses of study, and, 
 to a less extent, toward the extension of the scope of 
 the traditional classical course of study; and at the 
 same time a growing disposition to regard these courses 
 of study as of more nearly equal value and dignity 
 than heretofore ; or, at any rate, a willingness to believe 
 that all these courses of study, through suitable selec- 
 tion and arrangement of subject-matter and through 
 good teaching, can be made of substantially equal 
 efficacy for educational purposes. 
 
26 A RECENT TENDENCY IN 
 
 Now, it need hardly be pointed out that these 
 changes in secondary education are chiefly the re- 
 sult of external demands rather than a development 
 from within ; that they have resulted mainly from the 
 more or less reasonable demands of parents, usually 
 influenced by but often independent of their sons and 
 daughters, rather than from the deliberate purpose of 
 teachers who have convinced themselves by observa- 
 tion and reflection of the desirability of these changes. 
 The single prescribed course once abandoned has 
 never been reestablished, however; and with the quite 
 general adoption of several parallel courses, through 
 imitation of the larger and more influential schools by 
 the smaller and less important, has also come a desire 
 on the part of all to justify such programmes by an 
 appeal to principles. 
 
 I said the demands of parents for two or more 
 parallel courses, leading to the diploma of the school, 
 were more or less reasonable. I mean that while par- 
 ents often yielded to the caprice of pupils or to the 
 unwillingness of pupils to do hard work, while insist- 
 ing on a diploma for such work as the pupils were 
 willing to do, it, nevertheless, often happened that 
 sons and daughters of undoubted intellectual ability 
 failed to profit by the classical course to the extent 
 which their ability and general willingness to work 
 seemed to warrant. Further it was apparent that such 
 boys and girls were not interested in the prescribed 
 
SECONDARY EDUCATION EXAMINED 2J 
 
 work, and often left school for more congenial pur- 
 suits. Once out of school they often acquitted them- 
 selves in such a way as to leave no doubt of their 
 real ability. Moreover, it appeared to intelligent par- 
 ents much better that their children should take a 
 course of study of alleged and often confessed in- 
 feriority, if they could be induced thereby to put 
 forth real effort and develop such intellectual tastes 
 and capacities as they had, than that they should 
 miss such development, in youth, altogether, by leav- 
 ing school; or if they remained in school, that they 
 should develop the habit of skilfully evading all real 
 work, and run the risk of acquiring a real aversion 
 to all intellectual effort and conquest. 
 
 Again, the apparent remoteness of the subject-matter 
 of the classical course from all the practical concerns 
 of life, impressed many intelligent and energetic, but 
 uncultivated, parents far more than any alleged and 
 usually admitted general disciplinary value that such a 
 course of study might have ; and so, both on educa- 
 tional and on somewhat narrow utilitarian grounds, 
 — the latter much more commonly, — courses of study 
 in which the classics should not constitute almost 
 all of the subject-matter of instruction were demanded 
 and supplied. In other words, it was perceived, rather 
 dimly, at first, but with rapidly increasing clearness, 
 that individuals differ in their tastes and capacities, 
 and consequent reasonable demands, and that a uni- 
 
28 A RECENT TENDENCY IN 
 
 form course of study for all ignored these differences 
 and, therefore, was not adapted to the wants of all 
 the pupils. With the recognition of this fact the 
 public high school gradually ceased its endeavor to 
 impress its preconceived notions of what was good for 
 every individual on the parents and on the pupils, 
 and began to adapt its opportunities to the real or 
 supposed necessities of its pupils and patrons. The 
 latest form of this adaptation is, however, not merely 
 the establishment of several distinct courses of study, 
 one of which a pupil must pursue as laid down, but 
 choices are permitted within these courses, and, further, 
 in some important high schools — there are several 
 such schools within twenty miles of the State House 
 in Boston — at least one of these "courses of study" 
 offers a wide range of electives throughout. 
 
 The tendency that we have traced in the recent 
 history of secondary education is, therefore, a ten- 
 dency to arrange the subject-matter of instruction in 
 the form of suggestive schedules rather than as man- 
 datory programmes; and to permit each pupil, pre- 
 sumably under wise guidance, to select those subjects 
 or groups of subjects which are adapted to his wants 
 and tastes. 
 
 I purpose now to inquire if this tendency, originally 
 impressed on the schools from without, toward making 
 the work of the secondary school largely elective is jus- 
 tified by sound pedagogical principles, i.e. by valid con- 
 
SECONDARY EDUCATION EXAMINED 29 
 
 siderations of educational aims and educational values ; 
 and hence, whether this tendency should be yielded to, 
 and even deliberately encouraged ; or whether it is a 
 pernicious tendency subversive of the real interests of 
 the pupils, and hence, deserves to be resisted and 
 overcome. 
 
 In the consideration of this question it will be nec- 
 essary to deal with at least two educational common- 
 places, namely, the whole aim of education, and the 
 teacher's attitude toward his profession, which involves 
 a conscious recognition of that aim. I do not hesitate 
 to dwell on these commonplaces, because they are 
 by no means commonplaces of practice as they are of 
 theory; moreover, a restatement of them in order to 
 recognize their importance by bringing to light their 
 effect on the future of every human being subjected 
 to their influence cannot be superfluous. Our profes- 
 sional life is largely a repetition of commonplaces 
 whose significance we are in danger of losing. To 
 seize this significance rationalizes endeavor, and hence, 
 restores the enthusiasm, inspiration, and guidance for 
 fresh effort that is born of a renewed insight. 
 
 I have elsewhere pointed out how rare it is to find 
 teachers whose work is determined by conscious aims, 
 and consequently how narrow is the professional hori- 
 zon of most of them. I shall not soon forget the 
 surprise with which an intelligent teacher said to 
 me, not long ago, " An aim ! I have no aim in teach- 
 
3<D A RECENT TENDENCY IN 
 
 ing ; that is a new idea ! " and another New England 
 teacher, one of the first in his profession, said, in 
 reply to my statement .that every teacher's purpose 
 must determine the nature and quality of his work, 
 " I have no purpose in teaching Astronomy ; I don't 
 know why I teach it!" These teachers did not, of 
 course, represent themselves quite fairly. But they 
 did mean, that beyond the immediate object of induc- 
 ing their pupils to learn their daily lessons in Algebra, 
 and Latin, and Astronomy, they had no conscious pur- 
 poses by which their whole activity as teachers was 
 determined; and specifically, that the choice of these 
 subjects as fit subject-matter of instruction was no con- 
 cern of theirs ; they taught these subjects as best they 
 could, because those subjects were in the course of 
 study which was like other courses of study, or because 
 those subjects were required for admission to college. 
 
 It seems necessary, then, to remind ourselves that 
 programmes or courses of study are not divine revela- 
 tions deserving of implicit adherence. On the con- 
 trary, they sometimes suggest a very different origin. 
 But whatever the wisdom or unwisdom of their content 
 and form, it is obvious that programmes or courses of 
 study are not an end in themselves, but a means to an 
 end. They involve, as intimated above, the whole aim 
 of education, and the teacher's attitude toward that aim. 
 
 The aim of education is and always will be " prepa- 
 ration for complete living." Preparation for complete 
 
SECONDARY EDUCATION EXAMINED 31 
 
 living means the acquisition of knowledge drawn from 
 the two fields of all human activity — man and his ex- 
 perience and achievements, and external nature ; and 
 training to intelligent and productive activity in the 
 use of this knowledge, and to proper enjoyment of it. 
 In the actual work of education we commonly divide 
 this preparation into three periods — primary, second- 
 ary, and higher education. We are in this chapter 
 concerned with the first two. Too commonly we have 
 attached a wrong significance to this division. Too 
 often \t has been regarded merely as a suitable strati- 
 fication of our school system with appropriate subdivi- 
 sions in each stratum, for the convenient handling of 
 masses of children and youth for periodic examination 
 and transfer from one stratum to another. 
 
 For this mechanical conception a more intelligent 
 one is, however, gaining acceptance; namely, that 
 this preparation, though roughly divisible into peri- 
 ods, is an organic process with an unbroken sequence 
 corresponding to the child's advancing mental, moral, 
 and physical development from one end of his school 
 life to the other. This conception naturally leads to 
 a consideration of aims, means, and methods appropri- 
 ate to different stages of the work, and to the recogni- 
 tion that aims, means, and methods of one sort may 
 not cease abruptly at any period for totally different 
 ones, but that the aims to be achieved, the means to 
 be employed, and the methods used at one stage must 
 
32 A RECENT TENDENCY IN 
 
 merge into the aims, means, and methods appropriate 
 to a later stage. We may, however, for purposes of 
 discussion, separate the chief ends to be accomplished 
 during these stages from each other, in order to point 
 out how they necessarily determine the school pro- 
 grammes and the teacher's conception of his work. 
 
 The stage of primary or elementary education may 
 appropriately be called the stage of nutrition. In that 
 stage life is full of wonders. Everything is yet to be 
 discovered. The mind of the child is to be opened and 
 the world is to be let in. The teacher is a veritable 
 magician under whose guidance the pupil is to experi- 
 ence more and far greater delights than those of myth 
 or fairy land, and the treasures discovered are to be his 
 own if he will but exert himself to seize them. The 
 wonderful beauty and structure of organic and inor- 
 ganic forms ; the marvellous laws of nature ; the hint 
 of system in number and form ; some appreciation of 
 grandeur and beauty in landscape, and sea, and sky; 
 the secrets of life as revealed in the form, the structure, 
 the life history, and especially the habits of animals 
 and plants ; these are some of the treasures which the 
 world offers him, and which the teacher helps him to 
 make his own. Nor is the story of man less attrac- 
 tive at this age than the story of nature. The myths 
 of early days, the heroes of legend, and later the 
 heroes of history, not sovereigns and mere war heroes 
 mainly, but chiefly the men and women who are re- 
 
SECONDARY EDUCATION EXAMINED 
 
 33 
 
 membered with affection and respect, for the good, the 
 true, or the beautiful they have wrought; the story 
 of the gradual rise of popular liberty and of national 
 stability, so far as these lie within the comprehension 
 of the child ; the delights of poetry and of romance — 
 the literature of his own and other tongues that thrills 
 him with pleasure and feeds his young imagination with 
 pure and noble ideals — all these sources of inspira- 
 tion and guidance the teacher brings within his reach. 
 The artists too, the musician, the painter, the engraver, 
 and the sculptor are called upon to contribute their 
 share to the enrichment of his young life with the 
 purest pleasures. Meanwhile under the teacher's guid- 
 ance the pupil's tongue and hand are not idle. He 
 learns to employ both in acquiring and in giving ex- 
 pression to the ideas he has gained. Through oral and 
 written speech, through drawing, and through various 
 forms of manual construction, he learns his power over 
 his acquisitions, and, while heightening his feeling of 
 intellectual achievement, puts into permanent form 
 the thoughts he has had, or the forms which he has 
 conceived. 
 
 The teacher who looks upon education as the process 
 which thus begins to reveal the world of nature and the 
 world of man to his pupil, who regards himself as the 
 pupil's guide and interpreter, will keenly feel, back of 
 the commonplaces of his routine, both the responsibili- 
 ties and the privileges of his vocation. " He will then 
 
34 A RECENT TENDENCY IN 
 
 say of his own accord," says Herbart, "that not he but 
 the whole power of what humanity has felt, experi- 
 enced, and thought, is the true and right educator, to 
 which the boy is entitled, and that the teacher is given 
 to him merely that he may help by an intelligent in- 
 terpretation and elevating companionship. Thus to 
 present the whole treasure of accumulated research in 
 a concentrated form to the youthful generation is the 
 highest service which mankind at any period of its 
 existence can render to its successors, be it as teaching 
 or as warning." In other words, the true teacher will 
 realize that the intellectual, moral, and social atmos- 
 phere which he creates is the medium of the pupil's 
 dawning intellectual and spiritual life. To economize 
 time and energy, to make the most of native endow- 
 ments, to stimulate, to guide, restrain, encourage the 
 pupil's own activity with fine feeling and good sense, 
 such is the exalted function of the elementary teacher 
 — such must be his aim. 
 
 It need hardly be said that such an aim deter- 
 mines a totally different activity from that in which 
 the teacher merely sets a task for the pupil to per- 
 form, and then determines whether the pupil has or 
 has not performed it. Such an aim will induce the 
 teacher so to deal with his subject and his pupil that, 
 although the details of the knowledge presented may 
 be forgotten, the memory of the charm of its novel- 
 ties and of its beauties skilfully revealed, of the intel- 
 
SECONDARY EDUCATION EXAMINED 35 
 
 lectual conquests that it afforded, of the wonderful 
 relations between the different parts of the whole field 
 of knowledge which were discovered, of its availabil- 
 ity for the service or for the pleasures of men, — in 
 a word, the many-sided interest which was developed 
 in knowledge and in the varied activities of which 
 a human being is capable will remain as a permanent 
 mental possession. 
 
 As yet, however, the mind of the child has only 
 been aroused. It has been touched by life in its 
 manifold , forms, and it thrills and pulsates with its 
 own awakening. This has been the purpose, and 
 should be the result, of primary education. An or- 
 derly presentation of the whole field of knowledge in 
 its elements has nourished the child's growing mind, 
 has called into activity his varied powers, and has 
 given him glimpses of fresh fields to explore and 
 greater conquests to achieve beyond. He eagerly 
 seizes on every subject, and enters with zest on every 
 fresh undertaking. 
 
 But children are, after all, very unstable creatures. 
 Much of the knowledge and power and interest of 
 the earlier years is superficial and transitory. The 
 random interest, the restless activity, the manifold 
 impulses of this early stage are still to be organized 
 and controlled. Alertness must not be sacrificed, but 
 interest must glow steadily ; choice and action must 
 become deliberate. Stability and concentration must 
 
36 A RECENT TENDENCY IN 
 
 come to characterize the youth's mental life as well 
 as alertness and activity. 
 
 Now, habitual alertness, stability, and vigorous ac- 
 tivity are sure to follow the adaptation of work to 
 individual interests. These individual interests begin 
 to emerge as soon as the pupil's acquisitions arrange 
 themselves into separate classes. As these classes 
 of acquisitions and pursuits diverge more and more, 
 each of them assumes marked peculiarities. The 
 youth finds himself no longer attracted by every sug- 
 gested activity, but certain kinds of knowledge and 
 certain forms of activity have a charm for him which 
 other kinds of knowledge and other forms of activity 
 do not possess. The field of knowledge has become 
 an array of different subjects, each of which has its 
 own peculiar form and content, and its own peculiar 
 mode of treatment. He feels himself, unconsciously 
 at first, but with rapidly growing consciousness, per- 
 manently attracted by some subjects, and by some 
 forms of activity; while, similarly, other subjects or 
 other activities are indifferent or even distasteful to 
 him. Moreover, it is no longer possible for him to 
 compass the whole field of knowledge after it has 
 separated into many distinct subjects, even if he were 
 impelled to do so. This gradual selective or elective 
 action of the pupil's mind is as important as it is 
 natural. It marks the stage during which the pupil 
 emerges from early childhood into later childhood 
 
SECONDARY EDUCATION EXAMINED 37 
 
 and youth. It deserves the most careful study. When 
 well marked and persistent, it shows that primary edu- 
 cation has accomplished its purpose. It has made the 
 pupil responsive to the varied interests of life. It 
 should, therefore, be welcomed and facilitated, but also 
 guided and directed through wise restrictions. 
 
 It deserves to be facilitated because all real activ- 
 ity on which growth depends, as contrasted with mere 
 passive receptivity, depends on interest. From this 
 time forward, therefore, the pupil's real effort will be 
 reserved for his preferences. If these preferences 
 are discovered and justly regarded in his choice of 
 work, he may through them develop dominant groups 
 of ideas, to which all other acquisitions are referred, 
 and through which all other acquisitions are inter- 
 preted — become significant. Through these domi- 
 nant groups of ideas the organization of his knowledge 
 and thorough achievement are natural and inevitable. 
 Without them, desultory effort, sporadic exertion, half 
 achievement, are sure to determine the nature and 
 quality of his work. The intellectual flabbiness and 
 uncertainty, the want of enthusiasm and pleasure in 
 knowledge and the pursuit of knowledge, too often 
 shown by many a high-school pupil, and by too many 
 high-school graduates, illustrate what is meant. 
 
 The pursuit of work in accordance with the pupil's 
 preferences ought, therefore, to be facilitated ; in order 
 that, under the teacher's guidance, the real quality 
 
38 A RECENT TENDENCY IN 
 
 and temper of the pupil's mind may be discovered, 
 and that on the basis of this discovery he may be led 
 to mental stability, habitual alertness, and vigorous 
 activity. But while the preferences of the pupil thus 
 need to be facilitated, it is also apparent that they 
 should be guided and restricted with the greatest care. 
 Some of the preferences shown by a pupil are sure to 
 be superficial and transitory. Care must, therefore, 
 be exercised that caprice, or a chance interest, may 
 not narrow the range of the pupil's intellectual life. 
 Moreover, the power to attend to the immediately 
 uninteresting for the sake of reaching a remoter in- 
 terest has to be developed, and hence the pupil may, 
 during the stage under consideration, be wisely re- 
 quired to attend to subjects, and to exert himself, for 
 a suitable time, in ways and at times which are, in 
 themselves, unattractive or even irksome to him. 
 Again, subjects needed for ethical and social enlight- 
 enment on the one hand, and for an appreciative un- 
 derstanding of nature on the other, must not be lightly 
 set aside nor easily abandoned. Further, intensive- 
 ness and continuity in the pursuit of individual sub- 
 jects beyond their barest rudiments and of activities 
 beyond their beginnings are essential to the develop- 
 ment of power. Such intensiveness and continuity only 
 can determine whether a pupil has a real or merely a 
 transitory or illusory interest in given subjects. But, 
 before long, every subject of instruction and every 
 
SECONDARY EDUCATION EXAMINED 39 
 
 form of activity, in itself, even when preferred by the 
 pupil, affords such training; and, consequently, as the 
 pupil's real tastes appear they can be yielded to more 
 and more to his own great advantage. 
 
 For these reasons the pupil's work in accordance 
 with his preferences should be carefully guided and 
 restricted. All this requires much intelligent experi- 
 menting. Without such experimenting there is sure 
 to be much waste of time and energy, and there may 
 be positive retrogression. Besides it must not be over- 
 looked that bad teaching may produce precisely the 
 same result as uninteresting subject-matter. Hence, in 
 addition to the necessity of a properly guarded choice 
 among the different subjects, there is also the inciden- 
 tal implied necessity of a choice among the different 
 teachers. The period for this experimentation is the 
 period covered by secondary education, say from the 
 pupil's eleventh or twelfth to his eighteenth or twen- 
 tieth year. The pupil's secondary education, there- 
 fore, begins before he completes his (present) gram- 
 mar-school course and continues throughout the entire 
 high-school period. 
 
 During this period, then, there is laid upon the 
 teacher, in addition to the duties' described above in 
 connection with the considerations on elementary edu- 
 cation, the difficult task of wisely using the course of 
 study as a means of discovering the pupil and leading 
 him to self rev elation. 
 
40 A RECENT TENDENCY IN 
 
 To make such a discovery and revelation possible, 
 flexible programmes with a large range of electives 
 are necessary. Without such programmes it is use- 
 less to expect spontaneous effort. Under compulsion 
 pupils respond to external demands only; they know- 
 little of the joy of achievement, and of the pleasures 
 of intellectual activity in general. Under compulsion 
 the pupil is prevented from experimenting, and with- 
 out experimenting it is impossible for him or for 
 any one else to know what he can and what he can- 
 not do; what he enjoys and what is distasteful to 
 him. Of course, as has been said already, an indis- 
 criminate or random choosing of certain subjects and 
 corresponding neglect of certain others should not be 
 permitted; to surrender the pupil to his own caprice 
 is as bad as to compel him to adhere to an externally 
 imposed regime. But without the opportunity to 
 choose for himself as wisely as he can, he never can 
 develop independence of thought and action, moral 
 poise, and vigor. 
 
 To develop habits of thorough acquisition, each 
 subject, or group of closely related subjects, once un- 
 dertaken, if found adapted to the pupil, should be pur- 
 sued long enough and intensively enough to demand 
 serious attention. It does not require much exertion, 
 and it is no real test of interest or power, to skim the 
 surface of a subject with avidity. But to deal with it 
 intensively, to penetrate willingly into its resources and 
 
SECONDARY EDUCATION EXAMINED 41 
 
 master its difficulties, calls for real interest and genuine 
 application. And such pursuit of the subjects or 
 groups of subjects will make them substantially equal 
 so far as the development of intellectual habits is 
 concerned; it will accordingly establish their claim to 
 equal dignity and educational value. 
 
 The opportunities required for such purpose will be 
 adequately provided, first, when each secondary school 
 determines the amount of instruction which it is pre- 
 pared to offer in each subject for each year, and then re- 
 gards the tabulation of this instruction or the so-called 
 "courses of study" not as mandatory programmes, 
 but, with certain necessary restrictions in regard to 
 amount, sequence, and continuity, as suggestive sched- 
 ules ; and, second, when it may also be justly said of 
 those schools that the teachers in them are efficient, 
 kindly, and just; and that the general atmosphere 
 prevailing there is inspiring and refining. Efficient, 
 kindly, and just teachers will be found when the 
 community demands them, and is ready to pay for 
 and appreciate them. The responsibility for securing 
 such teachers for the secondary schools rests on the 
 superintendents and principals. 
 
 The fear is sometimes expressed that when pupils 
 are free to choose their studies, they will choose only 
 the easier ones and neglect those requiring strenuous 
 application. But there is really little danger of such a 
 perversion of opportunity ; because, first, every elective 
 
42 A RECENT TENDENCY EXAMINED 
 
 course for secondary schools should be administered 
 with due regard to the necessary restrictions just 
 mentioned ; and, second, experience has already shown 
 that most young people, like most adults, though some- 
 times inclined, at first, to choose the easier rather 
 than the better way when traditional restraints have 
 been removed, generally learn, under freedom, to dis- 
 criminate between illusory and permanent benefits, and 
 deliberately choose what they believe to be best irre- 
 spective of other considerations. 
 
 Here, then, we have the answer to the question I 
 proposed. The present tendency, traced in the begin- 
 ning of this paper, toward arranging high-school pro- 
 grammes in parallel courses of study, one of them 
 with a wide range of electives throughout, is, so far 
 as it goes, in harmony with sound educational princi- 
 ples, and hence, with the real interests of the pupils ; 
 it should, therefore, be deliberately encouraged. 
 
Ill 
 
 ATTEMPTED IMPROVEMENTS IN 
 THE COURSE OF STUDY 
 
Ill 
 
 ATTEMPTED IMPROVEMENTS IN 
 THE COURSE OF STUDY 
 
 During the last thirty years education in this coun- 
 try has been rapidly acquiring a new significance- 
 It has been emerging from the sphere of mechanical 
 routine into the sphere of rationalized endeavor. Dur- 
 ing these thirty years the three perennial problems of 
 all progress in school education have emerged into 
 prominence ; and of late we have learned what promises 
 to be the most fruitful method ever devised for the solu- 
 tion of these problems. These problems are: (i) How 
 to improve the course of study for all grades ; (2) How 
 to improve the teaching in all grades; (3) How to 
 improve the organization and administration of city 
 school systems ; and the method which we have learned 
 and through which we may confidently hope to reach 
 more and more satisfactory solutions of these problems 
 is the method of cooperation. 
 
 These three problems are discussed by the Com- 
 mittee of Ten and the Committee of Fifteen of the 
 National Educational Association ; and the reports of 
 
 45 
 
46 ATTEMPTED IMPROVEMENTS IN 
 
 these committees as well as the organization and work 
 of the several associations of colleges and prepara- 
 tory schools, together with the more recent special 
 conferences of school and college men held for the 
 consideration of questions affecting the interests of 
 both secondary and higher education, bear important 
 testimony to the great value of the method of coopera- 
 tive effort in seeking the solution of educational prob- 
 lems. Quite recently a new cooperative organization, 
 destined, I believe, to be of great value and influence 
 in the future, has appeared. This is the so-called 
 Education Society, composed chiefly of persons not 
 teachers, but organized for the purpose of securing 
 the intelligent and sympathetic cooperation of the 
 community and the teachers, both in the serious en- 
 deavor to solve educational problems, and in the pro- 
 motion of wise experiments with promising solutions 
 as fast as they are offered. Setting aside, for the 
 present, other interesting and important considera- 
 tions, I purpose to consider one of the educational 
 problems to which reference has been made, namely, 
 How to improve the course of study. 
 
 Improvements in the course of study can have 
 reference to only two features ; namely, the nature 
 of the subject-matter and the suitable arrangement 
 of that subject-matter. Let us, therefore, briefly re- 
 view the course of study as it was and is, in order 
 that we may justly appreciate the attempted improve- 
 
THE COURSE OF STUDY 47 
 
 merits now in process of adoption throughout the 
 country. 
 
 Once it was assumed that all knowledge was locked 
 up in books ; at the same time it was assumed that 
 all knowledge (book knowledge) was power. Hence 
 all intellectual development meant the mastery of 
 books. " To put a child to his book " was accordingly 
 the phrase which described the aim and processes 
 of elementary education. Or, in other words, the aim 
 was to enable the child to read, write, and cipher in 
 order that he might possess himself of the contents 
 of books. Until a command of written and printed 
 speech and facility in numerical operations were 
 secured, it was assumed that nothing else could be 
 learned. This exaggerated opinion of the importance 
 of the fundamental school arts as the keys to all knowl- 
 edge naturally concentrated attention on the arts 
 themselves for many years of the course. They were, 
 therefore, almost universally regarded as the most 
 important subjects during the whole eight or nine 
 years of the elementary-school course of study. 
 
 Not many years ago, therefore, it was still quite 
 generally true that the elementary-school course of 
 study — the pre-high-school course — could be described 
 as chiefly a course of study in the school arts, read- 
 ing, writing, arithmetic, and English grammar, together 
 with book geography, and a little United States history. 
 It was still quite generally true that the school seemed 
 
48 ATTEMPTED IMPROVEMENTS IN 
 
 to be divorced from life. It had its own routine, which 
 seemed to be designed for keeping boys and girls 
 busy about tasks the significance of which was only 
 dimly perceived, and sometimes, being neither real nor 
 apparent, was not perceived at all. The pupils could 
 read, but not having experienced the pleasure and 
 profit to be derived from what was worth reading, 
 most of them did not read ; they could cipher, but as 
 they found no use for most of the arithmetical skill 
 they had spent so long a time in acquiring, they soon 
 forgot it ; they had learned and could locate geographi- 
 cal names on a map, and had committed to memory 
 a number of detached groups of statistics relating to 
 area, population, and products ; but most of this geo- 
 graphical information was found to be useless, both 
 in practical affairs and as a means of further acquisi- 
 tion, and it, like most of the arithmetic, soon passed 
 into oblivion. The enumeration of dates and unrelated 
 events that made up a fragmentary study of United 
 States history soon went the way of the geography, 
 and for a like reason. The grammar, which had 
 promised to teach how to speak and write the Eng- 
 lish language correctly, had somehow been found to 
 develop little significance, and even when understood, 
 its rules seemed (as they really were) almost wholly 
 superfluous to young children whose only acquaint- 
 ance with the form and structure of language was 
 derived from the mother-tongue. Consequently the 
 
THE COURSE OF STUDY 49 
 
 grammar, like most of the arithmetic, geography, and 
 history, was, ere long, consigned to the intellectual 
 lumber-room where moth and rust soon did their 
 work; and within a few years very little was left of 
 all that had been so painfully acquired. 
 
 It was, therefore, quite generally true that the total 
 permanent result of the first eight or nine years of the 
 pupil's school life was the ability to read, but not the 
 reading habit; the ability to spell and write words, 
 but no power of expression with the pen ; a varying 
 ability to add, subtract, multiply, and divide simple 
 numbers, integral and fractional, but much uncer- 
 tainty in all other arithmetical operations ; some 
 fragmentary book knowledge of names and places of 
 our own country and of foreign countries; and some 
 scrappy information relating to the history of the 
 United States. 
 
 Most pupils had derived few permanent interests 
 from these first eight or nine years of school life, 
 and those who left school without entering the high 
 school very naturally regarded what they had learned 
 of intellectual pursuits as typical of intellectual inter- 
 ests in general, and felt for them little respect and 
 less regard. Inasmuch as the great majority of the 
 community is composed of those who have not con- 
 tinued their school life beyond the grammar school, 
 it is evident that, for the great majority of the com- 
 munity, education had been only an incident, and not, 
 
 £ 
 
50 ATTEMPTED IMPROVEMENTS IN 
 
 as it should be, a great leavening intellectual, moral, 
 and social force. 
 
 Another defect of this barren elementary course 
 of study was to create a gap between " the grades " 
 and the high school. The pursuit of literature, art, 
 natural science, foreign languages was, usually, rigor- 
 ously excluded from " the grades " ; and the. pupil, on 
 entering the high school, found himself face to face 
 with a bewildering number of conceptions wholly new 
 to him, and consequently often as uninteresting and 
 as devoid of significance as the drill of his grammar- 
 school period. At the same time this total diversity 
 in aims and occupations of the lower grades and the 
 high school caused, and still causes, the teachers of 
 the high school, almost universally, to regard them- 
 selves as having no concern with the pupil's earlier 
 school career; and so, both on account of the course 
 of study and the high-school teachers' faulty concep- 
 tion of their duty to the pupil, an unnatural obstruc- 
 tion to the pupil's steady progress in knowledge and 
 power resulted; an obstruction very appropriately de- 
 scribed as a gap between the lower grades and the 
 high school. 
 
 The description just given of the course of study 
 with its characteristic gap is no longer generally 
 applicable to existing courses ; although the old 
 course of study has, in many instances, even yet 
 been modified but little, and the characteristic gap 
 
THE COURSE OF STUDY 5 1 
 
 referred to still exists in many city school systems, 
 together with the faulty conception, already referred 
 to, which many high-school teachers have of the rela- 
 tion of the high school to the pupil's earlier career. 
 This faulty conception is traceable, of course, to the 
 fact that most secondary-school teachers now in ser- 
 vice have never studied their profession as such, 
 either before entering on their work or subsequently. 
 
 The inadequacy and inappropriateness of the old 
 course of study both in content (subject-matter) and 
 in form (organization) have been of late quite generally 
 recognized. We have been for some time, and are 
 now, occupied in the endeavor to enrich its content 
 and remodel its form in accordance with the insight 
 we have gained. Everywhere, throughout the length 
 and breadth of the land, courses of study are under 
 revision. They are unstable to the last degree. 
 There is well-nigh educational chaos. But, decidedly, 
 it is not a discouraging confusion. There is still, 
 and there always will be, just as there always has 
 been, much blind imitation, but there is also much 
 intelligent planning and deliberate experimentation. 
 More and more we are endeavoring to modify our 
 courses of study in accordance with more and more 
 clearly defined principles. 
 
 Hitherto we have attempted two quite different 
 modes of enriching the course of study and of bridg- 
 ing the gap between elementary and secondary edu- 
 
52 ATTEMPTED IMPROVEMENTS IN 
 
 cation. By the first mode we have inserted certain 
 subjects, formerly regarded as high-school subjects, 
 — algebra, geometry, natural science, foreign lan- 
 guages, — into the later years of the elementary 
 course of study without attempting any important 
 modification of the work of the earlier years. Expe- 
 rience has already shown, I think, that this mode of 
 enriching the course of study marks only a transi- 
 tional stage of development, and does not afford a 
 permanent basis for improvement. It has, to be 
 sure, brought about a desirable more or less extensive 
 curtailment of the book arithmetic, geography, and 
 English grammar; but it has also resulted in con- 
 gested courses of study and the corresponding super- 
 ficial work. It has, moreover, sometimes resulted in 
 two different and opposite errors in adaptation. 
 Sometimes the course of study, thus enriched, has 
 been too difficult, because the new subjects were 
 introduced as abruptly as they had formerly been 
 presented to the pupil in the high school. For 
 example, physics _ has been introduced as purely 
 quantitative work (exact weighing, measuring, and 
 computing); geometry and algebra as demonstrative 
 and abstract mathematical sciences; foreign languages 
 through the same grammatical study in kind and 
 degree, if not in amount, that was appropriate only 
 to a later stage of the pupil's development. The 
 effect of such early introduction of science and 
 
THE COURSE OF STUDY 53 
 
 foreign-language study, although marking an improve- 
 ment on the older barren and formal work, has too 
 often been nearly as unproductive as the old course 
 of study, because the pupil has not been properly 
 prepared for it by earlier, qualitative (observational) 
 work — i.e. by nature study, concrete geometry, the 
 simpler processes and applications of algebra in con- 
 nection with arithmetic, and an easy introduction to 
 Latin through at least one modern language. 
 
 On the other hand, this form of enrichment has 
 sometimes been too easy to hold the interest and pro- 
 gressively challenge the capacity of pupils in the 
 later years of their grammar-school course by mak- 
 ing it purely qualitative (observational and concrete); 
 and this was, of course, because the earlier observa- 
 tional, concrete, and simpler work had not been 
 done when it should have been done. Children have 
 thus often failed to realize an appropriate develop- 
 ment of knowledge and power in both cases, because 
 the course was not properly adapted from the begin- 
 ning to their constantly expanding interests and 
 growing capacities. It was apparent, therefore, that 
 what was needed was not an enrichment of the 
 course of study by merely inserting certain new sub- 
 jects into the later years of the grammar-school 
 course and making room for these subjects by cut- 
 ting out certain details of other subjects already 
 found there. What was needed was an enrichment 
 
54 ATTEMPTED IMPROVEMENTS IN 
 
 involving a total revision of the course from the 
 beginning". 
 
 And this has been attempted by the second mode of 
 improving the course of study to which reference has 
 been made. This second mode of enriching or improv- 
 ing the course of study is, accordingly, such a revision 
 of the entire course as would make the pupil's work, 
 from the beginning, a revelation of the world in which 
 he lives and of his own relation to it, including his 
 duties and his privileges. Instead of an abrupt intro- 
 duction to totally new subjects and processes the pupil 
 is led to approach them gradually. For example, he 
 is led, on the one hand, through concrete geometry and 
 simple applications of algebraic symbols and processes 
 in connection with his work in arithmetic, to mathe- 
 matical science (geometry and algebra); and through 
 nature study to physical and biological science (physics, 
 chemistry, physiography, astronomy, botany, zoology); 
 and, on the other hand, he is led to history and litera- 
 ture through fable, myth, story, and biography; and 
 to foreign language through simple language exercises 
 that reveal to him simultaneously the significance of 
 the science of grammar as a guide to the study of his 
 mother-tongue and as an instrument in foreign-language 
 acquisition. At the same time we are beginning to 
 understand the value of art and manual training both 
 for educational and industrial purposes, and are there- 
 fore endeavoring to make the revised course of study 
 
THE COURSE OF STUDY 55 
 
 provide appropriate opportunities for training in the 
 elements of the fine arts and of the mechanic arts as 
 well. That is to say, we are endeavoring, through this 
 second mode of enrichment, to make the course of study 
 serve, continuously and progressively, the pupil's ex- 
 panding interests and powers throughout his entire 
 school career. We are seeking, through the improved 
 course of study, to prepare him for a life of usefulness 
 and happiness by adapting him, first of all, to the civili- 
 zation into which he is born ; and at the same time, if 
 his circumstances permit, to prepare him to attain 
 the fullest self-realization through further study, on 
 the foundation already laid. 
 
 This second conception of the course of study, there- 
 fore, declines to recognize two wholly distinct classes 
 of subjects, each of which is to be pursued by itself, 
 and at times widely apart; namely, the school arts 
 appropriate to primary- and grammar-school education ; 
 and science, history, literature, foreign language, fine 
 art, manual training, appropriate only to high-school 
 education. Such a course of study provides the neces- 
 sary instruction in the school arts, but does not exag- 
 gerate their importance, and provides also for the 
 appropriate pursuit of the different subjects of instruc- 
 tion as soon as the pupil is ready for them; even 
 though, for convenience in organization and manage- 
 ment, we may continue to group our pupils in grammar 
 schools and high schools. When this revision and 
 
56 ATTEMPTED IMPROVEMENTS IN 
 
 corresponding enrichment of the course of study have 
 become established, there will be no sudden transition 
 from "the grades" to the high school; but the last 
 years of the course — four, five, or six, as the case may 
 be — will merely promote the pupil's steady progress 
 in the knowledge and power already acquired. The 
 last four years will no longer be exclusively reserved 
 for a first acquaintance with subjects that should have 
 been commenced much earlier, but each subject will 
 find appropriate and sufficiently early recognition and 
 suitable time allotment. Moreover, through it all 
 teachers, the high-school teachers included, will learn 
 — some of them have learned it already — how impor- 
 tant it is that the high school should be closely articu- 
 lated to the lower grades, and how essential it is to the 
 highest efficiency of teachers that they should possess 
 a sympathetic and discriminating insight into the 
 pupil's entire educational career from one end of his 
 school life to the other. 
 
 The second mode of improving the course of study 
 will, therefore, also bridge the gap between elementary 
 and secondary education in a way quite impossible 
 with the first mode. It is gradually winning its way 
 into general acceptance, and to it we may look hope- 
 fully for steady improvement in the schools of the 
 future. 
 
 While these changes have been going on in the 
 elementary or pre-high-school course of study, equally 
 
THE COURSE OF STUDY 57 
 
 important and interesting changes of aim have been 
 in progress in the secondary or high-school course of 
 study. It was pointed out in the last chapter that, 
 not many years ago, the high-school programme con- 
 sisted of 
 
 A single course of study, or at most of two courses of study, 
 which the pupil was obliged to pursue, as laid down, if he 
 desired to graduate and obtain the diploma of the school. 
 The substance of the preferred course of study was Latin, 
 Greek, and mathematics. The programme usually comprised 
 also a smattering of general history, including the history of 
 English literature, the writing of a few English essays or " com- 
 positions," and occasionally political economy, and " mental 
 science." This was the classical course, always pursued by 
 those pupils who were going to college ; and to it most other 
 pupils possessing or, at least, claiming to possess social and 
 intellectual superiority, also devoted themselves. These pupils 
 thus formed the fortunate circle of the intellectual and social 
 elite; and by means of the classical course those pupils who 
 were not yet of this fortunate circle sought to gain admis- 
 sion to it. 
 
 The other course was either like the classical course with 
 the Greek left out, and French or German substituted in its 
 place ; or it was a course in which science and modern 
 languages replaced both Latin and Greek. In the latter case, 
 i.e. when both Latin and Greek were omitted, their places 
 were often taken by an ill-assorted aggregate of subjects 
 treated rather briefly, and called " English branches." Be- 
 cause of the usually scrappy character of the studies substi- 
 tuted for the classics, and because of the inferior instruction 
 often given in these substituted subjects, the non-classical 
 
58 ATTEMPTED, IMPROVEMENTS IN 
 
 course was, at first, and for a long time afterward, almost 
 always in fact, as always in reputation, inferior to the classical 
 course. It was intended for those pupils who had no hope 
 of going to college, for those who, presumably, had no " literary 
 aspirations " or had no reasonable expectation of rising above 
 their present social position, and for the hopelessly dull. 1 
 
 Both of these courses of study were defective. The 
 obvious defects of the non-classical course need not be 
 dwelt upon. But the classical course, as a universal 
 type of what the best secondary-school or high-school 
 course should be for all pupils, was equally, although 
 differently, defective. Its content and form were of 
 course determined by the requirements for admission 
 to college, of which, even at Harvard College until a 
 very short time ago, the most important subjects were 
 Latin, Greek, and mathematics. 
 
 This might answer for pupils who were going to 
 college. Such pupils would, in due time, have an 
 opportunity to study their mother tongue, to some 
 extent at least; to learn one or more modern foreign 
 languages ; to gain some acquaintance with history, 
 natural science, and other subjects useful, interesting, 
 and important to educated persons living in the nine- 
 teenth century. But what of those pupils who did 
 not go to college; whose school life terminated on 
 completion of the high-school course of study ? In 
 estimating the value of the classical course of study 
 
 i Page 23. 
 
THE COURSE OF STUDY 59 
 
 in high schools for all pupils, one must bear in mind 
 not only what the pupils got but also what they did 
 not get. 
 
 This course aimed to furnish an introduction to the 
 literatures of ancient Greece and Rome and hence to 
 the historical culture of the race ; and in so far as this 
 introduction was actually achieved, the result was, of 
 course, proportionally valuable. But it is perfectly 
 well known that, too often, the classical languages 
 failed to impress the pupils as literature; these lan- 
 guages served, too often, mainly as a source of gram- 
 matical exercises, because of the way in which they 
 were taught ; and even when well taught, it could rarely 
 happen that any literary appreciation, to say nothing 
 of enthusiasm, could be developed for either Greek or 
 Latin in young people from fourteen or fifteen to 
 eighteen or nineteen years of age, attacking these lan- 
 guages for the first time, and without any previous 
 study of a foreign language. These languages, to- 
 gether with mathematics, did however invariably con- 
 sume so much of the pupil's time for study that all 
 other subjects, including the mother-tongue, were neces- 
 sarily relegated to a very subordinate place. When 
 we reflect that this meant a high-school education with- 
 out any study of modern languages, without science, 
 without English literature, without any history except 
 an introduction to the history of Greece and Rome, 
 without any introduction to the fine arts, and, of course, 
 
60 ATTEMPTED IMPROVEMENTS IN 
 
 without any opportunity for manual training, we can 
 appreciate how inadequately equipped for the thought 
 and activities of the nineteenth century those pupils 
 were who graduated from the classical course of study 
 in the public high school or the academy, and pursued 
 their studies no further; how inadequately equipped 
 they were "for life," in spite of the fact that many 
 of them had pursued diligently and successfully the 
 work which had been given them to do. 
 
 Such defects have been more and more clearly recog- 
 nized during the recent past, and as a consequence the 
 original single unsatisfactory non-classical course has 
 developed into a number of parallel courses, partly or 
 wholly non-classical, each of which aims to meet the 
 various needs of nineteenth-century civilization. At the 
 same time the content and form of these non-classical 
 courses has steadily improved, and what is even more 
 important, the teaching in them has also improved, 
 until, to-day, although the classical course, itself modi- 
 fied not a little in response to modern demands, is still 
 regarded by many as the superior course, it is never- 
 theless true that the non-classical courses are rapidly 
 gaining in intrinsic quality as well as in the public esti- 
 mation, so that they are coming to be regarded as more 
 and more nearly equal or even superior in value and 
 dignity to the traditional classical course. 
 
 The efforts to improve the secondary or high-school 
 course of study, like the corresponding efforts for the 
 
THE COURSE OF STUDY 6 1 
 
 improvement of the grammar-school course of study, 
 have therefore been directed to an enlargement of its 
 scope (content) and such modification of its form as 
 would best adapt it to modern needs. In bringing 
 about these very desirable changes in the high-school 
 course of study the West has rendered important ser- 
 vice. In those newer regions traditions have had less 
 weight in determining educational practice, and the 
 non-classical high-school courses have thrived there 
 especially. 
 
 A very important incidental gain, traceable largely to 
 these modifications in the high-school course of study 
 made in response to external demands, deserves to be 
 noted here. These modifications have had much to do 
 with insuring the permanence of the public high school 
 as an integral part of our public school systems. I 
 think it is just to say that the persistent adherence to 
 the classical course of study, as the only valuable course 
 for secondary schools, was the fact that lent greatest 
 strength to the opponents of the high school in the days 
 when the public were not so willing to acknowledge as 
 they are to-day that the high school belongs of right to 
 our public school systems. The course of study was 
 obviously designed only for those pupils who were 
 going to college, and the majority of the people found 
 in it little indication of helpfulness to their children for 
 either practical or educational purposes. That these 
 people were ready to attack the support of the high 
 
62 ATTEMPTED IMPROVEMENTS IN 
 
 school is thus easily understood. With the modifica- 
 tions in the scope and organization of high-school work 
 that have been described these attacks have ceased. 
 At the present time the public high school may justly 
 be said to be firmly established throughout the country. 
 
 Another important modification is gradually finding 
 recognition in our secondary-school programmes. Not 
 only may the pupil choose one of several courses of 
 study offered to him in every considerable high school, 
 but choices are permitted within these courses, and 
 there are schools — and the number of such schools is 
 increasing — in which at least one course of study, the 
 " general course," which is not determined by college 
 admission requirements, is largely elective, throughout. 
 That is to say, not only does the modern high school 
 aim to provide an introduction to the culture and train- 
 ing demanded by modern life, but in so doing it seeks 
 also to adapt its opportunities and demands to the tastes 
 and capacities of individuals. The importance of this 
 change in our secondary-school opportunities it is diffi- 
 cult to overrate. 
 
 It is the result of a clear recognition of the fact that 
 the emergence of individual tastes and capacities is 
 as important as it is natural. Achievement is most 
 productive when it is in accordance with interest and 
 capacity, and the ability to choose wisely can only be 
 developed by permitting the youth to choose repeatedly, 
 under direction, as wisely as he can. 
 
THE COURSE OF STUDY 63 
 
 Let me not be misunderstood. I would not have 
 a child twelve or thirteen years old freely choose his 
 own course of study. But if the pupil has been prop- 
 erly trained up to his thirteenth year, he is then en- 
 titled to have his preferences considered in the choice 
 which his parents and teachers permit him to make. 
 As he grows older, his ability to choose wisely should 
 be deliberately cultivated, so that usually by the time 
 he has completed his secondary-school course — rarely 
 before that time — he may be prepared to choose his 
 further studies without restrictions. A youth of eigh- 
 teen or nineteen, who has been learning to choose — 
 who has had training in foresight — for five or six 
 years, is not likely to abuse his privileges, nor is he 
 likely to be ignorant of the importance of wise coun- 
 sel nor to wish to dispense with it. 
 
 I maintain, therefore, that we are coming to see 
 that one of the important functions of the high school 
 is to facilitate the discovery and development of in- 
 dividual interests and capacities, and that this function 
 should hereafter be borne in mind while we endeavor, 
 as we should, to preserve a due balance between the 
 exercise of all the pupil's powers — between the pur- 
 suit of knowledge needed for moral and social en- 
 lightenment and the cultivation of a rich emotional 
 nature on the one hand, and for an appreciative 
 understanding of nature on the other. At the same 
 time we have learned, through the more or less ra- 
 
64 ATTEMPTED IMPROVEMENTS IN 
 
 tional demands of teachers, and of parents and pupils, 
 to attach due importance to the training of the hand 
 and to training for a normally developed and vigorous 
 body. 
 
 From the foregoing discussion, I think we may con- 
 clude that whatever dissatisfaction we may feel with 
 courses of study as they now are, our attempts to 
 improve the course of study as it was have led us to 
 an improved conception of our entire educational en- 
 deavor. This conception, I believe, is fairly interpreted 
 in the following statement of the aims of elementary 
 and secondary education, which, it seems to me, are 
 emerging from the tumult of educational discussion 
 and experimentation now under consideration. 
 
 The special aims of elementary or early education 
 are: — 
 
 i. To nourish the mind of the child through a 
 course of study which should comprise an orderly 
 presentation of the whole field of knowledge in its 
 elements, and thus acquaint the pupil with the world 
 in which he lives and the civilization into which he is 
 born, and of his own relations to them, including his 
 duties and his privileges ; and thus to provide the op- 
 portunity for the exercise of all the child's powers — 
 mental and moral, aesthetic, manual or constructive 
 — through good instruction and wise discipline. 
 
 2. To guard and promote his normal physical de- 
 velopment. 
 
THE COURSE OF STUDY 65 
 
 Continuous development from the stage of early 
 childhood, covered by the period of elementary educa- 
 tion, into the stage of later childhood and youth, 
 covered by the period of secondary education, does 
 not involve the abandonment of these aims. On the 
 contrary, these aims must continue to influence the 
 pupil's education throughout the entire formative pe- 
 riod. But they are subject to some modifications. 
 
 The pupil's mind must still be nourished, but it is 
 no longer possible for him to pursue simultaneously 
 the elements of all knowledge when that knowledge 
 has diverged into distinct subjects, except within cer- 
 tain well-defined limits. 
 
 The special aims of secondary education are, there- 
 fore : — 
 
 1. To discover and systematically to develop a 
 human being's interests and capacities — intellectual, 
 moral, aesthetic, manual or constructive. 
 
 2. With constant regard to the progress of this dis- 
 covery to so direct his development as gradually to 
 emancipate him from external restraint and guidance, 
 in order to render him, as far as possible, self-direct- 
 ing ; i.e. physically, mentally, morally stable, alert, 
 vigorous, and active. 
 
 3. To enable a youth to realize that he owes a 
 duty to society as well as to himself ; and hence that 
 the prizes of life — namely, wealth, leisure, honor — 
 in order to possess lasting worth in his own estima- 
 
66 ATTEMPTED IMPROVEMENTS IN 
 
 tion and in the estimation of his fellow-men must be 
 earned; or when inherited, as they sometimes are, 
 that they must be deserved ; that, in short, man's 
 highest and most permanent ideal is service. 
 
 The most serious obstacle to a speedy realization 
 of these aims in secondary education has been the 
 persistent refusal of certain important colleges to 
 abate the emphasis on the classical course as the 
 most desirable preparation for college work, and their 
 failure to establish college courses for beginners in 
 Latin and Greek. President Eliot, in his annual re- 
 port for 1 894-1 895, gives an interesting account of the 
 courses most numerously attended during the past 
 eleven years under the free elective system which pre- 
 vails in Harvard College. He states that these courses 
 are courses in Greek, Latin, English, German, French, 
 philosophy, ethics, practical ethics, political economy, 
 history, history of the fine arts, mathematics, physics, 
 chemistry, botany and zoology, geology ; and then re- 
 marks : 
 
 The courses in the above list which are most thronged are 
 those in English and in the most elementary German ; the first 
 and second courses in French of college grade ; the elemen- 
 tary courses in philosophy and economics ; the history courses 
 (including the history of the fine arts), and the elementary 
 courses in chemistry, botany, zoology, and geology. 
 
 This list of subjects also sheds some light on an educational 
 question now under discussion — the question of the most 
 
THE COURSE OF STUDY 67 
 
 natural and the most needed additions to the existing pro- 
 grammes of secondary schools. It suggests that in endeavor- 
 ing to enrich the programmes of secondary schools, and thereby 
 to carry into schools the subjects now dealt with by colleges, 
 the selection of the new subjects should be made from the 
 most elementary and most attractive courses named above. 
 In successive annual reports the distribution among the college 
 classes of the young men who have chosen the courses men- 
 tioned has been given with precision, and from this distribution 
 it appears that the younger students choose English, French, 
 German, history, and natural science in larger proportion, and 
 the older students philosophy, economics, and ethics. The 
 indication therefore is that English, French, German, history 
 and natural science are the topics which might be most judi- 
 ciously added to the Latin, Greek, and mathematics, which are 
 already well developed in the best schools. Much of the ele- 
 mentary instruction which is now given in college in the five 
 subjects named ought to be given in high schools and acad- 
 emies, being entirely appropriate to the average age of pupils 
 in the two upper classes of good secondary schools. 
 
 The subjects just named may appropriately be 
 termed modern subjects in contradistinction to Latin, 
 Greek, and mathematics, which may be called the 
 traditional subjects. 
 
 Now it is important to note that many of these stu- 
 dents are, in Harvard College, and in other colleges 
 too, improving their opportunities to get, at the earli- 
 est possible moment, instruction which was not ade- 
 quately offered in the secondary schools from which 
 they have come, or instruction from which they were 
 
68 ATTEMPTED IMPROVEMENTS IN 
 
 debarred during their secondary-school work by the ex- 
 actions of college admission requirements, so planned 
 as to place special emphasis on Latin, Greek, and 
 mathematics. 1 Such emphasis, as is well known, has 
 a profound influence on the entire work of a second- 
 ary school by elevating into superiority a particular 
 group of subjects — the subjects required for admis- 
 sion to college — and correspondingly disparaging all 
 other subjects, whether these latter subjects are pur- 
 sued by pupils who are going to college, or by the 
 far greater number of pupils who do not look for- 
 ward to higher education. Not only are the mod- 
 ern subjects thus relegated to an inferior rank, but, 
 what is equally obvious and unfortunate, the pupils 
 who pursue them are ipso facto deemed of inferior 
 intellectual ability and ambition to those who pursue 
 the traditional subjects, both by their schoolmates and 
 teachers; and, to an almost greater degree, by the edu- 
 cated and socially superior portion of the community, 
 whose opinions in this regard rest on the traditions 
 of their own training ; and also by those who have no 
 educational traditions, but who hold these opinions 
 as the conventionally correct thing, and who are 
 very keenly alive to all the apparent advantages of 
 common intellectual interests with those in whom 
 
 1 The elementary studies [in the admission examinations] are not treated 
 as equivalent; Greek, Latin, and mathematics are most important. — Har- 
 vard University Catalogue, 1894- 1895, P* J 86. 
 
THE COURSE OF STUDY 69 
 
 those interests are the result of home influence, social 
 traditions, and school education. 
 
 So long, therefore, as this emphasis on the tradi- 
 tional subjects remains characteristic of college admis- 
 sion requirements it will remain true that secondary 
 schools will be compelled to offer, first, a respectable 
 programme in Latin, Greek, and mathematics, and to 
 provide good instruction in those subjects, and then 
 to fill in the remaining time of teachers and pupils, 
 if there is any, with such scraps of modern subjects 
 as can be conveniently fitted into the interstices of 
 the programme. The truth of this statement will 
 not, I think, be gainsaid when we remember that, in 
 New England, the so-called English High Schools all 
 have a strong course in Latin at least; and that in 
 public high schools generally, although there are 
 usually several parallel courses of study, the classical 
 course is still regarded by pupils, teachers, and a con- 
 siderable portion of the community as the course par 
 excellence ; the course or courses comprising Latin, 
 though good, as inferior to the classical course; and 
 the course or courses without either Latin or Greek 
 as essentially inferior in quality to either of the others, 
 and only to be pursued by pupils of limited capacity 
 and very limited social position or ambition. That 
 is to say, it is true that the more nearly the second- 
 ary-school course of study approaches a course in 
 modern subjects, the more it has been and still is dis- 
 

 70 ATTEMPTED IMPROVEMENTS 
 
 credited ; and consequently the more has it failed, 
 speaking broadly, to attract the most capable pupils. 
 There are evidences that this emphasis placed by 
 leading colleges on a classical education, as the best 
 secondary education for all who intend to go to college, 
 is about to be materially diminished ; and with this 
 changed attitude will come, of course, a great change 
 in the opinion in which an education without Greek and 
 Latin is held. Up to the present time, however, the 
 shadow of tradition and of collegiate indifference still 
 falls on all courses that do not contain at least one 
 of the classical languages; and this shadow still pre- 
 vents the rapid and vigorous growth of such courses 
 which the increasing and just appreciation on the 
 part of the general public of the modern subjects both 
 for training and for culture would otherwise occa- 
 sion; still postpones in many schools the two gains 
 in secondary education which have been aimed at in 
 the recent attempts to improve the course of study 
 and which have been described above, namely : a 
 modern equipment for all pupils ; an equipment which, 
 in the absence of further scholastic training, serves to 
 prepare them to take their places in the world as 
 participators in its affairs, and incidentally, either with 
 or without the classics, provides adequate preparation 
 for further study through work well done, and the 
 adaptation of the training to the special needs and 
 tastes of individuals. 
 
IV 
 
 WHAT SHOULD THE MODERN SECONDARY 
 SCHOOL AIM TO ACCOMPLISH ? 
 
IV 
 
 WHAT SHOULD THE MODERN SECONDARY 
 SCHOOL AIM TO ACCOMPLISH? 
 
 The secondary school in this country, especially the 
 public high school, is just beginning to assume, con- 
 sciously, the importance of an independent educational 
 institution. There will no doubt continue to be here- 
 after, as there have been in the past, "preparatory 
 schools " ; that is, schools whose aims and work are 
 determined wholly by college entrance requirements ; 
 but, in general, the secondary school is not destined to 
 be a preparatory school. It will aim not merely to 
 prepare for education, it will aim at education itself. 
 This statement does not mean, of course, that the 
 secondary school will aim to offer a complete educa- 
 tion, but that the school will decline to continue to 
 defer, until the pupil enters college, the specific train- 
 ing in knowledge and power which enables him to 
 get a proper acquaintance with modern life, its prob- 
 lems and opportunities, and the corresponding degree 
 of power to participate intelligently and successfully 
 in human affairs. 
 
 73 
 
74 WHAT SHOULD THE SECONDARY SCHOOL 
 
 This is the meaning of the rapidly changing cur- 
 ricula of our secondary schools. But the most obvious 
 recent evidence of this revised conception of secondary 
 education is the demand that any subjects well pursued 
 in the secondary school shall be made available in 
 satisfying the requirements for admission to college. 
 In other words, the schools are beginning to demand 
 that while, heretofore, they have, very generally, 
 followed the colleges in regarding Latin and Greek as 
 the most valuable subjects in the course of study for 
 all secondary-school pupils, and for those pupils who 
 intended to go to college in particular, the colleges 
 shall now follow the schools in abating this emphasis 
 on the traditionally preferred subjects ; and when they 
 make this demand, they make it in the interests of the 
 pupils themselves. The question here at issue is of 
 course broader than the question whether the classics 
 or modern languages and science possess the greatest 
 educational value. The question is, What is the inde- 
 pendent function of modern secondary education, and 
 what are the form and content of the most desirable 
 programme through which this function may be ful- 
 filled ? 
 
 At the outset, it will be necessary to glance, once 
 more, at the present condition and contemporary aims 
 of elementary (pre-secondary) education, in order that 
 we may see what the groundwork is on which the 
 secondary education of the immediate future may 
 
AIM TO ACCOMPLISH? 75 
 
 build; and also that we may determine, approxi- 
 mately, the time limits of secondary education itself. 
 
 It is well known that the elementary school, until 
 quite recently, confined itself almost entirely, for the 
 first eight or nine years of the pupil's school life, to the 
 school arts — reading, writing, arithmetic, and English 
 grammar — together with a good deal of statistical 
 book geography, and usually a little history and civil 
 government. This curriculum is rapidly giving way to 
 the modern "enriched" curriculum, with its nature study, 
 its clay modelling, its drawing, and other forms of 
 elementary instruction in the fine arts, its manual train- 
 ing, its biographical and historical studies, its literature, 
 its foreign language, its music, its physical training; 
 and it is tolerably clear that these rapid changes now 
 going on in the elementary-school courses of study, 
 though doubtless often the result of mere imitation, are 
 fundamentally due to corresponding changes of aim. 
 
 In the process of transition from the old to the new, 
 there is much confusion. Mistakes are doubtless made. 
 We sometimes have a faulty and belated enrichment 
 of only the later years of the grammar-school course, 
 instead of a complete revision and enrichment of the 
 course from the beginning ; we have congested courses 
 and the corresponding scrappy and superficial work ; 
 we have many teachers poorly prepared or not prepared 
 at all to adapt themselves to the requirements of the 
 newer courses of study ; and hence a just estimate of 
 
76 WHAT SHOULD THE SECONDARY SCHOOL 
 
 what is or may be accomplished is difficult and often 
 impossible. Individuals within and without the pro- 
 fession, and even whole communities, unable to see 
 the unifying aim and general purpose which under- 
 lie specific changes recommended, may regard these 
 changes as fads, and refuse their consent to have them 
 tried, or at least, may withhold their support and en- 
 couragement. 
 
 But it is evident that the old, narrow course of 
 study, with its formal content and mechanical routine, 
 is doomed ; and that a richer course of study, with a 
 broader and more inspiring conception of the elemen- 
 tary school-teacher's responsibilities and opportunities, 
 is taking its place. The old conception of the proper 
 function of the first eight or nine years of the pu- 
 pil's school education was a thorough drill in the 
 school arts — the instruments of the acquisition and 
 expression of knowledge. The new conception, the 
 present aim of elementary school education, seems to 
 me to be fairly expressed in the following statement: 
 Elementary, or pre-secondary school education, should 
 provide the most salutary physical environment for 
 the pupil, and promote his normal physical develop- 
 ment through appropriate training. It should open 
 the mind of the child and let the world in. It should 
 stimulate and gratify curiosity in every field of worthy 
 human activity, and utilize this curiosity for the ac- 
 quisition of knowledge and the development of incipi- 
 
AIM TO ACCOMPLISH? J? 
 
 ent permanent interests in and power over this 
 knowledge. It should acquaint the pupil with his 
 duties and his privileges as a temporarily dependent 
 member of society, and promote the development of 
 habits of thought and conduct in harmony with his 
 growing insight. At about the age of twelve the 
 period of secondary education should begin. 
 
 What, now, is the function of modern secondary 
 education ? The answer to this question must be 
 sought in an interpretation of recent changes in sec- 
 ondary-school courses of study; for these changes 
 represent not only the endeavor of the schools to 
 meet the more or less reasonable demands of modern 
 communities, but also the endeavor, on the part of 
 thinking persons, both teachers and laymen, to make 
 the schools minister to what seem, on careful investi- 
 gation, to be the fundamental needs and real interests 
 of society and of the individual. 
 
 If we now turn to secondary-school programmes 
 as they are, we find that, during the recent past, 
 these programmes have shown a rapidly increas- 
 ing tendency to change from the old, single, fixed 
 curriculum, embracing chiefly Latin, Greek, and mathe- 
 matics, to two or more parallel courses of study, com- 
 prising many other subjects, as well as one or both or 
 neither of the classical languages. Still more recently 
 there is a marked tendency to convert all these 
 courses into a single, flexible course, from which the 
 
78 WHAT SHOULD THE SECONDARY SCHOOL 
 
 pupil may, under certain restrictions, select his studies 
 at will ; that is to say, recent changes in secondary- 
 school programmes have been in the direction of 
 scope and flexibility. It need hardly be repeated that 
 these changes are chiefly the result of external de- 
 mands and of the convictions of the teachers who 
 manage the schools. They have not been stimulated 
 by the marked encouragement of the colleges ; for, at 
 the present day, several important colleges still decline 
 to regard any pre-collegiate course of study as com- 
 parable in value to the traditional classical course. The 
 present characteristics of secondary-school programmes 
 have, therefore, developed in spite of the attitude of 
 the colleges rather than because of their cooperation. 
 Bearing in mind the great influence of collegiate 
 preferences on pre-collegiate courses of study, it must 
 be admitted that these characteristics show clearly 
 that whatever else the secondary school may attempt, 
 it must afford equal opportunities to all pupils to get 
 the elements of general culture, whether the pupils 
 subsequently go to college or not; and that, on 
 this point, the teachers and the community are in 
 substantial agreement, whatever the attitude of the 
 colleges may be. But what is general culture? This 
 question I shall answer by and by. There is still 
 something that I wish to say on the importance of 
 recent changes in secondary-school programmes con- 
 sidered as the result of reasonable public demands. 
 
AIM TO ACCOMPLISH? 79 
 
 The rapid development of the public high school 
 and the final acceptance and cheerful support of it as 
 a fixed and indispensable portion of our public school 
 systems, date only from the recent past. Anti-high- 
 school waves no longer traverse the country since the 
 high school has ceased to serve only a limited por- 
 tion of the community by a too close adherence to 
 the classical course of study, the preferred college 
 preparatory course; and since it has aimed to adapt 
 itself more and more through the scope and flexibility 
 of its programmes to the growing demands of the 
 whole community, so far as the differing opportunities 
 and capacities of the children permit. 
 
 Together with this improved adaptation of the school 
 to the needs of each individual, there is also a growing 
 recognition of the important social function which the 
 school has to fulfil. This is as it should be. The life 
 of any institution of modern society depends on its 
 efficacy in promoting public as well as private ends. 
 It has been justly said that "all educational institu- 
 tions must die which do not directly and conspicuously 
 promote either the spiritual or material interests of 
 men." Now, the material and the spiritual interests 
 of men change with advancing civilization; hence, the 
 primary social function of all education, and, in par- 
 ticular, of secondary education, is to adapt every 
 individual to the civilization of his time. It is no 
 wonder that contemporary thought should emphasize 
 
80 WHAT SHOULD THE SECONDARY SCHOOL 
 
 this function of modern education; the only wonder 
 is that we have not emphasized it long ago. 
 
 How modern elementary or pre-secondary school 
 education at present begins the fulfilment of this func- 
 tion was briefly set forth above. It was pointed out 
 that during the stage of elementary education the 
 child was to be made responsive to the varied inter- 
 ests of life; was to have the opportunity to exercise 
 all his powers ; and was to develop habits of thought 
 and conduct in harmony with his growing insight as 
 a temporarily dependent member of society. On this 
 basis secondary education is to begin. 
 
 The time for secondary education to begin is not 
 arbitrarily chosen. The years covered by it, say from 
 the pupil's thirteenth to his nineteenth or twentieth 
 year, mark the transition from early childhood into 
 later childhood and youth ; the period during which 
 the child should put away childish things and learn to 
 appreciate the interests and the purposes of men ; to 
 find his place in the social whole, and to realize the 
 interdependence of public and private interests. It is 
 the period when life aims and life habits emerge dis- 
 tinctly, and when they, so far as they are amenable to 
 education, may, therefore, be permanently influenced. 
 These life aims and life habits depend, primarily, on 
 the gradual development of the pupil's dominant in- 
 terests and powers ; for an individual's dominant inter- 
 ests and powers wholly determine the kind of work 
 
AIM TO ACCOMPLISH? 8 1 
 
 he voluntarily engages in, and also the sources of 
 his pleasures; and thus ultimately wholly determine 
 his productiveness and the character of his public 
 and private life. To carry forward the work of de- 
 velopment already begun in the elementary school, 
 and at the same time to discharge its duty to society 
 as well as to the individual, it is, therefore, clear 
 that secondary education should especially promote the 
 development of each papiVs dominant interests and 
 powers; and further, that it should seek to render 
 these in^terests and powers subservient to life's serious 
 purposes ', and also to the possibility of participation in 
 the refined pleasures of life. 
 
 The serious purposes of life are, first, self-support; 
 or, when that is unnecessary, some worthy form of 
 service; second, intelligent, active participation in hu- 
 man affairs, — the desire to be one who, while perform- 
 ing his private duties and enjoying whatever leisure he 
 may earn or deserve, is to work with his fellow-men 
 for the continuous improvement and happiness of his 
 race, his nation, and his own immediate community. 
 
 The refined pleasures of life are found in the ability 
 to participate with intelligence and appreciation in 
 the intellectual and aesthetic interests of cultivated 
 men. These pleasures, like most of the inspiration to 
 worthy living in the pursuit of the serious purposes 
 of life, are brought within the reach of men through 
 general culture. 
 
82 WHAT SHOULD THE SECONDARY SCHOOL 
 
 This is the meaning of the scope of the modern 
 secondary-school programme, and also of the grow- 
 ing tendency toward flexible rather than mandatory 
 programmes, especially in the public high schools, so 
 far as these programmes are based on reasonable 
 public demands — demands approved by thoughtful 
 teachers. It seems to me, therefore, that the inde- 
 pendent function of modern secondary education is 
 fairly described in the following statement : — 
 
 First, to promote the pupil's normal physical devel- 
 opment. 
 
 Second, to stimulate every individual to aim at intel- 
 ligent self-support or some worthy form of life-work, 
 whether he inherits an income or not ; and to give him 
 general preparation for such activity. 
 
 Third, to stimulate and prepare each pupil, so far 
 as his age and the time limits of secondary education 
 permit, to participate, intelligently and helpfully, in 
 promoting the welfare of the society of which he is 
 to form a part. 
 
 Fourth, to prepare and to stimulate each pupil to 
 carry forward his own development uninterruptedly, 
 so far as his circumstances permit, through self-teach- 
 ing, whether he continues his studies in some higher 
 institution after his school life is closed, or whether 
 he enters at once on his active life work. 
 
 This conception of secondary education I now in- 
 tend to discuss and justify. 
 
AIM TO ACCOMPLISH? 83 
 
 It will be seen that the statement of the function of 
 secondary education just given comprises three classes 
 of aims, namely, vocational aims, social aims, and cul- 
 ture aims. These three aims are, of course, not sep- 
 arable in practice, although they can be rarely, if ever, 
 equally influential in determining any particular phase 
 of school work. Moreover, as I shall endeavor to 
 show farther on, the attempt to separate them in prac- 
 tice would greatly impair their efficacy; and, in par- 
 ticular, the only way to realize the culture aims for 
 many pupils will be the close affiliation which the 
 pupils must be led to see between these and the voca- 
 tional and social or civic aims. These three aims, then, 
 ought together to permeate and underlie all the activi- 
 ties of the school. We may, however, discuss them 
 separately. 
 
 To assert that secondary education should minister 
 to vocational aims does not mean that the secondary 
 school should teach a trade or a profession. It means, 
 primarily, that the school should acquaint the pupil 
 with the meaning and the importance of a vocation ; 
 but it also means that the school should give the pupil 
 such general preparation for the life pursuit for which 
 his tastes and aptitudes especially qualify him, that 
 when he leaves the secondary school he may enter on 
 the preparation for his chosen pursuit, or that pursuit 
 itself, with some knowledge of its scope and meaning, 
 some knowledge of the underlying principles on which 
 
84 WHAT SHOULD THE SECONDARY SCHOOL 
 
 success in it depends, and some power over its funda- 
 mental facts and processes. 
 
 Such preparation the secondary school may be ex- 
 pected to give, both directly and indirectly; indirectly 
 through the inspiring example of cultivated teachers 
 devoted to their vocation; teachers who consciously 
 but judiciously cultivate sympathetic relations with 
 their pupils, and lose no opportunity to teach, unob- 
 trusively and without preaching, the bearing of all 
 education on a life of usefulness. Such teaching we 
 have a right to expect in the secondary school. Who 
 can doubt that it would have an important influence 
 on the development of a permanent tendency in all 
 teachable pupils toward an active life ; toward an 
 anticipation of the time when they, too, having made 
 the best possible use of their present opportunities, 
 might lay hold on life's larger duties and become 
 independent workers in the world? 
 
 But we also expect the secondary school to minister 
 directly to vocational aims through its course of study. 
 Vocations, speaking broadly, are mechanical or indus- 
 trial, commercial, and intellectual. The vocational 
 aims of the secondary school for intellectual pursuits 
 — for the professions — have long been recognized 
 and justified, and need not detain us. It should be 
 said, however, that secondary education has not been 
 so administered in the past that this function has been 
 adequately discharged, although recognized. A few, 
 
AIM TO ACCOMPLISH? 85 
 
 moments ago I reminded you that since an individ- 
 ual's greatest capacity for service and for happiness 
 depends on the discovery and cultivation of his per- 
 manent interests and real abilities, the pupil's gradual 
 self-revelation is one of the most important functions of 
 secondary education. This self-revelation and the cor- 
 responding development based on it have often been 
 thwarted, or at least obscured and delayed if not en- 
 tirely thwarted, by the narrow and rigid programmes 
 of the past. With the advent of an enlarged scope, 
 and the flexibility now happily becoming general 
 in secondary-school programmes, we may confidently 
 hope for steady improvement in this regard in the 
 future. We must admit, however, that the vocational 
 aims of the secondary-school as regards preparation 
 for professional pursuits are recognized and justified, 
 whatever shortcomings in achievement there may be. 
 What we do not yet fully recognize, however, is the 
 function of the secondary school as regards the voca- 
 tional aims of those who subsequently devote them- 
 selves to industrial and commercial pursuits. This 
 function deserves recognition on the broadest grounds, 
 both for the sake of the vocational interests them- 
 selves, and for the sake of all the possible interests 
 which the individual or society has. 
 
 This means that in addition to the purely intellectual 
 courses of the school we should maintain in every 
 secondary school, whether public or private, courses 
 
86 WHAT SHOULD THE SECONDARY SCHOOL 
 
 in manual training, and commercial courses, which, 
 together with their general educational aims, minister 
 directly to vocational and social aims. 
 
 I am aware that the argument for courses in man- 
 ual training is not a new one. But who will assert 
 that we have heeded it as it deserves to be heeded. 
 Moreover, I desire to insist on the indispensable value 
 of such courses in all secondary education, and not on 
 the establishment of isolated manual training or com- 
 mercial high schools, although I am ready to admit 
 the present value of such separate schools as impor- 
 tant transitional stages in the evolution of the com- 
 prehensive scheme of secondary education toward 
 which I believe we are tending, and which seems 
 to me both inevitable and desirable. Moreover, in 
 the existing manual-training classes, and manual- 
 training or mechanic-arts high schools, pedagogical 
 rather than vocational and social ends have received 
 most attention and the greatest emphasis. This is 
 attested by the prevalent tone of most of the dis- 
 cussion of manual training, and also by the fact that 
 manual-training classes and schools have been at- 
 tended hitherto far more numerously by the children 
 of business and professional classes than by the chil- 
 dren of artisans. I am far from indifferent to the 
 general educational value of appropriate manual train- 
 ing for all classes of children of both sexes, as will 
 be apparent farther on. But my present purpose is 
 
AIM TO ACCOMPLISH? 8? 
 
 to insist on the necessity of manual training and 
 commercial courses in all secondary schools for voca- 
 tional and social ends, and for the industrial and com- 
 mercial classes in particular. 
 
 First, as to .manual training. The essential point 
 to be kept in mind in the discussion of manual train- 
 ing for vocational ends in education is this : " that 
 ours is the epoch of industrial instability [and indus- 
 trial specialization], by reason of which the working 
 boy of to-day needs not so much any one trade as 
 that combination of qualities which will enable him 
 to turn with facility from one occupation to another 
 as each in turn is supplanted in the course of the 
 industrial evolution." Such training is of course 
 very different from training for a single trade. " The 
 policy of training boys for one narrow trade cannot 
 permanently commend itself to men and women in 
 an epoch of industrial change [and of highly special- 
 ized mechanical skill]. On the contrary, the more 
 specialized the processes of commerce and manu- 
 facture become, the more must we insist on the edu- 
 cation of all the powers of all the workers. The 
 more stupefyingly monotonous the manipulation which 
 the machine prescribes, the more must all stress be 
 laid upon variety and thoroughness in training of 
 mind as well as hand of all who are to tend machines. 
 The greater the probability that the boy will be a 
 motorman, merely pressing a button, that the com- 
 
88 WHAT SHOULD THE SECONDARY SCHOOL 
 
 positor will be supplanted by the linotype, and the 
 tailor by the little girl at the machine, the more must 
 the school do for all three that which their occupa- 
 tions can no longer do for them ; namely, teach them 
 to think and live and use all their faculties. The 
 more precarious the position of the skilled man, the 
 more must we demand of the schools versatility, thor- 
 oughness, and the effort to make valuable people of 
 the whole body of children." 
 
 The social influence of manual training courses in 
 all secondary schools is also important. "Where the 
 school library and school workshop are coordinate 
 parts of the public school system the Fourth of July 
 floods of oratory concerning the dignity of labor may, 
 perhaps, be safely dammed into a narrower channel, 
 for the dignity of labor will then form a part of the 
 daily experience of the boys and girls. To-day their 
 experience teaches them that this nation believes that 
 there should be scientific and literary education at 
 the cost of the community, extending over several 
 years, for one set -of children ; while for another and 
 much larger set there are at most four or five years 
 of instruction, of meagre reading, writing, and arith- 
 metic, followed by entrance upon the work of life in 
 early childhood, with no previous preparation for it 
 and no unity whatever between the school and work." 1 
 
 1 This quotation and the two preceding quotations are from " The Work- 
 ing Boy," by Florence Kelley, American Journal of Sociology, II., 158. 
 
AIM TO ACCOMPLISH? 89 
 
 Next as to commercial courses : " As varied and 
 complex as are the wants of our national life, so 
 varied and complex are the needs of our educational 
 system. ... If we should find that there is an edu- 
 cational need and no corresponding educational insti- 
 tution, it becomes our duty as public-spirited citizens 
 to do our best to secure the establishment of such 
 institutions. . . . 
 
 " Nothing is more obvious and remarkable in the 
 development of modern social life than the ever-in- 
 creasing importance of the business classes of the 
 community. Even in Europe, where the nobility, 
 the army, the civil service, the learned professions, 
 still occupy the leading social and political positions, 
 the social status of the business classes is continually 
 changing for the better. The business classes them- 
 selves are acquiring a continually increasing influence 
 in politics and society. In our own country, where 
 business was from the beginning the occupation of 
 the leading portion of the community, the business 
 classes were never beyond the pale of society, as in 
 Europe, but even here the relative position of busi- 
 ness men in politics and society is rapidly changing, 
 to the disadvantage of the classes formerly looked 
 upon as social and political leaders. The heroes to 
 whom our children look up, whose deeds are related 
 with admiration, are to-day the great captains of trade 
 and industry, as the great orators, preachers, and 
 
QO WHAT SHOULD THE SECONDARY SCHOOL 
 
 lawyers were of a former period. Whether for weal 
 or woe, the dominating tone of American society, the 
 ideas of American youth, are set to an ever-increasing 
 extent by the great railroad manager, the insur- 
 ance director, the banker, the merchant, the manufac- 
 turer." 1 
 
 The aim of commercial education such as I desire, 
 may be stated in a few words; it is "to awaken a 
 profound interest in business as such ; to train a youth 
 to an appreciation of the functions of business and 
 business practice in our modern life ; to inform him 
 as to the history of industry and trade ; to awaken 
 his interest in its future ; to train him to keep his eyes 
 open as to business possibilities; to inspire him with 
 a healthy respect for business in all its branches; to 
 arouse a determination to become not only a success- 
 ful business man in the ordinary sense of the term, 
 but a useful one as well ; to beget a public spirit ; to 
 excite an interest in the higher welfare of society ; in 
 a word, to become a public-spirited, intelligent, well- 
 educated and successful man of affairs." 2 
 
 Although we have commercial courses in existing 
 high schools and many so-called commercial colleges, 
 it can hardly be claimed that the aims and work 
 of these courses and commercial colleges meet the 
 
 1 Professor Edmund J. James in an address before the American Bank- 
 ers' Association. Published by the association. 
 
 2 Ibid. 
 
AIM TO ACCOMPLISH? 9$ 
 
 demand just quoted. Secondary-school courses with 
 such aims seem to me as important as the manual- 
 training courses, and for like reasons — i.e. primarily 
 for vocational and social education, but also, in an 
 important sense, for the general education, the general 
 culture, which may be based on them or naturally 
 associated with them, and which without them is too 
 often missed altogether by most children and youth 
 of the industrial and commercial classes. 
 
 Unless the public secondary school which the com- 
 munity' supports by taxation, or the public secondary 
 school which invites the support of the community, 
 responds to the two fundamental needs of our youth 
 which have just been considered, pupils too often 
 pass at once from the elementary schools to their 
 life work ; or, if their circumstances permit, they may, 
 so far as preparation for business is concerned, seek 
 it, at present, in some inferior institution like the 
 commercial colleges. In either case the result is 
 likely to be attended by widespread ignorance among 
 the industrial and commercial classes, which makes 
 them the prey of the demagogue and the social agi- 
 tator, and by the accompanying disheartening indif- 
 ference to all interests except the narrowly useful, 
 important as these are. A child who, on leaving the 
 elementary school, thenceforward devotes himself to 
 a trade or to business, is almost sure to have his in- 
 terests limited by his occupation, whether with or 
 
92 WHAT SHOULD THE SECONDARY SCHOOL 
 
 against his original inclination, to say nothing of the 
 fact that his success is made extremely difficult be- 
 cause of his ignorance and inadequate preparation. 
 If, however, all obstacles to success are ultimately 
 overcome by his unusual industry and natural capac- 
 ity, in the end, the successful but unenlightened mer- 
 chant or artisan is almost sure to swell the ranks of 
 the philistines ; for he has missed the development 
 of those extra-vocational interests which persons of 
 some degree of cultivation possess in common, and 
 which serve to enrich and sweeten life. 
 
 I have urged the special importance of courses in 
 manual training and commercial courses for the chil- 
 dren of the industrial and commercial classes. But 
 such courses are needed not merely to satisfy the 
 educational needs of those classes. Many a youth 
 from the professional classes would be much more 
 useful and happy, much more successful, and a much 
 more efficient member of society in after life, if, instead 
 of attempting to pursue a profession which he has 
 drifted into, or which has been arbitrarily chosen for 
 him, he had cultivated his mechanical or business tastes 
 and capacities, and had learned, through courses in man- 
 ual training and commercial courses, while still a youth, 
 to select the calling for which he is best fitted by na- 
 ture. By failing to provide such courses for such a 
 pupil we have prevented him from developing the powers 
 which he has ; we have dwarfed his general culture by 
 
AIM TO ACCOMPLISH? 93 
 
 requiring him to follow a course of instruction to which 
 he was not adapted, and this has been followed by a 
 professional training through which he could only hope 
 to escape failure or at best to attain mediocrity ; and all 
 this is a sinful perversion of opportunity. These courses 
 are accordingly needed, as well as the purely intellect- 
 ual courses, for the discovery and development of the 
 dominant interests and capacities of all children. By- 
 placing such courses side by side with the intellectual 
 course, by making them solid and liberalizing, we attach 
 due weight to their scope and meaning; we put the 
 stamp of general approval on them ; we dignify them ; we 
 make them worth choosing, no matter from what class , 
 of society the pupil may come. By so doing, the school 
 may minister directly and wisely to vocational aims. 
 
 So much for vocational aims. We have seen that 
 the courses which minister to them also minister in- 
 cidentally and in an important sense to social aims. 
 But the social aims themselves are too important for 
 all classes of pupils to permit us to be satisfied with 
 this. These social aims must themselves receive 
 special recognition. 
 
 To insist that the modern secondary school should 
 minister to social aims does not mean that the sec- 
 ondary school should give a legal or political educa- 
 tion, but it means that the school shall give a training 
 that prepares for the duties of good citizenship ; or, 
 as it was phrased above, that prepares and stimulates 
 
94 WHAT SHOULD THE SECONDARY SCHOOL 
 
 the pupil to active and intelligent participation in pro- 
 moting the welfare of society. Such preparation 
 necessitates some comprehension of the nature of 
 organized society, that is, of the institutions and ac- 
 tivities which society maintains, encourages, and per- 
 mits for its stability, perpetuity, and prosperity; that 
 is, for the usefulness and happiness of its members. 
 These institutions are, primarily, government or 
 political institutions ; industrial and commercial in- 
 stitutions and activities ; and educational institutions. 
 The education demanded by society, therefore, justly 
 insists on instruction in subjects that acquaint the 
 pupil with these activities and institutions, that de- 
 velops an interest in them, and the power to be of 
 service in them. The principles and methods of 
 municipal, state, and national government must be 
 explained and made familiar to the pupil; he must 
 also receive instruction that will help him to under- 
 stand the complex relations of our modern industrial 
 system; and he should know something of the system 
 of public education by which society strives to con- 
 serve, improve, and transmit the progress it has 
 made. 
 
 Some of this instruction is, as has been said already, 
 partly and incidentally covered by courses in manual 
 training and commercial courses ; but it should be more 
 directly and adequately provided for by courses in gov- 
 ernment and economics, or at least of industrial history, 
 
AIM TO ACCOMPLISH? 95 
 
 and by provision for some instruction in the history and 
 present condition of education. Here, again, I wish to 
 say that I am not unmindful of the existing provision 
 for instruction in government and economics in second- 
 ary schools. My plea is for a more comprehensive and 
 ultimately intensive study of these subjects, together 
 with a much greater use of history in all its phases than, 
 so far as I know, we have heretofore attempted any- 
 where. I am not pleading for forced exercises in the 
 development of patriotism ; but for exercises that shall 
 reveal through the life struggles of our own and other 
 nations, through the deeds and sacrifices of historical 
 heroes, through a comprehension of the origin of our 
 laws and our duty regarding them, the grounds on 
 which a real patriotism is based. Such instruction 
 can be safely relied on for the development of a 
 genuine appreciation of the blessings of good govern- 
 ment and an aversion to corruption and misrule that 
 may furnish a strong incentive to action in municipal, 
 state, or national affairs when the time for action 
 comes. 
 
 "The recent campaign, among its most practical 
 lessons, teaches most clearly that the enlightenment of 
 the citizens is the most important of public duties and 
 the main condition of continued freedom. All should, 
 as far as possible, contribute to that education which 
 extends the area, not of the license urged on by an- 
 archists and the Utopias pictured by socialists, but of 
 
96 WHAT SHOULD THE SECONDARY SCHOOL 
 
 liberty as developed healthily and steadily in obedience 
 to the lessons of history and constructive thought." * 
 
 Such a result can be achieved only by recognizing 
 that political and industrial or economic enlightenment 
 necessarily go together. " Man is an economic animal 
 as well as a political animal, and is therefore born into 
 an industrial system as inevitably as he is born into a 
 political state. Economic consciousness exists and will 
 lead to economic action, just as surely as political con- 
 sciousness has led to political action ; and the question 
 to be considered now is : How shall this economic con- 
 sciousness best be enlightened and guided ? Hitherto it 
 has been left largely to the guidance of politicians, labor 
 leaders, the press, and to the instructors in economics in 
 the colleges and universities. And it must be admitted 
 that for the future, also, by far the major part of the eco- 
 nomic influence consciously exerted upon King Demos 
 will continue to come directly from the first three of 
 these four sources. They may be blind leaders of the 
 blind, or the pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night, 
 it matters not, the crowd will follow into the open ditch, 
 or into the land flowing with milk and honey." 2 
 
 Shall we continue to delegate this instruction to 
 such unenlightened, almost always prejudiced or par- 
 tisan teachers? Should we not rather provide in the 
 secondary school for that great majority of our editors, 
 
 1 Andrew D. White, in the Forum, December, 1896. 
 3 H. W. Thurston, in the School Review, IV., 604. 
 
AIM TO ACCOMPLISH? 97 
 
 politicians, and labor leaders who are without a col- 
 lege education, the instruction that may help them to 
 value a wise conservatism, and to recognize the com- 
 prehensiveness and the complexity of present-day politi- 
 cal and economic problems, and thus make them more 
 intelligent and safer leaders of the people; and may 
 we not hope through the same instruction to increase 
 the number of men and women in the community also 
 who appreciate the magnitude and difficulty of present- 
 day problems, and decline to be taken in by plausible 
 but fallacious solutions ? " As for the colleges and 
 universities, their ideal function is to be a guide to 
 the guides, and they cannot be further considered 
 here than to offer for them a fervent prayer, in pass- 
 ing, that they may be enabled to fulfil their ideal 
 function." 
 
 No function of society is capable of exerting a greater 
 permanent influence on the social welfare than educa- 
 tion. And in this country there is no social function of 
 more vital concern to the people. Shall we continue to 
 entrust the administration of this important function, 
 both in the home and in the school, to persons who 
 have no preparation whatever to guide them ? It 
 seems to me that instruction in the history of education, 
 and some instruction in the present problems of and 
 present tendencies in education, should be given in 
 every secondary school. Such instruction would give a 
 much-needed public insight into present educational 
 
98 WHAT SHOULD THE SECONDARY SCHOOL 
 
 aims and practices in the light of their historical evolu- 
 tion, and an intelligent interest in important contem- 
 porary problems. Besides, can any one doubt the 
 beneficent influence of such instruction on the education 
 of children in the home, and on the promotion of the 
 much-needed effective and sympathetic cooperation 
 between the home and the school, a cooperation which 
 is as far removed from meddlesome interference on the 
 one hand, as it is from indifference on the other ? 
 
 The intrinsic importance of the vocational and social 
 aims is obvious. But another reason why so much 
 stress has been laid on these aims is because through 
 them alone is it possible, in my opinion, in many schools, 
 for nearly half the pupils — I mean most of the boys 
 — to realize culture aims. Girls and young women are 
 attracted by the culture aims to a far greater extent 
 than boys and young men. The boys have so many 
 interests outside of the intellectual life of the school 
 from which the girls are practically excluded, that for 
 many of them the culture aims of the school shrink into 
 insignificance ; and their achievements, such as they are, 
 are due chiefly to the insistence of parents and teach- 
 ers, or to the influence of impending examinations for 
 admission to college. The difference between the appli- 
 cation and zest of boys and girls in the secondary 
 school was well summed up in my presence by a high- 
 school youngster who was twitted by a schoolmate, a 
 girl, on the inferior achievements of the boys as com- 
 
AIM TO ACCOMPLISH? 99 
 
 pared with the girls. He said : " Hm, the girls have 
 nothing else to do." It has seemed to me that the way 
 to enable the boys to realize that for the time being 
 they too have nothing else to do, is to connect the school 
 interests with life interests ; in other words, to so con- 
 struct the school programmes that stress is laid through- 
 out on the boy's vocational and social interests, so that 
 these interests shall come naturally and gradually to 
 include the culture interests as well. And this, I think, 
 is not difficult to do, with a flexible and sufficiently com- 
 prehensive programme, as was recently suggested by 
 Professor Felix Adler. 
 
 For example : The future artisan will be interested in 
 the history of his craft; thence easily in the his- 
 tory of industry ; thence in its effect on the progress 
 of civilization ; thence in the political as well as in- 
 dustrial history of his race; that is to say, in the 
 evolution of modern society, with its contemporary 
 industrial, economic, and political problems. History, 
 economics, and government thus become interesting, 
 because they may be shown to have an obvious relation 
 to his dominant interest. Through history, the pupil 
 may become interested in other peoples, with their 
 literature and languages, and thus foreign languages 
 may be and should be brought within the range of his 
 interests. The obvious dependence of the thorough 
 comprehension and pursuit of any trade on mathe- 
 matics and natural science, leads to these sciences. 
 
100 WHAT SHOULD THE SECONDARY SCHOOL 
 
 Again, the future merchant or manufacturer, whose 
 business interests outweigh all other incentives to ac- 
 tivity, should easily be led to take an interest in the 
 business relations of his own city, town, or State with 
 other cities, towns, and States, and thence, by an easy 
 transition, to the commercial relations of his own 
 country with foreign countries, and to the leading 
 interests of foreign nations. Before long the depend- 
 ence of commercial and industrial activity on the form 
 and structure, the physical features of the earth's sur- 
 face, and the raw materials of commerce and manufac- 
 tures, which his commercial interest finds worthy of 
 consideration, may be used to lead the pupil to natural 
 science. Machinery for manufacture and for trans- 
 portation are incidentally interesting, at first, because 
 they constitute a part of the vast commercial activity 
 to which the future merchant feels himself irresistibly 
 drawn. Ere long, however, he finds that a compre- 
 hension of them depends on a satisfactory knowledge 
 of mathematics and physical science. Everywhere 
 money and credit - are used to carry on commercial 
 enterprises. Banks and banking appear as important 
 phases of commercial activity ; so also are the rela- 
 tions of labor and capital, and contemporary schemes 
 of cooperation. The government which furnishes the 
 necessary guarantee of peace, and protection of prop- 
 erty for the uninterrupted pursuit of all these com- 
 mercial and industrial activities, is of interest because, 
 
AIM TO ACCOMPLISH? IOI 
 
 once more, it is necessarily associated with his domi- 
 nant commercial interest; and so the youth is led to 
 study economics and civil government. Moreover, the 
 history of commerce and industry lead easily and 
 naturally to the history of civilization. 
 
 Commercial relations with other nations make clear 
 the value of foreign modern languages, and these, when 
 once pursued, for whatever cause, may come to possess 
 an interest of their own. A command of the mother- 
 tongues as the means of all communication for business 
 purposes, may be utilized to extend the knowledge of 
 its literary resources, and thus bring to bear on the 
 future merchant its far-reaching influences on aims, 
 character, and tastes. Similarly the future artist, with 
 his dominant aesthetic interest, may be led to take an 
 interest in science, in mathematics, in history, and in 
 language, because he finds in each of these subjects 
 important assistance toward the cultivation of what he 
 has most at heart. 
 
 Thus, by judiciously grouping the various subjects 
 about a youth's vocational interests, he may be led, 
 naturally and with the least resistance, to substantial 
 achievement in all the fields of study open to him. 
 He may be led to general culture, because these 
 fields of study are shown to minister primarily to 
 his vocational interests; because they make clearer 
 the part he desires to play in the world, and 
 strengthen his growing ability to sustain his part 
 
102 WHAT SHOULD THE SECONDARY SCHOOL 
 
 well, to do his chosen work well, and to find 
 his way with increasing certainty through the com- 
 plex affairs of modern social and political life. But 
 also, before long, we may hope, in most cases, 
 because they afford that satisfaction which every 
 human being feels in the enlargement of his mental 
 horizon — because they bring within his reach the 
 disinterested pleasures of science, history, literature, 
 and art, and enable him to pass through the world 
 alive to its beauties, its marvellous system, and its 
 unsolved mysteries. 
 
 So much for the vocational and social aims of sec- 
 ondary education for their own sake, and for the use 
 which could be made of them in the endeavor to 
 realize the culture aims of the secondary school. I 
 must make the most of the remaining space at my 
 disposal for the discussion of the culture aims 
 themselves. None of the aims of secondary educa- 
 tion are more precious than these. I have already 
 said that whatever functions may be attributed to 
 the secondary school, none has been insisted on by 
 the community with greater emphasis and perma- 
 nence than that the secondary school should dissemi- 
 nate the elements of general culture among the 
 people. The public high school has been called 
 "the people's college"; and this designation is by 
 no means to be considered as an attempt to elevate 
 the secondary school into a rank which it does not 
 
AIM TO ACCOMPLISH? 103 
 
 possess. Whatever of pretentiousness there may be, 
 occasionally, in this term, in general it expresses 
 merely the cherished expectation that the high 
 school shall disseminate the beginnings of a liberal 
 education — the elements of general culture — among 
 those whose time and means will not permit a higher 
 education. And that the private secondary school 
 exists for the avowed purpose of laying the founda- 
 tions of general culture need hardly be mentioned. 
 
 But what is general culture ? The meaning attached 
 to this term until recently has been, almost univer- 
 sally, restricted to acquaintance with the historical 
 culture of the race embodied in the languages, his- 
 tory, and literature of ancient Greece and Rome, 
 together with some knowledge of mathematics; that 
 is to say, general culture has been nearly synony- 
 mous with classical scholarship. But a glance at 
 modern courses of study in secondary schools and 
 colleges, whether those courses of study are pre- 
 scribed or elective, or a moment's reflection will 
 show that the modern ideal of general culture is 
 much broader than classical scholarship. It was 
 natural that for a long time after the Renaissance 
 the minds of men should turn with delight solely to 
 the ancient masterpieces of literature and art, and 
 to the ancient civilizations. These were the only 
 models from which the new literatures and the new 
 civilization could receive inspiration and guidance; 
 
104 WHAT SHOULD THE SECONDARY SCHOOL 
 
 for modern literature and modern civilization had 
 not then arisen. It is a truism to say that the range 
 of life interests, the resources of civilization, have 
 increased enormously since the Renaissance. While 
 we feel on every hand the influence of classical tra- 
 ditions in our modern culture, and while, therefore, 
 we can never dispense with classical scholarship as 
 an element of general culture, it still remains true 
 that a new culture and a new civilization have arisen 
 since the Renaissance, and especially since the 
 eighteenth century, which have their own sources of 
 inspiration and guidance, and present their own prob- 
 lems for solution. To be ignorant of these resources 
 and problems is for the modern man to be out of rela- 
 tion with his time, — is to miss general culture. 
 
 The process of adjusting ourselves to this revised and 
 enlarged conception of general culture is now going on. 
 The old narrow ideal is tenacious of life. It is power- 
 fully intrenched in existing courses of study, and in 
 educational traditions ; in particular, it is still sustained 
 by collegiate preferences for classical courses in sec- 
 ondary schools ; and lastly and chiefly, it is strong by 
 virtue of real achievements in the education of many 
 generations of men. But alone it can no longer suffice. 
 Tempora mtctantur. 
 
 Once more, then, what is general culture ? It seems 
 to me that general culture means, primarily, the capac- 
 ity to understand, appreciate, and react on the resources 
 
AIM TO ACCOMPLISH? 105 
 
 and problems of modern civilization. These resources 
 and problems are found in the preservation and im- 
 provement of the health, physical vigor, and physical 
 well-being of the race ; in modern governments ; in 
 modern industry and commerce ; in modern literatures 
 and languages — the record of the ideals and aspira- 
 tions of the race in modern times ; in history — the 
 record of the achievements of the race; and in the 
 art treasures of all times. As I have just said, we 
 can never exclude from the modern conception of 
 general culture the influence of classical scholarship, 
 but the place to attempt the realization of classical 
 scholarship itself is, in my opinion, not the secondary 
 school, but the college. 
 
 The importance of the modern culture in modern life 
 is so comprehensive and so great that we should be 
 false to our trust if we did not make adequate provi- 
 sion for it in the secondary school. At the same 
 time, the pursuit of the classical languages in second- 
 ary schools is such a time-consuming pursuit as to 
 very nearly preclude the serious pursuit of other sub- 
 jects. This has become so obvious that the number 
 of non-collegiate pupils who elect the so-called classical 
 course, including both Greek and Latin, is constantly 
 diminishing throughout the country, and the number is 
 destined to decrease still more rapidly, as soon as the 
 influence of collegiate preferences no longer makes 
 Greek what a member of the Harvard faculty has called 
 
106 WHAT SHOULD THE SECONDARY SCHOOL 
 
 a " protected industry"; that is to say, if some colleges 
 did not make it harder to get into college without Greek 
 than with it. This protection cannot last long. Are 
 we, then, in danger of losing the influence of classical 
 antiquity in secondary education, as such, altogether? 
 The reasons for this apprehension have already been 
 indicated in what has gone before, but deserve explicit 
 statement. They are : the indisputable and superlative 
 importance of modern culture, as distinct from classical 
 culture, in modern life ; and the equally indisputable 
 fact that the attempt to achieve classical scholarship, 
 together with the elements of modern culture, has al- 
 ready led to congested programmes. These congested 
 programmes threaten to become worse. 
 
 We may as well admit that classical scholarship, i.e. 
 literary appreciation of the classics, is not attainable in 
 the secondary school. What is attainable is a fair to 
 good elementary acquaintance with the classical lan- 
 guages, which is a very different thing. This achieve- 
 ment, for many pupils, is important, but, at present, it 
 is not economically attained. Now, is it not true that 
 what we value most in the classics for all secondary- 
 school pupils who do not go to college, what we regard 
 as most important, is to preserve the refining and en- 
 lightening influence of Greek and Roman thought, 
 whether embodied in ancient art or literature or institu- 
 tions, on the thought and life of to-day, and of all time ? 
 It is my belief that this influence can be best realized, 
 
AIM TO ACCOMPLISH? IO? 
 
 in secondary education, not primarily through an ex- 
 tended course in the classical languages, but through a 
 serious study of history and art, together with transla- 
 tions of the classical literatures into the mother-tongue, 
 and other modern languages. What secondary-school 
 pupil can appreciate Homer, ^Eschylus, or Demos- 
 thenes, Virgil, Horace, or Cicero in the original, as he 
 can appreciate them in admirable translations ? We 
 have begun to recognize the magnificent possibilities 
 of instruction in the language and literature of Eng- 
 lish-speaking nations for their own sake. Why should 
 we not also use the mother-tongue to bring the minds 
 of our young boys and girls into actual touch with 
 the inspiring writers of antiquity. What they now 
 see " through a glass darkly " they would then see 
 "face to face." If such study, preceded or accom- 
 panied by a serious study of the modern languages, 
 be then followed by a brief course in one of the clas- 
 sical languages, or both of them, during the last year 
 or two of the secondary-school course, sufficient to 
 enable a youth to realize the importance of these lan- 
 guages to a full comprehension of the history and 
 structure of his mother-tongue, and the significance of 
 Latin and Greek in all advanced linguistic study, the 
 full educational value of the classics for secondary- 
 school pupils would be economically and fully realized. 
 Here, then, we have in outline the scope of a 
 modern secondary school, and at the same time, 
 
i08 WHAT SHOULD THE SECONDARY SCHOOL 
 
 some indication of the order of importance, objec- 
 tively considered, which the several departments of 
 work possess in the general scheme. The pro- 
 gramme must contain certain prescribed studies, and 
 also a considerable range of electives. Prescribed 
 studies are needed, lest the pupil should miss voca- 
 tional, social, ethical enlightenment, on the one hand, 
 and an appreciative understanding of nature on the 
 other, together with the development of the corre- 
 sponding powers ; a considerable range of elective 
 studies is required for the attainment of the elements 
 of general culture, so far as that is not covered by 
 a group of prescribed studies, and for the discovery 
 and appropriate development of dominant interests 
 and powers. 
 
 Besides possessing scope and flexibility, the pro- 
 gramme should be closely articulated to the pupil's 
 earlier course of study, should offer equal opportuni- 
 ties to all pupils, and should insist on adequate con- 
 tinuity and intensiveness in the pursuit of subjects 
 once undertaken. 
 
 A secondary school with such a programme should 
 also be, incidentally, a "preparatory school"; and I 
 think it is safe to predict that ere long the colleges 
 that fail to recognize the work of such a school, when 
 well done, as suitable preparation for college courses, 
 will be side-tracked ; the main line of progress will 
 lead past, instead of through, their doors. 
 
AIM TO ACCOMPLISH? 109 
 
 The conception of the modern secondary school 
 which I have endeavored to set forth in this chapter 
 is that of a comprehensive institution ; an institution 
 that seeks to prepare the pupil, during the years 
 from twelve to eighteen or nineteen, so far as possi- 
 ble, for life's duties, opportunities and privileges; an 
 institution in which the various courses of study all 
 minister to vocational, social, and culture aims ; in 
 which the teachers employ these courses of study to 
 discover and develop the dominant interests of the 
 pupils, and help each child to cultivate the powers 
 which will enable him to pursue that calling for which 
 he is best fitted by nature to his own best advantage, 
 and most acceptably to society. 
 
 The interpretation of general culture for which I 
 have been contending as the aim in secondary educa- 
 tion is, primarily, the culture demanded by modern 
 life. 
 
 By the close association of studies that minister 
 chiefly to vocational and social aims, with courses of 
 study that minister chiefly to culture aims, as such, 
 the school should provide the most favorable condi- 
 tion for the vocational and social development of the 
 pupil, and for the general cultivation of his mind and 
 heart; we would thus endeavor to reach his whole 
 nature, and to render him serviceable, in the best 
 sense, at the same time to himself and to society. 
 Through courses for the simultaneous pursuit of voca- 
 
110 THE AIM OF THE SECONDARY SCHOOL 
 
 tional, social, and culture aims, the secondary school 
 may become, as it should, a guiding, inspiring, unify- 
 ing force in American life. To bring to bear on the 
 rising generation the influence of this force is the 
 function which the modern secondary school should 
 aim to fulfil. 
 
V 
 
 SECONDARY EDUCATION AS A UNIFYING 
 FORCE IN AMERICAN LIFE 
 
SECONDARY EDUCATION AS A UNIFYING 
 FORCE IN AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 In the division of labor among the various institu- 
 tions of organized society, a particular task has been 
 assigned to the secondary school. It is true, I think, 
 that generally, in this country, the task thus assigned 
 has been only vaguely conceived, or often not con- 
 ceived at all by either the community or the school. 
 Both have usually followed established precedents in 
 other communities and other schools. This procedure 
 answered very well until the results were examined 
 in the light of what society really wanted its sec- 
 ondary schools to accomplish. Amid the turmoil of 
 various and sometimes conflicting or even exorbitant 
 demands of recent times, it seems clear that the sec- 
 ondary school is expected to promote increased effi- 
 ciency in work, business, or profession, greater insight 
 into public needs, and more disinterested faithfulness 
 in public service; together with the diffusion of the 
 elements of general culture, of all that serves to 
 mould character and disposition, and to enrich and 
 i »3 
 
114 SECONDARY EDUCATION 
 
 sweeten life. It is to accomplish this task for all 
 classes alike, and thus disseminate common interests, 
 provide equal opportunities, and promote the widest 
 possible diffusion of well-being among all the people. 
 The answer to the question, What is the particular 
 task assigned to the modern secondary school, is, 
 therefore, not difficult, in general terms. 
 
 Its task is to train men, workers, and citizens — this 
 should be its aim. Such an aim is what we have in 
 mind and what the public have in mind when we 
 and they demand, more or less vaguely, that the 
 school shall " prepare for life." Now, the only 
 real preparation for life's duties, opportunities, and 
 privileges is participation in t/iem, so far as they can 
 be rendered intelligible, interesting, and accessible 
 to children and youth of school age ; and hence, the 
 first task of secondary (and all) education is to pro- 
 vide this participation as fully and as freely as pos- 
 sible. Simple as this answer is, and plainly as the 
 steadily increasing scope of both elementary and 
 secondary education reflects its truth, it is only in 
 recent times that we have seen the futility of any 
 other conception. 
 
 Some years ago we began to realize that a drill 
 in the three " r's " and English grammar (usually 
 taught from a book), together with book geogra- 
 phy consisting chiefly of statistics relating to location, 
 population, areas, and products, failed to educate 
 
IN AMERICAN LIFE 115 
 
 our children ; that is, that such a course of study, 
 even though faithfully pursued and rigidly adminis- 
 tered, left too many children — most of those who 
 could not attend school more than six or eight 
 years — without any permanent interests in nature, or 
 in human institutions and human achievements ; and 
 without much inclination to acquire such interests 
 by further study, or power to assimilate or apply 
 such knowledge and skill as they had gained. This 
 was the natural result of an attempt to prepare for 
 life without using life's opportunities as the source 
 and means of such preparation. Accordingly we 
 have changed our plan. We are bringing nature into 
 the schoolroom and we go out to meet it; we bring 
 literature, history, art, and manual training into the 
 school as a means of preparation for life, instead of 
 " preparing " our pupils for contact with these sources 
 of inspiration, guidance, and training, after school 
 life is over. To-day, therefore, we aim to extend the 
 scope of the elementary-school course of study so 
 that it shall comprise no less than the whole field of 
 knowledge, in its elements, and provide appropriate 
 training for the exercise of all of the child's powers 
 in every field of worthy human activity.' 
 
 Experience had further taught us that the rigid 
 administration of the old course of study did not 
 permit any child, however bright or diligent he might 
 be, to advance more rapidly than his neighbor, how- 
 
Il6 SECONDARY EDUCATION 
 
 ever dull, lazy, or indifferent that neighbor might be. 
 Quite apart from the obvious fact that such a pro- 
 cedure accentuated the drudgery, the weariness, the 
 indifference, and even the aversion, that too many 
 children associated with school pursuits, the injustice 
 of it was at last recognized. To-day a number of 
 beneficent plans for permitting pupils to advance as 
 rapidly as their capacity will permit are in operation 
 in various parts of the country. While none of these 
 plans are wholly satisfactory, yet they are all vastly 
 better than the old regime; and they are all of them 
 indications that a much-needed reform is well on its 
 way. Recent experiments in the endeavor to improve 
 an unsatisfactory elementary education have thus 
 taught us two things; viz. that elementary education 
 should possess a scope as wide as human interests, 
 and that its administration should be as flexible as 
 human capacities require and permit. 
 
 Meanwhile we had also been aware for some time 
 that the scope and administration of our secondary 
 education and its relation to elementary education 
 were unsatisfactory and needed revision. It had 
 become apparent that the existing dominant courses 
 of study were almost wholly the result of tradition, 
 and, in important respects, out of relation to contem- 
 porary needs. The course of study was limited 
 almost exclusively to Latin and Greek, together with 
 algebra, geometry, and sometimes trigonometry; and 
 
IN AMERICAN LIFE 117 
 
 it gradually became obvious to interested persons 
 that, although the pupils had pursued the classical 
 languages and elementary mathematics for four years 
 with diligence and more or less success, they had not 
 had time for any serious study of any other subjects. 
 They had left school without any training, worth the 
 name, in the power to use their mother-tongue, and 
 with scarcely any acquaintance with its literature; 
 they had had no time for history save a scrappy his- 
 tory of Greece and Rome ; had had no time for 
 natural sciences; had had no time for a modern lan- 
 guage; had had no time for any instruction in draw- 
 ing or the fine arts; had had no opportunity to get 
 manual training, or commercial training; had had no 
 opportunity to promote their normal physical develop- 
 ment through appropriate physical exercises ; and 
 when, further, it was noted that this course must be 
 pursued by all alike just as the elementary course 
 before it had been, — with which, of course, it had no 
 discernible articulation, — it was evident to all thought- 
 ful persons that for most of that great majority of 
 pupils who never went to college, secondary educa- 
 tion, like the barren elementary education that had 
 preceded it, was a perversion of opportunity, and 
 involved a sad waste of time. 
 
 Such a course of study left the pupil at eighteen 
 or nineteen untouched by the beauties, the solace, 
 and the inspiration of the literature of his mother- 
 
Il8 SECONDARY EDUCATION 
 
 tongue, and without the power to use his mother- 
 tongue with something approaching accuracy, ease, 
 vigor, and grace ; it gave him no historical training 
 that would enable him to understand and appreciate 
 the institutional life of organized modern society ; it 
 gave him no training in natural science, and so left 
 him without the power to understand or appreciate 
 some of the most important thought and activities of 
 his time ; it gave him no training in a modern lan- 
 guage — German or French — that would open to him 
 the intellectual resources and the genius of other 
 modern nations ; it gave him no training that enabled 
 him to share with understanding and appreciation, to 
 some extent, in the art treasures of his own and of 
 all time; it afforded no manual training that might 
 enable him to understand the dignity and the impor- 
 tance of manual as well as intellectual labor, or fit 
 him to enter on such work, if adapted to his needs 
 and tastes, with an increased prospect of immediate 
 usefulness ; and lastly, it had paid no attention to 
 his physical development and vigor, on which all 
 his happiness and usefulness ultimately depend. 
 Such a course, whatever it might be as a preparation 
 for a college course that might make good the omis- 
 sions and defects of earlier education, could not be 
 "a preparation for life," — could not conduce to 
 leadership in the life of to-day. Contemporary needs 
 were not provided for in it save incidentally and 
 
IN AMERICAN LIFE 119 
 
 remotely. The mistake of elementary education had 
 been repeated. The attempt had been made to pre- 
 pare the pupil for life without participation in life's 
 opportunities, privileges, and duties. 
 
 The course was, however, justified on the ground 
 of its disciplinary value. No matter whether knowl- 
 edge, or interest in the acquisition of knowledge, or 
 interest in the great contemporary concerns of life and 
 some power to deal with them, had been acquired or 
 not, the mind, it was said, had received a training that 
 would fit it to undertake, with every expectation of 
 success, any problems or career whatever. This theory 
 was about as sound as that a training in foot-ball would 
 give men an interest in and train power for black- 
 smithing, or farming ; or that a course in tennis would 
 develop interest and power in carpentry — in the mak- 
 ing of tables, cupboards, or houses. As soon as men 
 began to reflect on the absurdity of this view, it was 
 naturally perceived that the mental gymnastics had 
 been misapplied ; that the development of power could 
 not be dissociated from subject-matter; and, conse- 
 quently, that to develop interest in the vital concerns 
 of modern life and power over them, there must be 
 participation in those very concerns. 
 
 The improvement or "enrichment" of the school 
 course of study, and the provision of suitable devices 
 whereby any pupil may advance as rapidly or as slowly 
 as his capacity makes possible* or desirable, together 
 
120 SECONDARY EDUCATION 
 
 with the principle of election during the last four, 
 five, or six years of the course, i.e. during the period of 
 secondary education — these changes in the organiza- 
 tion and administration of education, these reforms 
 affecting the scope and flexibility of the whole course 
 of study, from the primary school through the high 
 school or academy, are teaching us that the school can 
 confidently expect to prepare its pupils for life only 
 — let me repeat — through participation in life's op- 
 portunities, privileges, and duties, so far as these can 
 be rendered intelligible and accessible to children and 
 youth of school age; and further, that anything short 
 of such actual participation in the various interests of 
 humanity. — its physical health and vigor, its thought, 
 aspirations, serious activities, and refined pleasures — 
 converts school education into a meaningless routine, a 
 routine which really misses the " preparation for com- 
 plete living " which all education should guarantee. 
 
 Experience and reflection have accordingly led, on 
 the one hand, to the single high school with a com- 
 prehensive general course of study, which offers, 
 through a considerable range of electives, the subjects 
 which the pupils severally need, including those sub- 
 jects which satisfy the requirements for admission to 
 college ; and, on the other hand, to the high school 
 with several courses of study, or to separate high 
 schools, through one of which a youth may seek 
 preparation for college, or "for life." 
 
IN AMERICAN LIFE 121 
 
 Just here emerges a contemporary problem affecting 
 the administration of our entire system of secondary 
 education : — a social problem of far-reaching signifi- 
 cance. Shall we have different kinds of separate high 
 schools totally independent of each other, or shall we 
 have a comprehensive institution with several closely 
 related and interdependent departments which may, 
 if thought necessary, be carried on in different build- 
 ings ? 
 
 My answer to this question may perhaps be best 
 arrived at by a reference to the secondary schools of 
 Europe, particularly of France and Germany. It is 
 well known that in those countries it is a recognized 
 principle of public policy that every career must be 
 preceded by an appropriate general as well as tech- 
 nical education ; and that the secondary schools are 
 maintained for the express purpose of providing for 
 those who are to become leaders, particularly among 
 the socially superior classes, the appropriate general 
 training required. With the requirement of good 
 general training as an essential preliminary to enter- 
 ing on preparation for leadership in industry, business, 
 or profession, I confess myself in hearty sympathy. 
 Moreover, in the precise way in which each kind of 
 secondary school is adjusted by law to a particular 
 set of requirements with a particular future career in 
 view, we have an admirable illustration of the con- 
 scious adaptation on the part of society of well- 
 
122 SECONDARY EDUCATION 
 
 organized means to perfectly definite ends. These 
 secondary schools are social instruments of great effi- 
 ciency, because their organization and work are made 
 to answer to specific ends in German and French 
 society. 
 
 But there is another aspect of this organization of 
 education, particularly in Germany, which cannot so 
 readily win approval. Let me remind you that, in 
 Germany, the several classes of schools present an 
 intentional social stratification. The public element- 
 ary school exists for the lowest social class, — for 
 the unskilled laborers, for the petty tradesmen, for 
 the employees of the railroads, and so on. In this ele- 
 mentary school the child remains from his sixth to his 
 fourteenth year. The secondary schools are of three 
 kinds : the real-schale with a six years' course of study, 
 intended for the lower middle and the middle class, 
 and the gymnasium and real-gymnasium with nine 
 years' courses, intended for the upper middle, and 
 the socially superior and directing classes. There is 
 no articulation between the elementary and the second- 
 ary schools after the third year of the pupil's school 
 life, and no articulation whatever between the differ- 
 ent kinds of secondary schools. When we remember 
 that the pupil enters the secondary school at about 
 nine years of age, and plans to remain there until he 
 has completed a six or nine years' course of study, 
 depending upon the school which he has entered, it 
 
IN AMERICAN LIFE 123 
 
 is easy to see how decided is the separation between 
 these different kinds of schools. Since there is no 
 attempt whatever to make them fit into each other, 
 the result is a wide divergence of class interests, of 
 tastes, of knowledge, and intellectual power. 
 
 The social distinctions between these schools de- 
 pend on differences in the courses of study and the 
 privileges enjoyed by their graduates, and also, of 
 course, on the differences in the tuition charged by 
 each. The same tuition is charged in the gymnasium 
 and real-gymnasium, but the tuition in the real-schule 
 is about one-half that in the gymnasium, and the tui- 
 tion in the elementary school is less than half that of 
 the real-schule. The gymnasium has always been 
 looked upon as the secondary school, par excellence. 
 It opens to its graduates every career in the public 
 service or the professions ; it is therefore preeminently 
 the school for the aristocracy, for the bureaucracy, 
 and for the rich. The real-gymnasium is looked upon 
 as essentially inferior to the gymnasium, although it 
 differs from the gymnasium only in that the course 
 in Greek is replaced by mathematics, science, and 
 modern languages. It is attended chiefly by the sons 
 of the middle class who are looking forward to any 
 one of the higher courses of study or the activities to 
 which graduates of the real-gymnasium may be ad- 
 mitted. The range of these courses and activities is 
 limited as compared with that to which graduates of 
 
124 SECONDARY EDUCATION 
 
 the gymnasium are admitted. The six years' course 
 of the real-schule marks it at once as an inferior school 
 compared with the gymnasium and real-gymnasium, 
 with their nine years' courses. Further, since the 
 ancient languages are excluded entirely from this 
 course of study, its inferiority, in the opinion of most 
 educated Germans, is so great as to necessitate rigor- 
 ous restrictions on the range of the higher courses of 
 study, or the career to which a real-schule graduate may 
 aspire. These restrictions are, accordingly, much 
 greater for him than for the real-gymnasium graduate. 
 The elementary school need not be considered at all 
 in this connection ; for its graduates are destined to 
 be followers, not leaders. They are the predestined 
 subordinates, who may not aspire to any profession or 
 public career whatever. 
 
 The advocates of the present educational system 
 deny that this organization tends to accentuate and 
 perpetuate the social classes : they point to the fact 
 that the bureaucracy and the professional classes are 
 constantly being recruited from persons who sprang 
 from the poorer classes — and, of course, such acces- 
 sions to the socially superior and directing classes 
 do occur. But their number must, necessarily, be 
 relatively small; for the expense attendant on the 
 pursuit of a liberal education, such as is provided 
 by the secondary schools, is a heavy burden for per- 
 sons with small salaries, and is out of the question 
 
IN AMERICAN LIFE 125 
 
 for laborers. There are, to be sure, scholarships and 
 remissions of tuition for meritorious students; but 
 these provisions by no means afford adequate facili- 
 ties for secondary education to the large number of 
 meritorious but poor students who wish to profit 
 by it. 
 
 Now I need hardly point out that such a stratifica- 
 tion of the school system is utterly repugnant to the 
 spirit of American institutions, of which the keynote 
 is equal opportunities for all. We are seeking to 
 unify and articulate our whole educational endeavor, 
 from the primary school to the University. We de- 
 cline to promote any artificial stratification of society. 
 We justly insist on a system of schools that shall 
 minister to the social elevation of every individual 
 whose character and achievements, based on disposi- 
 tion, industry, and capacity, mark him as a superior 
 person — one who, when school life is past, is en- 
 titled to a career of leadership among his fellow-men, 
 whether as a man, or worker, or citizen and public 
 servant. 
 
 Now with this conception of a school system, all 
 the parts of which are closely articulated to each 
 other and equally accessible to all, and the ideals of 
 a democratic society in mind, we are nevertheless, in 
 various parts of the country, especially in New Eng- 
 land, organizing our public secondary schools so that 
 our Classical High, English High, Manual Training 
 
126 SECONDARY EDUCATION 
 
 High, and, latest of all, the Commercial High Schools 
 have often little or no connection with each other. 
 In providing the instruction which gives to each of 
 these schools its peculiar character we are justly aim- 
 ing to meet a distinct need. But what I wish espe- 
 cially to point out is this. As long as a certain course 
 of study — the course of study represented in the 
 Classical School — affords the exclusive or the pre- 
 ferred preparation for college, while the other courses 
 of study represented in all the other secondary schools 
 do not, — and I fear it will be a long time before 
 any other subjects will be regarded as good as Latin, 
 Greek, and Mathematics for this purpose, — so long, 
 no matter how good intrinsically those other courses 
 may be, will the schools which provide those courses 
 be relegated to an inferior social rank. Under such 
 circumstances those pupils who are not going to col- 
 lege, but who nevertheless cherish just social ambi- 
 tions, will flock to a school — the Classical School — 
 not adapted to their briefer educational career, to 
 their own disadvantage and the great loss of society ; 
 or they must seek their secondary education in a 
 school which is looked upon by their socially supe- 
 rior contemporaries as inferior. The result is that 
 there are not infrequently many pupils in the classi- 
 cal schools who ought, in accordance with their 
 capacities and tastes, to be in one of the other high 
 schools ; and in those other high schools the social 
 
IN AMERICAN LIFE 127 
 
 segregations are such as serve to accentuate the tem- 
 porary social distinction between the youth of the 
 well-to-do and cultivated classes, who are all or nearly 
 all in the Classical School, and the youth of the re- 
 maining classes, who are, in more than one sense, not 
 in it. That such artificial social segregations are pro- 
 moted in New England, at least, by separate Eng- 
 lish High, Latin High, and Manual Training High 
 Schools, is obvious to any one who will take the 
 trouble to visit these schools. For the disparage- 
 ment of courses of study consisting of modern sub- 
 jects, the colleges are mainly responsible; but for 
 promoting the artificial social segregations resulting 
 from the establishment of separate secondary schools 
 with no interdependent relations, I fear the teachers 
 must carry the largest share of the responsibility. 
 
 Now of course one may ask, What of it? But that 
 question is not likely to be asked by one who is in- 
 clined to believe, as I do, that such segregations are 
 prejudicial to the best interests of American society. 
 In my opinion, one of the safeguards of the stability 
 and progress of a democratic society is the diffusion 
 of common aims and common interests among all 
 classes. The most valuable, and potentially the most 
 efficient, instrument for diffusing these common aims 
 and common interests among the leaders of the people 
 is the secondary school. It is the secondary school 
 even more than the college, chiefly because its gradu- 
 
128 SECONDARY EDUCATION 
 
 ates are far more numerous than the college graduates. 
 Most of our editors, politicians, skilled mechanics and 
 labor leaders, our leading business men, and even the 
 great majority of our professional men and women, are 
 not college-bred; but they have usually had a second- 
 ary-school training. These persons are commonly the 
 leaders of the people. The colleges train the leaders 
 of these leaders, rather than these leaders themselves. 
 
 Now any school can diffuse common aims and com- 
 mon interests in its pupils only by permitting the pupils 
 to participate in the pursuits which embody those aims 
 and interests. Such participation may be either direct 
 or indirect; i.e. the pupils may actually share, under 
 the same conditions, the same instruction ; or they may 
 come to understand and appreciate, to some extent, the 
 value of all subjects by daily intimate association with 
 them as a part of the work of the comprehensive insti- 
 tution whose privileges all may share ; easy access to 
 all the instruction of the whole institution being as- 
 sumed, and also an administration that promotes out- 
 ward social equality, whether the school associations 
 thus promoted extend to the homes or not. 
 
 My plea is, therefore, that we shall go no further in 
 planning our secondary education so as to consist of 
 separate high schools with distinct functions ; but that 
 we may organize it so that it may consist of parallel 
 and coordinate departments of one comprehensive insti- 
 tution — all with the same articulation to the earlier 
 
IN AMERICAN LIFE 129 
 
 work, and so intimately related to each other that a 
 constant exchange and interchange may take place 
 among the pupils in the separate departments, in ac- 
 cordance with the various needs or tastes of each pupil 
 as they appear. Otherwise the separate schools re- 
 mind us of — they repeat in part — the social stratifi- 
 cation of the schools of Europe, with its offensive, more 
 or less arbitrary relegation of one pupil to one social 
 class, and another to another, in advance of knowledge 
 as to which class the pupil really belongs to. 
 
 I have emphasized the (to my mind) undesirable 
 social segregations that separate and independent kinds 
 of high schools promote. But there is another impor- 
 tant consideration that leads to the same conclusion. 
 To relegate nearly all of the instruction that tradition- 
 ally and really aims, almost wholly, at " general culture " 
 to one school, and nearly all the instruction whose chief 
 function is to acquaint the pupil with the fundamental 
 principles and processes of the mechanical trades or 
 of business to another school, is to proceed, on the one 
 hand, as if training for immediate usefulness had little 
 or no interest for the student of general culture ; and, 
 on the other, as if the pursuit of general culture, as 
 such, were naturally foreign to the interests of the 
 future mechanic or merchant. In either case we would 
 commit a fatal error. Of course, in our existing sepa- 
 rate schools this is not quite a fair description of the 
 situation. All the schools do provide to some extent 
 
130 SECONDARY EDUCATION 
 
 for general culture. But my point is, that in at least 
 two of them the culture element of the training is not 
 only necessarily relatively limited in amount, but is, by 
 virtue of its subordination to the other purposes of 
 these schools, regarded as of essentially less value. It 
 is quite as unfortunate to disparage general culture as 
 it is to disparage training for immediate usefulness. 
 
 Along with the considerations on the social prob- 
 lem of secondary education, I wish, therefore, to lay 
 stress on the importance of a full recognition of the 
 value and significance of the general course of study 
 — the course for general culture — which ought to be 
 pursued, in part, at least, by every youth, whether he 
 subsequently goes to college or not. That the scope 
 of this course should be broad enough to make the 
 pupil's school career a progressive participation in 
 the varied interests of modern life need not be re- 
 asserted. In the secondary school the pupil who 
 does not go to college has his last chance at general 
 culture — his last chance to acquire the capacity to ap- 
 preciate and to react on the resources and the problems 
 of modern civilization^ for that is what general culture 
 means. 
 
 The general course should accordingly be that 
 course in which the other courses are rooted, and 
 from which they may diverge. It will, I think, in 
 time, include the college preparatory course also ; al- 
 though, under existing conditions, the preferred col- 
 
IN AMERICAN LIFE 131 
 
 lege preparatory course must consist of a certain 
 group of subjects which may or may not have been 
 chosen by a pupil in accordance with his interests 
 and tastes. There are indications that any subjects 
 well pursued — i.e. with adequate continuity and in- 
 tensity — will ere long be accepted, as they should 
 be, as suitable preparation for college work. Until 
 that time comes, that important training in choice, 
 whether for further education or for the active pur- 
 suits of life, to which reference has been made in a 
 previous chapter cannot be realized for many pupils. 
 
 No recent developments of our secondary education 
 are more important in themselves or possess greater 
 general significance than our courses in manual train- 
 ing, and, latest of all, our gradually improving com- 
 mercial courses. Their great intrinsic importance and 
 their general significance are due to their immediate 
 bearing, which every one can see, on life's most seri- 
 ous purpose, self-support. The other courses do not 
 so conspicuously minister to a life of usefulness ; at 
 least few pupils in the secondary school can see that 
 they do. But here is a body of instruction the sig- 
 nificance of which cannot be missed. It prepares for 
 work and for leadership among workers. - 
 
 Now it is important that the serious purposes of 
 life should receive adequate consideration from every 
 youth. Preparation for them should seem to him at 
 least as honorable and important as a disinterested 
 
132 SECONDARY EDUCATION 
 
 study of the arts and sciences for their own sake. 
 I would have every pupil imbued with the dignity 
 and the necessity of work ; I would have him feel 
 the disgrace of accepting something for nothing; I 
 would have his self-respect recoil at the idea of liv- 
 ing at the expense of his fellow-men, or on his 
 inherited patrimony, without deserving his good for- 
 tune, even if he does not need to earn it; I 
 would have him feel that life is not worth living 
 without some worthy form of service to which he 
 devotes himself with all the ardor, all the intelli- 
 gence, all the skill, with which he may be endowed 
 by nature or which he can acquire through training. 
 Hence I welcome the introduction into secondary 
 education of subjects that are conspicuously useful 
 in preparing for immediate self-support. Moreover, 
 such courses are valuable for that training in choice 
 which I emphasized a while ago; and I confess also 
 that I cherish the hope that the dignity of skilled 
 labor and of superior business integrity, insight, and 
 power, as well as intellectual resources and power, — 
 that all kinds of skilled labor, whether manual, com- 
 mercial, or professional, well and faithfully performed, 
 — will gradually gain increased dignity and early recog- 
 nition through the instruction of young men and 
 women who participate for several years, directly or 
 by association, to some extent, at least, in prepara- 
 tion for all three. 
 
IN AMERICAN LIFE 1 33 
 
 The problem of the extension of the scope and 
 flexibility of our secondary education, as I see it, is 
 accordingly, in part, this : we intend that every pupil 
 shall participate to some extent in general culture ; 
 that for those pupils whose school life terminates at 
 the age of eighteen or nineteen, and for all others 
 who wish it, there shall be adequate provision for 
 courses in manual training which, in addition to their 
 general educational value, help to prepare our youth 
 for immediate usefulness and ultimate leadership in 
 mechanical and industrial pursuits ; and that there 
 shall be, similarly, adequate provision for commer- 
 cial courses that prepare for immediate and ulti- 
 mately superior usefulness in a business career; and 
 finally we intend, by the close association of these 
 three forms of education, that no one shall miss the 
 unifying influence and the inspiration of a share in 
 general culture on the one hand, and of the dignity 
 and importance of work on the other. In this way 
 we may seek to train for participation in general 
 culture and for work. 
 
 What provision are we making for those impor- 
 tant, though for most persons incidental, duties of 
 the citizen — i.e. for training for social ' insight, in- 
 terest, and power? It is not too much to say that 
 the group of subjects on which we must rely specifi- 
 cally for this purpose — namely, civics, economics, and 
 history — is chiefly conspicuous by its absence, or by 
 
134 SECONDARY EDUCATION 
 
 its very subordinate place in most of our secondary- 
 school courses of study. The whole question of 
 American citizenship is peculiarly important. We 
 are trying in this country an experiment on a colos- 
 sal scale ; namely, the experiment of giving every citi- 
 zen a share in the government, of regarding him as 
 competent to make and to administer the laws under 
 which we live. No other nation in the world has 
 ever assumed that because a man was a human 
 being he was by virtue of that fact alone competent 
 to legislate about and direct the affairs of organized 
 society. Meanwhile our experiment is not wholly 
 successful. Indifference to public concerns, false 
 ideals of patriotism, and often a perverted concep- 
 tion of the meaning of public office, are some of the 
 evils against which we have to contend. Neverthe- 
 less, with the lessons of history and our own national 
 experience, brief as it is, in mind, I am ready to 
 declare that every intelligent citizen ought to vote, 
 and that he may become competent to be law-maker 
 and executive. Our disappointments are merely 
 teaching us that a safe voter, legislator, or executive, 
 cannot " grow " ; that he can become wise, efficient, 
 and just, only on the basis of some understanding 
 of the complex and comprehensive problems on 
 which he votes, or assumes to legislate, or which he 
 is called upon to administer. 
 
 Under such circumstances we may justly expect the 
 
IN AMERICAN LIFE 1 35 
 
 secondary school to do its share in arousing interest in, 
 and insight into, our institutional life, — our municipal, 
 state, and national institutions, our political, industrial, 
 commercial, and educational affairs. Accordingly, we 
 justly ask that history, civics, economics, — the social 
 studies, — shall receive much fuller recognition in sec- 
 ondary-school courses of study than has been accorded 
 them hitherto, and that these subjects shall not be 
 sundered, but be kept in intimate association. We ask 
 that our meagre and inadequate courses in history 
 shall really comprise an elementary descriptive soci- 
 ology, and the account of the development of the in- 
 stitutions of modern society. Instead of consisting 
 chiefly of accounts of wars, dynasties, and court 
 intrigue, it will deal by preference with the arts and 
 occupations of peace, with the history of industry, of 
 commerce, of scientific inventions, and ere long, let us 
 hope, with the history of art, education, and philan- 
 thropy. In all this, righteous wars will have their 
 place; but the war hero, as such, will no longer be the 
 sole or even the chief example of moral heroism with 
 which to fire the imagination and arouse the spirit of 
 emulation of our hero-worshipping and impressionable 
 youth. 
 
 But there are other ways in which the school can 
 train for citizenship. The school itself, through its 
 teachers, may become a participator in the life of the 
 community. This means that teachers must identify 
 
 
136 SECONDARY EDUCATION 
 
 themselves with public concerns. If a town hall is 
 to be built; if there is to be a new public library; if 
 there are to be new waterworks ; if tenement houses 
 are to be torn down and playgrounds for the children 
 of the poor are to be provided, the teachers of the 
 secondary schools must in some way take part in 
 these public affairs. If they have a share in carry- 
 ing on public measures, the life of the community 
 will flow through the school, and the meaning of citi- 
 zenship, its functions, its problems, and its privileges, 
 will be brought home to the pupils. Again, those who 
 have matters of public concern in charge — the park 
 commissioner, the city engineer, or the director of 
 some factory — may be invited into the school, and 
 may, by lectures, or by informal talks, impart to the 
 pupils some comprehension of the interests, civic and 
 industrial, amid which they live, and in which they 
 will be called upon by and by to carry the burdens 
 of social improvement, or of industrial and commer- 
 cial progress. 
 
 The school is prone to live too secluded a life in 
 the midst of life; it has been concerned too much 
 with its own routine; its ideal — a high ideal — has 
 been, too exclusively, scholarship ; and the other func- 
 tions which it has to discharge have been too much 
 neglected. So it has come about that the most 
 earnest and ambitious teachers have usually de- 
 voted themselves to what may be called pure scholar- 
 
IN AMERICAN LIFE 1 37 
 
 ship too exclusively, and have concerned themselves 
 very little about those affairs of life which it is one 
 function of education to introduce young people to. 
 Through its course of study, through the active partici- 
 pation of its teachers in the social interests of the world 
 outside the school, and by bringing representatives 
 from that world into the school, the school may be 
 made a participator in the social, the industrial, the 
 commercial, the civic life of to-day; may afford that 
 comprehension of the duties and the privileges of a 
 citizen which only a participation, however limited, is 
 capable of affording. 
 
 In the foregoing considerations I have tried to set 
 forth what seem to me to be the just expectations of 
 society and of thoughtful teachers with regard to 
 secondary education. I do not think that more is 
 expected than can be done. I do believe that if we 
 persist in treating a youth as if he were a child, he 
 will, no doubt, remain a child. But if we treat him 
 in accordance with his growing maturity, he will re- 
 spond accordingly. I think, therefore, that modern 
 secondary education can and should be a refining, in- 
 spiring, unifying force in American life; it can and 
 should offer the elements of general culture to all 
 children and youth who are induced to seek general 
 culture through the persuasive influence of a good be- 
 ginning made in earlier education ; or who, during the 
 period from about twelve to eighteen or twenty years of 
 
138 SECONDARY EDUCATION IN AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 age, become imbued with a desire for general culture 
 from any cause whatever ; it can and should inspire all 
 children and youth who share in its opportunities with 
 love and respect for all culture that promotes the pro- 
 gress and diffusion of truth, beauty, goodness, useful- 
 ness, or happiness; it can and should lead each pupil 
 to self-revelation and self-development through the cul- 
 tivation of his dominant interests and powers; and, on 
 the basis of such revelation and cultivation, it can and 
 should inspire, in rich and poor alike, a respect for work, 
 in all its forms, and a permanent desire to engage in 
 some vocation or worthy form of service when school 
 life is past; it can and should be so administered that 
 social segregations should not be promoted among chil- 
 dren and youth, save on the basis of superiority in 
 natural or acquired characteristics, — a superiority at- 
 tested by constant superiority of achievements, of dis- 
 position, and of conduct ; and it can and should arouse 
 and persistently cultivate a desire to gain an insight 
 into contemporary social problems — economic, politi- 
 cal, educational — .with a view to future intelligent and 
 helpful participation in trying to shape wisely munici- 
 pal, state, and national affairs. 
 
 The endeavor to realize this ideal of modern second- 
 ary education requires ardent devotion on the part of 
 the teachers, and the intelligent and interested coopera- 
 tion of the community. 
 
VI 
 
 THE PREPARATION OF THE HIGH-SCHOOL 
 TEACHER OF MATHEMATICS 
 
VI 
 
 THE PREPARATION OF THE HIGH-SCHOOL 
 TEACHER OF MATHEMATICS 
 
 There is an important sense in which the prepara- 
 tion of every teacher is beyond the reach of human 
 influences. His preparation has begun before his birth. 
 He is either endowed by nature with personal qualities 
 that should forever exclude him from the ranks of the 
 teaching profession, or he possesses such qualities as, 
 under appropriate training, enable him to overcome the 
 inevitable difficulties that will beset his path, and ulti- 
 mately to attain varying degrees of usefulness, from 
 mediocrity to the highest skill in his art. If he is a 
 physical or mental weakling, if he is stolid and heavy, 
 if he is indifferent to nature, human nature, and art, 
 if he lacks enthusiasm in the pursuit of his subject and 
 never feels the glow of conscious mastery, if he has a 
 crabbed or irritable disposition, if he is brilliant but 
 unsympathetic, if he lacks an interest in his pupil at 
 least equal to his interest in his subject, if he has no 
 tact, and is lacking in the sense of humor that often 
 furnishes the silver lining to an otherwise black cloud 
 
 141 
 
142 THE PREPARATION OF THE 
 
 of youthful idleness or seeming perversity, — in a word, 
 if he is not physically and mentally vigorous, alert, and 
 active, if he is not interestedly and healthily responsive 
 to the varied interests of life, if he cannot cherish a 
 feeling of good will and maintain a hopeful and encour- 
 aging attitude in spite of many discouragements and 
 some failures, — whatever he may be able to achieve 
 in other callings, he ought never to be a teacher. I 
 need hardly say that, in what follows, adequate natural 
 capacity and a responsive nature are assumed, and that 
 my discussion pertains only to the preparation of the 
 would-be teacher who possesses these characteristics. 
 
 The preparation needed by every high-school teacher 
 is both general and special ; that is to say, it should 
 cover the essential elements of a liberal education, and 
 special training in that subject or group of closely 
 related subjects which the teacher expects to teach; 
 together with enough professional training to show 
 him his responsibilities to his pupils as well as to his 
 specialty, and to help him to become as good a teacher 
 as possible as soon as possible. That a high-school 
 teacher should, in general, have profited by an educa- 
 tion at least equivalent to that afforded by a good 
 American college, ought to be universally recognized. 
 Since this is not the case, one must assume either indif- 
 ference to or ignorance of the importance of a liberal 
 culture for high-school teachers on the part of many 
 of those who employ the teachers, or are responsible 
 
HIGH-SCHOOL TEACHER OF MATHEMATICS 143 
 
 for their employment. Under such circumstances, it 
 becomes one's duty to do what he can toward influenc- 
 ing public opinion on this very important matter. It 
 seems worth while, therefore, to point out briefly the 
 serious consequences of indifference or ignorance on 
 the part of employers of high-school teachers as 
 regards the general culture essential to real efficiency. 
 It must be borne in mind that high-school pupils 
 are no longer little children, uninformed and unsophis- 
 ticated. Besides possessing a considerable store of 
 general , information, they have usually learned to read 
 human nature tolerably well where their own interests 
 are concerned. Superficial knowledge, and limited 
 mental power, narrow views of life, rusticity of man- 
 ner, — all of them marks of meagre culture, — rarely 
 escape detection in a high school ; and, particularly 
 for the brighter and socially superior pupils, offer a 
 decided obstacle to the teacher's usefulness, if they 
 do not destroy it altogether. It is a serious disad- 
 vantage to every high-school pupil, whether he is 
 aware of it or not, perhaps even more serious if he 
 does not know it than if he does, to have his mental 
 horizon determined by the narrow mental horizon of 
 his teacher ; his intellectual vistas and ' sympathies 
 limited or dwarfed by the inadequate intellectual in- 
 sight and want of perspective on the part of his 
 teacher; to have his notions of social refinement 
 and cultivation unformed, or deformed, or even per- 
 
144 THE PREPARATION OF THE 
 
 verted, by the uncultivated man or woman who hap- 
 pens to be his teacher. The high school supplies to 
 most pupils their last • chance at these stores of in- 
 spiration and guidance, and they should be the very 
 best. Such disadvantages to the pupil do not ap- 
 pear, and such obstacles to the teacher's success can 
 hardly exist, when the general culture and refinement 
 of the high-school teachers are sufficient always to 
 command the just respect and challenge the regard, 
 if not to inspire the imitation, of the best pupils. 
 Hence, for a satisfactory equipment, those who have 
 tried it will agree, I am sure, that, in general, four 
 years of college training are little enough. 
 
 This opinion is strengthened by the reflection that 
 there is no period in a young person's life in which 
 impressions received produce a more lasting effect, in 
 which incipient interests and habits of thought and 
 conduct are more likely to be permanently influenced, 
 than during the period covered wholly or in part by 
 secondary education — the period of adolescence. It 
 is often said that the earliest impressions are the most 
 lasting, and the earliest training is the most important 
 for intellectual and moral development, and for the 
 future usefulness and happiness of the individual; 
 but I cannot believe this is a true statement of the 
 case for most of those pupils whose school career is 
 continued into and through the high school. If good 
 early training were always followed by equally good 
 
HIGH-SCHOOL TEACHER OF MATHEMATICS 145 
 
 subsequent training, if the child's opportunities for 
 growth in knowledge and power were continuous, if 
 his moral training and his social environment improved 
 with his growth from early childhood through later 
 childhood and youth, if his earlier acquisitions were 
 really made to serve continuously and progressively 
 as the foundation for continuous subsequent growth, 
 then the earlier and earliest training would be the 
 most important; for it would be the foundation on 
 which later development would be most economically 
 and securely laid. 
 
 But such conditions of development are rare. The 
 cases are not common in which each stage of a 
 child's progress is so nicely adjusted to the previous 
 one. Such an arrangement of our courses of study 
 and our teaching processes is, as yet, too commonly 
 rather a vaguely conceived ideal. Moreover, the in- 
 stability of the population, the perpetual migration of 
 people in this country from one place to another, 
 enormously increases the difficulty of approximating 
 to such an ideal, even when it is consciously and 
 conscientiously aimed at. But suppose that such an 
 ideal were generally realized. It would still remain 
 true that childhood in its first dozen years or so, 
 with its ready adaptability to changing conditions, its 
 rapidly changing dominant interests, in a word, its 
 instability, would be affected most strongly by its 
 latest influences. In my opinion later school life may 
 
146 THE PREPARATION OF THE 
 
 make good the defects of early training; or it may- 
 build, on an excellent earlier foundation, a superior 
 superstructure. 
 
 If this be true, and I believe it is (in the absence 
 of scientific knowledge one can only generalize from 
 his own experience and observation), the great im- 
 portance of good teaching, wise management, and the 
 most wholesome and refining general atmosphere in 
 the high school is apparent. In any event, it will 
 be admitted, I think, that as the period of adolescence 
 approaches, and especially during that period, the in- 
 stability above referred to rapidly diminishes. The 
 individual gradually emerges. The child becomes a 
 youth. This is a critical period in the life of every 
 human being. To assume the wise guidance of 
 young people during this important period is the 
 exalted function of the secondary-school teacher. He 
 is to be the sympathetic, discriminating, and vigorous 
 guide and leader of boys and girls just developing 
 into manhood and womanhood. To be such a guide 
 and leader in very truth he must have resources, 
 both natural and acquired. The least that should 
 be demanded of him is that he shall have taken 
 pains to secure an equipment of knowledge that 
 will give him broad, sane, and healthy views of 
 life, with its duties and its privileges, and liberal in- 
 tellectual sympathies, together with a conscious power 
 in some one field that enables him to maintain, both 
 
HIGH-SCHOOL TEACHER OF MATHEMATICS 147 
 
 for himself and his pupils, a high standard of achieve- 
 ment. Such an equipment every college graduate 
 who has made good use of his opportunities may- 
 possess. It is not often that one who has not 
 profited by such an education can be expected to 
 possess it. 
 
 There are special reasons why the teacher of 
 mathematics should have a liberal equipment of gen- 
 eral culture in addition to special knowledge and 
 power in his particular subject. Pure mathematics 
 is profound and interesting; but its subject-matter, 
 save in its elements, is so remote from the common 
 interests of men that its devotees are in constant 
 danger of what may be called a professional or 
 academic isolation ; and this isolation is almost sure 
 to increase with increasing devotion to the subject. 
 Pure mathematics has fewer points of contact with 
 the ordinary affairs of life than natural science, or 
 language, or history, to say nothing of economics 
 and government. In this respect it differs from all 
 other subjects. Factoring, radicals, and quadratic 
 equations; polygons, parallelopipeds, and spherical 
 triangles ; sines, tangents, and trigonometric formulae ; 
 the theory of equations, determinants, and complex 
 numbers; point and line coordinates, involutes, and 
 evolutes ; derivatives, differential equations, and elliptic 
 functions, — may completely shut out from view the 
 living panorama of nature and society in which most 
 
148 THE PREPARATION OF THE 
 
 men live, and move, and have their being ; and from 
 which the young, in particular, derive most of their 
 incentives and conscious purposes. In my opinion, 
 therefore, it is not asking too much that the high- 
 school teacher of mathematics should possess the gen- 
 eral training that yields extra-vocational, i.e. for him 
 extra-mathematical, interests, and enables him to ap- 
 preciate their importance. It ought never to be pos- 
 sible for the teacher of mathematics, however high 
 he may rate the importance of his own subject and 
 its beneficial effect on the pupil, to become one who 
 measures the capacity of all pupils solely by their 
 ability to "do sums and to work problems," and the 
 goodness of any course of study chiefly by the work 
 in mathematics it prescribes. 
 
 But after all has been said that can be said of the 
 necessity of broad general culture for the teacher of 
 mathematics, it is still emphatically true that his effi- 
 ciency depends ultimately on his special training, on 
 his resources in and power over his own subject; for 
 it is through that~ subject that his special duty to 
 the pupil is to be done. Either the pupil is to 
 receive through him a peculiar insight into the mar- 
 vellous system of the external world, some compre- 
 hension of the wonderful power and fertility of the 
 human mind in one of its fields of activity, a quick- 
 ening of his intellectual life through the knowledge 
 and insight, the clearness and adequacy, of exposition 
 
HIGH-SCHOOL TEACHER OF MATHEMATICS 149 
 
 of mathematical truths characteristic of a scholarly, 
 enthusiastic, well-trained teacher ; or he must forever 
 remain indifferent to these interesting, and to some 
 minds, fascinating experiences, because both he and 
 his teacher move about vaguely in a "world unreal- 
 ized," where the intellectual fog never rises, and 
 where the road traversed to-day must be re-traversed 
 with the same dim uncertainty to-morrow. 
 
 If the teacher of mathematics has little mathe- 
 matical ability, and if at the same time he has not 
 had sufficient training, he is almost sure to carry on 
 his work with a benumbing inadequacy of compre- 
 hension and exposition which soon becomes chronic, 
 and through which the pupils come to look on mathe- 
 matics as a highly artificial subject of little real inter- 
 est or practical utility; a subject in which success 
 does not depend on common sense and patient study, 
 but on a certain inborn ingenuity of manipulating 
 postulates, hypotheses, and previous propositions, and 
 in which absurdities are as valid as realities. 
 
 A certain college student of my acquaintance must 
 have had this kind of instruction. She said she had 
 studied algebra before coming to college, but she 
 had become interested in the subject only when she 
 took up equations and " proved things." Whereupon 
 I asked her if she had ever seen the paradox by 
 which, through a series of equations, any number 
 may apparently be proved equal to nothing. As she 
 
150 THE PREPARATION OF THE 
 
 had never seen it, I showed it to her, securing her 
 assent to the several steps as I went on. When we 
 arrived at the conclusion, 2 = 0, I handed her the 
 paper and looked up with the half-apologetic, half- 
 triumphant manner of one who expects after a very 
 brief triumph and a rather lame defence to yield the 
 point in question. But nothing of the sort happened. 
 She merely said, " That's all right," and handed the 
 paper back to me. " But," I said, " how can it be ? 
 Two cannot be really equal to nothing." " Oh," she 
 said, "that's algebra." 
 
 The situation is not much improved, although it is 
 quite different, if the teacher has good ability, but 
 insufficient training. In that case he is oppressed by 
 the consciousness of the heavy demands made on 
 him and of his inability for a long time to respond to 
 them as he should. The work must be done some- 
 how, the classes cannot wait. He is thus obliged to 
 carry on a discouraging struggle against tremendous 
 odds. Meanwhile, his pupils are the losers, and the 
 reputation of the subject suffers. Similar statements 
 could, of course, be made with respect to inadequate 
 preparation in other subjects as well as mathematics, 
 but the immediate consequences are not so conspicu- 
 ous. The definiteness and rigor of mathematical rea- 
 soning afford a constant and ruthless exposition of the 
 teacher's shortcomings — an exposition which in other 
 subjects is neither so glaring nor usually so disas- 
 
HIGH-SCHOOL TEACHER OF MATHEMATICS 151 
 
 trous. The teacher of mathematics must be a logical 
 reasoner and ready in manipulation. If his training 
 has left him without these powers, his other mental 
 powers will avail him nothing. Either the pupil is 
 right or he is wrong. Neither teacher nor pupil can 
 escape the consequences of false reasoning or lack of 
 skill in handling mathematical expressions. So, too, 
 the glimpse the teacher gets of fields unexplored, 
 which he vaguely realizes must have an influence on 
 the interpretation of the* work on which he is en- 
 gaged, is a constant intimation of inadequacy, and 
 so a source of self-accusation that heightens the 
 acute " misery of conscious weakness " which he is 
 sure to feel, and which is one of the most paralyz- 
 ing of all the untoward influences that oppress the 
 conscientious but meagrely equipped teacher. There 
 is no heavier burden than the burden of accepted 
 duties that one feels he cannot adequately perform. 
 
 There is, of course, always hope for the able 
 teacher inadequately prepared, for he may by dint of 
 hard work ultimately achieve at least a moderate 
 efficiency, although at the expense of many pupils; 
 but there is no hope for the ignorant teacher of poor 
 ability, unconscious of his own ignorance; In either 
 case the want of adequate preparation, before actual 
 service begins, casts its shadow over his entire pro- 
 fessional career. 
 
 To teach mathematics well in the high school, it 
 
152 THE PREPARATION OF THE 
 
 is, therefore, hardly necessary to argue that one 
 must have a thorough knowledge of the subject, a 
 knowledge that is far in advance of pre-collegiate 
 study, i.e. far in advance of a good acquaintance 
 with the branches of mathematics usually found in 
 the high-school curriculum or such a presentation of 
 them as is contained in the usual text-books. It is 
 hardly necessary to argue that with an equipment 
 limited to pre-collegiate study, the teacher of element- 
 ary mathematics is unable to comprehend the relative 
 importance of the different phases of his subject. 
 He may, and usually does, neglect important aspects 
 and magnify trifles. He treats facts and processes 
 as ultimate ends in themselves, instead of means to 
 ends. He never gets the comprehensive point of 
 view from which the subject is unified and gains full 
 significance in his own and the pupils' minds. His 
 pupils not infrequently learn many things which 
 subsequently must be unlearned — an expensive and 
 exasperating experience. That he may escape this 
 unfortunate situation, that he may, from the start, 
 enter on his work well equipped for the demands that 
 are to be made on him, I purpose now to inquire, 
 What should a good course of study, to be pursued 
 by the high-school teacher of mathematics as special 
 preparation for his work, comprise ? 
 
 Bearing in mind that this course of study should 
 enable the teacher to appreciate the relative impor- 
 
HIGH-SCHOOL TEACHER OF MATHEMATICS 153 
 
 tance of the different phases of his subject and of 
 their interdependence throughout, and so enable him 
 to select with certainty and wisdom those portions of 
 mathematics essential to the elements of a liberal 
 education, or for future specialization in mathematics, 
 if the pupil's interest and probable career should lead 
 him into that field; and also that the teacher should 
 know and be able to point out the significance of 
 mathematics for the adequate development of power 
 over other sciences, it is clear that the teacher's 
 preparation must cover both pure and applied mathe- 
 matics, and a general training in elementary physical 
 science. Only through such knowledge is it possible 
 to expect confidently that the teacher will have an 
 adequate, a wise, and firm grasp of essentials; and 
 also a conviction of the fundamental utility of his 
 subject in the pursuit of other sciences and in the 
 practical affairs of life; and that he will be able to 
 impart to the pupil the scientific interest which is 
 born of insight, unified knowledge, and perspective. 
 
 In view of these considerations, I suggest the fol- 
 lowing course of study for the special equipment of 
 the high-school teacher of mathematics: — 
 
 Advanced algebra, about fifty lessons; -theory of 
 equations (together with determinants and complex 
 numbers), about fifty lessons; solid geometry, about 
 fifty lessons ; trigonometry, plane and spherical, about 
 fifty lessons ; surveying, about fifty lessons ; calculus, 
 
154 THE PREPARATION OF THE 
 
 about one hundred lessons; descriptive geometry, 
 about fifty lessons; mechanics, about one hundred 
 lessons; history of mathematics, about fifty lessons; 
 physics (general, with quantitative laboratory work), 
 about one hundred lessons; astronomy, about fifty 
 lessons; chemistry, including mineralogy, about one 
 hundred lessons ; application of the calculus to light 
 and heat, or to electricity, about one hundred les- 
 sons ; history and theory of education, about one 
 hundred lessons; methods, about fifty lessons. 
 
 Such a course of study should give the teacher of 
 mathematics the original awakening and impetus, and 
 furnish the permanent sources of guidance, without 
 which growth and high efficiency are impossible. It 
 places the teacher at the centre of his subject, whence 
 he can see and use its resources to the best advan- 
 tage. The command it gives him over the resources, 
 the problems, the historical development, and the 
 practical and theoretical utility of elementary mathe- 
 matics may be expected to enrich and vitalize his 
 teaching. Under a teacher thus equipped, the pupils 
 feel that they are dealing with a fertile and a beau- 
 tiful subject, and that they have a steady, able, and 
 sure guide to the mastery of it. The halting and 
 labored procedure, so characteristic of one who is not 
 master of the situation, will be wanting ; the pupils 
 will perceive a definiteness and directness of aim and 
 procedure, which show them how real it all is, how 
 
HIGH-SCHOOL TEACHER OF MATHEMATICS 155 
 
 important, interesting, and useful it all is, and how ac- 
 cessible it all is to patient study; and, to the mathe- 
 matical spirits among them, how fascinating and how 
 simple it all may become. Such a course of study 
 will make it impossible for the teacher of elementary 
 mathematics to regard high-school algebra, geometry, 
 and trigonometry as " higher mathematics," but he 
 will nevertheless have a just and high regard for these 
 subjects, and will address himself to teaching them 
 accordingly. 
 
 The teacher who has taken such a course of study 
 will not be likely to teach nonsense about negative 
 numbers or about imaginaries in elementary algebra. 
 What he does teach about them the pupils will not 
 have to unlearn at some future time. He will not 
 believe that he has done his duty when he has led 
 the pupils to solve simple equations with numerical 
 coefficients, and allowed them to regard the literal 
 equation as exceptional, and therefore entitled to only 
 passing notice ; he will not feel that the last word 
 has been said on the significance of systems of equa- 
 tions when the pupils have learned the three common 
 processes of elimination, and have applied their knowl- 
 edge to solving the usual highly artificial problems of 
 the elementary algebras; he will not be able to re- 
 gard the solution and discussion of the quadratic equa- 
 tion as virtually the end of achievement in algebraic 
 analysis, and so on. So in geometry, he cannot be 
 
156 THE PREPARATION OF THE 
 
 satisfied with exactness of language only : he must 
 have good logic as well; he will attach due impor- 
 tance to the mastery of the propositions proved and 
 the problems solved in the text-book, but he will 
 never feel that the mastery of these propositions, 
 with only an occasional " extra," gives pupils the 
 comprehension and power they ought to gain from 
 the subject; and so on. He will have learned that 
 the branches of elementary mathematics have impor- 
 tant interrelations, and will provide for a proper rec- 
 ognition of these interrelations in his teaching, 
 thereby enhancing the interest and the comprehension 
 of each. These are commonplaces, I know; my ex- 
 cuse for laying stress on them is that their significance 
 is too often disregarded in practice. 
 
 That analytical geometry should form a part of 
 this course of study is obvious. The knowledge of 
 the conic sections which it affords and the great ex- 
 tension it gives to earlier conceptions of geometry 
 are so important, the relations between algebra and 
 geometry which it reveals are so interesting and valu- 
 able, and the facility in handling mathematical expres- 
 sions which it cultivates is so useful, that every lover 
 of mathematics would insist on a training in analytics ; 
 and every teacher should possess this training for its 
 influence on his teaching. 
 
 Similarly, little argument is needed to justify the 
 appearance of the calculus and its applications in 
 
HIGH-SCHOOL TEACHER OF MATHEMATICS 157 
 
 this course of study. The calculus is of such value 
 to the mathematician as an instrument of research and 
 as a basis of other sciences, that it is simply indis- 
 pensable. For the teacher of elementary mathematics 
 it throws such a flood of light on principles and 
 extends their significance, both in pure and applied 
 mathematics, and develops the mathematical skill 
 already acquired to such an extent, that it is of in- 
 estimable value in helping him to develop compre- 
 hension, interest, and skill on the part of his pupils. 
 To illustrate the influence of the calculus on the 
 equipment of the teacher, I need only refer to its 
 effect on his power over the theory of limits; to the 
 insight afforded by the applications of the calculus 
 to analytics; to the facility in manipulation, cultivated 
 from the very beginning, in the processes of differen- 
 tiation and integration, and in the applications of the 
 calculus to analytics already referred to; and to the 
 appreciation the calculus affords of the utility of 
 mathematics through its applications to mechanics, 
 and to the study of light, heat, or electricity. 
 
 This course of study provides also for an acquaint- 
 ance with the history of mathematics. It is strange 
 that this interesting subject should have been neglected 
 so long in this country. To this day I know of no col- 
 lege or university among us that offers a course in the 
 history of mathematics. This is all the more strange 
 when we think of the addition to the teacher's resources 
 
158 THE PREPARATION OF THE 
 
 comprised in a knowledge of this subject. Quite 
 apart from the clearer insight which such a knowl- 
 edge gives into principles and processes — which is, of 
 course, important — it should be borne in mind that the 
 history of a subject is a part of the history of culture, 
 and so an important part of the history of civilization. 
 The inspiring victories of peace, the intellectual and 
 moral conquests of the race, have, for most minds, at 
 least as high an interest as the victories of war. The 
 history of brilliant discoveries or of the patient en- 
 deavor by which men have slowly worked out a science 
 or a system of thought may therefore be employed to 
 introduce into the teaching of every science a human 
 element of great value; and especially into a science 
 which, like mathematics, is necessarily formal and 
 abstract. When the discoverer of a proposition is 
 named, and some of the circumstances of his career are 
 added, a wholly new interest is added to the geometri- 
 cal truth which before was known only as abstracted 
 from all human concerns — it existed only in the book ; 
 now it is recognized as belonging to life. 
 
 So, too, the physical sciences — astronomy, physics, 
 chemistry, and mineralogy — add so much to the sig- 
 nificance of pure mathematics, and contribute such 
 teaching resources, that no mathematician and no 
 teacher would wish to dispense with a knowledge of 
 them. I have, therefore, included these sciences in the 
 course of study needed by the teacher of mathematics. 
 
HIGH-SCHOOL TEACHER OF MATHEMATICS 
 
 159 
 
 Finally, every science has an important practical 
 utility which justly adds to the value attached to it by 
 its devotees and by the world in general. An appeal 
 to this practical utility is of constant use in teaching, 
 because it is sure to be appreciated by the pupils, 
 and (when occasion requires it) by their parents. I 
 have therefore added descriptive geometry, astronomy, 
 surveying, and introduction to navigation, to the course 
 of study; these subjects comprise those important 
 practical applications of elementary mathematics which 
 the mathematician needs to know, and which every one 
 can appreciate. 
 
 Thus far I have been dwelling on the scholarship 
 required for the teacher's outfit in mathematics. This 
 is, of course, because scholarship is fundamental. But 
 it is obvious that scholarship and the power to use 
 scholarship effectively in teaching are two very different 
 things. Hence, the teacher should have a general pro- 
 fessional training, including, but by no means limited 
 to, instruction in method. The professional training 
 should cover enough of the theory and history of edu- 
 cation to determine, from the very beginning, a pro- 
 fessional interest and point of view on the part of the 
 teacher, in addition to his interest in his- subject. It 
 should enable him once for all to attain the conception 
 that education is a rationalized endeavor, whose aim is 
 the appropriate development of a human being, and its 
 adaptation to the civilization into which he is born ; and 
 
160 THE PREPARATION OF THE 
 
 whose means are general culture and, in his hands, the 
 science of mathematics in particular. It should include 
 also some instruction in methods of teaching mathe- 
 matics. Prior to practice, it is not profitable, in my 
 opinion, to spend much time on the details of teaching 
 any subject. The most valuable instruction in the 
 details of the method of teaching any subject is that 
 which proceeds pari passu with practice. Such instruc- 
 tion is, in most cases, impossible. What, then, should 
 the instruction in methods comprise ? 
 
 The student's course in educational theory should 
 have given him a conception of the educational value 
 of mathematics, i.e. what mathematics may do for the 
 pupil, and what, by no possibility, can be got from it. 
 Instruction in methods should make sure that such a 
 conception of the educational value of mathematics 
 defines the teacher's ultimate aim, the aim that under- 
 lies and permeates all his work. Such an aim is essen- 
 tial to an adequate treatment of the whole subject. 
 It relegates all the phases of the subject to their proper 
 places and assigns to each phase its proper emphasis ; 
 and it makes clear the importance of bringing home to 
 the pupil the interdependence of the several branches. 
 Instruction in method should also make clear the im- 
 portance of a definite aim or definite aims in each reci- 
 tation, i.e. of a certain point or certain points to be made 
 in to-day's work, and of the importance of permitting 
 and requiring the pupils to make these points them- 
 
HIGH-SCHOOL TEACHER OF MATHEMATICS i6l 
 
 selves, so far as possible ; and finally it should suggest 
 a few modes of procedure — devices of class manage- 
 ment and presentation — sufficient to serve the young 
 teacher as a basis for success in his first lessons, and 
 for working out his own devices as fast as he needs 
 them. For such instruction about fifty exercises, di- 
 vided as occasion may render desirable, between alge- 
 bra, geometry, and trigonometry, are enough. To this 
 instruction should be added as much study as possible 
 of the methods of one or more good teachers in their 
 class-roqms. 
 
 Of course, the teacher's preparation for his work 
 cannot be completed, once for all, prior to service. 
 That the teacher must continue to be a learner, if he 
 would win and maintain a high efficiency, is eminently 
 true of the teacher of mathematics. The nature of 
 the subject is such that it easily lends itself to routine 
 treatment. But such treatment means death to effi- 
 ciency. The teacher's intellectual sympathies must 
 be kept alive by continual efforts to overcome diffi- 
 culties similar to those experienced by his pupils. The 
 teacher who ceases to make progress, and is content 
 with his past acquisitions, and his collections of solved 
 problems, has stopped growing, and ought to be re- 
 tired. 
 
 It is hardly necessary to add that every teacher 
 should be a reader of our three or four leading edu- 
 cational journals, and that the teacher of mathematics 
 
162 THE PREPARATION OF THE 
 
 cannot afford to dispense with the reading of two or 
 three of the current mathematical journals. Of course 
 few teachers would find the whole of each issue of 
 these journals either interesting or profitable. But 
 there is enough in each issue to repay careful atten- 
 tion. They extend the teacher's professional horizon 
 and keep him abreast of the times in educational move- 
 ments; and the mathematical journals promote his 
 growth in his own subject by acquainting him from 
 issue to issue with the progress his subject is making 
 through the achievements of his fellow-workers. More- 
 over, both the non-mathematical and the mathematical 
 journals constitute a source of valuable information con- 
 cerning the respective merits of teaching resources, new 
 and old — the text-books or other books on his sub- 
 ject ; and he will find frequent discussions of aims and 
 methods of presentation that serve as a constant means 
 of clarifying his own views and improving his own 
 methods — all this, of course, whether he agrees with 
 the opinions expressed in a paper on the teaching of 
 mathematics, or in some book review, or not. These 
 sources of information and inspiration are used far too 
 little. The present generation of high-school teachers, 
 with the exceptions of the principals, is not given to 
 much reading of educational literature, even the best. 
 
 In this chapter I have endeavored to describe briefly 
 what seems to me a good preparation for the high- 
 school teacher of mathematics. That I have described 
 
HIGH-SCHOOL TEACHER OF MATHEMATICS 163 
 
 a preparation that most high-school teachers, at present 
 in service, have not enjoyed, I know. That it is ex- 
 ceedingly important that such equipment should be 
 increasingly insisted on before the teacher is per- 
 mitted to begin his work, I firmly believe. 
 
VII 
 
 THE STUDY OF EDUCATION AT 
 HARVARD UNIVERSITY 
 
VII 
 
 THE STUDY OF EDUCATION AT 
 HARVARD UNIVERSITY 
 
 Education, as a subject deserving serious study, 
 occupies, to-day, a place not unlike that held by the 
 mother-tongue only a few years ago. It has been 
 but a short time since English was a very subordi- 
 nate subject in our colleges and secondary schools. 
 The educational value of the mother-tongue was, 
 commonly, not recognized. It was taken for granted 
 that one who had spoken his own language from in- 
 fancy and had employed it daily in the pursuit of 
 all his intellectual acquisitions, including perhaps a for- 
 eign language or two, must, incidentally, and without 
 any special training, have learned a great deal about 
 this instrument of all his acquisitions ; must have 
 learned to use his mother-tongue with ease, accuracy, 
 and vigor, and must have learned to love and appre- 
 ciate its literature. In time it was learned, however, 
 that the facts failed to justify this remarkable assump- 
 tion. It was seen, at last, that neither the haphazard 
 training of experience and environment, nor the use 
 
 167 
 
1 68 THE STUDY OF EDUCATION 
 
 of the mother-tongue in intellectual acquisition, could 
 be trusted, without special training, to develop an 
 adequate command of the mother-tongue itself ; and 
 that the treasures of English literature, with their 
 vast influence on aims and character, in most 
 instances, did not reach the young at all. With 
 the recognition of these facts, the indifference with 
 which the study of English was regarded could not 
 last. To-day, English has a respectable place in the 
 programmes of most high schools and academies. 
 In the best colleges it has won an honorable place. 
 Not so the study of education. Until recently 
 education has been studied only in normal schools 
 for the training of primary and grammar school teach- 
 ers. Up to the present time, I know of no secondary 
 school in which at least the history of education is 
 studied. College and university courses for the study 
 of education are still quite generally regarded as 
 purely professional courses, designed only for those 
 who intend to teach. /The idea that education, in its 
 historical, theoretical, and practical phases, deserves to 
 be studied, and to some extent should be studied, by 
 all college students, irrespective of their future pro- 
 fession, is still quite as novel as was the demand 
 which was made repeatedly and ultimately heeded 
 some years ago, that the mother-tongue deserves to 
 be carefully studied by all persons seeking a liberal 
 education. 
 
AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY 1 69 
 
 Just as it was at one time deemed superfluous to 
 study English, so it is still thought superfluous to 
 study education. Although it is recognized univer- 
 sally that on the education of the young the future 
 welfare of individuals and of nations depends and, 
 consequently, that the education of the young is the 
 most important duty the present generation owes to 
 the next; although it is acknowledged that education 
 underlies all the activities of the race, — yet the study 
 of this important activity itself is still regarded by 
 the non-professional student with indifference. 
 
 Contrary to what would naturally be expected, 
 this apathy regarding the study of education has 
 been most characteristic of those who were most 
 liberally educated. Until recently the attitude of 
 many college-bred teachers in secondary schools, 
 and of many college professors toward courses in 
 education, was, in general, one of indifference, some- 
 times of aggressive opposition. Naturally, the stu- 
 dents have shared the indifference of the professors. 
 Even for future teachers, for men who should be 
 thoroughly equipped at all points for the exigencies 
 of their future profession, it has been doubted that 
 instruction in education and teaching could be of 
 real value. Indeed, such value was positively de- 
 nied. The opinion was current that no amount of 
 preliminary study of the problems and processes 
 involved in education could improve the teacher's 
 
170 THE STUDY OF EDUCATION 
 
 work. It was held that the complex activities 
 of a city school system could not be studied and 
 understood, to any respectable degree, without set- 
 ting the student to teaching a school; without plung- 
 ing him in medias res, where, it may be remarked 
 in passing, his professional horizon would be limited 
 by his grade or his school. According to the same 
 view, the important questions pertaining to the choice 
 of subject-matter and to the order and distribution of 
 the subjects in a course of study could only be satis- 
 factorily answered while the teacher was wholly ab- 
 sorbed in teaching some particular subject, or doing 
 the work of a particular grade. The general prin- 
 ciples of a method of teaching could not be formu- 
 lated because every man must have his own method, 
 method being confused with manner. The important 
 question with what aim, could not be profitably con- 
 sidered until, after years of wasteful groping and 
 experimenting, each teacher had, consciously or un- 
 consciously, formulated an aim for himself. The 
 experience of the past, it was held, in formulating 
 and testing educational theories and practices, unlike 
 the past experience of the race in all other respects, 
 had no value in helping the parent and teacher of 
 to-day to avoid useless experiments and false theo- 
 ries. In other words, in education there is no lesson in 
 the accumulation of past experience, everything must 
 be done over again from the beginning ; Plato, Quintil- 
 
AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY 171 
 
 ian, Bacon, Comenius, Locke, Rousseau, Pestalozzi, 
 Froebel, Herbart, and a host of modern workers 
 in the field of education have no message to hu- 
 manity, as regards education, worth attending to. 
 v The special study of children, questions of school 
 hygiene, school "architecture, the comparative study 
 of city, state, and foreign school systems, — all these 
 things have no value to an ambitious and earnest 
 man who looks forward to teaching as his life-work. 
 Thus, it was held that the political history of nations 
 but not the history of education ; philosophy and ethics 
 and psychology, but not the application of them to 
 the development of a complete manhood and woman- 
 hood; natural science, but not the natural history of 
 children; the study of existing political institutions, 
 and a formative social science, but not of existing 
 educational institutions and of a formative educa- 
 tional science — special researches in every depart- 
 ment of human thought and activity — were profitable, 
 save in the domain of education and teaching. 
 
 It was in the nature of things that such opinions 
 regarding the study of education and the professional 
 training of teachers should not endure. They are 
 passing away. \ To-day, no subject occupies a more 
 important place in the minds of the educated public 
 than the aims, means, and methods of education. 
 The discussion of educational questions is no longer 
 confined to professional books and journals, but forms 
 
172 THE STUDY OF EDUCATION 
 
 a part of the matter offered to the general public in 
 the current magazines, and even in the daily papers. 
 Such questions have a universal interest, for educa- 
 tional problems have to be solved in every home, as 
 well as in every school and school system. Finally, 
 in the colleges and universities, the old indifference 
 has given place to active interest, and the establish- 
 ment of departments or of courses for the study of 
 education and teaching has naturally followed. 
 
 The first university departments of education were 
 the direct result of a demand for better trained 
 teachers for our secondary schools (high schools and 
 academies). This was not and is not a legal demand. 
 In the United States there has never been, and 
 there is not to-day, any law requiring that teachers in 
 secondary schools shall study their profession before 
 attempting to discharge its duties. It is true that 
 some superintendents and principals, and at least one 
 large city, decline to admit to the examinations of 
 candidates for positions in their schools university 
 men without experience, who have not had " a satis- 
 factory course in pedagogy." But the number of 
 such superintendents and principals is small, and 
 Boston is the only city known to the writer which 
 requires either experience or professional training as 
 a sine qua non. Most cities require no examinations 
 whatever of university men who seek positions as 
 teachers in their schools. 
 
AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY 1 73 
 
 -^But the educational awakening of the past two 
 decades has roused, first of all, the professional con- 
 sciousness of many experienced teachers; then of 
 intelligent and influential superintendents of schools ; 
 and finally of a few university professors and excep- 
 tional lay members of the community. It has become 
 clear to such men that too many excellent university 
 graduates are poor teachers. Moreover, a very little ex- 
 perience in the class-room has sufficed to reveal their 
 pedagogical needs to many earnest young teachers 
 who leave the university as specialists in mathe- 
 matics, or natural science, or language, but without 
 any pedagogical training; and such a revelation has 
 come to a rapidly increasing number of young spe- 
 cialists not blinded by pedantry or egotism, when 
 subject, as has been the case in the recent past, to 
 the constantly growing demands of the community 
 and of their own newly roused professional superiors.\j 
 
 Both classes of men — university students about to 
 become teachers, and teachers already in service who 
 have come to feel the need of pedagogical training — 
 have, therefore, turned for help to our universities. 
 And the universities, notably our state universities, 
 have responded to this call for help by establishing 
 chairs or departments of pedagogy. 
 
 It was natural that the first departments or courses 
 for the study of education in the universities of the 
 United States should limit their endeavors to the 
 
174 THE STUDY OF EDUCATION 
 
 pedagogical training of the class-room teacher; for 
 the ability to teach successfully is, for every teacher, 
 not less important than sound scholarship ; and this 
 ability, as has already been said, too many university 
 men who became teachers did not possess. I am not 
 now concerned with the extent to which the endeavor 
 to help university men to become better teachers was 
 realized. I have no doubt that what was actually 
 realized left much to be desired. But the aim was 
 clear: to provide for the university man the peda- 
 gogical training which he and many generations of 
 university men like himself — scholarly, but without 
 pedagogical enlightenment — had long needed to mini- 
 mize the blunders of inexperience, furnish the guid- 
 ance that should insure intelligent self-criticism, and 
 afford a hopeful expectation of continuous growth in 
 pedagogical skill. 
 
 Such an aim is and will remain a great gain to our 
 educational resources; but it is not enough. The 
 educational development of the last twenty years has 
 brought to light ~at least two other needs which the 
 university can and should meet. It has become ap- 
 parent that the proper organization and wise, not to 
 say decent, administration of our city and district 
 school systems requires that the men who become 
 our principals and superintendents of schools should 
 possess far better preparation for the duties they have 
 to discharge than most of them have hitherto enjoyed. 
 
AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY 175 
 
 Most of our superintendents, and nearly all our prin- 
 cipals (of elementary not of secondary schools), are 
 men whose general education was obtained in our 
 common schools, and whose professional training, if 
 they have any, was obtained in the existing normal 
 schools. They are therefore men of limited general 
 and professional training, although they are usually 
 teachers of experience and earnest men. 
 
 tThe importance, the difficulty, and the range of 
 the duties of the principals and superintendents of 
 schools in our rapidly growing communities have 
 come to be recognized; and this recognition has been 
 followed by the demand for a higher general culture 
 and a deeper and more comprehensive professional 
 training than the elementary schools, supplemented 
 by the normal schools, could furnish. Moreover, 
 as it usually happens that the principal of a high 
 school and most of its teachers are college or univer- 
 sity bred men and women, while, often, the superintend- 
 ent of the school system, of which the given school 
 is a part, is not, the desirable cooperation between 
 the superintendent and the high school is too often 
 rendered difficult, and sometimes impossible. Hence 
 the demand has arisen that only men of university 
 education, of sufficient practical experience as teachers 
 and appropriate professional training, shall be eligible 
 to appointment as principals and superintendents. 
 This demand is by no means universal, yet it exists ; 
 
Ij6 THE STUDY OF EDUCATION 
 
 and it is happily becoming apparent that advance- 
 ment to the higher positions in the teaching profession 
 without the broader general culture and professional 
 training just referred to is becoming increasingly rarer 
 and more difficult. Successful and ambitious teachers 
 who look forward to promotion as principals and 
 superintendents of schools are, therefore, naturally 
 turning to the university for the training which they 
 need to enable them to compete successfully for all 
 the higher positions in the profession. 
 
 Again, it has become evident that a more intelligent 
 cooperation between the community and the teachers 
 than has hitherto been the rule is necessary to promote 
 sure and steady educational progress. An undiscrimi- 
 nating or exaggerated optimism, or cheerful indiffer- 
 ence, on the one hand, and a meddlesome interference, 
 on the other, have usually characterized the attitude 
 of our communities toward their schools in the past. 
 And the dangers of self-glorification or of ignorant ob- 
 structionism are by no means lessened in times of rapid 
 change, like the present. Sure and steady progress 
 and helpful cooperation require, on the part of the com- 
 munity, a more intelligent appreciation of the difficult 
 problems involved in education than we have hitherto 
 had. Such cooperation and such appreciation of edu- 
 cational endeavor by the general public can, like all 
 other social improvements, be best promoted by enlist- 
 ing the active interest of the leaders of the community. 
 
AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY 177 
 
 But, unfortunately, there is a great lack of leaders and 
 intelligent cooperators. There has been and there 
 still is too much indifference among the leaders of 
 the community with respect to its educational affairs, 
 and this indifference is due, as is usually the case with 
 indifference, to ignorance ; in this case, ignorance of 
 the scope and importance of education as a social force. 
 
 In my opinion, the university can do much to dispel 
 this ignorance and indifference. A considerable range 
 of social studies is now offered to university students, 
 whatever their future vocation may be, in order to 
 acquaint them with the organization and functions of 
 society, and to implant in them the permanent interest 
 in social affairs which such acquaintance naturally 
 arouses ; and this is as it should be. But among these 
 social studies education, one of the most important 
 functions of society, has been ignored. It is not to be 
 expected that a student who does not intend to teach 
 will study education to the same extent and in the same 
 detail as a future teacher. But the general principles 
 of education, and some of the important problems in- 
 volved in the organization and administration of city 
 and state educational systems, would be of interest to 
 him, and they are important to all liberally educated 
 men. Such men, at no distant day, usually become lead- 
 ers, or, at least, active participators in public affairs. 
 When the best men of the community become distinctly 
 conscious of the benefits of good education, and really 
 
178 THE STUDY OF EDUCATION 
 
 solicitous about securing good schools, it will be possible 
 to shut out self-seeking politicians and other self-seekers 
 from the school committees, and obstructive or meddle- 
 some interference with educational progress by stupid 
 or ignorant members of school committees will be rare. 
 
 From this point of view the recognition of education 
 as a suitable subject of university study for all students, 
 at least in its history and theory, and as a function of 
 society, seems to me of great importance to the educa- 
 tional interests of the United States L ; and at Harvard 
 University there has been a constant endeavor to 
 disseminate this recognition among the students ever 
 since the courses in education were established. Such 
 courses were established at Harvard University in 1891. 
 From what has already been said it is clear that the 
 aim from the outset has been broader than the prepara- 
 tion of the class-room teacher. The aim of the depart- 
 ment includes such preparation and emphasizes its 
 importance, but is by no means limited to it. 
 
 When the department was founded, nearly eight 
 years ago, only lour students elected the courses 
 offered. But the number of students has steadily in- 
 creased from year to year, until, at the present time 
 (1899), about one hundred and forty students, more 
 than half of them graduates, are enrolled in the several 
 courses in education. Every year some of the students 
 electing these courses come to the University expressly 
 to study education. Such students are university men 
 
AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY 1 79 
 
 in service as teachers, who have obtained a year's leave 
 of absence, or teachers in service in the vicinity of the 
 University, or teachers from various parts of the United 
 States who have resigned their positions for the sake of 
 a year's further study at the University, with a view 
 to personal growth and professional advancement. It 
 is gratifying to be able to state also that a few students 
 who do not intend to teach elect some of the courses in 
 education every year. Such men are interested in edu- 
 cation just as they are interested in government, politi- 
 cal economy, history, and the whole range of social 
 studies generally. 
 
 Explicitly stated, the general aim of the courses in 
 education at Harvard University is threefold, as follows : 
 
 1. To discuss education as an important function of 
 society as well as of the individual, and, hence, of inter- 
 est to all university students whether they intend to 
 become teachers or not. 
 
 2. To offer to university students who look forward 
 to teaching as their profession the necessary professional 
 training for their vocation, and to teachers already in 
 service professional inspiration and guidance. 
 
 3. To offer to university men who have already had 
 experience as teachers, and to all other teachers of suit- 
 able age and attainments, appropriate professional 
 training for future usefulness as principals and super- 
 intendents of schools. 
 
 The courses cover the history of education, an intro- 
 
180 THE STUDY OF EDUCATION 
 
 duction to educational theory, the organization and 
 management of public schools and academies and of 
 city school systems, practice teaching, methods of teach- 
 ing secondary-school subjects, and a Seminary, for the 
 most advanced students for the special study of current 
 educational problems. 
 
 Two of these courses are introductory and general ; 
 the remaining courses are professional in character. 
 The first two courses serve to acquaint the general 
 student, who does not intend to teach, but who is in- 
 terested in education as an important function of 
 society, with the history of education, with its prob- 
 lems, and with such generally accepted principles as 
 may serve to guide and clarify his further study of 
 the subject; at the same time they afford an appro- 
 priate introduction to the remaining courses which 
 are intended to provide the essential preliminary pro- 
 fessional training for those students who intend to 
 become teachers in high schools and academies, or 
 principals or superintendents of schools. 
 
 Through the courtesy of school officers and teachers 
 in the vicinity of the University many schools are 
 open for repeated inspection and prolonged study to 
 University students who are pursuing these profes- 
 sional courses. In particular, through arrangements 
 made with four neighboring cities, students have 
 special opportunities to teach for practice under direc- 
 tion. 
 
AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY l8l 
 
 The following brief descriptions indicate the gen- 
 eral nature of the courses offered : — 
 
 1. Introduction to Educational Theory. — Discussion 
 of Educational Principles. — Lectures, prescribed read- 
 ing, essays, and discussions. 
 
 The special aim of this course is to show that edu- 
 cation is a rationalized endeavor rather than a mere 
 routine, and to make a critical examination of gen- 
 erally accepted educational principles. 
 
 2. The. History of Educational Theories and Practices. 
 — Lectures, prescribed reading, and essays. 
 
 The special aim of this course is to enable the 
 student to become acquainted with the educational 
 aims and practices of the past, and with the most 
 important educational classics, thus giving him a 
 foundation for the criticism of present theories and 
 practices in the light of their historical evolution and, 
 incidentally, much general direction for the actual 
 work of teaching. 
 
 3. Organization and Management of Public Schools 
 and Academies and of City School Systems. — Courses 
 of study, supervision, and teaching. 
 
 The special aims of this course are: (1) to enable 
 all students to become familiar with and to under- 
 stand the organization and administration of schools 
 and school systems through direct observation and 
 comparative study; (2) to provide for young gradu- 
 ates and other students of suitable age and attainments 
 
1 82 THE STUDY OF EDUCATION 
 
 an opportunity to acquire the art of teaching through 
 study and practice ; and (3) to provide for more ad- 
 vanced students who have already had experience 
 as teachers special preparation for the work of princi- 
 pals and superintendents of schools. 
 
 The course is carried on in two sections in ac- 
 cordance with the attainments, previous experience, 
 and aims of the students. One section comprises 
 those students who have had no experience in teach- 
 ing. For the students of this section opportunities 
 to teach for practice have been secured in the four 
 neighboring cities, as mentioned above. Each stu- 
 dent is expected to teach not less than tivo hours per 
 week for half a year. The other section consists 
 of the more advanced students — usually experienced 
 graduates — who resort to the University for profes- 
 sional study in order to qualify themselves for more 
 efficient service as principals or superintendents of 
 schools. For the members of this section abundant 
 opportunity is provided for systematic comparative 
 study of schools, school systems, and teaching. 
 
 4. Methods of teaching Latin, Greek, English, Ger- 
 man, French, History, in Elementary and Secondary 
 Schools. 
 
 5. Methods of teaching Mathematics, Physics, Chem- 
 istry, Physical Geography, Botany and Zoology, Physi- 
 ology, in Elementary and Secondary Schools. — Lectures, 
 practical exercises, discussions, theses. 
 
AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY 1 83 
 
 The aim of Courses 4 and 5 is to acquaint the student 
 with the planning and the conducting of class work 
 under the conditions existing in public schools and 
 academies. The instruction is given, under the gen- 
 eral direction of the University Professor of Educa- 
 tion, 1 by college teachers and by persons engaged in 
 teaching in secondary schools. 
 
 6, Pedagogical Seminary. — Subject for the year : 
 Contemporary Problems in Education. — Lectures, 
 essays, discussions. 
 
 This course is intended for the most advanced 
 students only. Its special aim is to offer to experienced 
 teachers special opportunities for the investigation, 
 under direction, of selected contemporary problems in 
 education. Each student is required from time to 
 time to present the results of his investigation to the 
 entire Seminary for detailed criticism and discussion. 
 Much importance is attached to these reports and the 
 discussions based on them. 
 
 The courses named above are arranged in two 
 groups, — "For Undergraduates and Graduates," and 
 " Primarily for Graduates." In the first group are 
 placed the courses which are introductory in character, 
 and intended for non-professional and professional 
 
 1 Courses 4 and 5 will be withdrawn after 1898-99. The several 
 departments of the University have been asked to establish extended 
 courses in methods. One department, the department of the classics, 
 has already agreed to offer next year a course in "The Methods and 
 Equipment of a Teacher of Classics in Secondary Schools." 
 
1 84 THE STUDY OF EDUCATION 
 
 students alike. These are the first two courses de- 
 scribed above. Any undergraduate in either of the 
 two upper classes, who is interested in education, 
 is encouraged to take these two introductory courses ; 
 and since it usually happens that graduate students 
 and most teachers now in service have not studied 
 either the history or theory of education, such stu- 
 dents also are advised to take these courses. The 
 second group comprises all the remaining courses. 
 These are intended primarily for professional stu- 
 dents, i.e. for graduate students who intend to be- 
 come teachers, or principals, or superintendents of 
 schools. Two instructors conduct these courses ; one 
 has the rank of " Assistant Professor " and the other 
 has the rank of " Instructor." The assistant professor 
 is the senior teacher and head of the department. 
 
 No student can profitably attempt the work of all 
 these courses in a single year. In general, two, or, at 
 most, three of these courses are quite enough for 
 any student at any one time. One of the introductory 
 courses (i or 2), and one or two of the professional 
 courses are usually chosen by the best students. 
 
 It will be noticed that in the descriptions of the 
 courses reference is made to " lectures," "discussions," 
 " essays or theses," " reports," and "prescribed reading." 
 The terms "lectures," "discussions," "prescribed read- 
 ing," explain themselves. " Essays " and " reports " 
 may need a few words of explanation. Much written 
 
AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY 1 85 
 
 work is required of all the students, and this written 
 work takes the form of essays and reports on pre- 
 scribed reading or assigned topics. One or two details 
 of the management of these courses will show how 
 much importance is attached to the essays and 
 reports. 
 
 In the course in the History of Education, each 
 student is required, once a month, to submit an essay 
 of about three thousand words on some period of edu- 
 cational history, or on the work of some educational 
 reformer, ( that has been treated in the lectures or 
 assigned for special study by the instructor. Some of 
 these essays are reviewed by the instructor in the class- 
 room and may form the basis of class-room discussion 
 by the students. Examples of the subjects treated in 
 these essays are : " Education in Greece in the Time of 
 Pericles ; " " The Benedictine Age ; " " Vittorino da 
 Feltre;" "Richard Mulcaster;" "The Development 
 of Education for the People." 
 
 In the course in Educational Theory the required 
 essays are not so numerous ; they are intended to 
 require the students to clarify their minds on some 
 fundamental principles of education, and the essays 
 are subsequently made the basis of class-room dis- 
 cussion by instructor and students. Examples of 
 assigned subjects for the essays of this course are 
 "What should be the Scope and Character of Peda- 
 gogical Training for University Students ? " " Educa- 
 
1 86 THE STUDY OF EDUCATION 
 
 tion as a Function of Society ; " "A Discussion of 
 the Subjects in the School Course of Study with 
 Respect to {a) their Psychological Value, (&) their 
 Social Value ; " "A Plan for the Treatment of Some 
 School Subject for Several Lessons with Reference to 
 Aims and Methods." 
 
 It will be seen that the course in the Organization 
 and Management of Schools and Teaching constitutes 
 the centre of all the professional work. The written 
 work in this course consists of frequent short essays, 
 of weekly reports, throughout the year, on visits of 
 inspection to schools, at first detailed, then briefer, 
 and of an extended thesis on a city school system, 
 submitted at the end of the year. The short essays 
 are discussions of certain chapters of two well-known 
 books on teaching and school management, namely, 
 Fitch's " Lectures on Teaching," and Barnett's "Teach- 
 ing and Organization " ; critical summaries of papers 
 in the Educational Review (New York) on the Organ- 
 ization and Management of Schools, and discussions 
 of portions of the reports of the Committee of Ten 
 and the Committee of Fifteen on Secondary and Ele- 
 mentary School Studies respectively. The reports of 
 visits of inspection are discussed with the students in 
 the class-room by the instructor. Early in the year 
 — toward the end of the first month — the students 
 begin to visit schools; at first under the guidance of 
 an instructor, later independently. The dense popu- 
 
AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY 1 87 
 
 lation in the midst of which the University is situated 
 sustains a great number of schools, and our students 
 have thus far been courteously welcomed as visitors 
 in nearly all of them. This gives the students an 
 important and greatly prized opportunity to study 
 schools and school systems in detail. The reports 
 on this study are the reports of visits of inspection 
 referred to above. 
 
 Students in this course are permitted to teach for 
 practice in the schools of four cities in the vicinity 
 of the University by an arrangement with the teachers 
 and school authorities in these cities. 1 This practice 
 teaching is under the general direction of the head 
 of the Department of Education of the University, 
 and the special direction of the superintendents and 
 principals in the several cities. When a student be- 
 gins to teach, he teaches some one class continu- 
 ously, from two to six hours per week, for about 
 half a year; and he is entirely responsible for the 
 progress of the pupils in the class which he teaches. 
 His teaching is inspected and criticised by the teacher 
 in general charge of the class, and by the University 
 instructors, sometimes also by his fellow-students. 
 Since Harvard University is in no way connected 
 with the state or any city school system, this arrange- 
 
 1 The University admits to its courses, free of charge, as many teachers 
 from a city as there are students teaching in the schools of that city. Not 
 more than ten students may teach in any one city during the year. 
 
1 88 THE STUDY OF EDUCATION 
 
 ment has been made possible only through the courtesy 
 of the teachers and school authorities in our vicinity. 
 But the arrangement has now been in force for more 
 than two years, and there is every reason to believe 
 that it will continue. 
 
 The extended thesis referred to above is an impor- 
 tant piece of work on which much time and labor are 
 expended. The student begins it by making a compara- 
 tive study of the organization and administration of 
 at least two city school systems. 1 He provides him- 
 self with the printed documents pertaining to the 
 school systems he wishes to study, and, under the 
 guidance of the instructor, works out his own plan of 
 organization and administration. In the same way 
 the student works out a course of study. The final 
 result is a thesis consisting of one hundred and fifty 
 or more typewritten pages, in which special attention 
 is given either to the course of study or to a detailed 
 discussion of organization and management. In the 
 first case the student treats particularly his own 
 specialty, for which all the details of the course of 
 study, the teaching resources, and the methods of 
 teaching must be fully considered. In the second case 
 the student must develop his own plan for the organi- 
 zation and administration of a school system in detail. 
 
 1 It must be remembered that no two American cities have the same 
 school system ; so that the school systems in neighboring cities differ 
 from each other in countless ways. 
 
AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY 1 89 
 
 The most advanced, i.e. the most specialized, work is 
 done in the "Seminary" (Course 6), and this course is 
 intended only for the most advanced students. The 
 students are chiefly principals or teachers of second- 
 ary schools, and city superintendents of schools in the 
 vicinity of the University, or students of the same class 
 who are on leave of absence from their schools, or who 
 have resigned their positions for the sake of further 
 study. At the outset a general survey of present 
 problems in education is undertaken. Such problems 
 include questions pertaining to the Improvement of 
 the School Course of Study, Educational Values, City 
 and District Organization and Management of Schools 
 and School Systems, Financial Support of the Public 
 Schools, the Proper Equipment for Effective Work, and 
 the Methods of Teaching. Soon after the Seminary 
 is organized, each member selects some topic or topics 
 for special study, and, later, presents the results of this 
 study to the Seminary in the form of at least one 
 essay during each half-year. As soon as preliminary 
 or more detailed reports on their special topics are 
 ready, the students present these reports to the Semi- 
 nary in the form of essays. These essays usually 
 occupy about an hour in the reading, and are then 
 discussed by the members of the Seminary under 
 the guidance of the instructor. As might be ex- 
 pected, these essays often have more than a tem- 
 porary value, and some of them have been published 
 
190 THE STUDY OF EDUCATION 
 
 in the Educational Review, and other leading edu- 
 cational periodicals. In addition to the work in his 
 special topic, each member of the Seminary is re- 
 quired, during the year, to submit to the instructor 
 a critical discussion of the educational doctrines of 
 one of the following educational reformers : Comenius, 
 Rousseau, Pestalozzi, Froebel, Herbart; and to re- 
 port once a month on the bibliography of that part of the 
 field of education in which he is especially interested. 
 
 This chapter has referred directly only to the 
 courses in Education and Teaching at Harvard Uni- 
 versity. But mention must also be made of the fact 
 that all of the Harvard courses in education are acces- 
 sible to members of Radcliffe College, under suitable 
 restrictions as to age and attainments. That is to say, 
 Courses i and 2 are repeated at Radcliffe College, and 
 permission has been granted to properly qualified Rad- 
 cliffe students to attend Courses 3, 4, 5, and 6 at 
 the University. Inasmuch as a large number of 
 American college women become teachers, the wis- 
 dom of this arrangement is apparent. 
 
 In this chapter I have endeavored to point out 
 briefly the importance of a knowledge of the princi- 
 ples of education to all thinking persons, and to all 
 college students in particular, whether they are to be 
 teachers or not. And in the description of what 
 the courses in education at Harvard University 
 are designed to accomplish for teachers already in 
 
AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY 191 
 
 service, and for the professional and non-professional 
 students still in college, I have sought to remove pos- 
 sible misconceptions in the minds of those to whom 
 such courses are comparatively new, and to give 
 some notion of their real aim. It will not be neces- 
 sary in the light of what has gone before to explain 
 that such courses do not exist as a sort of dispensary 
 of patent "methods," nor to proclaim a "universally 
 valid science of education" ; but to furnish professional 
 guidance to teachers already in service, and to help 
 young graduates to enter upon their profession as 
 teachers with a more definite conception of the aims 
 and the problems of education than has hitherto been 
 the case. 
 
VIII 
 
 THE PERMANENT INFLUENCE 
 OF COMENIUS 
 
VIII 
 
 THE PERMANENT INFLUENCE 
 OF COMENIUS 
 
 John Amos Comenius lived in the turbulent times 
 that followed the Reformation. The frightful Thirty 
 Years' War raged during the greater part of his 
 maturity. He not only witnessed the wretchedness 
 of other men, but was himself, as the Bishop of the 
 Moravian Brethren, one of the greatest sufferers be- 
 cause of the incessant warfare and persecutions. The 
 period of his activity was, therefore, unfavorable to a 
 lasting acceptance of the reforms which he inaugu- 
 rated. After his death his great services to education 
 were neglected, and a century and a half elapsed be- 
 fore the principles which he had elaborated with 
 such painstaking care and had advocated so ardently 
 were rediscovered. Later reformers, until about the 
 middle of the present century, rarely mention Come- 
 nius; and, when they do, the reference is not to his 
 greatest work. 
 
 The object of this paper is to show that the cur- 
 riculum and the methods Comenius strove to establish 
 
 i95 
 
196 THE PERMANENT INFLUENCE 
 
 in the elementary schools of the seventeenth century 
 are substantially the curriculum and the methods 
 aimed at in the modern elementary school in Ger- 
 many, 1 and even more in this country; and that he 
 is also to be credited with seeking to found a school 
 system in which the lower courses should meet the 
 higher " all along the upper line " ; and with having 
 discerned that his reforms, if adopted, would, doubt- 
 less, evolve the free secular school. 
 
 The first and most important of the educational 
 writings of Comenius is his " Great Didactic " {Didactica 
 Magna)? This work contains the systematic presen- 
 tation of his principles and method. His other writings 
 are either supplementary to what is there presented, 
 or are applications of it in the form of text-books. 
 Comenius has expressed the main purpose of all his 
 labors for education in the brief invocation prefixed 
 
 1 " It is indisputable that the ' Great Didactic ' of Comenius, based on 
 natural laws, carefully elaborated in its details, and intended for the most 
 wide-spread dissemination, was really something new ; that indeed the 
 elementary school ( Volksschule), as evolved only in the nineteenth century, 
 is therein foreseen and described." — cli. of Character! stik der Grossen 
 Unterrichtslehre des Comenius, von Julius Beeger, Leipzig: vol. iii. of 
 Richter's Padagogische Bibliothek. See also Comenii Didactica Magna 
 in Riicksicht auf die Volksschule, von Hermann Hoffmeister, Berlin. 
 
 2 " The Didactic Art means the Art of Teaching. " — Didactica 
 Magna, "To the Reader," § 1. Quotations are from the German transla- 
 tion of the " Great Didactic," by Julius Beeger, and from the Amsterdam 
 edition of 1657, loaned to the writer from the library at Washington 
 through the courtesy of Hon. William T. Harris, Commissioner of Educa- 
 tion. 
 
OF COMENIUS 197 
 
 to his "Great Didactic." "May the guiding star and 
 rudder of our Didactic be this : to search out and dis- 
 cover a rule in accordance with which the teachers 
 teach less, but the learners learn more ; the schools 
 contain less noise and confusion, less aversion and 
 vapid employment, but more of leisure of enjoyment 
 and of solid progress; the Christian state suffer less 
 from an all-pervading gloom, from discord and de- 
 rangement, but find more order, light, peace, and 
 tranquillity." Compressed into these few sentences 
 Comenius announces his dissatisfaction with the cur- 
 riculum and the teaching in existing schools, and his 
 intention to improve them. He deplores the distress 
 of the people, due to their ignorance and the per- 
 secutions of one sect by another or of one class by 
 another, and he desires to remove these evils, as the 
 sequel shows, by education. 
 
 The course of thought in the " Great Didactic," so far 
 as I am here concerned with it, is as follows. Begin- 
 ning with the place of man in the universe as the last, 
 the most complete, and the most excellent of living 
 creatures, and with the assertion that man's final aim 
 lies beyond this life, 1 and passing thence to the func- 
 tion of this life as a preparation for the life hereafter, 2 
 Comenius shows that the three stages of man's prep- 
 aration for eternity, viz. knowledge of himself and 
 his environment, power over himself and external 
 
 1 Chapters i. and ii. 2 Chapter iii. 
 
198 THE PERMANENT INFLUENCE 
 
 nature (Virtue), and religious convictions (Piety), are 
 to be attained only through education. 1 Although 
 the capacity for these three, knowledge, virtue, and 
 piety, is innate, 2 man, to become man through this 
 capacity, must be educated. 3 Moreover, this training 
 is most easily effected in the early years of life, and 
 can really proceed best during this time only. 4 Now, 
 if the young are to be educated, schools are necessary, 
 and, hence, all the children of both sexes must be 
 sent to school. 5 " Not simply the children of quality 
 or of the rich, but all, rich and poor, boys and girls, 
 noble and commoner, in large and small cities, in 
 towns and villages, are to be brought to school." It 
 should be noted that Comenius insists upon the same 
 educational opportunities for girls as for boys. " Why, 
 indeed, should the female sex be excluded from 
 the study of wisdom (whether in the Latin tongue 
 or in German translations) ? For they are created 
 equally in the image of God, equally partakers of 
 Grace and of the future kingdom, equally endowed 
 with an active, recipient spirit (often even more highly 
 endowed than our own sex) . . . Why, then, should 
 we admit them to the ABC, and afterward refuse 
 them access to Books?" 6 
 
 Here, for the first time in the history of the world, 
 the education of human beings for manhood and 
 
 1 Chapter iv. 8 Chapter vi. 5 Chapters viii. and ix. 
 
 2 Chapter v. 4 Chapter vii. 6 Chapter ix. 
 
OF COMENIUS 199 
 
 womanhood, for usefulness and happiness rather 
 than for rank or station, is urged. The labors of 
 Comenius have been described as the effort to bring 
 humanity, in all its phases, to an adequate conscious- 
 ness of itself, its worth and destiny, and to lead men 
 to eternal happiness in accordance with the will of 
 God. It is no wonder that Comenius was fired by 
 such an ideal to a life of arduous and protracted labor. 
 An ideal all the more powerful at a time when there 
 was no peace in Christendom, and happiness seemed 
 to have left the earth. We can have no higher ideal 
 to-day. 'the oppression and cruelty of past centuries 
 are gone; constitutional government and religious tol- 
 erance are established in their stead. Yet the per- 
 manent improvement and happiness of the race is 
 still, as it ever must be, the end of all of our striving. 
 We are still carrying forward the work of civilization. 
 The mightiest force in this work is the education of 
 the young. " The first man who demanded training 
 for every man or woman because he or she was a human 
 being must always be thought of with respect and 
 gratitude by all who care either for science or reli- 
 gion." 1 This reform is still in progress. It is not, 
 however, the only one of the great Bohemian's re- 
 forms which we are now urging with earnestness, and 
 for the most part, without the knowledge that they 
 were advocated by him so long ago. 
 
 1 R. H. Quick, " Educational Reformers," p. 148. 
 
200 THE PERMANENT INFLUENCE 
 
 Comenius not only insisted upon the establishment 
 of schools everywhere, and that all should attend them 
 whether destined for the secondary school or not, but 
 he demanded a reform in the subject-matter, and in 
 the method of instruction. Instruction in the schools 
 must be comprehensive. " It must be shown that all 
 pupils are to learn everything." This must not be 
 understood to mean the complete and thorough mas- 
 tery of all arts and all knowledge (Kenntniss aller 
 Wissenschaften und Kiinste) by every one. This is 
 neither useful in itself, nor is it possible (chapter x.). 
 But the elements of all arts and sciences are to be 
 taught, so far as they fall within the capacity of the 
 pupils' unfolding powers, at every stage, so that 
 " when they are sent into the world, they appear 
 not merely as observers, but as participators in its 
 affairs." 
 
 The elementary school is one of the fruits of the 
 Reformation. It is only natural, therefore, that its 
 first function should have been to guard and promote 
 the interests of^ the new faith. Accordingly, its cur- 
 riculum was, for a long time, narrow, and almost 
 exclusively religious, — the Bible, the catechism, the 
 hymn book. Reading and writing in the vernacular 
 were introduced into the elementary-school curriculum 
 of the Reformers as a preparation for and an instru- 
 ment of religious instruction. This condition of affairs 
 was quite reversed by Comenius. Instruction in the 
 
OF COMENIUS 201 
 
 mother-tongue was no longer to be a subsidiary aim. 
 Instead of merely encouraging instruction in the 
 mother-tongue as an aid in teaching the Bible, the 
 catechism, and the psalm book, Comenius elevated 
 it into the first place in the curriculum. He did 
 this because he believed it best adapted to promote 
 the intellectual and moral development of men ; be- 
 cause he saw it was the best means of getting use- 
 ful knowledge and a knowledge of nature through 
 books and teachers, and because it offered the readiest 
 means of promoting the learner's own activity. Thus 
 the mother-tongue was to serve, first of all, as the 
 universal instrument of education; and, secondly, as 
 the means of religious and sectarian training. This 
 was a great step forward. Other improvements fol- 
 lowed immediately. 
 
 Comenius desired to introduce into the course of 
 study computing, weighing, and measuring; singing, 
 at first secular (popular), then sacred songs ; moral 
 instruction, with examples adapted to the age of the 
 pupils; the essentials of economics and politics, in 
 their elements, for guidance in the most important 
 state and business affairs; an outline of general his- 
 tory; the most important facts and principles in 
 geography and astronomy (Weltkunde); and, finally, 
 a general knowledge of trades and the mechanic arts. 1 
 Think of such a curriculum planned more than two 
 
 1 Chapter xxix., " The Idea of the Vernacular (Elementary) School." 
 
202 THE PERMANENT INFLUENCE 
 
 hundred years ago ! The school is to train the pupil 
 in science and the arts, to refine and perfect his speech, 
 to assist him in discovering and developing his powers 
 of body and mind, and to shape and dignify his char- 
 acter. What else have we moderns in mind when 
 we talk about "enriching" the curriculum? 
 
 But Comenius saw the necessity of other reforms. 
 Not only are schools, accessible to all, to be estab- 
 lished everywhere; not only is the curriculum to be 
 rich and adapted to the differing needs and capacities 
 of all, but a system is to be impressed upon the 
 schools, and a method of teaching is to be employed 
 through which the schools cannot fail to accomplish 
 their mission. This system and method must consider 
 both the learner and the subject-matter of instruction, 
 and is to be universally applicable because it is in 
 harmony with nature. "Art can do nothing but 
 imitate Nature." This principle is discussed and 
 exemplified in detail in chapters xiii. to xix. 
 
 Briefly stated, Comenius insisted upon experience 
 as the necessary basis of all real knowledge; and, in 
 particular, he insisted upon the use of the senses in 
 acquisition, whenever they could be directly employed. 
 In one place he speaks of "The golden rule" for the 
 teacher : " Everything, whenever possible, should be 
 presented to the senses, namely, the visible to sight, 
 the audible to hearing, odors to the sense of smell, 
 what is to be tasted to the sense of taste, and what can 
 
OF COMENIUS 203 
 
 be touched to the sense of touch; and if anything 
 can be seized by several senses at once, let it be pre- 
 sented to them all simultaneously, in accordance with 
 the directions given in chapter xvii., principle 8." 
 The principle referred to deals with the necessary 
 use of the senses in acquisition, and especially with 
 the association of the knowledge gained through one 
 sense with what is acquired through the others. The 
 order of acquisition is from the concrete to the ab- 
 stract, from thing to name and symbol, from facts to 
 principles ( and rules. This seems commonplace to us 
 now, in theory, but it was not so when Comenius 
 urged — as Mulcaster and Ratke had done before 
 him — its paramount importance as a method of in- 
 struction " according to nature." 1 
 
 There is an important result of the method advocated 
 by Comenius which must be referred to here. That 
 method "according to nature" led him to use an 
 illustrated school-book for the simultaneous acquisition 
 of Realien and of language. From its first appear- 
 ance, this book — the Orbis P ictus — was eagerly 
 seized, immediately translated into other languages, 
 and employed in many different countries. One who 
 compares the beautifully illustrated school-books of to- 
 
 1 On account of this doctrine, and because he insisted on the study of 
 Realien (natural science and the useful arts), i.e. upon relating instruction 
 to life, instead of following his predecessors in giving to Latin almost the 
 whole of the time and attention of the school, Comenius has been called 
 the leader of the " Realists." 
 
204 THE PERMANENT INFLUENCE 
 
 day with the crudeness of the Orbis Pictus will doubt- 
 less be struck by the great contrast between them. 
 But, however crude this book was, here was the first 
 school-book for children that appealed to their senses 
 in the agreeable way peculiar to illustrated books ; and 
 the evolution of the illustrated school-book dates from 
 the Orbis Pictus. To Comenius, then, generations of 
 children have been indebted and will continue to be 
 indebted for the idea of the illustrated text-books 
 that interest and please by their suggestiveness and 
 beauty. 
 
 Comenius urged still another important reform in 
 the matter and method of teaching, the wisdom of 
 which we are just learning to appreciate. This was 
 the correlation and coordination of the different sub- 
 jects in the curriculum throughout the pupil's entire 
 career, and insistence on a due regard for individual 
 capacities and tastes. "The studies of a lifetime 
 must be so ordered that they form a single whole, in 
 which everything has sprung from a single root, 
 everything has its appropriate place. Everything 
 that is presented must be so fastened with reasons 
 that there is no easy chance either for doubt or for- 
 getfulness." (Chapter xvii., § 35.) 
 
 "And can we hope that the branches of wisdom 
 can be torn asunder with safety to their life, that is, 
 to truth ? Can one be a Natural Philosopher who is 
 not also a Metaphysician ? Or an Ethical Thinker 
 
OF COMENIUS 205 
 
 who does not know something of Physical Science ? 
 Or a Logician who has no knowledge of real mat- 
 ters? Or a Theologian, a Jurisconsult, or a Physi- 
 cian, who is not a Philosopher? Or an Orator or a 
 Poet who is not all these at once? He deprives him- 
 self of light, of hand, and of regulation who pushes 
 away from him any shred of the knowable." 1 
 
 But in this comprehensive scheme account was 
 also to be taken of individual tastes and capacities. 
 "The attempt to compel Nature into a course to 
 which she is not inclined is to quarrel with Nature, 
 and is fruitless striving. ... Since the teacher is 
 the servant, not the master or the reconstructor of 
 Nature, let him not drive forcibly when he sees the 
 child attempting that for which he has no skill. . . . 
 Let every one, unhindered, proceed with that to which, 
 in accordance with the will of Heaven, his natural 
 inclination attracts him, and he will later be enabled 
 to serve God and humanity." (Chapter xix., problem 
 8, § 54.) 
 
 The school, with its "enriched" curriculum and its 
 improved method of teaching, is to serve the purpose of 
 fitting pupils for secondary and higher education, be- 
 cause the higher courses are merely to extend and 
 deepen the instruction begun in the lower. After stat- 
 ing that his school system (chapter xxvii., § 3) is to 
 
 1 Quoted in " Educational Reformers," by Quick, from the Ddineatio, in 
 Masson's " Life of Milton." 
 
206 THE PERMANENT INFLUENCE 
 
 consist of, i. The Maternal School (The Home), to the 
 seventh year ; 2. The Vernacular (Elementary) School, 
 seventh to thirteen year ; 3. The Latin School (Gymna- 
 sium), thirteenth to nineteenth year ; 4. The Academy 
 (University) and Travel, nineteenth to twenty-fifth year 
 — Comenius says: "Although these are different 
 schools, yet I do not wish them to differ in. the subject- 
 matter of instruction, but the same things are to be 
 presented in a different manner ; namely, everything 
 that can help to develop man into man, Christian into 
 Christian, Scholar into Scholar, conformably to the age 
 and previous acquisition of the pupils, and ' to their 
 preparation for what is to follow." In short, we have 
 here not merely a school, but a school system, whose aim 
 was the education of man for humanity, and whose 
 method is the method of nature — a course of study 
 adapted to the needs of all students, whether destined 
 for the university or not. That is to say, the element- 
 ary and the higher courses meet where they should 
 meet, "all along the upper line," as was recently 
 urged. 1 Reforms in education, as in other human 
 affairs, come slowly by evolution, more rapidly, though 
 sometimes disastrously, by revolution. This particu- 
 
 1 "The Relation of Grammar and High-School Education to Colle- 
 giate," by Frank A. Hill — a paper read at the New England Association 
 of Colleges and Preparatory Schools, October, 1891. As is well known, 
 this meeting of the secondary and higher education is already approxi- 
 mately realized in several of the Middle and Western States. 
 
OF COMENIUS 207 
 
 lar reform is progressing slowly, but surely, by evo- 
 lution. 
 
 To sum up, Comenius had already attained, in the 
 seventeenth century, the conception of the modern 
 elementary school, because he insisted upon : — 
 
 I. The equal education of both sexes, and of all 
 classes of persons, through the universal establishment 
 of schools, accessible to all. 
 
 II. The improvement of the curriculum, by elevating 
 the study of the mother-tongue to the first place, by 
 introducing the study of history, geography, natural 
 science, ' training in business and the mechanic arts 
 (Unterweisung in den menschlichen Berufsarten), the 
 elements of economics and civics, and moral training. 
 
 III. A method of teaching "according to nature," 
 i.e. the constant use of the senses in acquisition (per- 
 ception), and the attempt to adapt instruction to the 
 individual needs, tastes, and capacities of the pupils. 
 
 Further, in insisting that all classes and both sexes 
 should attend the elementary school whether destined 
 for higher courses or not, i.e. in planning his school 
 system, Comenius sought to realize a scheme by which 
 the lower courses should meet the higher, without any 
 break, from the primary school to' the university. 
 Finally, in his appeals to all men of rank and station in 
 behalf of education, and in his repeated insistence upon 
 schools for all, Comenius shows that he regarded edu- 
 cation as a function of the State, untrammelled by 
 
208 THE PERMANENT INFLUENCE 
 
 sectarian influences, and so foreshadowed the free 
 secular school. 1 
 
 There is a tradition that Comenius, while yet in the 
 full vigor of his maturity, was invited to come to 
 America, and become the president of Harvard College. 
 
 In Cotton Mather's " History of Harvard College," 
 in the Magnalia, book iv., p. 127 (London, 1702), we 
 find : " Mr. Henry Dunster continued the President 
 of Harvard College until his unhappy Entanglement in 
 the Snares of Anabaptism ; filled the Overseers with 
 uneasie Fears. . . . Which Uneasiness was at length so 
 signified unto him, that on October 24, 1654, he pre- 
 sented unto the Overseers an Instrument under his 
 Hands; wherein he Resigned his Presidentship, and 
 they accepted his Resignation. That brave Old Man 
 Johannes Amos Comenius the Fame of whose Worth 
 hath been trumpetted as far as more than Three Lan- 
 guages (whereof every one is Endebted unto his Janua) 
 could carry it, was indeed agreed with all by our Mr. 
 Winthrop in his Travels through the Low Countries, to 
 come over into New England and Illuminate this 
 Colledge and country, in the Quality of a President, 
 which was now become vacant. But the solicitations of 
 the Swedish Ambassador diverting him another way, 
 that Incomparable Moravian became not an American." 
 
 1 See Herman Hoffmeister, Comenii Didactica Magna in Rucksicht 
 auf die Volksschule, p. 19, where reference is also made to Seyffarth, " Co- 
 menius," p. 66. 
 
OF COMENIUS 209 
 
 A diligent search among the archives of Harvard 
 University has failed to confirm this tradition. There 
 are also reasons for doubting Cotton Mather's state- 
 ment quite apart from the absence of any existing 
 record of the alleged invitation to Comenius. These 
 reasons have been well stated by Mr. Will S. Monroe 
 in the Educational Review for November, 1896, in 
 an article entitled "Was Comenius called to Har- 
 vard?" 
 
 Though Comenius himself did not come to America, 
 his text-books, especially the Janua, did come. They 
 seem to have been used as text-books here in Massa- 
 chusetts ; perhaps in Harvard College itself, more 
 probably in the Boston Latin School. If Mather's 
 report were indeed true, and if " our Mr. Winthrop " 
 had prevailed on Comenius to accept the invitation 
 to become president of Harvard College, who can 
 doubt that, in this freer air, his reforms would have 
 taken root and flourished during his lifetime; and 
 that some of the improvements we are now so ear- 
 nestly seeking to introduce into our schools would 
 have been adopted many years ago. 1 
 
 1 " The writer has before him a copy of the Gate of Languages 
 (Janua) printed in London, 1670. Fifty years after its publication it was 
 the property of the writer's great-grandfather, a graduate of Harvard 
 College of the class of 1724. Following the family line it belonged in 
 1 81 3 to one of the writer's uncles, who graduated from Phillips Academy 
 at Exeter, in that year, and went out of Harvard a member of the class of 
 j8i8. It seems to have been a text-book in the College, and there are 
 P 
 
2IO THE PERMANENT INFLUENCE 
 
 Comenius was born in Moravia in 1592. He died 
 in Amsterdam in 1671. The key-note of his life and 
 
 other worn and stained copies' in the library." — From "Boston as an Edu- 
 cational Centre," by Arthur Gilman, a beautifully illustrated and excellent 
 article in the Supplement to the Christian Union, July 4, 1891. 
 
 Besides other text-books of Comenius, there are four copies of the Janua 
 in the Harvard College library. One of these, a Latin-Greek edition, 
 printed in Amsterdam in 1649, has on the fly-leaf the following suggestive 
 legend : " Davenport, Sr. these are to entreat you to step up to Swan's 
 Study and drink a glass of ale. So I rest yours to serve, Jno. Phillips." 
 From the Quinquennial Catalogue it appears that John Phillips was a 
 member of the class of 1735, John Davenport was a tutor from 1728 to 
 1732, and Josiah Swan was a member of the class of 1733. If these are 
 the worthies named on the fly-leaf it looks as if the freshman was induced 
 to ask the tutor to step up to the junior's study for liquid refreshments. 
 Those must have been happy times ! 
 
 Two Latin-English editions of the Janua, London, 1673, and London, 
 1650, bear the marks of much service; and the latter has on the fly-leaves 
 many blotches of yellowish and reddish paint, besides ink drawings and 
 scribblings in boyish scrawl. The former also has some boyish scribbling 
 on the title-page, and on a fly-leaf at the back, in a mature hand, " This 
 book belonged to Middlecote Cooke, the Gr. Son of the immortal Elisha 
 Cooke, and son of Elisha Cooke, a family that guided Mass. for 80 years 
 by their virtue & patriotism. One of the best of books in itself con- 
 sidered." 
 
 The three Cookes are all graduates of Harvard College. They are 
 also entered (doubtfully) in the list of graduates of the Boston Latin 
 School. 
 
 The other edition is Latin-Greek-French, printed at Amsterdam in 1643. 
 
 In the absence of definite records, for which diligent search has been 
 made, the appearance of these books, two of them especially, would indi- 
 cate that they were used by boys somewhat younger than college 
 boys. On the other hand, pupils were ready for college rather early in 
 those days, and it may be that these copies of the Janua were decorated 
 by Harvard boys while in college. 
 
OF COMENIUS 211 
 
 labors is found in his own words : " I thank God that 
 I have all my life been a man of aspirations . . . 
 for the longing after good, however it springs up in 
 the heart, is always a rill flowing from the fountain 
 of all good, from God." 
 
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