.0^ V ,<^^ i^%. l\ ' <^-^ ■\^ "^ v^ x^^ V V ■i^'- ■^\^0.' ,^^ % $ ■<: O ■\'' vX^' .. ^% ■?■>_ >J c ■^o o'< >^' v^-^ ■^=t: ^^■^ 1 . > A> -z^. ■•>"#' > ^o .^^ .$^ ^. '^O .'J N " N» .O^ " ^ r \.V^ ' ^ " a^ ^'^ -xX O 0^ O '^.. *V. .^'^ s <0 <- ' o <. X ?:^ -n^. .^■^ V' ^-'- '^ 'J N ^^ .-^^ ?5 ^^^ ■S ^> ;V-.."'-^ '") Cl A-^' t)^ » > • " ; '^c X' . ^ ' . ' // ^ ■^ >.^ ^x. * -#■" ^^ <^ -s^ / T. , - U f \ . ^ -? \ ■* v^ .^^ c "^ '' « r<. ~ .^^ SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION BY GEORGE HERBERT BETTS, Ph.D. PROFESSOR OF PSYCHOLOGY IN CORNELL COLLEGE, IOWA NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1912 Cop3'right, 1912, by CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS fe,GI.Aa ^ it between the dividual and socicty have obtained at dii- individuai and ferent times. The relative importance of one or the other has been emphasized as the socialistic or the individualistic view has happened to prevail in the thought of the time. The individualistic concept holds that the individual is the ultimate and all-important factor in the relationship, ^jjg His interests are supreme, and his rights " individual- are higher than the rights of society. Soci- istic concep . ^^^ -^ -^^^ ^^ "aggregation of individuals," with the emphasis on individuals. There is no such thing as common good when it comes into conflict with in- dividual liberty. Such a society lacks a unifying bond or organizing element to hold it together, and hence cannot endure. Historically the individualistic concept has been of great service in emphasizing and establishing the dignity and worth of individual personality. But, carried to its logical outcome, this concept gives us as its sequel a group of victorious and blood-crazed French Revolution- ists turning and rending each other when they have tri- umphed over their foe. It is impossible permanently to base a society on an individualistic concept, for the out- come of such a relationship of the individual and society can only be anarchy and dissolution. The socialistic'^ concept in its most extreme form leads to the view that "man is a mere abstraction, and there is nothing real but humanity." If a conflict should occur ^The term "socialistic" is here used as the opposite of "individualis- tic," and with no other meaning. THE INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIETY 7 between the immediate interests of the individual and so- ciety, the individual must give way. The individual does / ciety demands as has been shown, the individual is to be reconstruction defined in terms of his social functioning, of expenence. i • i «. this must be understood with reference to a progressive society. But this is precisely what the definition does not provide for. Such a definition implies the possibility of training a set of capacities, powers, or habits so that they will fit the individual into the social situation, where he is to be left, his education completed and himself ^'adjusted" to living in the society of which he forms a part. The trouble with such a conception is that society would need to be entirely static in order for this adjustment to last. But the world moves. And such an individual would no sooner have become adjusted than a progressive society would move away from him, and he would be left stranded. Such a concept might' be adequate for the old Chinese education in a static so- ciety or for Plato's ideal state where, when things were once adjusted, they were to remain so forever; but it is unsuited to any progressive society. A definition of education which finds the aim contained in the social process also has the great advantage of an AIM IN EDUCATION 47 immediate as opposed to a remote aim. For the aim be- comes but the successful carrying out of the process as a CompeiUng process. The question is not whether an in- power of an dividual has this day taken an infinitesimal immediate aim. ^^^^ tow2.xd a goal which is not Only ill- defined but indefinitely distant, but whether he has suc- cessfully carried out to-day's part of the life-process, whether he has had real experience with some of the act- ual values of life. The educational ideal has often lost in compelling power through the vagueness and remote- ness referred to. A hard task becomes but little more in- viting to a boy upon his being told that he will need the power to be secured through its mastery when he has grown to manhood. But if he can be shown that this task is related to his own immediate life-process, to what appeals to him as worth while in his present experience, then a powerful motive has been put into his life. The aim is now not something supernumerary and beyond the possibility of realization, something to awaken, as- piration, but something definite to do here and now. And this is far more fruitful. The standpoint has also the further advantage of mak- ing end and means but the two aspects of a common . , . process, and does away with the misunder- The social aim . . , . . of education Standings concerning their right relations relates means which has SO often divorced them. Educa- . to ends. • i i - . , . . tion thus becomes the process of socializing the individual. It makes his aim to be participation in a social process which is constantly in the course of re- construction, and such participation as shall result in progress both for himself and society. This means that his own experience must be in a constant state of recon- struction. Further, the reconstruction must be such as 48 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION will make him growingly conscious of social values, and give him increasing control over the processes of his own experience. This, in effect, defines education as a process going on within the individual. As a product, education can be defined in terms of the amount of control which the individual has over his own experience. XJK The separation of the educational aim from the social process has its counterpart in other social institutions as well as in the school. The misconception as iiSfuftionai* ^^ ^^"^ ^^^^ ^^^ attach to any one institu- from social aim tion of socicty, therefore, but rather marks the schooL^ *° ^ Certain stage in social evolution. Every social institution at the time of its origin grows immediately out of the needs of the society which gives it birth. This is but equivalent to saying that it is created for the purpose of carrying out a conscious social aim. As society becomes more and more complex, greater demands are placed on the institution. The in- stitution itself must therefore become more complex, and there grows up within the institution a specialized group of individuals whose function it is to direct and carry on the work of the institution. Here ism tendT^ ' "^^ ^^^ ^^^ Origins of the professions and of to divorce profcssionaUsm. And a professional class, from socSty. busied with the special work of an institu- tion, are always in danger of dropping out of touch with the wider social aim. If this occurs, they come to look upon the institution as an end in itself and forget that it is but a part of a greater process, to whose needs it is its function to minister. As the breach be- tween the institution and society widens, the aim of the institution comes more and more to be fixed by the pro- fessional class who direct it, and less and less by the social AIM IN EDUCATION 49 process. It is at this stage that an aim is likely to emerge which is formulated from without the process, and hence not definable in its terms, as is illustrated in the defini- tions of education just discussed. There is abundant evidence for this statement in the history of the church, the state, the school, vocations, and even the home! It is this tendency of institutions to separate themselves from the actual social process which gives rise to the necessity for revolutions, again to place the institution in touch with the life and experience of the society of which it forms a part. Education must, therefore, in all progressive societies be in a constant state of reconstruction. It must keep pace with the social ideal and, accurately tionai aim must interpreting this ideal, must make this its ^V^^*d^*^^ aim. Instead of setting up an aim of its own in such abstract terms as ^'culture," "complete Hving," "development of powers,'' etc., edu- cation must identify itself with the most vital concepts and movements of society. It must realize that there- is no culture that does not relate itself to social participa- tion; that complete living is realized only in the largest possible contribution to the common good; that powers not employed in worthy social activities are as levers without fulcrums; that the only way to educate an indi- dividual is to socialize him. Coming back to the original questions stated at the beginning of the chapter as constituting our problem, Summary of ^^^Y ^^Y ^^^ ^^ answered in brief as fol- answers to our lows : The general nature of aim consists in ques ons. ^j^^ formulation of the best elements of a present process as a goal for future activities. Experi- ence is the only test of values, and that which has stood 50 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION the test of experience becomes the end of future endeavor. The educational aim originates in the requirements of the social process and leads the individual into helpful and efficient experience as a part of this process. Educa- tion can have no meaning except as it represents the highest ideals of society for the individual acting his part faithfully in the concrete affairs of his day. Any other definition of education leaves it without point of contact with experience, and hence without reality. The function of the educational aim is to guide in the selection of the means for realizing the social aim of which Necessity for ^^^ educational aim is a part; that is, in analysis of the determining the subject-matter, method, and socia process, organization of education. For these, the constituent elements of the school, are the instruments devised by society for the carrying out of its aim through education. And only as the means are adequate can the end be attained. The present aim of education is to be formulated only by an analysis and interpretation of the social process. The next section of our discussion will be devoted to an attempt at such an analysis and interpre- tation. REFERENCES Bagley, Educational Values; also, The Educative Process, ch. Ill; Butler, The Meatting of Education; Cubberly, Changing Conceptions of Education; Dewey, Ethical Principles Underlying Education; Eliot, Education for Efficiency; Emerson, Essay on Education; Howerth, Social Aim in Education; Monroe, Text- hook in the History of Education; O'Shea, Education as Adjust- ment ^ Part II; Plato, Republic, Book VII; ^xidiger. Principles of Education, chs. III-V; Spencer, Education, dh. I; Ward, Dynamic Sociology, ch. XIV. PART II THE SOCIAL PROCESS AND EDUCATION CHAPTER IV THE NATURE OF THE SOCIAL PROCESS It was shown in the last chapter that the educational aim originates in the social process and leads back to it; in other words, that the highest end of edu- sociai process? cation is to fit the individual to do his part in carrying out the social activities in which he finds himself a participant. But such statements, while perfectly definite, are not very illuminating. For the social process, consisting as it does of manifold ac- tivities of men, is almost infinitely complex, and needs to be analyzed into its simpler elements if such a concept is to be useful as a norm in education. What goes to make up the social process? What is its nature? What are its constituents? How are they interrelated, and how is the whole related to the life, experience, and educa- tion of the individual? The results sought through an analysis of reached from ^^ social proccss could be reached equally individual or well through an analysis of the modes of in- view. ^°^^ ° dividual experience. For the modes of ac- tivity by which society carries on its collec- tive life, and the modes of experience constituting the Hfe of the individual are but the two aspects of one 51 52 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION unitary fact. Hence the problem is identical whether approached from the one standpoint or the other. The advantage of approaching the problem from the social point of view is that it serves to emphasize still further the essentially social nature of education, both as to its aim and its content. Any complete and wholly adequate analysis of the so- cial process must deal with the process as a whole, and A cross-section ^^^ simply with a cross-section of it. For, view not ade- no matter how accurate the analysis of the ^"* ^' social activities of to-day, or how perfectly they are interpreted per se, their real meaning and sig- nificance will escape us so long as they are cut off from the process of yesterday and that of to-morrow. The very core of the concept of social evolution is unity, and this, in a dynamic society, means continuity. An interpreta- tion of the present involves, then, both the past and the future. What is can be understood only in the light of what has been, and also what will he. Viewed by itself, the present lacks perspective, and hence its values are distorted and are seen out of true proportion. Manifestly it is beyond the scope of the present study, as it is certainly beyond the abiUty of the writer, to enter Limitations for ^^^^ ^^ f ar-reaching an analysis of the social the present proccss as that just indicated. An inter- ®*^ ^* pretation of the past requires an evalua- tion of the great lines of human culture in the process of their evolution; it weighs developing civilization in the making, and gives each factor its value in the light of what it has come to and what it seems to be pointing toward. The interpretation of the present demands even greater scope of vision and depth of insight. For the sieve of time has large meshes, and most of the trivial THE NATURE OF THE SOCIAL PROCESS 53 and insignificant from the life of the past has been lost out without being carried over to the present, and hence we do not have to trouble with it. But the present, in the midst of which we live, move, and have our being, is a mighty, rushing torrent. We can judge the general direction of its current, but we are bewildered by its eddies and cross-currents ; its waves of impulse and tides of passion often seem to be flowing backward ; its progress is impeded by masses of flotsam and jetsam; its hidden rocks and sunken reefs have never been fully charted. This makes the evaluing of the present social process difficult, but not wholly impossible. It is difficult be- cause of the amazing complexity of present- invoived?^ day life, and also because of the lack of per- spective; neither men nor events can be seen clearly when one is too close to them. The task is not impossible, because the factors of the problem are definite and their interrelation in the process analyzable. The interpretation of the future must, of course, be in large degree hypothetical. Yet this in no sense invali- dates the interpretation or renders it useless. An intel- Kgent hypothesis is a far safer guide than blind chance. Indeed, all the conscious progress of the race has been accompHshed by following promising hypotheses, which have had, of course, constantly to be reconstructed in the light of new experience. Our programme in this work does not, then, include a comprehensive analysis of the social process ; and f ortu- An outUne nately such an analysis is not required in view will serve our problem, which is to discover the social purpose. ^^^ philosophical basis of education, rather than to work out the details of the educational process as carried on in the school. Our purpose will be served 54 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION by an outline analysis of the social process sufficiently complete to show its chief interrelations and the place of education in the larger whole of which it forms a part. The social process, although so complex, can be ana- lyzed into comparatively few great lines of experience. In making such an analysis, however, it procesTfaiis must not be understood for a moment that into a few these lines are really separate and inde- experienct!^ ° pendent. The social process is essentially a unitary process; experience is emphat- ically a unitary experience, and the experience process is one and not many. The analysis which follows only attempts to emphasize the different elements which, interwoven, constitute the whole, whether this whole is considered as the unitary social process or the equally unitary experience process constituting the life of the individual. REFERENCES Forrest, Development of Western Civilization (a genetic view) ; Giddings, Principles of Sociology ^ Book IV, chs. I, II; Small, General Sociology, Parts VI-IX. y CHAPTER V EDUCATION AND INSTITUTIONAL MODES OF EXPERIENCE /. Institutions the Product of Social Evolution The social process includes all the interrelated activ- ities of men. By far the greater part of these activities ^ ,. ,. are organized into well-defined groups, each Institutions an , . . . , important group havmg its owu particular structure phase of the Qf organization and technique of operation. social process. , We call these organized groups of activities institutions. An analysis of the social process is there- fore largely an analysis of institutions. Institutions represent the collective development of social experience. They grow up naturally out of the common impulses and activities of men. institutions. ^^^ social activities fall into various defi- nite groups, each group having for its aim the carrying out of some phase of the social purpose. One such group gives us the family, another the state, another the church, etc. Each institution arises in re- sponse to a social need and gives expression to social im- pulses. New institutions emerge whenever society feels the necessity for a specially organized set of activities for carrying out the social purpose; old institutions die whenever society no longer needs such organized activ- ities. All progressive societies are constantly becoming conscious of new social purposes ; hence new institutions 55 56 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION are having their birth, or existing institutions being moulded to fit the social demands at all times. Progres- sive societies also entirely outgrow certain of their social purposes, and hence have no need for the institutions whose function originally was the realization of such outgrown purposes. Thus it is that history is filled with the records of institutions that have served their purpose and been discarded by societies which no longer felt their need. Institutions, therefore, hke per- sons, have their birth, growth and development, decay and death. Institutions are at once the product and the mode of social evolution. They are society's invention for pro- T ... X. xt. viding for co-operative activities. Man's Institutions the . , ^ , i . product and impulses are essentially social, and his mode of social powers can be developed and employed evolution. ^ .^ , ... only as he uses them m conjunction with fellow men. Hence institutions are the individual's op- portunity for self-expression. He fits into them as nat- urally as if they had been made especially for him; he finds them suited in organization and methods to the exercise of his powers and capacities. This must needs be the case, since hundreds of generations, moved by the same impulses and endowed with the same powers as those possessed by himself, have, in trying out their experience, left the institutions as an expression of their collective wisdom, and as their solution of this particular group of social problems which now are confronting the individual anew. The person who is bearing his part in a progressive society will of necessity criticise matters of detail in the structure and method of the various institutions, but he will find the fundamental concepts involved in them to be adapted perfectly to his own INSTITUTIONAL MODES OF EXPERIENCE 57 mental constitution. He will feel at home in the social institutions of his day, and reahze in them the oppor- tunity to function as a member of society and a partici- pant in the social process. Institutions not only furnish the opportunity for the individual to function socially, but, on the other hand, Conservative ^^^Y ^^ some degree limit his activities as nature of well. For institutions are in the highest institutions. degree conservative and can change their form but slowly^ It often happens, therefore, that the social ideal is far ahead of social practice. Our theory of political, social, and industrial democracy is not yet realized; our dream of universal brotherhood of man is still disturbed now and then by the tramp of armies; church practice has not fully caught up with the Chris- tian ideal; and educational theory is very far ahead of the results achieved in schools. The individual finds in the necessity of modifying in- stitutions, to adapt them to progressive social needs, one of the chief opportunities for the exercise of modmed^^ personal initiative, and for a contribution through indi- to social advancement. For institutions tiveT^ *^^*^*" must change as society progresses, else, in- stead of being the instruments of progress, they become barriers in its way. Further, the recon- structing of institutions can be successfully accomplished only by their active membership, operating from within the institution and prompted by a constructive aim. The iconoclastic critic, attacking the institution from with- out its membership, may serve as a goad, but there his usefulness ends. It is ultimately society's positive ideals, and not its negative criticisms, necessary as these may be, which constitute the structure of institutions.^ 58 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION The individual is completely immersed in institutions. So completely do the institutional activities cover the The universal- wholc range of social life that the individual ity of institu- finds it impossible to function except in con- tionai influence, j^^^^^^^ ^^j^ institutions. It IS true that he may not always have formal membership in an insti- tution, but nevertheless he is Subject wholly to the limi- tations that it imposes and the opportunities that it offers. Not every one has his name on the church roll, yet so completely do the spirit and standards of the church permeate the social organization that its influence is dominant in every line of social activity. Similarly for each of the institutions. The individual must breathe an atmosphere impregnated by their spirit and partici- pate in the activities which constitute their Hfe. In them he develops his powers, and to them he owes his allegiance and service. fTo fit the individual to participate in the institutional life of his day becomes, therefore, one of the great aims of education. We will now proceed to a brief consideration of some of the more important social institutions. From the ^ , ^. standpoint of the philosophy of education, Two relation- -, r i - • • • i i i i ships of insti- each of the institutions is to be looked upon tutionsto irom. two points of view: First its educa- education, . . n i ' t • t i i hve influence upon the individual, the op- portunity it gives him for self-realization through the employment of his powers and capacities in social ac- tivities. Second, its setting a standard of requirement or demand for the individuaVs education. Failing to meet this demand, no amount of learning or of training of *' powers" has fulfilled the end of education for the individual. INSTITUTIONAL MODES OF EXPERIENCE 59 //. The Family and the Individual The earliest institution to be developed in society is the family. Farther back than we can penetrate into the history of the race the family existed. famUy! ° ^ It has had various forms and has occupied positions of vastly different importance among other institutions at different times. But after all man, woman, and child, two premises and their conclu- sion, constituting the "practical syllogism" — these com- bine to form the most natural, the most ancient, and the most vital of all the social units. Not only from the standpoint of society, but also from the standpoint of the individual, the family is the funda- Contribution of ^lental institution. It gives to the child the home to being. At first the home forms the sole the individual. • . j r • j i-i j.* environment, and for a considerable time thereafter the principal environment of the individual. It protects and nourishes him during the most plastic and formative period of his life. It saves him from eco- nomic pressure during a long period of dependence, guards him from pitfalls, and supplies a congenial atmos- phere for his development. In the home, the child, through imitation, learns a language, adopts ethical and rehgious standards, and becomes familiar with social forms and usages. Here he learns obedience, has his first experience in social co-operation, forms the habit of work, develops the concept of economic necessity, and learns to earn and save. Under right conditions the home constitutes the greatest formative influence in the education of the individual. The life of the home comes to color the life in all the other institutions. The inter- 60 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION ests and activities of the home furnish the basis for the interests and activities in the wider Hfe of society. It therefore behooves society to see that the home fulfils its function not alone in bringing the child into existence, but also in carrying out its full share of his education. The fundamental impulses on which the family rests are among the most deeply rooted of any in our natures. Fundamental These have long served, and will continue relations in the to serve, to bring about the most important ^^®* relations in the home, namely, those of husband and wife, and of parent and child. Economic necessity also adds the relations of provider and dis- hurser. These relations are not, in the broad sense, op- tional with the individual, but must be entered into and efficiently fulfilled. And each of these relations makes its own peculiar demands upon the individual, which it is the function of education to prepare him to meet. Failure of function here not only results disastrously for the welfare and happiness of the individual, but endangers ail other social institutions as well. The home may be said to rest on a triple basis: (i) the biological, or the impulses of sex, which lead to mating; Threefold (2) ^^ parental instinct of love for the basis of the child, which prompts to the care and nurt- °°^®* ure of children through the long period of helplessness and plasticity constituting infancy; and (3) the economic advantage obtained through the divi- sion of labor and responsibility in the family. Social changes '^^^ P^^^ century has been a time of rad- affecting the ical and extensive change in nearly all the °°^®' social institutions. The face of the earth has almost been made over in that time. The old in- dustrial and social lines have disappeared. Society has INSTITUTIONAL MODES OF EXPERIENCE 61 had a new birth. In this general readjustment, the rela- tions and functions of the home have been vastly modi- fied. Its structure remains the same, but the method of its activities is very different. These changes have had far-reaching consequences both for the home itself as a so- cial institution and for the school as an institution closely alHed with the home in the education of the children. Lying at the basis of these changes in the home are the great economic changes resulting from the passing Influence of ^^^^ ^^ ^^^ factory system in our industries, industrial Following the invention of modern machin- c anges. ^^^ ^^^ ^-^^ appKcation of steam and elec- tric power, machine labor began to displace hand labor^j It was found more profitable to set up a group of ma- chines in one place than to have the machines working one in a place, and the modern factory came into being. Within three generations, America has passed completely from the system of domestic manufacture to that of the factory, making one of the most sweeping changes ever effected in an institution in so short a time. Three generations ago almost every article used in the home was made or prepared by the members of the family at the home. The wool for the home-spun Former home . • j r j j j industries. garments was raised, clipped, carded, spun, dyed, woven into cloth, and made into clothing in the home. The meat was raised, slaughtered, and cured on the farm; the grain was sown, harvested, threshed, sometimes ground into flour, and made into bread without the help of others than those in the family ; all the vegetables and fruit were home-grown, and the winter supply was packed away, preserved or dried in the autumn without the aid of factory-made cans. In the workshop with its motley array of tools was fashioned most of the furniture for the home and the machinery V 62 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION for the farm. The family life of this day was very full of industry and activity. Every member from the child to the aged grandparent had a share in the household, work and responsibilities.) But this is a picture of the past. The old-time home with its multipHcity of industries, its social seclusion, and its individual responsibility has passed iadustries! ° away never to return. It is no one's fault; it could not be helped. The demon of enterprise came among us and gave us factories, and we were obliged to hand our industries over to them. Food is now ordered by telephone and comes ready for the table; clothing is made in the shops and comes to the home on trial or approval; the pressure of an electric button lights the house, and the steam laundry washes and irons the clothes. The workshop has been trans- formed into a garage, and the vegetable garden into a tennis court. Of all the olden home industries, prac- tically all except cooking and cleaning are gone. And what with prepared foods and vacuum cleaners these bid fair to follow. Two great Growing out of these economic changes, losses to the the home has suffered two distinct losses: °°^®' (i) the loss of industrial training for the children; and (2) loss of companionship between parents and children. Robbed of opportunities for industrial training, the child lacks one of the most vital forms of experience. It The child's ^^^ remained for modern education to dis- loss of indus- cover the close relation between the train- aining. j^^ ^£ ^j^^ hand and the development of the mind. The child is essentially creative and constructive in his impulses. He is interested more in things than in symbols; he cares more about making things than think- INSTITUTIONAL MODES OF EXPERIENCE 63 ing about them. The developing self demands expres- sion even more than impression. The body as well as the mind craves exercise. Nor does the exercise of mere play, necessary as play is, fully suffice. For the individual must learn to work; his powers must be employed to a purpose; symbolizing, theorizing, and dreaming fail finally to satisfy the individual, as they fail of social accomplishment; his dreams must lead to deeds, his play must eventuate in work. Life must finally come to find its chief joy and satisfaction in labor. The transference of industrial training from the home to the school is now in the process of accomplishment.) Industrial studies are becoming an integral Industrial ° ^ training trans- part 01 almost cvcry school programme, f erred to the g^^ ^o matter how efficient the school may school. . 1 ' 1 1 . r 1 become in teaching the techmque of the handicrafts, it can never wholly make up to the child for their loss from the home. For in the industries of the home the incentives were very real, the interests very immediate, and the necessities very concrete. The aims possessed a touch of reality which must in some degree be lacking in the most perfect of school exercises. But it cannot be helped. The greater part of the industries of the home are gone past any possibility of recall, and it only remains to make up to the child as best can be done in other particulars for this loss. Probably the greatest loss which the home has suffered through the changes it has been undergoing is the loss of comradeship and close personal touch loss of " com- between parents and children. In the old- pamonship" ^[^q home the boy was the constant co- worker and companion of his father, whose words of wisdom and views of life unconsciously built 64 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION themselves into the ideals and practice of the son. E very- girl was the helper and comrade of her mother, whose life became the daughter's standard of womanliness.) The very isolation of the family made it dependent on its own resources for social entertainment and diversion. The long winter evenings were spent in telling stories, recounting traditions, or reading books of romance or adventure. Games were played, apples roasted, nuts cracked, and a jolly time was had around the family fireplace. It is hard to measure the social value of hours like these spent in the family circle. But this picture, like that of the industrial activities of the olden home, belongs to the past. Speciahzation The father but ^^ labor has taken the father from the little time at home and sent him to the factory or the °°^^* mill. And, even if he is a farmer, modern machinery is such that the work of father and son is, for the most part, separate, and they hardly meet in the fields. It comes about, therefore, that many fathers of the present day see more of the office boy or the clerks they employ than of their own son. In many homes the father is the chief financial agent for the family, but aside from this enters comparatively little into their councils. It is also true that the mother and daughter work to- gether less in the household duties than formerly, and not a few mothers know more of the daily life and thought of the house-maid than of the daughter. To these conditions, growing out of the change in the economic life of the home, must be added other condi- The school tions of similar trend coming from the in- keeps children creasing demands of school and social life rom ome. upon the time of the children. What with the requirements of the regular school day, the home INSTITUTIONAL MODES OF EXPERIENCE 65 lessons, the athletic events, the social functions, and the free and almost unrestricted associations of young people with each other, there is very little time left for family life together. And, even if the children themselves had the time for the family social hour, the social and the club engagements of the parents would greatly restrict the opportunity for family association.) The greatest divorce evil that threatens the American home is not the legal separation of husband and wife, but the separation of parents and children of divorceOTU. ^^^^er the new conditions which are obtain- ing. It is not that parents love their chil- dren less or that children are any less open-hearted and responsive than they were. It is only that the home has been changing, and that the tender and close relations of the home have not stood the strain of changing con- ditions. There is a grave danger that the home shall become chiefly a biological and economic centre — a place where children are born and supplied with food, clothing, and shelter, but with that greatest of all educative factors left out — the companionship and comradeship of parent and child. The old home with its isolation from neighbors, its busy industries, and its broad fireplace is gone. Society must seek new solutions for the problems newfondrtions. of the new home. For the home as a true home for. children must be saved; nothing can take its place. We must adjust ourselves to the changed conditions. It is not enough that the children be well housed, clothed, and fed. They are now well read. The school teaches them something of music and art. They are acquainted with a bewildering complexity of plays and games. They are learning manual training, 66 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION scientific agriculture, and the industrial arts. They are entering into all these things with heart, hand, and brain. The home must recognize that the boys and girls of to-day live a much broader life and have a far wider range of interests than did their parents and grandparents, and provide for these new activities. Nor can all these things be handed over to the children without the parents taking a part. Games, amusements, and books shared with the parents have a double significance for the child. And, above all, it is only by entering into the active in- terests and life of the children that parents can obtain a sympathetic understanding of them, and so win their confidence and comradeship. Parents also need a more specialized knowledge of their children. Scientific knowledge and technique as applied to the industries, arts, business, and agri- up^on p^Ss.^ culture have increased marvellously in re- cent years. But no corresponding advance has been made on the part of parents in the knowledge of children and the technique of rearing them. Although there is an abundance of scientific material easily avail- able relating both to the physical and the mental life of the child, most parents are profoundly ignorant of both. Is it not worth while for parents to know something of the nature and unfoldment of the child's mind? Is not the religious nature of the child a vital and worthy object of study? Is not the growth, nutrition, and care of the child's body a scientific problem which will give the key to the more successful rearing of children? Would it not be worth while for the parents to be able to reveal to the children in an accurate, delicate, and scientific way the secrets of their physical being, rather than to allow these things to be learned from chance information at the INSTITUTIONAL MODES OF EXPERIENCE 67 school or on the street? Will it not yield as large returns to apply scientific method to the rearing of children as to the management of a factory or the running of a business? These requirements of the home all inhere in the social process. The demands of the home are the demands of Educational society. To function as a member of so- aim must in- ciety, the individual must be able to meet c u e t e ome. ^j^^ obHgations resting upon him as a mem- ber of a home. The educational aim must, therefore, not fail to include the fitting of the individual for this the most important of all his social functions, that of sustaining in a worthy home the relations involved in the family. III. The Community as an Educative Factor When the individual first extends his activities beyond those of the home, he finds himself participating in the life of the community. The community The commu- . i i hi ... nity extends the Cannot strictly be called an mstitution, child's social since it lacks definite organization and does environment. .1^1 t r ^ not undertake a specific programme of char- acteristic activities. Yet the community forms so im- portant a factor in the life of the individual, particularly during his earliest years, that it deserves some consider- ation in our discussion. It is the community that offers an opportunity for a wider and more generalized experi- ence than is possible in the home. Here the activities are less specialized, and hence less closely organized. Paren- tal authority and care are lacking, and the child is thrown more on his own resources for control and the conservation of his personal interests. The boundary lines of the community are not clearly drawn as they 68 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION are in the home, and thus the community leads directly out into the wider social life which in the end encompasses the race. The community greatly extends the social relation- ships of the individual. It is here that he learns to know friendj neighbor j comradej companion, play- tionship af- fellow, chum. And these relationships afford forded by the opportunities for types of experience which community. . ... , . ■. rapidly develop and disciphne the social consciousness, preparing it for the still wider touch with men in all possible social relations. The community also gives rise to various organizations, such as clubs and so- cieties of many different kinds, which come finally to ab- sorb not a little of the individual's interest, and no small proportion of his time and activities. These are coming to play an increasingly larger part in the child's experi- ence, and their nature and number constitute one of the serious educational problems of the day. The environment supplied by the community, coming to the individual during the very plastic period of his Importance of ^^^j ^^^ remaining for many the most im- community portant social medium after the home, plays environment. ^^ important role in education. The stream of suggestions pouring in upon the child from the ma- terial part of his surroundings, the aesthetic values re- ceived from lake, river, and beautiful parks or ugly tene- ments, from rolling prairies or dirty alleys, are all built faithfully into the life structure. Likewise the ethical and religious standards, first by suggestion and uncon- scious imitation, and later by conscious adjustment to their requirements, have an important formative influ- ence. Saloons, gambling halls, and dens of vice supply no worthy stimuli for the youth, and, even if not fre- INSTITUTIONAL MODES OF EXPERIENCE 69 quented, have a constant tendency by their very presence in the community to dull the moral sense. The theatre, possessing great educative possibiHties, is, on the whole, not an elevating influence in many communities. The nickel theatre, which might be made an important agent in education, is often of questionable value as an amuse- ment, and at its worst is a positive menace to the morals of the community. The modern tendency toward municipalization is tend- ing to break down the older t3^e of community life. The city hos- Twenty families, living together in an apart- tiie to com- mcnt house which occupies a smaller area munity spirit. ij^^LU. that required for a tennis-court, using common hallways and elevators, and passing each other at close range daily, and yet without knowing each other's names or employments or extending even the most formal greetings — this comes far short of being a community or a neighborhood. Nor is the situation helped when this building is flanked by literal square miles of other similar buildings equally crowded with people who know as little of each other. Without doubt there is a distinct loss in this mode of living which can be compensated for only in part by the advantages afforded in other lines by the modern city. Neighbor- hood clubs, social settlements, and various other clubs and organizations have been devised to supply the loss suffered by the passing of the community in cities. The problem will perhaps receive its best solution finally through the medium of the public school, which is com- ing to be looked upon as the neighborhood centre and meeting place in many of the larger American cities/ Society has not yet awakened to the importance of the community as a factor in education. With the les- 70 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION sening of the influence of the home in the life of the child, there has been, except in the larger cities, a cor- The commu- responding increase in the influence of the nity as a factor community. Children hardly yet entered m e ucation. upon their 'teens participate far more in the community life than was done by their grandparents when full grown. And it is a grave question whether, along with this increase of influence, the community has not at the same time become on the whole less safe and serviceable as an educative factor. If the commimity is to do its part in the education of its children, it has two problems yet to solve. Firsts Demands on ^^ must provide an environment whose the commu- influences are pure and wholesome. The ^*^* stream of suggestions daily pouring in upon the child must be free from taint; they must prompt to high ideals and worthy living. Second, the community must recognize and provide for the social impulses of growth. It is not enough to ring a curfew bell and forbid the boys to join a gang and the girls to be on the streets unattended. Negations never remove impulses, but at best only slightly deflect their course. Further, most of the impulses leading to irregularities of youthful behavior are fundamental to development, and only need suitable modes of expression to become a serviceable factor in education. Let the community, therefore, open a library well supplied with books and magazines adapted to young people; let it provide a well-equipped gymnasium; let it maintain a room where a great variety of suitable games may be played; let it see that church, or school, or municipal building opens its doors to the young peo- ple for an occasional social function; let it encourage the organization of clubs and societies for its boys and girls.i / INSTITUTIONAL MODES OF EXPERIENCE 71 For, in proper measure, these things all belong to youth and its education. Expression, rather than suppression, is the law of growth. IV. The Church as a Social Institution The church is the organized religious activity of so- ciety. As an institution it expresses the sum of religious ^ . , , culture, man's ideal of religious experience Social nature , . , of religion and the technique of religion. The con- ^h^ ^h^ ^^P^ ^^ religion is essentially a social con- cept. The idea of the fatherhood of God involves the ideal of the brotherhood of man. The religious impulse is pre-eminently an impulse to service. The developing concept of God has shown him to be no dread being to be propitiated that he may not visit man with dire calamity, no partial deity crowning one peo- ple with the fruits of his good pleasure and visiting another with the accumulation of his anger, nor a God of vanity whose pleasure is to be satisfied with man's praise and adulation as a measure of his religious devel- opment and experience. It has shown him to be rather a God of experience, a positive force at work in the world and in the lives of men prompting them to higher ideals and nobler living, a presence that manifests itself most clearly and efhciently in connection with the actual run of experience as man participates in the world's work. This wider concept of God has made The social . . . concept gives religion a very practical matter; it trans- reaiity to forms it into a manner of living, thereby religion. . , o? ^ taking it out of the realm of the unreal, or semi-unreal, in which all things not reduced to experi- ence exist. The church thus becomes an important social 72 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION institution, a means of realizing the higher impulses and most fruitful experiences of the individual, and of educa- ting to the noblest social ideals and practice. It is the instrument of righteousness, which must ultimately be- come the ideal of every progressive society. The scope of the social programme of the church is at present the subject of much discussion and not a little The social difference of opinion. The influence of re- programme ligion permeates all experience, touching o e c urc . |j£g ^^ every point. Yet the church as an institution cannot extend its activities so far as to par- ticipate in the functions of all the other institutions. The purpose of the church is rather to cultivate in its members the religious spirit and ideal, the ideal of righteousness as expressed in personal life and social service. The nature of neither the church's aim, therefore, nor its organization permits it to develop a technique in many lines of social activity. But, neither must the church allow theory to be separated from practice, else theology supplants piety and the church loses its hold on society through losing contact with social interests and needs.) The essence, or at least the outcome, of religion is ex- pressed in service, and the church must inculcate this ideal in practice as well as in precept; it must render social service as well as preach it. It would seem, on the one hand, that the church could best accomplish its mission by impressing the religious The primary Spirit and method upon the social organiza- functionof tions already at hand. For example, the ec urc . church should not expend its energies in duplicating schools supported by the state; but should only enter this field when it is evident that there is an educational need which is not being met by existent insti- INSTITUTIONAL MODES OF EXPERIENCE 73 tutions. The church should not compete with philan- thropic organizations under municipal or independent control, but co-operate with them. But, on the other hand, an earnest aggressive church will find many points of contact with society that have not been occupied by any other form of social activity. The needs of man are many sided; wretchedness, ignorance, and poverty are all too common; vice stalks unchallenged in many places; the necessity for innocent recreation and amusement is immediate and pressing. The various social institutions, in parcelKng out among themselves the activities covering the social demands, have not occupied the whole terri- tory; they have left vacant areas here and there. < It is in these unoccupied places that the church finds its opportunity for organized social service. Nor will this social service of the church be the same to compie- in all communities. For it must apply its ment, not to energies at the point of greatest need, and compete. ^ ^ ^i • \ <• ^.-j.' r not at the pomt of competition. In one place the church may need to organize philanthropies; in another, to institute and administer playgrounds; in another, to found schools; in another, to fight graft and vice; and in still others, only to provide the regular re- hgious programme of preaching, prayer meetings, and Sunday-schools. ^ It is in the congested regions of great cities, where the mental and the social horizon are necessarily nar- Theinstitu- ^^^j whcrc material wants are pressing; tionai church where opportunities for recreation and self- and city slum, improvement are sadly lacking, that the in- stitutional church finds its warmest welcome and its great- est opportunity. Its hospitals, its playgrounds, Kbraries, and classes for instruction come to stand for organized 74 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION Christian kindness. In ministering to the physical and social needs of its people, as well as to their spiritual needs, the church secures a correspondingly stronger hold on their interest and affection, and thereby secures their loyalty and support in return for its services. For the community is appealed to in a new and more power- ful way when it feels that the church is concerned in the welfare of the whole man, and not just a part; and that the here as well as the hereafter forms a part of the defi- nite programme of the church. The m.ost ambitious social programme so far under- taken by the church has been in the line of general edu- cation. Almost from the first, the Christian and education, church has conceivcd the education of its adherents as one of its chief functions.^ Long before the state had undertaken any comprehensive scheme of universal education, the church had provided schools, not alone for its members, but for all who chose to avail themselves of the instruction. In America, the church has played a far less important part in education than in England. Yet, here, the Catholic Church, which has but few higher institutions, supports and administers thousands of elementary schools. The Protestant Church, , , which has given its attention chiefly to higher education, has organized, and in some degree controls and supports, a large proportion of the higher institutions of the country. In England, the church has had almost full 4 control of practically all elementary education up to about a generation ago. Since that time, however, the state has been supplanting the church through extending its control and support to include elementary education. It is inevitable that, as the concept of universal edu- cation comes to dominate the social mind, the state shall INSTITUTIONAL MODES OF EXPERIENCE 75 assume education as one of its principal functions. The task is too large for the church, both on the adminis- The state the trative and the financial side. Further, the chief support existence of many sects '^^dthin the church, e ucation. ^^^^ jealous of its own doctrines and methods, renders it impossible for the church to admin- ister a system of imiversal education. The state nov/ supphes adequate educational facihties for the elemen- tary and secondary instruction of its yoimg in nearly every community. It may well be questioned, there- fore, whether it is necessary or wise for the church to compete with the state in this field of education. The state has not as yet supplied sufficient facilities for higher education for all who desire it. The church The church ^^^ enter this field without competing with and higher the State in the same degree as when at- e ucation. tempting to give elementary education. The church has also up to this time felt the need of its own higher institutions for the training of its leadership. It has demanded that its leaders have an opportunity for receiving their higher education in schools dominated by Christian ideals and suppl}dng a religious en\ironment. Not willing to trust this to the schools of the state, the church has freely spent of its energy and its treasure in estabHshing and maintaining colleges and universities. The control of the church over these schools, however, has gradually been loosening, and in many instances the relation between church and college is now purely nom- inal, and in other instances has been wholly dissolved. Unless the church can succeed in impressing rehgious standards and ideals upon the higher institutions which it no longer controls, and can thereby supply an en\dron- ment favorable to the development of the Christian 76 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION spirit in such schools, its withdrawal from the field of higher education cannot but prove disastrous for the leadership of the church. Whatever may be the future of the church's activity in the field of general education, however, it is clear that it must be chiefly responsible for rehgious chiefly ^^^ education, and must not fail in its task. It responsible for is impossible in America, where there is such education. ^ diversity of faiths and creeds, to teach religion in the pubHc schools. Coupled with this is the deplorable fact that the home is no longer concerning itself with rehgious education of children in the same degree as in former times. The result, then, must be that of throwing a constantly increasing burden on the church in providing for the rehgious education of its youth. It is probably fair to say that at the present time the church is not adequately meeting its responsibihty at Th h r h ^^^^ point. The result is that religious edu- not meeting cation is on the decline. Unquestionably Its responsi- there is a far less general knowledge of the Bible now than there was fifty or one hun- dred years ago. Also, the children are attending church, and probably Sunday-school, in considerably smaller proportion. The church has not yet fully awakened to the fact that the religious education of its children, and not preaching to adults, is its most important function. This is seen in the fact that the church is organized and conducted chiefly for adults, and not for children. And yet, childhood and youth certainly supply the most fruitr ful soil for rehgious nurture and instruction. The Sunday-school cannot be expected to show the same efficiency in organization and method as the public INSTITUTIONAL MODES OF EXPERIENCE 77 school. It meets too infrequently, and its officers and teachers are largely untrained for their work, and hence The limita- inefficient. But, even making allowance for tions of the this handicap, the church has been slow in un ay-sc oo . j^g^j^j^g ^gg q£ ^j^g educational principles tested, proved, and appHed in the pubUc schools of the day. The pedagogy of the Sunday-school is from fifty to one hundred years behind that of the public schools. Organization, curriculum, and method are all archaic. Encouraging signs are beginning to appear, however, in the movement recently initiated in several of the denom- inations looking toward a graded curriculum, better or- ganization of the school, and normal classes for the train- ing of the teachers. One further step yet remains in the preparation of the ministry for the educational work of the church: this is that they shall be as well trained in the principles of practical sociology and the art of edu- cation and teaching as they are in the Bible and theology. Institutions, like nations, have their crucial times. The church of the present is rightly concerned over the The church limitations of its influence. Only a com- conffonting paratively small proportion of the people a crisis. ^£ ^j^y community are church-goers, and this proportion seems to be decreasing. Thousands of those living in the larger cities never see the interior of a church building, and the same is true of the rural com- munities. In many of the crowded industrial districts of cities, where people live in swarms, the churches find it difficult to eke out an existence, and many of them have to depend for support on parent churches situated in more favored surroundings. The marvellous period of industrial progress through which America has been pass- ing for almost a century has had a tendency to culti- 78 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION vate a materialistic attitude of mind. The ''goods" of life have come to be measured largely in goods. Ethical standards in business and politics have not always stood the strain. Religious zeal has had a tendency to wane, and the church does not exert the relative influence and possess the importance of a generation or two ago. Yet man is, after all, fundamentally religious. He may temporarily have lost perspective in measuring values. The oppor- -^^^ there is evidence of the rise of new tunityofthe idcals and standards; the social conscience *^ ^^^ ' is awakening, and other values than money are exerting their appeal. In this reconstruction the church is facing a great responsibility and opportunity. If it proves equal to its opportunity, its standards and ideals will dominate in the leadership of the great social movements now getting under way; if it shall fail to measure up to its responsibility, it will not only have missed its opportunity, but society will be immeasurably the loser through lacking the inspiration and steadying power of the religious impulse inculcated by the church. For the ethical standards of the church are the only ones which render life and property safe. Its morals are the protection of the home. Its ideals and practices give tone to the entire social order. Efficient social participation requires of the individual that he shall function as an actual member of the church, giving support to its enter- prises and serving worthily as its representative. ^, . The educational aim must therefore in- The educa- tional aim elude the fitting of the individual into the must include activities of the church. This does not mean the church. • i <• . i i i that particular faiths or creeds are to be taught in the schools. On the contrary, this can be done only in the church and the home. The school can, INSTITUTIONAL MODES OF EXPERIENCE 79 however, through its instruction and its curriculum, lay broad and deep the foundations of reverence for the Creator of the universe and the laws that control it. The social concept can be developed and the ethical conscious- ness quickened. The moral impulses can be cultivated and the sense of personal responsibility enhanced. The school can accomplish these things even with the limi- tations imposed upon it as to teaching reHgion. And these things constitute, after all, no small part of the con- tent of religion. V. The State and the Educational Aim The state is the most comprehensive of all the social institutions. In one sense it may be said to include all tat ^^^ others, since the state provides for their includes the Organization through its constitution and other institu- jg^^g ^^^ protects them in the exercise of tions. their functions. In the state the whole of society joins hands, making common cause and seeking a common welfare. The state represents, therefore, the activities of society as an organic whole, as against such smaller- units as the family, the church, or the commu- nity. In the state all the narrow and intensive loyalty of the smaller social units is supplanted by the broader and more extensive devotion to the welfare and progress of the whole. In the activities of the state the social hori- zon of the individual is wonderfully broadened. Service must be rendered and sacrifices made, not for those of his own family, community, or cult, but for people whom he has never seen and does not know. The social bond comes to have a new meaning, and the term common good comes to include every class and condition of society. 80 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION Co-operative activities are undertaken, not for private profit, but for public welfare; rules of justice are estab- lished and conditions of equal opportunity set up for all alike. The state has existed in many different political forms, running the whole gamut from the most absolute of mon- Fundamentai archies to the freest of democracies. Un- principies of doubtedly many different forms will con- t e s a e. tinue to cxist, but whatever the form, the foundation principles of justice and equal opportunity must obtain if the political organization is to be perma- nent and if society is to progress. The pages of history are filled with the tragic records of nations that have denied their citizens one or both of these fundamental rights, and themselves perished through their short-sightedness; and modern Russia seems unable to read the lesson of the past and is piling up for herself a heavy account against a sure day of reckoning. The activities of the state may be divided into two broad classes which may roughly be described as posi- Two types of ^^'^^ ^^^ negative. The negative function functions of involves the restraint of the anti-social and ® ^ ^ ®* the prosecution of unavoidable wars. While these functions are purely negative in the sense that they only remove obstacles to progress instead of furthering actual progress, yet they are absolutely necessary and vital to the very existence of society. For there is a sufficient residuum of selfishness and evil lurking in hu- man nature that its expression must be restrained and discouraged; hence, our restrictive laws and system of police, our courts, and our jails. Let this function of the state fail, and life, property, and virtue are no longer safe, every other institution totters, and the state itself INSTITUTIONAL MODES OF EXPERIENCE 81 cannot long exist. Wars are becoming more rare; they should and probably will altogether cease. No nation can hereafter justify itself in the eyes of function.^ ^® the world in going to war from selfish mo- tives. Only when the national integrity is threatened, or the weak are oppressed, is a people justi- fied in going to war. Yet selfish and belligerent nations do still exist, and all nations will therefore probably be obliged for the present to maintain armies to insure their own safety and self-respect and to carry out their part of the world's social programme. In the exercise of its positive function the state first of all seeks through its laws to establish justice among individuals; that is, to provide conditions function. ^^ which will allow full and equal opportunity for every individual to exert his powers within the limit of the common good. The state, having in mind the universal good, must have the right, of course, to say where the exercise of one person's powers are inter- fering with others in the exercise of their powers, and hence set the limits to acts of the individual which would interfere with the general good. What is true of the rights of the state as to the control of individuals must apply to its control over institutions. The rights and powers of the state are supreme, for the state is all the people acting for the greatest good of all. The positive function of the state also extends to the carrying out of certain lines of activity related to the gen- Projects best ^^^^ welfare. There are many undertakings carried out which, bccause of their stupendous nature, y e state. ^^^ l_^^ carried out only by the state. Pres- ent illustrations of projects of this nature are the building of the Panama Canal and the vast reclamation projects 82 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION under way in the Western States. In addition, there are certain other projects of such nature as to require uni- form administration for the whole country, and hence can best be administered by the state. In our own coun- try the postal system is the best illustration of this class of activities. In carrying out its positive function, it is the duty of the state to take over to itself only those func- tions which can best be administered by all of society acting through its ofhcials, and then to carry out such functions for the benefit of the whole people. The state should not enter upon fields in which individual initiative, acting under regulations set by the state, can equally well carry out the function. In cases, however, where the state cannot well set the limits for individual or corpo- rate activities, or cannot enforce its regulations, then the state should manifestly take over the activity to itself. Under the older regimes, before the individual and society had risen to full self-consciousness, there was little Relation of the Opportunity for the individual to partici- individuai to pate in the affairs of the state. The state e state. j^^^ responded to the universal movement toward social and political democracy, however, and is to-day essentially what it is made by the participation of its members. The participation of the individual in the affairs of the state is of necessity of a much more general and indirect nature than his participation in the smaller and more compact social institutions. When right rela- tions exist between the two, the individual hardly feels the yoke of the state's authority; the different projects of the state are directed by persons for the most part un- known to the individual; and his own voice in the state's affairs is expressed through representatives chosen for this purpose. The ballot is the individual's sole means of INSTITUTIONAL MODES OF EXPERIENCE 83 exerting his influence in the control of the activities of the state, and the immediate effects of the ballot are some- times hard to see. The result is that the individual not infrequently loses sight altogether of his own power and authority, and either fails to use the ballot or else uses it carelessly or for his own personal ends. PoKtical democracy is more than a modus operandi of government; it is far more than a piece of legislative and administrative machinery. Democracy is democmcy?^ an expression of the worth and intelligence of the individual; it is a spirit, a standpoint, a confession of faith in the ability of society as a whole to govern itself. Democracy assumes that the citizens of the state shall possess the intelligence, the public spirit, and the ethical standards which will prompt the indi- vidual faithfully to do his share in shaping the activities of the state for the common good. Let the individual fail at any one of these points and the foundations of de- mocracy begin to weaken. Ignorance, selfish indifference, and low ethical stand- ards are, therefore, the three great foes of representative government. The state must, in sheer self- de'mocracy.''^ defence, protect itself at these points. It must see that its citizens are educated, that they possess the spirit of patriotism, and that high ethical standards are put at a premium. Education is, therefore, in a very immediate and vital way, one of the first concerns of the democratic state. Education a ^^ educated citizenship is a bulwark of chief concern safety and a national asset. The money of the state. spent on schools is returned a thousand- fold to the state in the form of intelhgent participation in its activities and sympathetic understanding of its 84 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION purposes. The state could without doubt expend with excellent returns to itself much more than it is now put- ting into our public schools. The four hundred millions which we are now expending annually for public educa- tion looks Hke an immense sum, yet it is not more than one-half what is needed to put school support on an ade- quate basis. Nor does this sum seem such a drain on our national resources when we consider that we annually expend fully two and one-half times as much for tobacco, and five times as much for liquor as for the current ex- penses of our pubHc schools. It is axiomatic that education in a democracy must be universal. The state has a right to compel its citizens Is American ^^ become educated to the degree necessary education to make them safe and desirable citizens, e cien Most of our commonwealths now have com- pulsory education laws looking to this end. Much still remains to be desired in this connection, however, as is shown by the fact that the average age of quitting school in this country is about twelve years; the average period of school attendance is a trifle over two full years. As long as these conditions obtain, we can hardly claim an educated citizenship; for children under twelve years cannot be adequately trained for citizenship, and espe- cially is this true if their school attendance is limited to two years. But, dangerous as is ignorance to the life of the state, it is probable that indifference to the obligations of citi- Dangerfrom zenship are a still greater foe to public poUticai safety. If all the well-disposed citizens of in erence. ^j^^ country were to take a part in the po- litical affairs of the state perpetually, omitting neither caucus, nor primary, nor convention, nor polling place, INSTITUTIONAL MODES OF EXPERIENCE 85 the control of the political boss and gangster would speedily come to an end. For nearly always, in the case of a battle between the forces of corruption and the forces of decency, the stay-at-home vote holds the balance of power. And the stay-at-home vote does not consist of the forces of corruption, but of decent citizens whose selfish interests or lack of pubHc spirit keep them from the polls. Political ethics is undergoing a radical reconstruction in this country at the present time. Graft and corrup- Awakening of ^^^^ practised in high places have born fruit political in petty graft and corruption in small mat- conscience, ^g^g Legislative votes cast not in the in- terest of public welfare but to support special privilege have had their counterpart in votes sold for a pittance at the polls on election day. The selling of the franchise for money or preferment has reached alarming propor- tions in many parts of the country. This practice strikes at the very centre of national life through corrupting the morals of its citizens. But the civic conscience is awaken- ing; bribery and corruption are being uncovered and punished ; public office is coming to be a public trust, and official responsibility an opportunity for social service. Education has no higher aim than the The educa- tionai aim preparation of youth for efficient citizenship, must include ^his aim must include not only the train- the state ing of the intellect, but also the inculcating of an unselfish and aggressive patriotism based on high moral and ethical standards. 86 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION VI. The School as the Instrument of Education The school is the one institution that belongs exclu- sively to the child. Not only did the needs of the child The school the Originally call the school into being, but child's they also constantly must determine its insti u ion. character and activities. The school dif- fers from the other social institutions in that its function is more sharply defined and its activities more narrowly limited than theirs. The home, for example, has many functions, among the chief of which are the biological, the economic, and the social. The state carries out a vast number of different lines of activity. But the school has only a single function — that of educating children; hence all its activities are concerned with this one end. Society has evolved the school as the means through which to attain its educational aim, the specialized instru- The school as ^ent for transmitting its culture and ideals an education to the new generation. Our schools may be ac ory. looked upon as a great system of education factories in which the children are both the raw material and the workers. The curriculum, equipment, and or- ganization are the tools used in the process by which the child is made over into an active, efficient, contributing member of society. The teacher, through his manage- ment of the school, through instruction, and through the influence of his personality, supphes the most favorable conditions possible under which the child is to work. The problem in the school, as in any other the™chooir^*^° factory, is to secure the largest output with the least waste of material and labor. On the one side, society expects in return for its outlay INSTITUTIONAL MODES OF EXPERIENCE^ 87 men and women vitalized by contact with the choicest in the race's thought, feeling, and achievement, and made ready for efficient participation in social activities. On the other side, the individual looks for the fullest possible development of his powers and capacities in a significant and growing experience which forms an in- tegral part of the broader social experience which con- stitutes his environment. Waste in education is hard to measure. There are no standardized units in which to sum up educational D'ffi uit growth and development. Furthermore, measuring influences entirely outside the organized waste in activities of education are operating on the Ufe of the child, and forces within his own nature are ripening wholly irrespective of the school. The ultimate test, that of efficient participation in the social process and continued personal growth, is long delayed. While results are therefore not only the theoretical but the final test of any system of schools, results are so hard to measure and so long in coming that they are not a ser- viceable measure of the success of any particular school. The best test of a school is its activities. What is going on in the school? Are the pupils there regularly? Are they spontaneously employing their sdfooi. * powers? Is the work they are doing sig- nificant because related to the permanent and fundamental interests that are dominating their lives? Is the organization of the school such as to stim- ulate the social impulses and develop ethical impulses and control? Is the curriculum vitally related to the social process of which the children are a part? Is the teacher a worthy representative of social culture, inspiring in his personality and professionally equipped for his work? 88 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION If such questions as these, dealing with the activities of the school, can be satisfactorily answered, there will be little occasion for concern over the quality of the output, or over the question of waste in the education factory. Measured by the standards just stated, there are cer- tain sources of waste in our present system of schools Sources of ^^^^ should cause us grave concern. First waste in of all, our children do not continue long sc 00 s. enough in the schools. There is too much leakage between grades, too much waste of opportunity. Professor Thorndike has shown that,^ for all cities of 25,000 and over in the country, out of every 100 chil- dren who enter the first grade 10 have dropped out be- fore reaching the fourth grade; 19 before reaching the fifth grade; 32 before reaching the sixth grade; 46 before reaching the seventh grade; 60 before reaching the eighth grade; and 92 before reaching the twelfth grade. This showing is undoubtedly better than would hold for the entire country. This means that only 40 per cent of our children are receiving a common-school education and 8 per cent a high-school education. The average age of leaving school is about twelve years, after an aggregate attendance of slightly more than two full years. We can hardly hope to train to intelligent and efficient partici- pation in a democracy under these conditions. Further, there is a great waste from irregular attend- ance. An industrial concern would hardly think it pos- sible to run with from a quarter to a third attendance. ^^ ^^^ Operatives constantly idle. Yet this is what we do in the schools. The average daily attendance in some States falls as low as 65 or 75 per cent of the registration. Of course a perfect ^Bulletin of United States Commission of Education, No. 377. INSTITUTIONAL MODES OF EXPERIENCE 89 percentage of attendance cannot be expected, but school-going is hardly yet considered by many as a business which needs the same regularity as any other business. Probably, however, the greatest source of waste in our present schools is in the teaching. We have not yet as a nation learned the economy of expert pooft^eacSng.^ teaching. Our standards for entering the vocation are low, and the professional re- quirement of those in the work almost negligible. Teach- ing is gradually being given over into the hands of women, there being now slightly over twenty per cent of men in the work. The compensation is hardly sufficient to war- rant men to accept classroom work as a life occupation except in the larger cities. It is not unusual for pupils to pass through the entire twelve grades of the public school without having any instruction under a man teacher. It need hardly be explained that no criticism is in- tended on the value and ability of women as teachers. Teaching -^^^ ^^^^ ^^^ ^^^ women are needed in mostly by the school, as in the home. Further, it is women. impossible to develop a professional spirit and technique when the term of service in the vocation is short; and the proportion of women engaged in teach- ing materially shortens the tenure in the work. For women will not, and should not, look upon teaching as a life work. Their career ultimately Kes in the home, and there most of them are to be found after a year or two in the schoolroom. From the nature of its origin and its function, the school is the complement of the other social institutions. In primitive societies, no schools are needed, for the home, 90 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION the state, and the church, being simple in their organiza- tion and function, are able to take care of the instruc- tion of the child in all the Hnes necessary for supplement to efficient participation in the Hfe of society other insti- g^g ^hen organized. But, as Hfe grows more complex, two changes take place in this re- lationship; the institutions themselves find their activi- ties so multiplied that they have not the time for teach- ing the young, and the educational demands grow so complex that only an institution giving all its time and attention to the work of education, and organized with this specific end in view, can carry out the work of teach- ing the young. For example, in primitive societies the home is able to instruct the child in all that is needed of the simple arts and crafts required to fit the individual into so elementary a social process. But as social inter- ests multiply, and as the home itself takes on many new functions growing out of the more highly organized social life, it finds the educating of children far beyond its power. Likewise, in the early state, the duties of citizenship were taught the young men by the chieftain of the tribe and fully exemplified by him in their presence in the hunt or on the war-path. But as the simply organized tribe grew into the complex state with its citizens numbered by milhons, it manifestly became impossible to train for citizenship in any such way. The early church made it an important part of its function to instruct its members, and particularly the young, in the principles of religion, and in the creed and technique of the church. In the United States, this func- tion still rests with the church, with whatever help can be had from the home. In England, France, and Ger- INSTITUTIONAL MODES OF EXPERIENCE 91 many, however, instruction in religion is a regular part of the school's function. The school has, therefore, arisen out of very immediate and concrete social needs. At the time of its origin, it ^ , took over a set of very necessary functions The school , , , . . . - / , , must keep that the Other institutions found themselves close to social unable successfully to carry out. It had iieedSs no doubtful or distant aim. It responded fully to the social demands and purpose. There was no danger of a divorcement of the educational aim from the social aim; for they were one and the same. The great problem of the school at all stages of its development is to maintain this immediacy of response to social needs and the social aim. That it has not been able to do this at all times is not strange; for social needs and the social aim are not always easy to interpret. But that the school should be allowed to continue out of harmony with so- ciety would indicate that society has not yet been able to select, organize, and administer a means of carrying out its aim. While the school has so important a set of functions, it may nevertheless be questioned whether the other Is too much social institutions are not expecting and demanded of demanding too much of the school; whether e sc 00 ? ^j^^y ^^^ ^^^ making the school a dumping ground for activities in which they themselves are fail- ing or which they are shirking. Homes that are not able to control rebellious or wayward children not infrequently turn the problem over to the school with a sigh of relief, expecting the school to reform where the home was un- able to form. Or other homes in which an atmosphere of bickering and fault-finding prevails, and in which the rules of common courtesy and politeness are constantly 92 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION violated, expect the school to train the child to gentle conduct and a responsive disposition. Similarly the community not infrequently works at cross-purposes with the school in requiring that the school teach children the principles of hygiene and mmiity^nd temperate living, and at the same time school may offers for Sale tobacco and cigarettes to pmpotls!''^^' school children and tempts them by saloons and worse dens of vice. The school is ex- pected to instruct children in the laws of health and how to avoid diseases whose communication and progress are due to lack of cleanliness or reasonable caution. Yet schoolrooms themselves are not always clean and well ventilated; the common drinking-cup is yet common; food that has been exposed to the dirt and dust of the street or store is daily sold for food. The state demands that the school shall teach the principles of good citizenship, honesty, patriotism, and obedience to law. Yet there are many un- tii?state. desirable citizens among us; honesty is not yet the established rule among all citizens; there are those that put private interest above patriotism ; and not a few law-breakers go about among us unpun- ished. Of course, it is not to be expected that the home, the community, or the state will be perfect any more than .„ . . . that the school will be perfect. And the All institutions . , . , • i • .«. ^» should assist fact that the other social institutions are ^h ^^wid*^^^ ^^^ ^^^^^ meeting their problems does not imply that the school shall be indifferent to the demands placed upon it. The problem of educating the child is a common problem. All the institutions are involved in it. The school cannot do it all. The other INSTITUTIONAL MODES OF EXPERIENCE 93 institutions must do their part and furnish an atmosphere that is not only not hostile to the work the school has set for it to do, but an atmosphere that renders the work of the school more easy and fruitful. Team work among the social institutions is the first requisite in the educa- tion of the child. REFERENCES On institutions in general: Addams, Democracy and Social Ethics; Bagley, Educative Process, ch. II; Bosanquet, Philo- sophical Theory of the State; Chancellor, Motives, Ideals and Values in Education, ch. II; Coleman, Social Ethics; Dewey and Tufts, Ethics, part III; Henderson, Social Elements, part III; Riidiger, Principles of Education, ch. XIV. On the home: H. Bosanquet, The Family; Dewey and Tufts, Ethics, ch. XXVI; Eliot, American Contributions to Education, ch. V; Parsons, The Family, chs. XIV, XV; Saleeby, Parenthood and Race Culture; Small and Vincent, Introduction to the Study of Society, books III, IV; articles by Talbot, Sumner, Oilman, Henderson, and Morrow in American Journal of Sociology, vol. 14. On the community: Small and Vincent, Introduction to the Study of Society, book 11. On the church: Brown, Social Message of the Modern Pulpit; Caird, Philosophy of Religion; Coe, Education in Religion and Morals; Commons, Social Reform and the Church; Gladden, The Church and Modern Life; Henderson, Social Duties; King, The- ology and the Social Consciousness; Mathews, Social Teachings of Jesus; Peabody, Jesus Christ and the Social Question; Starbuck, The Psychology of Religion; Education and National Character, published by The Religious Education Association; articles by Judson, Cochran, Kerby, Evans, Simkhovitch, Mangold, and Allen in Annals of the American Academy, vol. XXX. On the State: Bosanquet, Philosophical Theory of the State; Hill, World Organization and the Modern State; McKechnie, The State and the Individual; Willoughby, Nature of the State. On the school: Chancellor, Our School, ch. II; Dewey, The School and Society; Dutton and Snedden, The Administration of 94 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION Education in the United States; Eliot, American Contributions to Education, ch. VIII; Gilbert, The School and Its Life; Hanus, A Modern School, ch. V; Henderson, Principles of Education, chs. XV, XVI; Jenks, Citizenship and the Schools; King, Social Aspects of Education; MacVannell, Philosophy of Education, ch. X; Scott, Social Education; Spencer, Education. CHAPTER VI EDUCATION AND VOCATIONAL MODES OF EXPERIENCE /. Vocations as a Mode of Social Evolution All human progress rests on toil and sacrifice. It has been so from the beginning and will be so till the end. Work at the Man early learned that only by the sweat basis of all of his face should he eat bread. He quickly progress. outgrew the nomadic impulse that led him to wander about, living precariously on the gratuities of nature obtained from the chase or the untamed fields. He settled down and became a worker. He became the master of his environment and made it yield to his com- fort and advancement. His mastery gave him a sense of power. He became provident, and was no longer de- pendent on the accident of season or the supply of game for his food. The rigors of climate have no longer any terrors for him. He has emancipated himself from the grip of circumstances and become a ruler in his domain through work. Once having learned to work, man makes this his chief business. He tills the soil until it yields every manner of fruit. He takes the iron from the mine, woSct. ^^^ wood from the forest, and the clay from the hill-side and makes them into homes, factories, and cathedrals. He harnesses the rivers, tunnels the mountains, and bridges the oceans for his commerce. He pries out the secrets of nature and develops science. 95 96 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION He immortalizes his hopes, his aspirations, and his suffer- ings in literature and art. Man is patiently climbing upward and is carrying his environment with him. Work has been the greatest formative influence in his evolution; it is the means by which he has created civ- ilization. At first man's work was heterogeneous and unorgan- ized. Each was his own butcher, baker, and candlestick- Diverse nature i^^^er. But, finally, both personal choice of primitive and ccouomy of effort led to division of ^^^ ' labor. One man became a tiller of the soil, another became a miner, another a fisherman, and so on. Vocations were having their rise. And the process of subdivision has gone on until an astonishing degree of refinement has resulted. Each worker must labor^^^ now develop a very high grade of skill in a narrow field. The Jack of all trades finds no place in the world's work under modern conditions. The day of specialists is here. There are many vocations, but man's needs lie at the centre of them all; hence they are all interrelated. In- deed, social unity and interdependence are of\oc\tio^ns. nowhere better illustrated than in the voca- tions. Let the railway workers strike, and a city goes hungry. A season's crops fail, and business and the other industries feel the stringency. A score of vocations unite to set our breakfast-table, and half a hundred men working a thousand miles apart join hands in supplying us with a suit of clothes. The scientist is helpless without the skilled mechanic to construct his instruments and machines, and both pay tribute to the farmer, who in turn profits by the work of the scientist and the inventor. VOCATIONAL MODES OF EXPERIENCE 97 Men work for two very good and sufficient reasons: first, because they have to, and second, because they de- sire to. Both economic and social necessity, Vocations . , . . i i a universal as we have already seen, spur men to labor, mode of jjg ^j^q -^[w j^q^ work may not eat, and neither will he stand well among his fellows. Man is too great to be satisfied with mere dawdling or the expenditure of his powers on the trivial and inconse- quent. He is at his best only when some great purpose demands all his energies in fruitful toil. Vocations con- stitute, therefore, a universal mode of existence. The only exceptions are to be found at the two opposite poles of society, and both are equally abnormalities and in the way of progress. The one is the vagabond, lacking in initiative and too lazy to provide for himself by work; the other is the rich idler, also lacking in initiative, and too lazy to work when not compelled to provide for him- self. Not only are none so useless, but none are so devoid of interest and incentive as those who have nothing worthy to do. The many vocations that have been differentiated in the evolution of the social process can be grouped in a Fundamental ^^^ broad typical lines. Each of these lines groups of represents some one great field of human vocations. needs which it supplies, and all together unite to form one of the strongest unifying principles of society. II. The Industrial Vocations The industrial pursuits, such as agriculture, mining, and the trades, are the oldest and most fundamental of all the vocations. Man's first necessities are material; 98 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION he must have food, shelter, and clothing. All the insti- tutions, indeed the entire social fabric, rests on an eco- industriai voca- i^o^^ic basis. Leisure and the opportunity tions underlie for education and the refinements of life are a ot ers. based on some one's productive toil. All who study, or teach, or write, or paint pictures must have some other members of society supplying them with the necessities of Hfe and the materials that go into their work. In former times this was accomplished by slaves, who were looked upon as extra-social, and hence possessed of no rights of their own. But with slavery gone, and the industrial workers constituting one of the most important groups in our The problem democracy, the problem changes. It now of industrial becomes the aim so to utilize scientific wor ers. methods of production in the industries, and so to train the worker in the use of his powers and the technique of his labor, that the largest possi- ble output shall result from the expenditure of time and effort on the part of the worker. For the less of human energy it is necessary to put into the economic basis of life, the more there will be available for other lines of progress and for a broader development of the individual. Therefore, the man who, through better conceiving his work, or better training himself for it, or by inventing improved appliances or methods, can make laiSr.^** ^^^ blades of grass grow where one grew before is a benefactor of his race. He is in so far a creator, and is fulfilling a function than which there is none higher. He is ministering to one of the most immediate and fundamental of human needs and is him- self in contact with the deepest realities of experience. VOCATIONAL MODES OF EXPERIENCE 99 It is this fact that gives labor its dignity and makes pro- ductive toil a contribution to human progress. Society has been slow in including the industrial occu- pations in its educational aim. In fact, it has been rather the fashion in certain quarters to aimstow^to dccry as spurious all education that is include "practical" in the sense that it touches the vocations. industrial activities. It is true that the old-time guilds opened schools for their ap- prentices in which they were given training in their voca- tion. But when the state took up education, this type of training was for the most part omitted. In recent times, Germany, England, and France have seen their mistake in the matter of industrial education and have made this an integral part of their school programme. Until recently it has been one of the anomalies in our own educational system that in many States the only industrial education offered at the expense of the state was in the reform schools. But the social demand that industrial training shall form a part of general education has become very insistent and all but universal. The schools are responding to the demand and the programmes are being reconstructed to include this work. In addi- tion, many municipalities are now establishing special trade schools in which a thorough knowledge of, and skill in, the industries may be obtained. Not only is agricult- ure being introduced into the common schools in many States, but special schools and courses are being organ- ized throughout the land. Division of labor ^^^ ^^ ^^^ most significant f acts in mod- causes loss of ern industries is the division of labor with ^^ ^^^^ * its high degree of specialization, and the introduction of machines to do the work formerly done 100 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION with hands. So far as the activities involved in the actual labor itself are concerned, it seems inevitable that the individual must be the loser by the change. For it is hard to maintain the same interest in the work of daily smoothing the edge of hundreds of shoe heels at a machine that attached to making the whole shoe when this was done by hand. The acts that go into the labor become automatic and less of the self is called forth. The worker tends to become a machine. Proper adjustment to this phase of the industrial sit- uation requires that the worker shall apply his interest and initiative toward making himself the necessSy?* Hiost expert speciaHst possible in his nar- row field. In this way he will find satisfac- tion in his labor and will also increase his production as measured per unit of time and effort. As a compensation for this increased productivity he must himself receive better hygienic, social, and moral conditions under which to work. He must receive larger pay in order that his standard of living may advance. And he must work fewer hours so that he may have time for recreation and self -improvement. It is imperative that the problem of a better adjust- ment of the industrial workers to changed conditions in Problems modern industries shall be worked out, and pressing for that this group of vocations shall receive solution. ^j^^j^ share of the advantage that has come from the more efficient modes of production. For it matters not how loud the roar of our factories, how long our railroads, or how high our buildings if hu- man life is being degraded or left undeveloped in the process; the result cannot be progress. The greatest wealth of society is after all her men and women. A VOCATIONAL MODES OF EXPERIENCE 101 worthy and permanent civilization cannot be built on industrial slavery or injustice. ///. The Business Vocations Necessary as are the industrial vocations, the industrial workers alone, functioning solely as producers in the in- Necessity for dustries, could never build a complex civili- business zation. Crops must be raised, but grains voca ons. must also be distributed to the world's mar- kets. Iron must be dug from the mine, smelted, and made into machines, but this can best be done on a large scale and with an organized system that requires minute divi- sion of labor and the use of much costly machinery. The business vocations stand for the organization and direction of industrial energy, and for the application Nature of ^^ Capital toward making the effort ex- business pended in the industries more productive, voca ons. Factories are set up, transportation sys- tems put into operation, efficient methods of exchange devised, and all the rest of the vast machinery of the pro- duction and distribution of wealth co-ordinated and made effective by those acting in the business vocations. Through the introduction of labor-saving machines, the application of more efficient methods of manufacture, and, above all, through skilful organization Common / ' . i r i i r i interests of and management m the field of production capital and ^iXid. distribution, the business vocations have labor. doubled and trebled the value of human energy as applied to the industries. Business workers are therefore as necessary in any highly organized society as are industrial workers, and each group supplements the activities of the other. There can be no fundamental 102 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION antagonism between the interests of the two classes. The struggle that is being waged between labor and capital does not grow out of a conflict that is inherent in their re- lations, but out of class blindness and selfishness and social malorganization. The business occupations differ from the industrial in affording greater opportunities for the satisfying of certain instincts for competition and con- be'h^een^^^ flict. In his evolutiou, man has come up business and through agcs of fierce struggle, and these vacations. experiences have left in him the love of a contest. Wars are becoming less common and hand-to-hand conflict is wholly tabooed. But the contests of the modern business arena supply an outlet for these fighting tendencies. They lack nothing of the cunning and but Httle of the ferocity of the earher com- bats with the enemy in the forest or on the battle-field. In the fierce struggles on the board of trade little quarter is asked or given. The problem of the business vocations is a double one. Its first aspect is so to adjust the relations of business to Problem of ^^^ industries that the industrial workers the business shall not be exploited for the advantage of vocations. capital. It is true that, on the whole, the business vocations engage a higher grade of intelligence and education than the industrial occupations and can therefore justly claim larger rewards for their workers. The inherent selfishness in human nature has, however, impelled business to take more than its fair share of the joint product of the two vocations. Great masses of in- dustrial workers have been exploited to enrich business and have themselves been reduced to the lowest living wage. This has precluded for a large proportion of the VOCATIONAL MODES OF EXPERIENCE 103 industrial workers not only all the luxuries and refine- ments of life, but in many cases nearly all of its comforts and many of its necessities as well. Such a situation is a source of constant strain on the social bond, and a seri- ous barrier in^the way of social progress. The second phase of the problem confronting the busi- ness vocations is concerned with a change in the direc- tion of the conflict involved. Conflict there fiicTavaiiabS! ^^^^ Continue to be, for a large part of the satisfaction in business comes from the game itself. But the better part, at least, of the impulse that prompts to combat can be satisfied in other ways than in slaughtering one's competitor in the commercial arena. Man's best powers are yet challenged by proj- ects for more efficiently utilizing natural forces and re- sources, and he needs still to grapple with the difficulties involved in the better organization and management of business enterprises. Business energies directed in these lines will still result in pitting man against man, but the conffict will be indirect, and neither will need to fail in order that the other may succeed. Competition in these directions resiflts in the enrichment of society and the impoverishment of no one. The educational aim cannot ignore the business voca- tions, for their relation to the social programme is very vital and their functions very important, tionaiaim' Every individual is in some degree a busi- must include ness man. He must help organize and business iT_ u • r i. t. vocations. carry on the busmess of a home, a shop, a farm, a church, or a state. Therefore gen- eral education should take into account the business side of social activity and furnish training in the elements of business law, the forms and usages of commercial paper, 104 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION and the technique of ordinary business operations such as are required by those engaged in other than business occupations. The principles underlying the organization and man- agement of business enterprises, and the technique of Business ^^^ activities involved in them, are becom- training in ing well enough known so that we are ap- ^^ °°^* proximating a science of business. This means that those who are to enter upon business vocations should have the opportunity for special educational prep- aration in these lines. Business education has been brought into some degree of disrepute in this country through the so-called "business colleges,'' hundreds of which purport to give a complete business education in six months. The most that these schools can do is to offer instruction in the incidentals of business; that is, in the details of business forms and book-keeping. While all this is necessary for the business man, this much alone is but a training for clerks and book-keepers. An en- couraging tendency is just now observable, however, in the opening of ''departments of commerce" in various of the leading American universities, where the underly- ing principles as well as the method of business may be studied. IV. The Technological Pursuits The technological pursuits possess a different, if not a higher, type of interest than the business vocations. It Nature of the ^^ ^^^^ ^^^^ invention emerges, and that technological force and cunning are appHed to material pursui s. things and not to men. The technological worker sets his task at mastering the materials and forces of nature and subjecting them to his will. He is not in- VOCATIONAL MODES OF EXPERIENCE 105 terested in theories except as they lead to practical results. He fastens upon some bit of truth in the form of a law or hypothesis discovered by the scientist, appKes it to the products of mine, forest, and field, and a new machine or a new process is the result. In order successfully to carry on his work, he develops a remarkable degree of skill and refinement of technique. And where his hand, because of its natural Kmitations, is unable to carry out his wish, he just constructs another instrument and turns the work over to it. On the social side the contribution of the technologist is in the direction of making our world more habitable. The contri- '^^^ discovcries of science are applied to the butionofthe vocations, making them more productive, technologist. ^^^ invention not only makes work easier, but also suppHes many appliances that add immeasurably to the comfort and breadth of Hfe. The technological worker, while he is dependent on the industrial vocations for his materials, on the business vocations for the finan- cing of his projects, and on the scientist for much of the knowledge that he utiHzes, is the actual and immediate creator of the material side of civilization. It is from his hands directly that we receive the finished product that adds to our convenience or luxury. It is through his work that electricity is harnessed and sent on our errands, or made to light cities and run our cars; that Niagara is belted to dynamos and made to become a source of power as well as of wonder. Steam is made into a slave, and the ocean becomes a highway. Buildings are erected that tower a tenth of a mile in the air and house comfortably and hygienically under one roof more people than five in an average village. CaHfornia is brought nearer to New York than Boston was to Philadelphia in the older 106 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION day, and the whole habitable world is welded into one great family by the telegraph, the cable, and the news- paper. In return for the materials that he receives from the industrial workers, the technologist originates inventions and machines that multiply many times the efficiency of industrial labor. He gives back to the scientist in return for what he borrows from him the telescope, the micro- scope, and a thousand other machines and instruments indispensable in scientific research. In like manner this debt is paid to each of the vocations. So important has technology become in our modern Hfe that education has seen the necessity of incorporating Technology ^^ ^^ ^^^ ^^^- '^^^ highly specialized skill and the edu- and trained technique required in tech- cationai aim. nology Cannot be secured without specially organized schools possessing extensive equipment and affording expert instruction. Lack of technological edu- cation leaves a nation at a disadvantage in two important particulars; first, the lack of skilled workmen makes it impossible to compete successfully with the foreign na- tions which have trained workmen; second, lack of skill and efficiency in production results in waste of natural resources. The United States, possessing seemingly inexhaustible resources, and capable of producing great wealth with little effort, has been slower than Europe in sta^es^ehind seeing the need of the technological as one in techno- of the aspccts of pubHc education. Ger- training. many, England, and France, being less favored than our own country, and having a denser population, have been forced to use every means of increasing the efficiency of production. Hence, in VOCATIONAL MODES OF EXPERIENCE 107 these countries technological education is much farther advanced than with us. The indications at present are that the American people are awakening to the part that technology plays in the social process and will pro- vide for this type of education. V. The Scientific Pursuits The scientific pursuits are dictated by still another type of interests. In these the play of mind has come to be Nature of ^^ ^^^ ^^ itself. Genius and cunning are scientific pitted against the Great Unknown. The pursm s. imiverse of law and matter challenges the mind. Man accepts the challenge and is slowly but surely unravelling the secrets of nature. The scientist as such is not concerned with the practical application of the truths he discovers. To be sure, he knows that all truth is valuable and in the end related to human experi- ence, but he leaves the application to others. Truth for its own sake becomes his motto. Research and investi- gation become a game, with some new bit of truth the stakes. The "pure sciences" are the result. In a less highly differentiated society, the scientific pursuits, concerned as they are with the accumulation of truth rather than with the question of its bearing on the immediate affairs of men, would have little direct value. But with our present degree of differentiation, there always stands ready the technological and the business vocations waiting to make serviceable to the immediate needs of society what the scientist discovers. Contributions '^^^ value of the Contributions of the sci- of science to entists to social advancement cannot be social progress, computed. Not the least of the contribu- tions of science is the method that it embodies. The sci- 108 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION entist is pre-eminently an investigator. He seeks first of all the facts and desires them at first hand. He sub- jects all authority and tradition to examination and test. He undertakes to prove all things that lie within his field and holds fast only to that which he can prove. This method and attitude have come in large degree to prevail in all lines of modern thought. Nothing is too trivial or too sacred to be subjected to investigation and verification. This critical spirit has undoubtedly re- sulted in some loss of reverence and respect for many of the older concepts; on the other hand, it has made the concepts that have stood the test more vital in relation to experience. Science has freed us from the reign of superstition. Through the discovery that all nature has been evolved Science frees ^^^ Continues to operate in accordance with from super- all-inclusive law, we no longer beheve in stition. . ^ J J 1 Signs, omens, and portents; hence, we are no longer under their tyranny. Eclipses are not animals eating up the moon and to be frightened away by much noise and shouting; pestilence and disease are not a visi- tation of Providence indicating His displeasure with our conduct, but are a result of our carelessness and diso- bedience to natural law; poverty and crime are not to be taken as a matter of course, but are the result of dis- coverable and in some degree preventable causes. Through the discoveries of the scientist, the length of human life is being greatly lengthened and the rav- Science ^S^^ ^^ sickness and disease much reduced, contributes thereby effecting a great saving, both to the arts. • n i • n i i • economically and socially, and also in unnecessary sorrow and suffering. Science teaches us how to conserve our natural resources; how to get the most out of the soil, the mine, and the forest without VOCATIONAL MODES OF EXPERIENCE 109 exhausting their treasures; and how to manufacture our products with the least waste of material and energy. It is science that is giving us mastery of our environ- ment, and hence control over the processes of our own experience. Science has come to play a large part in the educational aim. No country has to-day a school curriculum that does not provide for science as one of the The 6 dues.* tionai aim branches of study. While science has there- responsiveto fQj-g become a part of general education, SC16I1C6. this does not mean that the schools shall train to the vocation of the scientist. The scientist re- quires a high degree of skill and the technique of his special field. He must have thoroughly at his command the discoveries and inventions applying to his work and must possess a broad and accurate fund of information bearing upon his problems. It is therefore evident that the scientist must be trained in a specially fitted school or department which is fully equipped to put him into possession of these requisites. VI. The Professional Pursuits The professional pursuits belong to a relatively ad- vanced stage of social development. They have their Place of origin in the necessity for meeting crises professional in experience. Primitive man did not pursuits. trouble himself about laws of hygiene, medicine, or surgery until he met with an accident, or until sickness came; then he sent for the medicine man. Similarly, when the run of experience was smooth and undisturbed by trouble, man felt himself sufficient in his own strength; but when crushing sorrow came upon him, or eternity opened out before him, he sent for the 110 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION minister or the priest. The lawyer was employed only when one was caught in the meshes of the law. The teacher was called in chiefly to prepare his pupil to meet some emergency, like preparing for a vocation, acquaint- ing oneself with the capital laws of the land or with the doctrines of the church. Both society and the professional class, however, are coming to see that the highest function of these vocations Changing atti- ^^ ^^ prepare so to meet the various expe- tude toward lienccs of life that the great crises shall pro essions. ^^^ siuse as threatening catastrophies. The physician is coming to conceive his function as being far more that of teaching people how to keep well than to cure them after they have become sick. He sees the greatest victories ahead for his profession in the field of hygiene and preventive medicine, rather than in remedial medi- cine. The minister and the priest are no longer thought of as a source of help when death threatens, but as moral and religious leaders who shall so teach to live that sorrow and death may no longer be the great crises to which the individual is unable to adjust himself. The lawyer does not find it his chief business to plead cases in court, but so to help in the making and interpreting of wise laws, and so to coimsel his clients that lawsuits shall not be neces- sary. The work of the teacher is coming to be conceived as the training of his pupils in the habit of meeting and adjusting themselves to crises and emergencies so that they may develop the power to control their own experi- ence under these conditions. Professions From these considerations it follows that require special the professional class must be a class of aimng. specialists, both as to their functions and their training and methods. They are leaders, and their VOCATIONAL MODES OF EXPERIENCE 111 education must be of a highly concentrated and intense character. And, in order that this may not make them narrow, this specialized education must have as its foun- dation a broad and thorough general education. The educational aim must include the professional vo- cations. The carrying out of this aim requires special schools of very high type. This demand is tionai aim being met by the organization of schools of includes the medicine, law, theology, and education in professions. . . ^-^ . . connection with most of the great umversi- ties. The profession of education is the newest of the pro- fessions, if indeed it should even now be called a profession. There are some reasons for thinking that teaching can never be as closely organized and highly specialized a profession as medicine, law, or theology. Among these are the uncertainty of tenure of position and the meagre- ness of compensation. Another is the large proportion of women in the vocation, most of whom remain only a brief time, and hence can never catch the professional spirit. Yet the work of the teacher is, on the whole, becoming more standardized, the professional spirit is developing, and education is gradually earning the right to be classed as a profession. VII. The Vocation of the Artist The artist's vocation deals not with the creation of values, but with their expression. The artist must first of all be a man of vision, one who is able the artist. ^^ Weigh valucs, and he must then possess the skill that will enable him to put these values into simple and beautiful form. He looks out upon life, the manifold life of the race, and seizes upon 112 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION the greatest concepts, the most vital experiences, the strongest motives. These he crystallizes in a picture, a statue, an epic, a cathedral, or an oratorio. Through the clearness of his vision and the skill of his technique he is able to express his ideal so clearly that even he who runs may read. In this way the great concept or motive, or whatever has constituted the ideal of the artist, is brought clearly to the social consciousness and made the common property of the race. The artist is pre-eminently a seeker after truth, beauty, and goodness in their highest form. He subjects the ex- The artist an periences of men to analysis and sets out influential certain phases to stand as types for man in eac er. y^ striving. He selects from among many values those that he conceives as most worth while. These he is able to emphasize by clothing them in forms of beauty and harmony, to whose appeal man always responds. The artist is therefore an influential leader and teacher. Upon him rests a great responsibility. Raphael's ideal of motherhood and childhood has set the standard for millions who have looked upon the " Sis- tine Madonna"; and Leonardo's "The Last Supper" reveals as much of the character of Jesus as do the Gospels. Artists of the highest type, like other geniuses, are un- doubtedly born, and not made. Yet there is much of the Relation of ^^^ impulse in all of us, and the develop- art to the edu- ment of this impulse should form an im- cational aim. ,. j. r ji rji.* portant part of the concern of education. Not only is this necessary from the fact that an opportu- nity to express the artistic impulse at the right time would undoubtedly discover to themselves many excellent ar- tists who otherwise would never know of their powers, VOCATIONAL MODES OF EXPERIENCE 113 but also because all need to cultivate a knowledge of art and an appreciation of its values. While the public schools cannot teach the highly perfected technique of the artist, they can cultivate the power to understand the work of the artist and the desire to express its great ideals in their own experience. REFERENCES Bucher, Industrial Evolution; Cariton, Education and Industrial Evolution; Davidson, Education of the Wage-earners; Daven- port, Education for Efficiency; Dopp, The Place of Industries in Elementary Education; Gillette, Vocational Training; Hall, Youth, chs. Ill, IV; Haney, Art Education in the Schools of the United States; ^Idums, Beginnings of Industrial Education; Her- rick, Commercial Training; V^oxd {editor), Social Ministry, chs. V, VI; Annals of the American Academy (number on Industrial Training,), vol. SS- CHAPTER VII EDUCATION AND AVOCATIONAL MODES OF EXPERIENCE /. The Place of Avocations in the Social Process In apposition with vocational modes of experience must be placed the avocational. As society grows in wealth and economic pressure lessens, leis- \ avocations! ^^^ begins to play a more important part | in the social process. Avocations are as much a matter of social concern as vocations. For it is almost, if not quite, as high an art to use one's leisure time well in his avocations as to employ his work time well in his vocation. To prove the truth of this statement, one has but to witness the large number of people to whom freedom Importance of ^^om. toil means liberty for the indulgence avocational of low tastes and bestial impulses in some standards. sensual orgy. Such a use of leisure as this is a menace to society, for it breeds debauchery and crime; it is a menace to the individual, for, instead of recuperating his strength and renewing his courage, it saps his energy, lowers his tastes, and sends him back to his work depleted physically and depressed mentally. Nor is the unwise and unprofitable use of recreation time confined to this class alone. Many persons to whom Leisure often ^^^^ ^^^ forms of amusement would be re- unprofitabiy pelHug, fail, nevertheless, to employ their spent. leisure from work in such a way as to re- store reduced physical and mental power. It is entirely 114 AVOCATIONAL MODES OF EXPERIENCE 115 possible for diversions, wholly innocent in themselves so far as moral wrong is concerned, to result in a drain upon nervous energy, or in a dissatisfaction with the routine of daily work, and thereby prove a hindrance instead of a help to the individual. The difficulty cannot be solved by depriving of the time for leisure. The impulse to recreation and play is Impulse to deep-seated in the race, and the individual play deep- cannot be robbed of the opportunity for its expression without grave injury to his de- velopment. The prematurely old children, with their dull and lifeless faces, who may be seen pouring from the fac- tories where child labor is employed, are tragic proof of this statement. If we trace back the history of the dull and brutish men of to-day, we almost invariably find that they were the playless children of yesterday. The physical necessity for recreation is indisputable. The child needs to play in order to develop his brain, pro- Physical ^ote bodily growth and vigor, and secure necessity for muscular control and co-ordination. His recreation. ■, ^ . . . , , only way of gaming energy is through spend- ing it, and his only way of becoming master of his body for the more serious business of life is through using all its powers in the unrestricted activity of play. The adult needs the change and rest that come through avocations hardly less than the child. The fagged brain The adult ^nd listless organism are the result of run- needs ning too long in one groove, of playing too steadily upon one string. It is not work, but unremitting work, that kills. If between the ages of twenty and seventy years a man is to work forty years and rest or play ten, he should not work steadily from the time he is twenty until he is sixty and then drop all 116 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCx\TION occupation and spend the remainder of his days in idle- ness, being, as Browning puts it, one "Whose lot is cast With those who watch, but work no more, Who gaze on Hfe, but live no more." The better plan is to distribute the rest-time of life throughout the working period as recreation and thereby retain the ability and desire to follow one's vocation till the end. The mental necessity for play and recreation is no less pressing than the physical. Probably the most rapid Mental progress made by the child in his mental necessity for development is during the play years before recreation. j^^ j^^^ reached school age. Play, which has been looked upon as an incident, or even as a neces- sary evil in the life of the child, is one of the most educa- tive factors. Imagination, memory, invention, judgment, and many other of the mental powers are never more vi- tally and fruitfully trained than in the activities of plays and games. Inhibition, self-control, and co-operation are in constant demand on the playground. Here also crises are met and problems solved that are closely typ- ical of the more serious crises and problems of later forms of experience. Besides the influence of play in genetic development, its purely recreative function must not be overlooked. Necessity '^^^ mind demands change of activity and for relief environment. It must get out of the rou- from routine. ^^^^ ^£ .^^ (j^ily work, no matter how inter- esting this may be, or stagnation and a decline of rnental power inevitably result. It is not hard thinking, but con- AVOCATIONAL MODES OF EXPERIENCE 117 tinuous thinking along the one line that drains mental power. Not inactivity, but intellectual and emotional change is needed; and not change of thought alone, but also a change enlivening the mood. To work without de- pletion of power, a certain amount of tonic in the form of fun and enjoyment must be had. Work in most of its forms is in some degree social in its activities, but it is too serious and concentrated when Social ^^^ interspersed with play to yield the best necessity results in the training of the social impulses, or pay. j^ ^^ j^ ^^^ recreative activities that the social nature finds its fullest and freest expression. Only when work is laid aside and people are mingling in their avocations are the social powers at their best. The child's first touch with the wider social order outside his home is through the medium of the play Socializing activities. Play is the greatest socializing influence influence in his life at this stage of his of play. development. Through play he learns the limitation of his personal will and power as opposed to the social will. The force of public opinion is felt, and the child gradually comes to conceive a social order vastly higher and more powerful than himself. Yet, through the common activities of play, he feels himself a part of this social order and participates in it. He finds himself necessary at certain points. He sometimes takes the ini- tiative and plans and commands. He is learning to lead as well as to follow. Out of all these experiences the group spirit is having its rise and the concept of the common good is taking hold. Loyalty develops, and the child is occasionally not only willing but glad to sacrifice himself for the success of his group or team. The social bond grips him, and he learns that the individual must often 118 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION give way for the larger good. The child's concept of society is broadening, and he is coming to conceive him- self as a part of the greater social process. He is becom- ing socialized through his play activities. But it is not the child alone that needs the recreative activities. From one standpoint the adult requires them Danger of perhaps even more. Work tends to sober losing tiie the individual and make him too solemn play spirit. ^^^^ scrious. The lighter and more bhthe- some moods drop out and are lost, and in their stead come a heaviness and dulness of emotional tone, and with this change we feel '^that there hath past away a glory from tlie earth." The social impulses have much to do with keeping the life fresh and spontaneous, and they are sure to atrophy if not used. Many people become so immersed in their work that they forget how to play, and can take no pleasure in any form of avocation. They even forget how to rest, and can only work, eat, and sleep, and then repeat the process until their overstrained powers break down and they must quit. Such persons miss some of the richest and most valuable experiences of life and pre- pare themselves for a premature and unhappy old age, lacking in interests and barren in resources. The moral necessity for avocations is as great as the physical, mental, or social. Play is a great incentive to Moral ^ correct life and a strong antidote for im- necessity morality or dehnquent tendencies. Mor- or p ay. |^.^ ^^^^ Unhealthy states of mind give way before the counteracting influence of play. Moral dan- gers which threaten youth in periods of leisure and physical inactivity are greatly lessened, if not wholly re- moved, through the interest, enthusiasm, and physical weariness accompanying vigorous play. AVOCATIONAL MODES OF EXPERIENCE 119 Many cities have found that boys' gangs of predatory or criminal nature are readily transformed into peaceful Play as a ^^^ efficient base-ball and foot-ball teams, remedy for Criminal gangs of boys that have terrorized delinquency. certain parts of some of our cities have soon been eliminated by the simple expedient of supplying the boys with ample opportunity for games and amusements. A large proportion of our criminals enter upon a Hfe of crime through misdirected energies and impulses, rather than from innate criminal tendencies. Cities are learning that it is both wiser and cheaper to put money into pubHc playgrounds, amusement parks, and recreation centres than into criminal courts, reform schools, and peniten- tiaries. Play is not, as many have thought, antagonistic to work. The play impulse and the work impulse are very Play not closely related, and each is the complement antagonistic of the Other. The play activities are the towor . natural and necessary foundation for the work activities. No one who does not know what it is to work can fully enjoy and profit by play; on the other hand, one who has never known what it means to throw the whole self into free and unrestricted play will find it hard to bring all of his powers to bear upon his work. It is in play that the individual first and most naturally learns to bring the entire self into action, to use the last measure of effort and will-power of which he is capable. Play trains to the endurance of fatigue and Play trains . . . to qualities the bearing of pain and hardship. It accus- necessary toms the individual to be generous in a vie- to work. . tory and strong in defeat. It requires per- sonal initiative, quickness of decision, and self-reliance. And these quahtieSjWhich are so constantly demanded and 120 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION so effectively developed through play, are the ones most needed in vocational life. Nor will proper play create a distaste for work or impatience with its requirements; it will rather send the individual back to his vocation, not only with recuperated powers, but also with new zest and enthusiasm for his work. II. Classes of Avocations Avocations follow almost as many lines as there are varieties of human interests. It is therefore a hopeless The many ^^^^ ^^ Undertake any complete and sys- varieties of tematic classification of them. It will be avocations. serviceable in our present study, however, to note a few of the most fundamental groups. Avoca- tions may be roughly grouped into four great classes: (i) physical, or those growing out of the instinct for con- flict, and involving a large measure of physical prowess, strength, or skill; (2) mental, or those involving a con- test of mind; (3) social, or those resting on the social impulse, and including the various social amusements and diversions; and (4) incidental, or those resting on some personal whim, fad, or fancy, and including any line of activity undertaken for diversion. It is, of course, evident that these groups are not mutually exclusive. Many of the physical avocations require great concentration of attention, mental quick- ness, and acumen. Mental games usually involve social commingling. The social avocations often demand much physical activity. And the incidental avocations may involve any or all of the others. The ages of struggle through which man has passed in his evolution have left deeply imbedded in him the AVOCATIONAL MODES OF EXPERIENCE 121 love of physical conflict. Especially when young he craves the opportunity to exert his strength and to show his physical prowess and skill. When there is avocations. added to this the competitive element, the desire to beat an opponent, and also the social element, or the desire for the plaudits of the crowd, there is almost no end to the amount of interest and en- thusiasm that is aroused. And even when youth has passed and the impulse to physical exertion is no longer insistent, the desire to watch others in games involving combat is still very strong. Hence it is that base-ball and foot-ball games between professional teams often call together thousands of spectators who are not especially interested in one or the other side, but who enjoy the battle. So high does this combative spirit run that the leading foot-ball player or the champion athlete is a far more noted man with many persons than the leading scholar in the land. In intercollegiate athletic contests the enthusiasm reaches such a point that classes are some- times suspended for a day, and more often might as well be, in order to celebrate a victory over an opponent. The problem of relating the physical avocations to the educational aim is a double one. The first aspect of the « , X. * problem is to cultivate and keep alive in the Relation or T,..,,, ,. ^ , physical individual the desire for personal partici- avocations to pation in physical games. We have been education. . . ^ accused by the English of being a nation of great patrons of physical sports, but poor sportsmen ourselves in physical contests. It is easy to assemble almost any number of people to witness an interesting game, but most of the onlookers never play any games themselves. They attend the game chiefly to satisfy their love of conflict, and, while they may be known as 122 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION great devotees of physical sports, may themselves be actually suffering for the -want of exercise. We are rather given as a people to hiring a set of professionals to play for us while we sit lazily by and watch them. It would unquestionably be greatly better if our sports could be kept on an amateur basis and professional athletics reduced to a minimum or altogether eliminated. The recent movement toward introducing a broader and more diversified line of physical training and athletics Physical ^^^^ ^^^ schools and colleges has tended training and to reHeve this phase of the problem some- at etics. what. Physical training and participation in some line of athletics are now required of all students during at least half of the college course in most of the higher institutions in the country. The immediate bene- fits resulting to health and vigor from general partici- pation in physical avocations cannot be overestimated, and the less direct but no less important effects in devel- oping a personal interest in active participation in games and sports is as great. The second phase of the problem has to do with main- taining a proper balance between physical sports and the Maintaining scholastic activities of the school. It is true a proper that all reputable schools now have a schol- aance. arship requirement imposed on students who desire to participate in interschool contests. In spite of this fact, however, it is to be feared that the athletic spirit sometimes predominates over the scholastic spirit in schools. It is, after all, rather an anomaly for several hundred college students to hire a special train and go one or two hundred miles to witness a base-ball or a foot- ball game between their own college and a rival, and it is to be feared that this practice is also growing in the high AVOCATIONAL MODES OF EXPERIENCE 123 schools. Undoubtedly some advantage accrues to many students from the opportunity to visit another institu- tion and meet its students. On the other hand, such a jaunt cannot help being a serious break in the continuity of thought and study supposed to constitute the raison d'etre of the school. The amount of money spent by the students upon these trips and the standards of expendi- ture established constitute another serious aspect of the problem. While physical games and sports are so necessary a part of the life of the school, and while permanent inter- play not to ^^^ ^^ ^^^ ^^^ ^^ avocations needs to be usurp the cultivated for its later bearing upon the p ace o wor . individual, yet the school must not forget that its e of this contact with amusement, and, second, what shall be the education. amount? Many of the amusement places in our cities which seek to attract boys and girls constitute a menace to morahty. Nor is the country town with its dearth of amusements of any kind on much safer ground. The social impulse is very insistent in youth, and the young people will be together on the streets if there is no opportunity to mingle for diversion in social groups. It is far safer and better for them to associate with each other under conditions in which the proper social conven- tions obtain as a standard for conduct. The problem is not yet solved of supplying suitable so- cial amusements that shall afford reasonable opportu- nity for young men and maidens to associate Problem , '' . / ^ i , of social m social groups under proper cnaperonage, amusements g^^d where they can learn to observe and in the school. , , i , t • i be at ease under the social conventions. Various high schools are beginning to take this problem up and assume the function of ministering to and guiding the social impulses of their students through social enter- tainments given under the auspices of the school. In hun- dreds of towns and villages throughout the country the school-house could profitably be made into a social as well as a scholastic centre, the school thereby exercising a help- ful influence over the avocational life of its pupils. Danger of '^^^ question of the proportion of time de- waste of time voted to social amusements constitutes a and attention, gerious problem in many schools. For not infrequently young people take the matter into their own hands and organize social functions with little restraint from parents and no supervision on the part of the AVOCATIONAL MODES OF EXPERIENCE 127 school. The result in many communities has been a multiplication of social clubs, societies, parties, dances, and other forms of social amusement without end. Of course, this excess of the avocational interferes with the regular activities of the school in no small degree. The solution of this phase of the problem will have to come through the co-operation of the home and the school in seeking to limit and properly control social amuse- ments without eliminating them. The incidental avocations rest chiefly on certain per- sonal or subjective impulses which prompt the individual to take up some line of interesting occupa- avocations. ^^^^ purely as a diversion, and not with a view to profiting from the effort expended. In this sense all such occupations partake of the nature of play, which finds its full explanation and end in the activity itself and counts any practical results achieved as purely incidental. It matters not that the occupation undertaken as an avocation may constitute a vocation for others. The test is not in the nature of the activity but in its motive and spirit. The great value of the incidental avocations is that they lead to change and variety without idleness. For the Value of ^^^^ ^^^^ often comes, not from idleness, but incidental from change of occupation. Many persons avocations. ^^^ ^^^q to forget their vocation with all its perplexing worries and problems far better in congenial and interesting employment than in social diversions or in physical or mental games. Such incidental occupations also have the great advantage of permitting the develop- ment of permanent and worthy interests in lines of activ- ity that may result in much lasting personal growth or satisfaction. In addition, it not infrequently happens 128 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION that the incidental results or products of certain incidental avocations have a real value. There is no limit to the lines of occupation open to those who seek incidental avocations; for almost every vocation may, under right conditions, be- Many lines •" , ° . ' , open to come some one s avocation. It is probably incidental ^101 possible to State any rigid principle upon which the choice of an avocational occupa- tion should rest, but at least three fundamental consid- erations are involved: the avocation chosen should be adapted to the interests, physical powers, and financial ability of the individual; it should be of such nature that it will allow growth of skill and will call forth worthy and permanent interests; it should be different enough from the regular vocation of the person to furnish a com- plete diversion because of the change of activity afforded. For example, a stock-jobber runs a fancy farm as an in- cidental avocation; a professional linguist is an authority on birds; a celebrated actress raises blooded chickens; a banker is a craftsman of ability; an author dabbles in chemistry; a university professor is an enthusiast over motorcylces. Each of these workers secures great satis- faction from his avocation, and does better work in his vocation because of his incidental occupation. The incidental avocations touch the educational aim less closely than certain other avocations, but yet are Incidental ^7 ^^ nieans divorced from it. It is the avocations business of the school to cultivate as broad and education. ^ jj^^ ^£ permanent interests as possible. Some one of these interests should lead to a vocation; and others of them should serve to point the direction for desirable avocations. Nor is it rare that a line of ac- tivity taken up in early youth as an incidental avocation AVOCATIONAL MODES OF EXPERIENCE 129 has led to its acceptance as the vocation for which the individual's interests and capacities were best adapted. ///. The School and Its Avocations Concluding our discussion, we may say, then, that the school cannot escape the problem of the avocations. For the school has the individual at the time cannot avoid when the avocational is playing the largest the problem pg^j-^- {^ ^-j^g ]^{q ^^d when the avocational of avocations. , ^ ■, ^ i • i i i interests and standards are being developed. The school should therefore both teach the child suitable avocations and inculcate a love for them. It should afford an opportunity for active participation in the avocations best adapted to the age and development of its pupils. Above all, the school should stand for true sportsmanship — for absolute honesty and a spirit of generosity and ap- preciation toward opponents. Further, the school must help the individual to distinguish clearly between voca- tion and avocation. Work is not play, any more than play is work. And all attempts to make education result from a set of play exercises are not only doomed to fail- ure, but they also lead to false standards and attitudes of the individual toward work. Work and play must there- fore not be confused; they are complementary, and not synonymous. The centre of the schooFs interests and activities must be its scholastic work, and not its ath- letics, its parties, or its clubs. These are all necessary and good, but they are the incidental, and must not usurp the place of the fundamental. Such, then, in brief outline, is the social process, con- sisting of the modes of social participation open to the 130 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION individuaL It is made up of all the varied experiences of men as they live and work and play together. It includes all the manifold activities constituting the soc^Tprocessf social institutions. It includes the work of man as, through his vocations, he carries his environment constantly upward and increases and tempers his own powers. It also includes man's play, by which he rests from his work, brightens the more sober aspects of his experience, and recuperates his powers. This social process is what man makes it; it is his creation. His powers and capacities define its scope and limitations. His impulses and needs supply makes™^^ its motive force. The social process is therefore man's measure in the large, the measure of the composite man. Its glories and achieve- ments are a tribute to man's greatness; its follies and weakness are a proof of his imperfections; and its slow but sure progress toward a higher ideal is a warrant of his essential divinity. Not only is the social process man's creation, it is also his opportunity and his nemesis. Without it he can do His oppor- nothing or be nothing. It envelops his life, tunity and stimulates him, offers every inducement for nemesis. ^j^^ exercise of his powers, and richly rewards him for his contributions to its welfare. But it is also relentless and cruel if it fails. Let him refuse to accept the gifts that society so freely offers him, neglecting to educate himself or develop his powers, and the social process sweeps on past him; he is punished for his in- efficiency by being dropped behind in the race of progress. Let him rebel against the social order, setting his hand against tradition, law, and order, and he suffers retribu- tion through social ostracism and the prison. AVOCATIONAL MODES OF EXPERIENCE 131 Man in the aggregate is too great and powerful for man the individual. The sum total of human lives which The social ^^ have called the social process sets the process standard, gives the direction, and defines contros. ^^^ requirements for the individual Hfe- process. The individual must fit into the greater social order. Nor does this limit the possibiHties for the indi- vidual; for man is at his greatest and best when he is so directing his own life-process that it may become a vital and significant part of the larger stream of social life, to the end that both shall be the richer for this mutual re- lationship. This is man's highest and greatest opportu- nity. To bring about this end is the sole function of edu- cation. All that accomplishes this end is education, and nothing else is. Education, therefore, not only has its origin in the social process, but leads its product back to it. It has no meaning except as it fits the individual Education r • i i.* • a* • i • originates in ^ ^^ social participation m an ever-changing and leads back set of social activities. And this can be proce^ss.^"^ done only by leading him to identify his growing experience with the broader social experience; by causing the individual life-process to become an integral and vital part of the social process; that is, by socializing the powers and capacities of the individual. The nature of the individual's powers and capacities, through whose activities he fulfils his own destiny and becomes a participant in the social process, will consti- tute the next phase of our study. 132 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION REFERENCES Addams, The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets; Bagley, Educational Values, ch. XIII; Forbush, The Boy Problem; Groos, The Play of Man; Gulick, Mind and Work; Hall, Youth, chs. V, VI; also The Story of a Sand Pile; Hill, Athletics and Outdoor Sports for Women; Mangold, Child Problems, Book II, chs. I, II; McKenzie, Exercise in Education and Medicine; Mero, American Playgrounds; Newell, Games and Songs of American Children. PART III SOCIALIZING THE INDIVIDUAL CHAPTER VIII THE POY/ERS AND CAPACITIES OF THE INDIVIDUAL /. The Social Nature of Individual Powers and Capacities In our study of the social process we were viewing society in its dynamic or functional aspect. We were The social Concerned with social activities rather than process with social structure. And these activities, experience^- Constituting as they do the social process, process of the are but the combined and interrelated life- "^ ^^^ " * processes of the individuals making up the membership of society. Hence it is that the social process owes its nature and takes its color and trend from the character of the powers and capacities of the individual. Each of the various modes of the social process has its counterpart in the fundamental nature of the individual. All that is made explicit in the social activities must originally be implicit in the individual. ^ , , Nor is this merely a one-sided relation- Powers of the 1 . r 1 1 . . - , individual ship, for the powcrs and capacities of the shaped in the individual havc come to be what they are social process. , . . ... , because of his social participation. What was implicit in him through original nature has become 133 134 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION explicit through the necessities forced upon him by eco- nomic necessity and his social relationships; through his membership in family, church, and state; through the vo- cation by which he took his part in the world's work and made his contribution to social progress; and through the avocations by means of which he received development and diversion — in these ways were man's powers and capacities wrought out and brought to their present form. The social process has made man, as he in turn makes the social process. The powers and capacities of the individual are there- fore what he has to invest in the social activities of his rr.^ . J. .J . day. They are the measure of the contri- The individxial ,.11 . ^ the measure bution that he may make to society. On ®^ ^^.^H;}^. the other hand, if they are not developed, possibilities. ' •' . , . or if they are exerted against the interests of society, the powers and capacities of the individual are the measure of what society may lose through the failure of the individual to fulfil his function as a partici- pant in the social process. Looked at from the stand- point of the individual himself, his powers and capacities are a measure of what he may sacrifice as a person if he fails to fulfil his destiny in the full realization of the self. This point of view shows the necessity of next entering upon an analysis of the powers and capacities of the indi- N t f th vidual with a view to discovering what in powers and the individual education has to work upon th^^*^d^°^d°^ in fitting him into the social process. The powers and capacities of the individual might be classified and described from a number of dif- ferent standpoints, but the biological will perhaps best serve the purpose in the present study. From the biolog- ical standpoint the powers and capacities of the individual THE POWERS OF THE INDIVIDUAL 135 may be divided into powers and capacities (i) for im- pression, (2) for interpretation, and (3) for control or adjustment. //. Capacities for Impression The capacity to receive and respond to impressions is a fundamental biological necessity. It lies at the basis Impression a ^^ ^^^ adaptation and control, and hence fundamental conditions development. Avoiding the capacity. philosophical squabble of the sensationaKst and the nominalist we may agree that from the biological standpoint no environment exists for any organism ex- cept that from which it receives impressions. To the organism lacking a mechanism for vision luminiferous ether is non-existent and Hght and color form no part of experience. To one not possessing an organ for hearing, sound has no being or reality. Likewise the lack of a social sense would eliminate all social concepts and rob experience of its social values. In this sense no individual ever enters into a ready- made environment. His world of physical objects may ^ . be rich and varied, but to him it contains Environment i i • ' m- limited by omy what impresses itself upon mm. He capacity for j^g^y be surrounded by a multitude of living, impression. , . responsive personalities, but yet lack for comradeship if impervious to social stimuli. He may live and move and have his being in a God who to him has no reality if he is devoid of religious sensibility. Each individual creates his own environment through receiv- ing its impressions and responding to them. It cannot be created for him, nor be thrust upon him. He himself, in his capacities for impression, measures its scope and determines its nature. 136 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION On the other hand, the individual's capacity for im- pression, his abihty to be affected by his environment, did Environment ^^^ come by chance, nor was it presented to shapes him out of hand without responsibility on capaci les. j^.^ ^^^ part. On the contrary, it is only by the reaction of the organism to its environment that these capacities develop. A varied and insistent environ- ment demands a corresponding complexity of response; but adaptive response is conditioned by the range and validity of impressions. Hence the capacity for impres- sions is evolved out of the necessities and wants of the individual as related to his environment. It is in the press of the daily life and experience that they have their origin and growth. The place of an organism in the scale of creation may be determined by its capacity for impressions. For it is only through the broad environment made depends^n^ possible by a wide range of impressions that response to a Sufficient variety of reactions can be ob- envkonment. tained to secure successful Kving. The in- dividual that is capable of responding to a simple, constant environment alone is limited to a cor- respondingly narrow and monotonous experience. Stated from the alternative side, progress in evolution is both dependent upon and measured by the scope of environ- ment. Only a diverse and inconstant environment affords the stimuli requiring the range of capacity for impressions that goes with the higher forms of Hfe. In the lowest ranges of Hfe where a blind impressions. teleology prevails, the capacity for impres- sions is limited chiefly or wholly to the phys- ical. In man it has risen to the spiritual. The objects about us do not affect us merely as physical objects. THE POWERS OF THE INDIVIDUAL 137 but their social values also appeal to us. It is not alone the physical form of people that impresses us, but their spiritual significance as well. It is not only nature that speaks to us, but, back of nature, God. Nor are these two types of impressions separate and isolated from each other in experience. The opposite is rather the case, and the two can seldom be separated though they are per- fectly distinct. For purposes of description and dis- cussion, however, it will be found serviceable to speak of the capacity for impressions under the two heads of (i) impressions from physical objects, and (2) spiritual impressions. The capacity for receiving impressions from the phys- ical world lies at the basis of all other capacities. Out of the fusion of the sensory quahties of director material objects our perceptual world is physical evolvcd. The related or logical world, the impressions. 1 1 <• . . u r world of meaning, rests upon a world 01 fact, a world organized out of sensory impressions. One comes to the social nature of man only through an inter- pretation of impressions received from the physical ex- pression of his social nature. God is to be apprehended first of all through impressions coming to us from his work in nature and man. Capacity for impression is therefore a measure of the amount of raw material from his environment available to the individual out of whose interpretation he is to develop power of adjust- ment and control. . At his best man has organs developed to re- Umited in the spond to the touch of physical environment range of his Qj^jy Qygj. ^ small fraction of the range of the physical stimuli available. The eye responds to the physical energy in the form of ether waves provid- ing they come at the rate of not less than four hundred 138 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION and fifty billions nor more than seven hundred and ninety billions a second. Below and above these rates all is darkness to the eye, although it is well known that lumi- niferous ether vibrates in waves much below and above these rates. It is interesting to speculate on the multi- plied range of colors that would be visible to the human eye if its capacity for impressions from ether waves were to be doubled or trebled. The eye is also oHhe^eye.^ limited as to its range for distance. Its power of accommodation to focusing for dis- tance lies between eight inches and two hundred and ten feet, while even luminous objects at great distance create absolutely no impression. To remedy this defect, man has invented the telescope, which has enabled him to discover worlds beyond worlds. But he has not reached the end even with his most perfect telescopes added to the power of his eye. The eye is limited in receiving im- pressions from objects of minute size. Molecules and atoms exist as creations of the mind in its effort to explain nature, but vision is helpless in the atomic and molecular realm. The eye can receive impressions from the world of plants about us, but the whole myriad universe of micro-organisms is utterly beyond its ken. The influ- ence on human history can hardly be imagined if man's eye could not only supplant but even go beyond the best microscopes and receive impressions from the infi- nitely small. The human ear receives impressions from waves in the air providing the vibratory rate lies between about twenty and forty thousand per second. Below and ofThe^ear!^ above this rate all is silence, although no trouble is experienced in producing vibra- tory waves in the air much slower or faster than these rates. If the ear were tuned to receive impressions from THE POWERS OF THE INDIVIDUAL 139 rates of air waves up to one hundred thousand a second, our range for the musical scale would be almost infinitely increased, both in range and complexity, and harmonies and melodies now undreamt of would be possible. Like- wise, if the ear could receive impressions from the air waves of less amplitude than is now required, the range of distance of hearing would be increased. A man's ear might then take the place of the telephone or the tele- graph. So this line of illustration might be carried out for all the physical senses. Each of the end organs of sense is specifically adapted to receive impressions other^senses! ^^^^ ^^^ ^^^ ^^ stimulus and that alone, and only over a limited range of the scope and intensity of the stimulus. Further than this, there are probably great ranges of physical stimuli for which man has no end organs at all, and hence from which he cannot receive any impression. It is known that there are certain animals, such as pigeons with their homing sense, that far excel man in various sensory powers. In- deed, evidence is not lacking that some animals possess sensory organs of which man has no counterpart. It is seen, therefore, that man at his best is capable of receiving impressions from only a fraction of the universe Nature is ^^ ^^^ physical. This capacity is often still imperfectly further limited by imperfections of the interpreted. sensory organs. It thus seems that man, with all his boasted powers and his abiHty to pry into the secrets of nature, is, after all, but imperfectly able to meet and interpret the physical world. The limitations imposed upon us by the small range of our senses, or by their imperfections, may be still further increased by lack of training in attentive observation. 140 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION For no matter how perfect the organ, and how well it is attuned to its stimulus, no fruitful impression results ex- Need for ^^P^ ^^ ^ product of attention to the stimu- training in lus. Gathering impressions from every side observation. r * t_i • j • j. * • j of a richly varied environment is in some de- gree an art. The impulse of curiosity pushes the child out to challenge the secrets of his environment, and the native demand of his mind to know that which surrounds it compels him to an attitude of inquiry. But it is a great problem that the child is attacking when he steps out to master the material world, one that the race itself has not yet more than made a beginning upon. Much time may be saved the learner, his interest and enthusiasm may be conserved, and the results of his efforts made more fruitful by directing him into the most fruitful fields of observation and teaching him its method and technique. As the individual masters the perceptual world and becomes possessed of an increasing fund of thought material, the impression side of experience for percep- has a tendency to diminish in amount and tionto importance. The law of mental economy decrease. . , demands that all conscious impressions shall ultimately be reduced to the lowest elements that will serve as thought terms or symbols for adjustment. When the child is constructing a new percept he is prompted by curiosity and interest to discover every sensory quality that inheres in the object. He must see it, handle it, taste it, smell it, and use it in every available way. But finally this percept is no longer new; it does not appeal to interest and curiosity, and therefore claims attention only to the degree that enables it to serve its function in the thought process or in directing adjustment. It is when the percept has reached this stage that the im- THE POWERS OF THE INDIVIDUAL 141 pression phase is reduced to a minimum, and its meaning or interpretation constitutes its chief interest. Observa- tion and attention fall away, the perceptual phase of environment is losing its significance, and its relational or meaning phase is gaining ground. But it is not necessary that these two phases of experi- ence shall be set so sharply in contrast. There is no con- flict between them except in the matter of Interest in the , , perceptual mental economy, and economy may some- world may times well give way for other values. The be retained. i • i • • i i i i sunset may serve the individual as a symbol for closing the day's work and going to his evening meal, without losing its power to impress him just as a beautiful sunset with its glory of color. The first twitter of birds, the bursting of buds, and feel of spring in the air may retain distinct values of their own, besides serving as re- minders that it is time to be planting the garden. Water- falls may still have a value merely as water-falls, in addi- tion to their being computed in units of motive power. The beautiful valley, or park, or cathedral may retain its freshness and beauty, though we have seen it a thou- sand times. The secret is to keep the capacity for im- pressions ahve by constant use and to accept the physical world about us in its perceptual value, as well as in its value as symbols for adjustment. Social impressions come to us indirectly from physical objects, persons, or the symbols of literature and art. . , No object of our environment is a physical Capacity for . . ■' i . n r .i r / indirect or object per se, but all from the nrst possess social a social value. The child, in the process of impressions. . , . , , i i • . constructing his perceptual world, is not impressed with objects merely as objects, but with objects- as-used-by-people. His perception of color, form, time, 142 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION and space all grows out of a social setting. His world is primarily not a physical world, but a social world. Thus we do not proceed from a physical to a social environ- ment, but from a social to a physical. And social values continue to predominate. A watch is more than a register of passing time: it possesses social Social values values through conforming to certain social the most Standards as to material, size, and shape; fun amenta . .^ ^j^^ points the time for going to our meals, meetings, or other social engagements. Our homes are prized not chiefly because of their physical attributes, but for values that come from those with whom we share them. Our clothing is selected not so much for its phys- ical comfort as for its conformity to the decree of fashion governing those of our social plane. Good or bad weather even impresses us indirectly rather than directly; it is not primarily a thing-in-itself, but rather relates itself to our social activities, helping or hindering our affairs. This means that our direct impressions, or those coming from physical objects, are all profoundly influenced by Physical values ^^^ ^^^^ ^^ ^^^^^ social values. Without rest on social these social or indirect impressions the phys- vaues. j^^j world would have Httle meaning or worth. Through them the physical objects about us cease to be mere trees, animals, or buildings, and come to be saturated with social significance. Nor is there any limit to the amount of social value and meaning that may come to be deposited in physical stimuH. Compared with the social significance, the intrinsic or physical value of objects becomes insignificant. Family heirlooms of small economic worth are beyond evaluing in commercial terms because of their social worth. Gifts are prized out of all proportion to their cost, because they take on our THE POWERS OF THE INDIVIDUAL 143 valuation of the giver. Men freely offer their lives to rescue from an enemy a bit of bunting bearing the emblem of their country. Indeed, the whole structure of economic and material values rests on a foundation of social needs and desires. After the satisfaction of the most elementary appetites connected with hunger and sex, man's whole world of values may be said to depend on his capacity for receiving and responding to social impressions. Ad- vancement in social evolution may well be measured in terms of man's ability to conceive the physical world in social terms, to look on the material, not as an end in itself, but as a means for attaining the spiritual. The capacity for social impressions rests on the social impulse inherent in all normal persons. It is, however. Cultivation of susceptible of cultivation, and must be in- the social cludcd in the educational aim. As a nation, imp se. America is not so richly endowed with so- cial stimuli coming from historical personages, places, objects, and events as is the case with older nations. And these things constitute one of the great educational assets of a people. The battle-fields upon which England won her civil and religious liberty, the homes of her Shake- speares and Tennysons, her palaces, and even her prisons, the memory of her Miltons and Cromwells, her historic places and objects of high heroism or splendid sacrifice, and the record of her centuries of great achievement — all this is an educative factor in the lives of her youth hardly to be estimated. America lack- Social values have not taken hold so ing in social strongly in our own country, with its rela- tively short past and its broad geographical expanse. We have less of historical perspective and of social tradition. Comparatively few spots have been made 144 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION sacred by great national events. Not many pilgrimages are yet made to the homes of great men and women of former generations. This is not because America has not had her great events, her historic places, and her illus- trious personages. It is rather that the bigness and in- sistence of the present, and the lack of a wealth of social traditions, makes us careless of these values. Material wealth is to be had for the asking. The riches of the soil, the wealth of the mines, and the roar of the factories exert a constant appeal, and tend at last to occupy the focal point of attention. Respect for the past and alle- giance to social tradition are not therefore strong traits in our national character. Historical personages exert com- paratively little appeal to the minds of youth. Historic places and objects command small interest and little respect. Ideal, or indirect, values cannot be listed in commercial terms, and hence are likely to be left out of account. Railways, mines, and factories are in danger of becoming an end instead of a means. The sense for social values needs to be cultivated in our youth. While, as we have seen, the whole of our environment conveys in some degree social impressions, yet the most ,-r . ^ X. immediate and effective source of social social stimuu impressions is found in personalities. We inhere m ^j.q most keenly sensitive to that which we personalities. are most like, and it is, after all, people and not things that we most fully respond to. The social in us goes out to the most vitally social about us, and we are impressed more by the human than by the material part of our surroundings. But personalities may exist in either ideal or in real form. They may inhere in the people with whom we act- ually mingle and associate, or they may be conceived by THE POWERS OF THE INDIVIDUAL 145 the artist or the writer and made concrete in a painting, a statue, or a character in Hterature. Since these ideal Real and characters are not subject to the Hmitations ideal of human nature, they may be endowed personauties. ^^ ^j^^-^. (.j-g^tor with any combination of quahties of personahty, and may possess these qualities in any 'degree whatever. The only limitation is that the personality represented must not be overdrawn to the ex- tent of losing the natural or human aspect. For once this is done, the character has nothing in common with us, and hence fails to impress us. The capacity to receive and be influenced by ideal per- sonalities expressed through the symbolism of art and language constitutes one of the most potent aiities repre- opportunities for education. Through this sented in art capacity the great personalities of literature, and literature. ,. "^ ". , .^i* history, and biography may exert their en- nobling influence on the Uves of those of other times and places. In this way, the greatest of human quahties are made the common property of the race, and the thoughts and feelings that actuated men and women of other ages, or even men and women who never had existence except as creatures of the mind of artist or writer, may come to serve as motives in the lives of to-day. And, indeed, it is upon this universal social sense that the unity of the race and the continuity of culture depend. Upon this sense rests our feeHng of kinship with past genera- tions and our feeHng of responsibility for those that are to come after. Influence of ^^ ^^^ other hand, the capacity to re- the evil in ceive social impressions from personalities personauties. j^ ^^^ limited to the better quahties of hu- man nature ; the undesirable may impress itself equally 146 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION with the desirable. Hence the evil influence that comes to the child from the criminal or the morally tainted char- acter often portrayed in trashy literature, or from the pictures of doubtful moral standard. Sometimes through conscious imitation, and often through the unconscious influence of suggestion, the qualities of character thus portrayed build themselves into the personality and conduct of the child. With these facts in mind, the selection of the personalities from literature and art which are to have a part in the education of the child becomes a matter of prime importance. But the most potent source of social impressions is, after all, from the actual people about us, the human com- panionship that environs us from day to the most day. Life is appealed to more quickly by potent social jjfg than by symbols, no matter how skil- influence. . ,. , ■, ^ •, ■, i m n fully these may be employed ; the child s playmates and companions, and his associations in the home, are a greater formative influence in his development than are the ideal characters of his books and pictures, important as these are. Principles and ideals, no matter how true or exalted, have relatively little power either in forming or reforming human nature until they are made concrete in a living personality. Hence it is that all great social movements, whether in politics, religion, education, or any other line, are led by some man or woman whose life embodies in concrete form the principles for which the movement stands. The splendid theories of Bacon, Locke, Comenius, and Montaigne had to be exemplified in the life of Pestalozzi, the teacher, before their effect was felt; only when God had revealed himself in the per- son of Jesus did man grasp the fuller concept of God's relation to him. THE POWERS OF THE INDIVIDUAL 147 One of the highest arts is that of correctly interpreting those about us. Nor is it an art possessed in large degree Need of cor- ^y ^^^' ^^ often know Very incompletely, rsctiy inter- and often judge very falsely, even those preting ot ers. ^.^j^ whom we daily associate and whom we know best. Most of the misunderstandings among people are from simple failure to understand each other; and this denseness of comprehension grows out of a lack of social sensitivity, the ability skilfully to read the natural or conventional signs by which we express our thoughts, feelings, or attitudes. The capacity for social impressions is susceptible of fruitful cultivation. There exists no science of human . , nature, it is true, from which may be de- Capacity for . . i i i i t i social values duced the principles and rules to be appned °^^y ^® , in arriving at a knowledge of those about us. cultivated. __ . ° , i . i i Yet changing mental attitudes and emo- tions are constantly finding expression in the mobile face, the eye, and the bodily posture. There is constantly being spoken before the eye a language of surpassing variety and richness, the delicate shadings of whose mean- ings are lost upon those illiterate in these forms of natural speech, and upon those who are too careless to observe. Thought is being expressed through the medium of a spoken language capable of revealing the finest shades of meaning. The flexibihty of spoken language is still further increased by means of the various qualities, shad- ings, and inflections of the voice, and by many other tricks of speech too refined in their import to be possible of explanation. The mastery of all this great complexity of expression is no small task. It must first of all be motived by a strong desire to come to know and under- stand others. It requires the habit of observation of 148 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION those about us, and the most careful attention to the modes of physical expression by which mental self is revealed. ///. Capacities for Interpretation Impressions are not an end in themselves. The natural outcome of all impression is response with reference to some environmental situation. But in order kttpression ^^^^ ^^^ response shall be intelligent, the to secure impressions received must be correctly in- res^pon^e. terpreted. That is, their relations must be discovered, and their meanings known; their value must be weighed, and their importance esti- mated. Interpretation thus stands as the middle term between impression and response, between contact with environment and adjustment to it. It seizes upon the different impressions gathered by the mind from its en- vironment and uses them as data out of which to con- struct symbols for action. Upon the validity of interpre- tation, therefore, as much as upon fulness and accuracy of impression, depends successful control with reference to environment. The interpretation of our environment lies in two broad fields, which, while always interrelated, are perfectly dis- Two broad tinct. Interpretation is (i) in terms of fields of knowledge, leading to science; and (2) in interpretation. |-gj.j^g ^f feeling, leading to appreciation of values. Neither is possible without the other, and both together are required in successful control of the ex- perience-process. We will therefore proceed to examine more fully these two types of interpretation. THE POWERS OF THE INDIVIDUAL 149 What is knowledge? What is its origin, and what its end? A formal definition of knowledge will be of little Interpretation Service in our discussion, since its general (i) in terms of meaning is as well known as that of any owe ge. terms in which it might be defined. The question of the origin and end of knowledge will, however, repay some consideration. Knowledge is the perception of truth. But truth is always concrete and never abstract. Truth, so far as the Concrete finite mind can know it, is not an invention nature of of that mind ; it is rather a discovery by ow e ge. ^^^^ mind. And there is no such thing as a truth which is separated from the concrete situations of experience. Likewise knowledge, or the perception of truth, arises in the first place out of the demands of some concrete problem of experience which requires solution. The ancients were confronted nightly by the glittering heavens, the fact of day and night, the change of seasons — and astrology grew up; and out of that astronomy. People all through the race's history have sickened and died, disease has been a constant and insistent fact de- manding explanation; and the science of medicine has been evolved. The Nile overflows its banks, washing away the landmarks; and the science of geometry is the result. While it is true that we have what we call '' abstract truth," ''pure sciences," and ''knowledge for its own No knowledge Sake," yet as a matter of fact there is no for its own such thing. There is no truth so abstract ^^ ®" that it does not somewhere fit into the great mosaic of truth that touches men's lives; nor would the delvers after truth long continue to dig were there not the stimulus of society, welcoming all truth, not as an abstrac- 150 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION tion, but as somehow related to the day's experience. Nor is there any science so ''pure" that it does not some- how, sometime, play into the hands of some other science which, in turn, guides men in the business of living. Further, there can be no knowledge "for its own sake." The very essence of knowledge is its meaning; and knowl- edge having existence only for the sake of existing, that is, knowledge for its own sake, would lack all meaning. Knowledge, therefore, has had its origin in human ex- perience, especially in human needs, or the crucial points of experience. And, since experience is Social nature r. • ^ • i i i j t_ a. of knowledge, chieily social, knowledge has grown up out of the demands of the social process and finds its function in guiding that process. It is when society becomes organized and complex that the crises arise demanding knowledge. When cities and bridges and canals and aqueducts must be built, then knowledge must grapple with the crucial situations. When increas- ing population threatens to exhaust the natural resources, science must arise to direct the conservation of these resources. Now it naturally follows that, since knowledge has its origin in the problems confronted in the concrete situa- tions arising in society, so its end or func- Social function .- • i. j* ^ • ^.i. • i t^ • of knowledge. ^^^^ ^^ ^^ direct m the social process. It is through knowledge that man is able to mas- ter his environment, and hence control the processes of his own experience. True it is that isolated bits of knowl- edge are discovered now and then which seem to have no bearing whatever in a practical way upon human wel- fare. But such is not ultimately the case. Our vision is at best but a partial vision, and our view of truth neces- sarily a distorted one, since we cannot see it all. If our THE POWERS OF THE INDIVIDUAL 151 thinking is to be depended upon at all, then truth is ulti- mately a unitary thing; it all fits together in one great pattern, like the parts of a puzzle-map. And each part of the universe of truth finally touches and influences every other part, even to those parts that are in daily contact with our common lives. To illustrate : It seemed a trivial and useless thing when the microscopist first discovered that there are micro-organisms in the plant vv^orld far too small to be seen with the unaided eye. What could be the use of this bit of truth, since we could never cultivate these organisms commercially or employ them in any way? But not so. We now know that the world of microbes is as intimately related to our lives as is the world of chlorophyl plants. Likewise, a very useless and abstract thing it seemed when the scientists discovered that electricity acts in waves of energy of different lengths and amplitude. Yet out of it all we have wireless teleg- raphy, and to-day there may be a message flung out over the ocean that will result in the converging of a score of ships to save a sinking vessel. Undoubtedly, since man is finite and hence limited in his relations, that is to say, in his points of contact in the Degrees of universe, some phases of truth come closer concreteness to his day's life than other phases ; in other in knov/ledge. j i i j • j. words, some knowledge is more concrete and immediately valuable than other knowledge. For example, with man's present stage of development, it would seem to matter less to him to know whether those marks on the planet Mars are really canals, than to know the cause of cancer and its cure. It would seem to be less valuable to him to know how many inflections some word in Sanscrit may have had than to know how so to care for his own body as to insure health and long life. 152 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION Knowledge is, broadly, of two kinds, (i) perceptual knowledge, or knowledge of things, and (2) logical knowl- edge, or knowledge of their relations. The ofTnowledge. ^^^^ ^^ S^t as a direct or indirect result of the stimulation of sensory organs; the sec- ond comes through thinking these things into a system; that is, through discovering their mutual interdependence or interaction — their relations. The first type of knowl- edge is fundamental, since without it the second could not exist. The second t3T)e is no less essential, since without it sensory objects would have no meaning, or so little meaning that they could not serve as symbols for any complex adjustment. While these two types of knowl- edge are perfectly distinct, they are not separate in experience. A thing and its meaning cannot well be divorced in our thinking. When knowledge has become organic, that is, when knowledge of the second type has gone far enough so that How knowi- ^^^ relations between the various phenom- edge becomes ena revealed to us through the sensory science. processes are seen and organized into a system, the sciences arise. If the relations between the various phenomena are fixed and unvarying, we have an ^^ exact" science; if the relations must of necessity be variables, as in the case of the economic relations of people, we can no longer have an ^' exact" science. Yet the difference in exactness is, after all, only one of de- gree; and for the work required of social science it may be as serviceable as is the science of mathematics for what is required of it. In the case of a field of knowledge in which the phenomena or their relations are not yet well known we have no science at all, but only a body of knowledge which is growing in the direction of a science. THE POWERS OF THE INDIVIDUAL 153 Science is the ultimate end toward which knowledge is striving. When knowledge has become science it serves as an efficient instrument of control. Science the ... - . ... ultimate end This IS its function. Arising m the prob- ofaii lgj-Q3 Qf Qj^g gg|- Qf concrete situations, it finds its end in aiding in the solution of another set of concrete situations. The scientific dis- coveries of yesterday direct the activities of to-day, and the environment which then mastered us is now made to contribute to our progress. Through science we control the forces about us, so that steam and electricity, and even the winds of heaven, are harnessed and made tamely to do the work of man. And it is altogether fitting that the science wrought out by one generation should play into the hands of the Science an ^^^^ generation, thus giving them the ad- instrument of vantage of a more perfect control, and en- abling them to attack new problems and achieve new victories. It is this team work of the gen- erations that makes progress possible. It is almost im- possible to estimate the advantage possessed by the pres- ent generation over the one living a hundred years ago by virtue of our knowledge of electricity, mechanics, the laws of nature, the body and mind, and a hundred other fields in which man is slowly but surely winning his way. Illustrations of science acting as an instrument of con- trol are to be found on every hand. It has already been Science ^^^^ ^^^ science helps in the obtaining of advances further knowledge in all fields. To note owe ge. ^^^ ^ £g^ examples: By constructing the telescope and microscope, science has added vastly to man's knowledge of the material universe. The science of mathematics has enabled him to arrive at results in all Hues of knowledge which otherwise would have been 154 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION impossible. The sciences of neurology, physiology, and pathology have furnished a foundation for more fruitful work in the field of psychology; and the science of biology has become the basis for all the social sciences. Control through science does away with the reign of superstitions. Science has taught that sickness is not Science caused by evil spirits, and witchcraft has destroys died a natural death. Nor is sickness longer superstition. i i j • '^ a* r -n -j looked upon as a visitation of Providence, but as a result of the violation of natural laws, and it is therefore to be prevented or cured by conforming to those laws. This simple standpoint has resulted not only in relieving man from a degrading burden of superstition, but also in lengthening human life, and in reducing hu- man suffering to an almost incalculable degree. Science has likewise taught us to look for the causes of poverty in other sources than those of mere chance; Science aids ^^^ ^^ ^^^ coming to-day to look upon social pauperism as a social disease, and are try- pa o ogy. .^g ^^ control it as in the case of physical diseases by removing its causes. Science has given us a new standpoint in the treatment of crime and we are seeking now in our wiser moments to control it at its source in place of at its outcome. We are coming, through science, to understand the heredity of plants and animals, and can now successfully Leads to control the type of product in either, so control over that when the breeder determines a type na ure. ^j^^^ j^^ would like to produce, he has but to apply the teachings of science, and the desired results follow. In our crusade for the conservation of natural resources, science is to be our greatest weapon of control. For example, it is now showing us how we may achieve better results in building by the use of nature's indestruct- THE POWERS OF THE INDIVIDUAL 155 ible materials rather than by cutting down our forests; it is teaching us how to construct our buildings so that they may not burn up ; it is discovering to us how to mine and burn our coal so that we may not waste nature's supply of fuel; it is instructing how to utilize human labor that the largest returns may be secured with the least possible degree of waste. The sciences of physiology and of psychology are com- ing to give man a control over the forces that operate in Gives man ^^^ ^^^^' ^^^ hence ovcr his ultimate destiny, power over to a degree that was wholly impossible in IS own e. ^j^^ days of ignorance and superstition. Man is coming to realize that even personal moraHty has a scientific basis, and that he who would live in ac- cordance with ethical principles must first of all have a thorough grasp upon the sciences that underlie the very foundations of life. It seems evident, then, that man must interpret his world in terms of knowledge if he is to become master of Man must ^^^ realm. He must know his environment, know his both physical and social; and he must also environmen . ng^tly conceive himself and the end toward which he is moving. If he is to achieve his high destiny, teleology must in him become clearly intelligent, which is to say that it must be founded upon a systematized and organic body of knowledge; that is, upon science. The individual interprets the world not in terms of knowledge alone, but also in terms of feeling. He not Interpretation ^^ly apprehends truth or reahty, but he is (2) in terms also offected by it. The universe has for ee ng. j^^ ^^^ ^^^y meaning, but value as well. While knowledge is an instrument of control, feeling is the motive force in life. Knowledge is the rudder, feeling is the power that drives the machinery. 156 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION Feeling functions first of all as an appraiser of values. It takes the thing that knowledge says is true, and speci- fies how much this thing is worth. It puts of^feS^ng. ^^^ stamp of reality on experience and dic- tates what things are worth while. It sets up the great goals to be striven for and the great disasters to be avoided. It floods the Hfe with riches or starves it with poverty. The world interpreted in terms of knowledge alone would be a very cold and incomplete world. Experience Feeling defines defined as knowledge only would still have values and meaning, but it would be pale and devoid rea ity. ^£ ^g^j-j^^j^ ^^^ color. Reality constituted exclusively of things known would still possess the form or reality, but lack most of its content. For the truest and deepest realities are precisely those that have the largest element of feeling in them. One's affections are much more real to him and, subjectively, of infinitely more worth than his knowledge of higher mathematics or the niceties of linguistic inflections. Fear of an earthquake or a tornado is a clearer reality than a demonstration of the nebular h3^othesis. The feeling of patriotism comes closer to the life than any theory of the state, and religious fervor outweighs as a matter of personal experi- ence the theological doctrine of supererogation. While it is true, therefore, that all interpretation must be based on something known, yet it is no less true that a full interpretation of our environment is ta^ion°o£^r impossible without going beyond knowledge, world im- The pcrsou who looks at the sunset with a ourfeeuJg.*^" complete knowledge of the scientific laws underlying the production of the crimson, yellow, and orange colors, but feels nothing of its beauty, is at least as far from having fully interpreted the sun- THE POWERS OF THE INDIVIDUAL 157 set as if he had been alive to its aesthetic values, but had lacked knowledge of the laws of the ether vibrations con- stituting physical Hght. One may know the facts of history, and yet fail to in- terpret peoples of other times because of the inability Vital relation ^^ ^^^^ across the stretches of time the pulse of knowledge of the human heart as it beats in joy or an ee ng. sorrow, in hope or in fear. It is possible to be an acute theologian, and yet fail to interpret God be- cause of lack of the feehng response. On the other hand, one who is little of a philosopher and less of a theologian, m^ay arrive at vaHd and serviceable definition of God through a vital response of feehng. Finally, dropping into popular phrase, the heart must join with the head in the interpretation of our world. While the heart with- out the head would give us a world of values distorted because lacking the perspective of relationships, so the head without the heart would give us a world of mean- ings without values because lacking in warmth and worth. The interpretation of the world through feehng takes four general directions: (i) Feehngs whose terminal as- Different pec ts are the self — egoisticieelings', (2) feel- phases of ings which have for their object other peo- feeimg. pj^ — social fechngs; (3) feehngs which grow out of the perceptual world — (Esthetic feehngs; (4) feel- ings whose object is God — religious feehngs. Whether feehng was the earhest form of response in the race and the first mode of interpreting environment, it belongs at least am^ong the first of the ^e^eul's^''*^'" powers of the individual to develop. The egoistic are the first of the feehngs to have their rise, and remain a prominent factor in determining the attitude of the individual throughout life. 158 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION The egoistic feelings, or self-love and interest, are a natural biological product. In the economy of the race The egoistic ^^ ^^^ found Serviceable for the individual feelings a bio- to care for himself first and foremost. By logical product. ^^^ ^j^-j^ j^j^ environment is interpreted first of all in his relation to his own comfort and welfare. The material world is of value only in suppl3dng his needs. His mother, even, exists that she may minister to his pleasure or relieve his pain. He is thoroughly self- centred, in the highest degree selfish. The egoistic feelings decrease relatively, if not actually, with growth of experience, and particularly with the rise of the social feehngs. Yet the egoistic decreas^e of fecHngs never lose their grip upon the Hfe. the egoistic As the Self develops and comes to include feelings with ^j^^ wider cycle of existence, these feehngs change in form, but still exert their mflu- ence. By those who have an excess of egoistic feefing, the material resources of the earth are often interpreted solely as an opportunity to amass personal fortunes be- yond reasonable needs. Men are not infrequently looked upon by certain of their fellows as so many units of energy to set at work for the selfish ends of him who con- trols them, or as so many voting machines to count a tally toward bringing power and honor to the one who manipulates them. Rehgion has by some been valued chiefly as a life-preserver intended to buoy its possessor safe into the heavenly port. The social feelings early have their rise, feelings!"^ and are as necessary to the full develop- ment of the individual as are the egoistic. Through the social feelings, material wealth is inter- preted in terms of the amount of pleasure it can be made THE POWERS OF THE INDIVIDUAL 159 to give others. Fellow men are looked upon, not as an opportunity for exploitation for selfish gain, but as an opportunity for helpful co-operation and service. Famous pictures are not to hoard in private galleries, shut away from the world, but are to loan or give to public gal- leries, or to copy and spread broadcast among the masses. Medical discoveries or mechanical inventions are not to sell to the highest bidder, but to give where most needed. Religion is not a species of death insurance, but a method of contributing service. The social feelings have given rise to some of the most significant terms in human speech. Friend, companion, Significance; lovcr, comrade, coworker, fellow-country- of the social man, and a host of other terms suggest fee ngs. different aspects of this group. And it is not hard to understand how far short of a full and com- plete interpretation of our world we should be should we drop out of it the values that come through our interpretation of men as friends, companions, coworkers, and all the rest. The present age is undoubtedly to go into history as an era of transition from the individuahstic to the social standpoint. This is coming to be known century?"^ as the "social century." The social feel- ings are playing a larger part in the inter- pretation of the world than in any former time, and are giving rise to new concepts and new motives such as '^ social soHdarity'^ and ''universal brotherhood." Through the aesthetic feehngs the world feeUngT*^^**^ ' ^^ interpreted in terms of beauty, fitness, harmony, and completeness. The aesthetic feelings awaken relatively early in both race and indi- vidual. The beauty of nature's colors so appeal to prim- 160 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION itive man that he paints them on his dwelling and his weapons, and even on his body. The little child deter- mines the value of a toy or a picture in accordance with his notion of whether it is "pretty" or not. It is the aesthetic feelings which save the yellow prim- rose on the bank from being just "a yellow primrose and The value nothing more.'' These feelings make sun- of aesthetic scts more than a symbol for closing the feehng. day's work or going to the evening meal. It is aesthetic feeling which gives architecture its value, and makes it worth while to put much labor and treasure into beautif3dng our homes, public parks, boulevards, and playgrounds. It is aesthetic feeling that makes a few grains of paint and a few square feet of canvas possess so high a value. Lacking in aesthetic feeling, an individual misses the full interpretation of the world, just as surely as if he were to lack in the egoistic or the social. It the most vital IS true that thcsc are more nearly related phases of |-q i^^lyq existence, but man is destined to experience. , . , , , more than mere existence, and must pass beyond the economic in his interpretation of the world. Too many lives are now barren of the beautiful, because of stifling the aesthetic feelings or faihng to develop them. To all such, one of the richest and most fruitful phases of reality is lacking. To them the beauties of nature and of art, the harmonies of sound, and the exquisite in form and feature are without worth, because of failure to respond to them; and hence their world is but the frac- tion of a world. The "religious" God in his personal relation to men is to feehngs. ]^q interpreted chiefly through feehng. Only in this way can He become a God of reality and of ex- THE POWERS OF THE INDIVIDUAL 161 perience. The perceptual world gives constant evi- dence of his presence as a creative force, and reason and revelation tell of his relations to man. But a God known only in these ways is a very distant and cold reaHty. Not until religious feehng has interpreted the nature of God as father and friend does he become an immediate reality, possessing felt value in our lives. ReHgious feehng is fundamental as a mode x^fflcessary" ^f interpreting our world. Practically aU to a fuU inter- peoples evolve this feeling, as do all indi- worw!^^ °^ *^^ viduals. It seems to have its rise in a sense of incompleteness and weakness, and the feelings of reverence, adoration, and worship go out to the Being who can serve as a complement to man's weakness and his need. The religious feelings lie very close to the aesthetic feelings. The beautiful and the good are in some degree _ , . , synonymous. Both imply the harmony Relation of -^ rl . r i ^ Tt \ aesthetic and and fitness comiug from completeness. But religious rcHgious feeling goes beyond aesthetic feel- ing in that, while aesthetic feehng interprets the world in terms of beauty, religious feelings add to this the personal relationship impHed in the fatherhood of God and a common, conscious purpose for the destiny of man. It is seen, then, that our world is to be interpreted in its two great phases, (i) as a world of facts, the knowl- Ours a world ^^g^ ^^ which, when organized is science, (i) of "facts," becomes a great instrument of control; (2) of "values." ^^^ j^^) as a world of values, the apprecia- tion of which gives it its worth as an experience process. Lacking any phase of knowledge interpretation, man can exercise but partial control in his world; lacking any 162 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION phase of feeling interpretation, he has a world of meagre or distorted values. In either case he possesses but a partial world. All normal individuals have implicit in them the powers and capacities to be used in the complete interpretation of their world. The race is far from having include both reached such an interpretation, it is true; phases of ]L)^^ every generation is making progress. It therefore becomes the problem of educa- tion so to develop these powers and capacities of the individual that the world may come to be interpreted at its fullest and richest; that its meanings and its values alike shall come to serve as symbols to guide in the ex- perience process. IV. Powers of Control From the biological standpoint, capacities for im- pressions and interpretation exist only that adaptive Impression and response may foUow. The degree of mind interpretation required is measured by the necessity for ea to contro . adjustment, and hence powers and capaci- ties never evolve for their own sake, but the better to enable the individual to fit into its environment. In lower realms the environment is accepted chiefly as it is found, and control only consists in adjusting the or- ganism to its conditions. But man has risen above the biological, For man con- . . . , ^^ . *^ ' troi is more and attamed to the spiritual. He is more than adjust- thsLU an Organism; he is a person. For him control is not mere adjustment. He not only adapts himself to his environment, but makes his environment over to suit his needs. Man is sub- THE POWERS OF THE INDIVIDUAL 163 ject in a degree to the limitations of his surroundings, but he has the power to remove many of these limitations. He not only climbs upward himself, but he reconstructs and advances his environment in the process. He is not only subject to control, but he controls. He is therefore capable not only of adjustment, but of progress. The great desideratum in the life of the measurTd by individual or society is the securing of con- control over trol over the experience process. This con- process.^"^^^^ stitutes freedom. It is the end of all social evolution, as it is the end of all individual education and development. It is the power of control that differentiates a mere racial unit into a self-directive personality. The child at birth may be looked upon as a mere indi- vidual of genus homo, ready, however, to develop through ^ , the stasres of experience into a person. Development . ^ ^r - ^ i • i •! to be defined Unique and self-active. On the social side, in terms of }^g jg ^it the beginning but an organ in the social body, a part in the social process, possessing no characteristics except those contributed to him by the race. But he also stands ready to develop into a member in the social process, a participant in social activities, a contributor to social welfare and progress. These two lines of development, the individual and the social, are but different aspects of the same unitary process. The mere individual becomes a person, and the mere social organ becomes a social member only through a gradual and constant reconstruction of ex- perience. The nature of this reconstruction grows out of the nature of the powers and capacities of the indi- vidual on the one hand, and out of the demands of the social process on the other. 164 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION In the reconstruction of experience, or the develop- ment of the self, there is always some set of forces acting „ . , , to control the direction of this reconstruc- Social and . • i r i i individual tion. ihc qucstion therefore becomes that sources of ^f ^]^g source and nature of this control. At first in the life of the child the control is almost wholly social and but very little individual. If proper development goes on, this proportion changes and control becomes more largely individual and less social. Development thus implies a growing control by the individual over the processes of his own experience. But as control is always exercised with reference to the demands of environment, and as the child's environment is chiefly social, this control is always exercised with reference to an increasing consciousness of social values; that is, of social standards, interpretations, and plans of action. Education may therefore be de- education?^ ° fined as the progressive reconstruction of ex- perience^ with a growing consciousness of social values and an increasing control over the processes of experience. The growth of control is a chief aspect of education, if indeed it may not be taken as its measure. Only when , , the individual has obtained command over Growth of , , . , . control a his own powcrs and resources and withm measure of certain natural and necessary limitations education. • t i i ^ - ^ ^ IS able to shape his own course, can he be said to be educated. Lacking this power, he is the mere creature of environment, moulded and shaped, and his course set by the influences that play upon him. This definition of education implies the necessity for adjust- ment to environment, but it does more; for it requires that the adjustment shall be self-controlled and not THE POWERS OF THE INDIVIDUAL 165 dominated by external forces. Power of control is there- fore at once the aim and the test of education. Control involves both of the two great orders, the self and the not-self. We may then consider (i) control over Two directions ^^ ^^^^' ^^^ (^) control over the environ- to be taken mcnt. While these two types of control go y con . hand in hand, and are seldom or never divorced in experience, yet it may be said that, roughly, control over the self means adjustment, and that control over the environment means progress. Man has behind him a splendid record of achievement. Finding the world of nature a wilderness, he has made it Control ^ garden. The mighty forces around him, (i) over whose nature and import were unknown, ® ^® ' he has mastered and put to his own uses. The rigors of climate have given way, space has been con- quered, disease has been subdued, and a thousand other wonders accompHshed. But man's greatest problem was not, after all, this mastery of the not-self; his supreme test was and is in the mastery of the self. This must of necessity be true because man himself is the highest and most complex form of creation existing in the world, the master and leader of all the rest. If man would attain his high destiny, he must not only rightly conceive the remainder of the world, but also himself; he must not only know, but must know the knower. He must not only control, but must control the one who directs. And man naturally comes to study and himseW^iasT^ Understand himself last. The great not-self insistently presses upon him and demands attention. Hunger attacks him, and he must work out the problem of a food supply. The cold freezes 166 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION him, and he must provide for shelter and clothing. The perceptual world challenges him, and he starts to un- ravelling nature's secrets. Insistent impulses throb within him, and he woos a mate and cares for a family. He at first takes himself for granted; immediate neces- sities fill his time and occupy his thought. Only when a certain degree of mastery has been attained over the not- self does man take occasion to consider the self as dis- tinct from the external order and reflect on its place in the world. It is true that in securing control over his environment, man has also been developing control over the self. This Mastery of Hiust needs be the case; nor could control self the great over the self be secured in any other way pro em. \hdJi through first employing its powers in the mastery of the not-self. But even so, progress in con- trol over the self attained in this indirect way is haphazard and uncertain because it lacks aim; it wavers, because it lacks the steadying power of a reflective purpose. Man will not reach his goal without a more complete knowl- edge and mastery of himself. The world of self, which has waited till the last for study and explanation, offers greater difficulties and promises larger rewards than be- long to the world of the not-self. Nor does control over the self imply holding the reins or the whip over some vague entity that exists only as a figment of the imagination or the product of seS-^cont^oi. ^^ theorizing. It is rather to direct a set of powers and capacities as they are em- ployed in the course of daily experience, realizing them- selves and making their contribution to the social welfare. It may to-day mean a positive control, inciting to action and achievement; to-morrow it may mean a negative THE POWERS OF THE INDIVIDUAL 167 control exercised to check impulses or tendencies that should not be allowed expression. Now it may require bringing the self into conformity with social standards and usages; another time it may require independence of judgment and the violation of social conventions that hamper progress. On one occasion the necessity for con- trol may concern chiefly the physical powers and activi- ties, leading to hygienic living, longevity, and increased efficiency. Another time it may involve the development or use of mental powers, looking toward the elimination of waste in time and effort. Again it may be a ques- tion of right and wrong, requiring ethical or moral judg- ment and involving social conduct. But whatever direc- tion control may take, it has to do with a real self, busied with- the activities that go to make up the experience process. Further, it is a social self, for the activities by which the self finds expression are social activities. Con- trol over the self has its standards set, therefore, and its necessities dictated largely by social demands. The self of which we are speaking is pre-eminently a unity, and does not consist of physical and mental and moral nature as disparate elements going the^se?.*^ ^ ^^ some Way to make up a discrete whole. It follows therefore that control of the self is a unitary control, and does not consist of physical con- trol plus mental control plus moral control. Having this unity in mind, it will be convenient to speak separately of the different phases of control over the self. The physical Both biologically and socially the most phase of the fundamental phase of control over the self is that exercised over the physical. The body is but a machine, but it is a living machine. Fur- ther, it is the machine upon which the mind must depend 168' SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION to gather the raw material for its thought, serve in the elaboration of this material, and carry its projects out to accomplishment. The mind is therefore subject to the limitations of this physical machine, profiting by its strength and excellence, or crippled by its weakness and inefficiency. This machine has from the beginning all its parts, but at first they exist only in embryo; they are rough hewn and imperfect, requiring opportunity for growth and development through many years. The physical machine is subject to disease and death, and therefore requires the most careful attention as to food, surroundings, and habits of life. It is more com- plex by far than any other machine in the world, and hence not only presents great difiiculty in bringing its various parts into correlation with each other, but it is easily thrown out of adjustment. A good example of its complexity is found in the brain. Of all parts of the body, this organ is the most carefully shut away from the external world; yet it must have full information of what is going on in the world outside itself, and must direct activities with reference to external objects and events. The neurones, which constitute the functional part of the brain, are so minute that their diameter is invisible to the eye. Their number is so great that if their fibres were all represented by wires so fine as to be barely visi- ble to the eye, and set in a model of the brain made large enough to receive a number equal to the neurones of the brain, the base of the model would need to cover nearly an average city block. Yet each of these minute living threads has its own work to perform, and must unerringly carry out its function. Let them fail ever so little and the memory begins to play tricks, the percepts turn out to be illusions, judgment proves untrustworthy, feeling THE POWERS OF THE INDIVIDUAL 169 plays false, and reason becomes muddled. Surely, from the important part played by the physical machine in man's destiny, it is incumbent upon him thoroughly to understand his body, and learn so to control it that he shall be its master instead of its slave. Bodily health and vigor are fundamental to all success and happiness. Nothing can take their place, and noth- ,, , . ing can atone for their loss; yet they are xkL3.ii s victory • >^ •> and failure in often held lightly, and are freely given in the physical exchange for wealth, pleasure, or position. Sickness is still by many looked upon as in- evitable, to be patiently endured when it comes, and thankfully recovered from when it passes, or resignedly submitted to when it claims its victim. That man has it fully within his power to eliminate far the greater part of the physical ills that now prevail does not admit of doubt. He knows enough of the structure of his body and the laws that govern its functions to be Kving much longer and more efficiently than he is now doing. Tuberculosis is both preventable and curable, yet it is annually claiming its toll of victims in the prime of life. Typhoid fever exists only as a result of carelessness. Pneumonia finds the greater part of its victims among those who shut themselves from pure air. And so we might go on until we had catalogued most of the diseases that are re- sponsible for premature deaths. Only a few have so far baffied the scientist's skill and are pronounced incurable. The rest exist by sufferance. They are an evidence of man's lack of control with reference to his body and its welfare. In part the responsibility lies with the indi- vidual, who must himself conform to the laws of personal hygiene if he would come into control of his body; in part the responsibility Hes with society in its collective 170 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION control of the conditions of health. But in either case the problem is one of control through factors already possessed, both by the individual and society. After those features of control over the physical self that are to be exercised with reference to the health, Control through g^owth, and general efficiency of the body, power of ex- the most important phase of control has to pression. ^^ ^-^-^ physical powers of expression. The self is essentially an active self. It is dynamic, knowing no moment of rest and inaction. It is what it is doing at any moment, and its ultimate constitution is the re- sultant of all its acts. Activity is the mode of its realiza- tion, the method of its development, the means by which it achieves and reconstructs its experience. The activities of the self are synonymous with self- expression. Expression is, therefore, the true definition Expression the ®^ ^^^ ^^^^> ^^^ measure of its development, true definition and the mcans of its growth. Expression of the self. j^ ^j^^ ^j^^ ^^^ whither all impressions are tending. This is their logical outcome, and their only ex- planation. Not leading to expression, impressions would have no function, and hence no meaning. Impression and expression are the terminal aspects of one unitary act, of which interpretation is the middle term. Just as there can be no end without a beginning, so there can be no expression without impression. And, also, just as beginning and end are lacking in meaning or significance without reality in between, so impression and expression have no significance without interpretation to mediate between them. In other words, expression must be ade- quately directed with reference to the situations which give it rise, if the individual is to exercise control over the processes of his own experience. THE POWERS OF THE INDIVIDUAL 171 While the self has two aspects, physical and mental, both of which manifest themselves through expression, The physical ^^^ physical is the ultimate vehicle of ex- the vehicle of pression. For the mind cannot reveal itself expression. directly, but is dependent on the body to make itself known or to manifest its particular states. The only mind that one can know at first hand is his own. Each mind is in a sense a prisoner within the body, and allowed to speak to others only through the mes- sengers of the body — the lips, the face, the form, and gesture. Not only is expression, therefore, the mode of the self's development, but it is the only means by which the self can bring its powers to bear or make its influence felt. Society little cares and nothing profits by thoughts or feelings which are unexpressed. The modes of physical expression are as many as the different acts which the body is capable of performing. Different '^^^ products of physical expression are as modes of phys- manifold as the material achievements of icai expression, civilization. Because of this complexity and the interrelations among the different forms of phys- ical expression, it is impossible to set up any simple, logical classification that will include all the forms of expression without overlapping. It may be serviceable, however, to observe the following classification: Expres- sion (i) through the medium of the body; (2) through the medium of the hand; and (3) through the medium of speech. While of course both speech and handi- ^xp^ession!^^^^ ^^^^^ ^^^ forms of physical expression, yet there is a sense in which the body acts more or less as a unit in expression. In another sense it acts on the principle of division of labor, and sets apart 172 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION certain organs for highly specialized and important func- tions. Thus the body acting as a unit expresses elation or dejection by its carriage or poise; the hand, acting as a specialized organ, is responsible for the creation of material civilization; the tongue, acting as a specialized organ, mediates speech and makes possible the inter- communication of thought. It may be said that, in general, bodily expression mediates attitudes of mind and emotional states rather „ ^., than thought. Indeed, modern theories Bodily expres- ^. / . . , sion mediates 01 the cmotions have shown that it is the ^t?t*d°^ expression of the entire organism in re- sponse to some interpretation of an im- pression that produces the emotional state. The emo- tion which thus has its origin in a general organic expression may terminate in a similar general expres- sion of the entire body, or may take the form of speech, manual or other specialized expression. Certain forms of expression terminate, so far as their immediate effects go, within the organism itself. The ^^ ^ . , expressions are too delicate or too much The pliysical reveals the hidden to be observable to those about us, history of the |3^^ |-]jgy ^j-g ^q^ q^ jJ^^^ aCCOUUt IcSS im- individual. , portant m their effects. For example, one may find himself in an environment that oppresses him, and yet give no outward sign of his suffering; face and form finally come, however, to tell the story. The his- tory of generations of serfdom is written large in the physical heaviness and lack of expression of the Russian peasants, while the freedom of the Anglo-Saxon is to be read in his alertness and the firmness of his step. The physical is ultimately a picture of the mental projected upon the screen of our senses. THE POWERS OF THE INDIVIDUAL 173 Bodily poise, therefore, both indicates and tends to produce mental states. The calm and steady poise, the confident step, the unabashed eye, the alert Expression Carriage, not only speak of a masterful at- indicates and titude of mind, but also react upon the stetTs!'"'^''^ mental state as weU. On the other hand, the dejected form, the ambling carriage, the shifty eye, speak with equal plainness of an uncertain, uncontrolled, and vacillating attitude of mind, and Hke- wise tend to produce or continue this very attitude of mind. The face Is the most expressive part of the organism, and therefore is quickest to show forth mental condi- tions. Hence it is that the mind's states Xhe fac6 are so clearly revealed in its changing ex- pressions. Nor is it strange that characteristic mental states, such as discouragement, dissatisfaction, pessimism, or, on the other hand, cheerfulness and happiness, should leave their permanent stamp on the face. Gesture is a form of bodily expression that has its rise early, both in the race and the individual. Primitive peoples, before they have developed artic- ulate speech, converse through gestures. Children gesture freely in attempting to express them- selves. Gesture remains one of the most effective of the arts of the orator, especially when he wishes to express mental attitudes or emotional states. Its loss from most of our conversation and much of our public speaking cannot but mean some loss in the ability fully to ex- press the self. Dramatic expression or acting is but an- ^* other form of bodily expression. It impHes a high degree of harmony in all the forms of physical ex- 174 SOCIAL TRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION pression, such as form, poise and carriage, face, gesture, and voice, in order to bring out fully some striking situa- tion. This form of expression is as old as the race, and the impulse to its use rises early in tlie life of every child. That people understand its language and are impressed by its effect is seen in tlie universal response to dramatic acting in all its forms. Speech is one of the specialized forms of expression mentioned above. It may be divided into two classes, natural or inarticulate speech, such as Expression laughter and Crying; and artilicial or articu- through ^ 1 speech. hite speech, or language proper. Laughter and crying are among the earliest forms of speech, both in developing societies and among children. Long before tlie savage had developed a language, he used tlie cry and the laugh to indicate his emotional states; and long before the child knows the language of his social group, he speaks this common language of humanity. Laughter and crying are not suited for the transmission of ideas, but belong to the lower form of transmission of mental attitudes and emotions. As civ- ilization and spoken language have developed, greater control has come to be exercised over tliese two forms of speech and social restraint has been placed upon un- due use of either. Artilicial speech, or articulate language, arises when a people have developed far enough tliat they have rela- tively complex ideas to transmit to others, and^ought. Whercas cries stood for emotional states, words stand for ideas and thoughts. So closely related is language to ideas and thoughts, that we have uniformly come to think in terms of articulate speech, and can hardly understand to-day how it would THE POWERS OF THE INDIVIDUAL 175 be possible to carry on a mental life at all without this medium, not only for its expression, but also in which to house its content. Inability in the use of speech means, therefore, not only a handicap in the way of expression, but likewise a handicap in the vehicle of thought. He who lacks words must in some degree lack thoughts. But words are not limited to expressing ideas alone. They, along with laughter and crying and the forms ^ , of bodily expression, stand for emotional Command of "^ . r • t speech as a statcs or attitudes of mmd as Well; and not measure of the ^^ small proportion of thc words oi our mental life. i i r i • • i speech have for their content an emotional meaning rather than a thought meaning. Therefore, ar- ticulate speech serves as a vehicle and at the same time as a mode of expression for impressions and interpreta- tions of every kind. In other words, our command of speech measures the range, scope, quality of our mental life. The hand is another specialized organ of expression. To it, more than any other part of the body, man owes Expression ^^^ Superiority over the animal kingdom, through the Evcn If it wcrc possible to give man thc mind that he has, and all of the body ex- cepting the hand, he would be very far from able to accomplish the civilization that to-day exists. Deprive man of the hand and the world would lose all of its art and a large part of its science and handicraft. The in- dustries would all have to be made over and man would find himself but very little above the scale of the ani- mals in his actual accomplishment of material civiliza- tion. The hand is pre-eminently the tool of the mind in carrying out its finest conceptions, whether this be in the form of art, manual skill, or mechanical con- struction of any kind. 176 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION Add to this the fact that the mind itself is developed through its various forms of expression, and we see another important relation which the hand and its manual arts bear to mental development. If it is expression to ^j-y,g ^j^g^^ ^-j^g mind of man has grown up not only along with his advance in material civilization, but also because of this advance, and further, if the hand has played so important a part as we have seen in constructing this material civilization, then indeed the hand is an indispensable servant of the mind ; and to train the hand is not merely to make the fingers able to draw more accurately, to manipulate the keyboard with more precision, or to drive the saw with greater effec- tiveness; but it is also to give breadth and scope to the mind's grasp, and to train it in the processes of thought. The expression side of education has long been neglected, and even now is not receiving the attention that its im- portance demands. Too long has education the expression been looked upon as a process of giving im- side of pressions, with perhaps a partial interpre- education. ^ . . . . . ^ i . tation of these impressions. Only m com- paratively recent years has there been a wide-spread movement for carrying education out to its ultimate con- clusion, namely, the realization of the full significance of impressions and interpretations through expressing them by means of the various forms of bodily expression, or through speech and through the arts of the hand. Control over the mental powers and activities presents even greater problems than control over the physical. The mind at birth has implicit within itself through the all the powers that will characterize the mental individual at his fullest and richest develop- acttvities. , ment. Education creates no power. It only seeks, through conforming to the law inherent in THE POWERS OF THE INDIVIDUAL 177 mind itself, to transform potential powers into actual powers, and, in the process, to give the individual control over these powers. The mind at birth is as undeveloped and helpless as the body. It has few of the senses. Perception is an unlearned Genetic ^^^' Memory has no material. Imagina- deveiopment tion has not yet awakened. Thought is of the mind. impossible. Feeling is vague. Yet from this small beginning the mind must construct a perceptual world of almost infinite variety. Memory must carry a great mass of useful information. A system of concepts must be developed and built into an organic thought structure to whose grasp nothing seems foreign or im- possible. Commanding impulses and emotions must arise and take their place in a great system of motives that urge and drive and are yet under control. All this must be so worked out that every power has its opportunity for development, and yet each must be brought into har- mony with the other, and the whole made responsive to the needs of the individual. The problem of control of the mind is primarily a problem of interest and attention. Only the thoughts that stand in the focus of attention have Ittention^'''^ Sufficient vitality to eventuate in action, primary Those that hover on the outskirts of con- mentS Control, sciousness are of importance only as pos- sible claimants for a focal position. But every thought that stands fully within the centre of the mind's gaze is a force to be reckoned with. For it fuses with the mental elements already in our possession, and in some degree modifies them; it forms associations with other trains of thought, and thus becomes a part of our thought material; it stimulates to action and modifies 178 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION our conduct. In the end the prevaihng trend and char- acter of our thought gauges the direction and results of our deeds. Attention determines our environment. Environment does not consist in the things that are in physical prox- Attention imity, but of the things that are attended defines to. All that lics outside the scope of a environment. blind's attention does not exist for that par- ticular mind. Each person therefore creates his own world of environment through the things to which he attends. It therefore follows that in just so far as one can direct his attention he can determine the character of all impressions received, all interpretations made and all expressions that result. Attention thus becomes the great factor in mental control. If, through trained interests, natural aptitudes, Attention ^^^ heroic effort, attention is brought to determines bear on lines of activity that lead to achieve- evemen . j^e^t, the outcome is secure. The processes of experience will be brought more and more within the individual's control. If, on the other hand, attention is capricious, if it follows every will-o'-the-wisp without regard to values, if it has a tendency to focus on lines of activity of doubtful value, the individual is drifting toward the necessity of external control and cannot be the master of his own experiences. In the economy of development attention is brought to bear only at the crucial points of experience. It .^ ^. emerges where the humdrum routine of Attention ° . . i • ^ j attaches to the experience IS broken into and a reconstruc- cruciai points ^[q^ ^f experience demanded. It is this of experience. ^ . i i • i i fact that makes a varied and a variable environment indispensable to evolution. Primitive man THE POWERS OF THE INDIVIDUAL 179 is confronted with a change in climate, and must make for himself clothing and a house or perish. He must recon- struct his experience at this point ; attention is demanded. The railway is pushed to the foot of the mountain and cannot go over; a tunnel must be put through. Again attention is demanded. A city's water supply is con- taminated; attention to its purification is necessary in order to save the lives of its inhabitants. In youth, the crucial points of experience come thick and fast. All is new and experience must be recon- Demands upon structed continuously and with great rapid- attention in ity. The child has hardly become oriented ^°^ * in a home before he is pushed out into a wider community and a new world where he must read- just himself. This done, he is sent to school, where again he must reconstruct his experience by learning new sym- bols of knowledge. Physical nature is a perceptual chal- lenge to his attention; society constantly appeals to him; he meets one of the other sex and the whole world of values is upset; the consciousness of self emerges, and a troop of social, moral, and religious problems demands solution. No wonder that youth is alert and on the qui vive, with so much claiming attention. The great problem is to train the attention to deal with the permanent and valuable instead of with the ephemeral and cheap. The natural tendency of all activity is to become automatic, and hence to release attention from its direc- Tendency tiOTi. Hence the oft repeated becomes toward common and attention loosens its grip, au oma ism. ^^ environment that once held the atten- tion chained to its wonders or beauty may finally fail to claim notice. Situations and associations that at one 180 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION time enthralled the attention are later taken as a matter of fact. Wordsworth complains that as he grew older a glory had passed from the earth. All this is, of course, the very essence of old fogyism. This danger is the price we pay for the privilege of making our reactions auto- matic. The aim in this connection is to save interest from fad- ing out, to keep experience from becoming encrusted Appeal to ^^^ falling into a rut. On the positive side, interest the problem is to keep experience in a state necessary. ^£ reconstruction. And this requires new incentives for attention. As the old no longer demands attention, new interests are to be sought; as one aspect of experience becomes commonplace, new phases are to be discovered ; when a line of activity has become auto- matic, new lines are to be taken up, or the old modified by improving it. Attention is for all practical purposes synonymous with interest. Hence it follows that worthy interests Necessity for mean attention to worthy thoughts. A broad scope broad scopc of interests permits a wide m eres s. range of attention, and thus saves the mind from settling down to a dead level of uniformity. Permanent interests, those that continue to grow in- stead of soon dropping out, supply a lasting basis for attention. The cultivation of a worthy, broad, permanent set of interests therefore becomes one of the most neces- sary factors in securing control over the self. Educa- tion has no more important problem than to shape the direction and give quality to the interests which domi- nate the individual's attention. Abihty to control conduct is probably the severest test placed upon the individual in his attempt to control THE POWERS OF THE INDIVIDUAL 181 the self. The self has not only its physical aspect and its mental aspect, but also a moral aspect. Man con- The problem ceives the difference between good and of moral con- evil and between right and wrong. He troioftheseif. can feel and say, ''I owgR" This places upon him the responsibility of adjusting his conduct with reference to certain standards or demands. The standards or demands that constitute the motives or criteria of conduct arise at three different levels of experience: the instinctive, the social, and of conduct/ ^^^ personal, or reflective. The problem, approached from any one of these three levels, is the same. It concerns the difference between right and wrong, between good and bad, as relates to conduct. Conduct that is dictated by instinctive tendencies usually has to do with the satisfying of the more funda- ^ . . mental needs of the organism, and does not Instmctave . . i ^ i tendencies go far cnough to covcr the problems aris- as a guide jj^pr q^|- gf |^j^g more complex social rela- te conduct. . ^ t . . r ,1 • tions. Conduct arismg from this source may be entirely ethical in its character and yet not involve moral judgments and control. Certain Hues of activity are natural and the easy thing, and are hence done without thought and without con- scious self -compulsion. It is good and right to work; yet the motive prompting to labor does not ordinarily rise to the level of conscious moral control. It is also good and right to seek a mate, found a home, and rear a family; but the impulses that prompt to these activi- ties are chiefly instinctive and emotional. Conduct arising at the social level is dictated by cus- tom. Indeed, it was the concept of control by custom 182 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION that gave us the Greek term ethics (ethos), and the Ro- man, morals (mores), both of which mean customs. That Social which was according to custom was right control and good; that is, moral and ethicaL By o con uct. £^j. ^j^g greater part of our conduct to- day is dictated by social customs. That to which society has given its approval is right; what society disapproves is wrong. It is evident that the social standard is a far broader and safer one than the instinctive. For social customs represent the collective wisdom of society through many generations; and what has stood the test of experience with many people under widely varying conditions cannot be wholly wrong. And these social standards of morality are one of society's greatest con- tributions to the individual. They give the groundwork for any reflective system of morals. But the individual must rise to a higher level of moral- ity than the customary, or social. His morality must be- Personai come personal. Even if he finally accepts control the moral standards precisely as they are practised by his social group, yet these standards must be subjected to examination and judged as right or wrong, as good or evil, by the individual him- self. They must in this sense become his own standards. His morality must become a personal and individual matter. He must consciously intend a line of conduct because he feels it to be right, or refuse it because he feels it to be wrong. Only in this way "can he rise to full control of the self and become moral in the highest sense of the term. Nor will conduct dictated from this level ignore the wider social interests and demands. On the contrary, reflective morality must proceed from the standpoint of social values, and the THE POWERS OF THE INDIVIDUAL 183 good chosen will include all individuals; it will be a common good. Although man has developed a moral nature and reached a large degree of moral control over the self, yet he is not Man not yet wholly master in this realm. His conduct is master of often at variance with the common good, ^^^^ ' and even with his own good. He often is found at variance with the established social morality of his group, not with the desire of improving its standards, but because of impatience with its restraints on his con- duct. Instinctive tendencies that he feels are wrong are still given rein. Man has not attained full control over the self in its moral aspect. This lack of moral control comes less from imperfect knowledge of right and wrong and of good and evil than Victory ^^^^ ^ ^^^^ ^^ powcr to bring the conduct requires into Conformity with moral judgments. Man's instinctive tendencies are partly good, but they are also partly evil. His impulses lead now toward the right and now toward the wrong. The individual therefore stands constantly in the presence of temptation. When he would do good, evil is present with him. And this situation, if it is to eventuate in moral freedom, requires a conflict; victory cannot be won without a struggle. Man has come up through ages of conflict. He loves to combat the forces of the not-self, but he still shrinks from a struggle with the self; and moral Man well r i i i • /r trained in freedom Can be won only m conflict with conflict with j^j^g Self. Man has proved his heroism on the not-self. many battle-fields, and there is no physical danger or death that can daunt his courage. He does not flinch in the presence of any seemingly impossible 184 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION task set for his intellect to accomplish. But he is in some sense still a coward when he confronts himself. Man shrinks ^^^^ Alexander, after he has conquered the from conflict world, he finds that he still has himself to wit mse . conquer. The hardest struggles and great- est victories still ahead of the individual lie in the field of moral control over the self. He has not yet fully reahzed in experience that it is better to rule the spirit than to take the city, and that there is real victory in going the second mile with him who compels us to go one mile. One can hardly doubt that the greatest weakness in our present civilization is at the point of moral control. Nor can there be found any other weakness mw-ai^control ^^ i^t^l to the Stability and success of a the great democracy. No perfection of the ma- weakness of T_« r M n r society. chmery of government, no excellence of programme on the part of the social insti- tutions, no amount of increase in national resources and wealth, and no degree of intellectual culture and develop- ment on the part of a people can result in permanent welfare and stable progress if the moral element is lack- ing. It becomes one of the first concerns of education, therefore, to develop in the individual a sense for moral values, and to give him the fullest possible control over the moral aspects of his experience. Man was made to rule. He not only adjusts himself to his environment, but also makes his environment over Control ^^^t it may the better suit his needs and (2) over further his progress. He is not only played environment. r . i , • t r . t. • . • upon by external stimuli, but he is an active agent in determining the nature of the stimuH. He is not only moulded, but he modifies. Mere adjustment to THE POWERS OF THE INDIVIDUAL 185 his environment would never advance man in social progress, but would only end in stagnation and leave civilization at a standstill. In man's mounting upward toward the ideal, he has carried his environment with him. What he found but seamed rocks in the hill-side, he has fashioned into the market-place and the cathedral. The forest trees growing but to add their substance to the soil, man has made into dwellings and their furnish- ings. The iron of the mine has been built into the ma- chine that will do the work of a thousand men, and the pigments of the soil have been spread on canvas in im- mortal works of art. Man has domesticated and im- proved the wild animals, and made his hardly less hostile brother of other races than his own a friend and neighbor instead of an enemy. The direction in which man modifies his environment is a sure index of the trend being taken by the develop- ment of his own powers and capacities, environment The type of material civilization created, shapes man's a^j^(j |-]^g Structure of social relationships de- veloped in the social institutions and voca- tions, are but a composite picture of the type of impres- sions received from environment, the way these are inter- preted in relation to the social aim, and the methods taken to reahze these interpretations through control of the self and its environment. It is this fact that makes it possible to interpret the psychology of a people or a period through a study of its language, its art, its indus- tries, and its institutions. A comparison of Roman aque- ducts and miHtary roads with Greek temples and statu- ary accurately reflects the different mental attitudes of the two nations in interpreting and controlling environ- ment with reference to a social aim. The direction of 186 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION the present movement in both material and social lines in America indicates a marked tendency to interpret environment largely in economic terms, and to exercise control toward this end. As already shown, man's control over his environment is conditioned by the interpretation he puts upon it. On the one hand, he interprets it in terms en^ro-L^Int 0^ knowledge, leading to control through depends on technique, guided by science; on the other of S^''^*^*''''' hand, in terms of interest, leading to selec- tion, or the evaluing of stimuli. The con- sideration of this section can be brief, for it is only neces- sary to apply the principles already laid down. Science has already been discussed as an instrument of control. But science is only an instrument of con- trol, and does not itself exert control. For through science is knowledge; that is, a mode of in- science and terpretation, and hence fulfils its function technique. ... , , . ^ r^ . ^ * m pomtmg the way to control. Control is ultimately a matter of expression on the part of the indi- vidual, the result of some activity, or response, with reference to a problem arising in experience. An object, or a situation, or making the situation over to suit the aim of the individual creates a demand for adjustment. It is at this point that technique, or skill in performance, arises. Just as technique would be impossible and wholly without avail except when guided by science, so science Interrelation ^^^ eventuate in control only through the of science and medium of technique. Interpretation and technique. expression must go hand in hand. Knowl- edge of the laws underlying the science of mechanics would be of small social value without the manual skill THE POWERS OF THE INDIVIDUAL 187 to put them into practice. All modern industries are built on a foundation of science, but they also require a highly trained technique; the factory must not only have its scientists, but its skilled workmen. Modern surgery is a great science, but it is not less a great tech- nique. Knowledge is power only when effectively ap- pKed to the solution of problems growing out of the con- crete situations of experience. It is not necessary to suggest the different lines in which man has already modified the face of nature through Control ^^^ development of science and the appli- secured over cation of skilled technique. Hardly a day nature. passes that our attention is not called to some new triumph of scientific discovery, or to the appli- cation of a law of science to the betterment of the condi- tions of living. The history of man's subjugation of his environment since the days when he was living in tribal relations is more wonderful than any fairy story. In that day he possessed but little clothing or shelter, and no certain means of providing himself with either. He had no cities and no means of transportation excepting what nature had given him. Steam and electricity were un- known. He lived under the constant dread of sickness and diseases for which he knew no cure. His plans and comfort were subject to every whim of the weather, and he could at best coax but a scanty living from the earth. He was of necessity provincial and narrow in his interests and sympathies, since he had no means of intercommuni- cation with other peoples. He seems to us of this better day to have lived very completely under the domination of hostile forces, and to have found himself within the control of circumstances beyond his power to modify. Yet these conditions have been changed and man is 188 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION proving master in the physical world, little by little securing control over his material environment. Man has also been securing control in the social realm as well as in the physical. He has been developing a group of social sciences correlatively with the sodarreaim. material sciences. Through much experi- ence and many bitter lessons he has found that cruelty, oppression, and injustice are fatal to govern- ment; and to-day we have seized upon the concept of democracy, and are attempting to learn its technique. The organization of the family has passed through many different stages and been the subject of much experimen- tation, but the permanent monogamous relation is now accepted among all civilized people. Religious tolera- tion has supplanted the old system of persecution; the incidentals of creed and church organization are giving way, and churches are learning to work together on the great fundamentals in a common cause. The old hap- hazard method of education by means of schools set up, now by industrial guilds, now by individual churches, now by towns, and again by individuals, has given way before the demand for universal education supported and controlled by the state. A marvellously complex and interdependent system of industries and commerce has taken the place of the old individualistic methods of pro- duction and distribution. In place of the early systems of barter and exchange in the transfer of commodities, a convenient and safe system of money has been devised, and this finally supplemented by a more complex sys- tem of credit currency. But further illustrations are unnecessary. In his relations with his fellows, man has met problems that as insistently demand solution as the problems met in the physical realm. And these problems THE POWERS OF THE INDIVIDUAL 189 have meant thought, experiment, verification, h5T)oth- eses, theories, and laws in the social realm as in the ma- terial. Thus has been gathering a body of knowledge of social relations to guide in the development of a social technique. But in spite of this marvellous social progress, man is yet less efficient in control in the social realm than in the ^ x_ , • physical. The social sciences are less Control in ^ •' i i i i i i • i i social realm thoroughly developed and organized than lags behind ^]^g material sciences. It is true that the the physical. i i <• • i • world of social environment presents greater difficulties than the world of material environment; be- cause of his very nature, man is a harder subject to study and understand than are the lower forms of life. But this is not the only reason for the relative lack of control in the field of the social relations. The problems of material environment have pressed harder upon man than the problems of the social environment, and hence have se- cured first attention. So much is this the case that the term ''science " yet means to many people only knowledge of material things and their laws. And even when social science has sufficiently de- veloped to serve as a guide for technique, social tech- ^ . , . nique is more difficult than technique in Social science i . i • r • i ^ ■» and technique the mdustrics; for social control has to more difficult ^q ^^}j self-active pcrsons and not with than physical. . . f_ . . inanimate matter. Hence it is that, with all our knowledge of political institutions and our experi- ence in administering governments, the machinery of the state does riot always run smoothly and efficiently. Our laws are not all just, and those that are just are not always justly enforced. The relations of labor and capital are so far from being settled that the question constitutes 190 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION one of the severest strains on social unity. In spite of the efforts of home, school, church, and state, we are unable to control crime either at its origin or its outcome. For we now have in the United States the largest pro- portion of serious crimes of any civilized nation, and this proportion is on the increase; nor are we much more successful in restraining and reforming the criminal when caught. State education has not yet eliminated igno- rance and inefficiency, nor the church unrighteousness. But while all this is true, it does not indicate man's ina- bility to control in the social as well as in the material realm. It only shows the nature of the problems still waiting for solution, and hence indicates the points where further knowledge and improved technique are needed before full control can be exercised in the social environment. Such, in brief outline, are the powers and capacities of the individual, the personal capital that he invests in the co-operative partnership that exists be- education to tween himself and society, and upon which powers of the }^g must realize for his own welfare and suc- maiviaual. cess. At the first but potential capital, they must become actual through an experience process that we call development; that is, education. It there- fore becomes the business of education to stimulate and guide the experience process by which these powers are realized, brought under control, and set at work in social activities. The manner in which the capacities and powers of the individual develop will constitute the subject of our next discussion. THE POWERS OF THE INDIVIDUAL 191 REFERENCES Bagley, Educational Values; Belts, The Mind and Its Educa- tion, ch. XVI; Dewey, Moral Principles of Education; Harris, Psychologic Foundations of Education; Helen Keller, The World I Live In; Shaler, The Individual; Thorndike, Principles of Teaching, chs. III-VI, also Individuality. Any standard psy- chologies. CHAPTER IX THE MODE OF INDIVIDUAL DEVELOPMENT /. The General Nature of Development Development is the constant miracle and mystery of life. To-day a babe, the most helpless of animals; to- morrow a man, with powers at work in the deTelopmen^t^ world's activities. And only development lies between. For nothing is added; the increase of the child's powers is not by a process of accre- tion, but rather by a process of evolution. Development is but the unfoldment of the innate germs of powers possessed by the individual. Development is conditioned first of all by what may be called the original nature of the individual, his native powers and capacities received through powers of heredity. This endowment is what the individual individual has to build upon, and nothing development. ^^^^ ^^ ^^^ ^^ ^^ ^^^ ^^^ ^^ done for him will make up for any lack or shortage in this fundamental equipment. Nature is responsible for the type and amount of inheritance; education only for its development and use. Education must assume re- sponsibility for powers that are inherent in the individual but not called forth; but education is not responsible for the calling forth of powers that are lacking, or present in so small a degree as not to repay cultivation. To what 192 MODE OF INDIVIDUAL DEVELOPMENT 193 degree individuals differ in the type and amount of the inheritance of powers and capacities becomes therefore one of the insistent problems of education. But while development is limited by the hereditary equipment of the individual, it is conditioned not less Development ^Y ^^^ nature of the stimuli with which dependent also the individual is surrounded. For powers on stimuli. i *i* i ^ • r ^.i • and capacities do not arise of their own ac- cord and proceed in their growth without being called forth by some external necessity. They must be demanded by environmental conditions, and set at work in solving some problem which constitutes the stimulus. Thus it follows that an environment rich in stimuli suited to the powers and capacities of the individual is calculated to demand a wealth of response, and hence secure broad development. For all development, whether of mole- cules or men, is the product of these two factors, stimulus and response. The function of education may therefore be defined as that of surrounding the individual with the type and variety of stimuli that will call forth the re- sponses leading to desired development. This is the fundamental problem; all else is supplemental to it. Schools and equipment, courses of instruction, text- books, and methods of instruction are all means to this end. Nothing that secures the response of desirable powers falls short of being education, and whatever fails at this point is not education. We will, then, proceed to a somewhat closer examination of these two fundamental factors, stimulus and response, as determining the de- velopment of the individual. 194 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION //. Inherent Attributes of the Individual Influencing Development The question of response rests immediately upon the inherent attributes of the individual. Indeed, response Individualistic ^^ ^^^ most fundamentally individualistic nature of thing there is. So individualistic is it that, response. except in the very lowest forms of life, the response that will be made by a given individual to a certain stimulus cannot be predicted with any degree of certainty. If a hundred individuals of the same species are given the same stimulus, as many different responses will follow, no two being alike. This must needs be the case, since response depends upon the type of impression made and upon the interpretation of this impression; but impression and interpretation both are modified, not only by the original nature of the individual, but also by his past experience. And so far are individuals of the human family from duplicating each other, even in so elementary a thing as the finger-prints now used as a means of registering and detecting criminals, that, ac- cording to recent estimates, forty times the population of the globe would have to be examined before there would be a chance of two individuals being found pre- cisely alike in their finger-prints. The individual is therefore the ultimate factor on the response side. The environment supplies the stimuli, but it remains with the individual to determine the nature of the response. Plasticity Plasticity is the first requisite of develop- necessary to ment. Plasticity may be defined as the ca- eve opment. pacity for receiving modifications from en- vironment and retaining these modifications. Only the MODE OF INDIVIDUAL DEVELOPMENT 195 plastic organism can change; and change Hes at the basis of all development. Further, only the plastic or- ganism can retain the effects produced in the organism by change; and none but permanent effects have to do with progress. The young of the human family are not plastic because of their youth, but they require the long period of youth Biological bccausc they must have plasticity. The meaning of lowcr forms havc no youth-time to be spent youth. .^ helplessness and dependence. The but- terfly is ready to try his wings the hour of his birth. The chick bursts from the shell, and almost immediately falls to pecking, eating, and scratching very much like its elders. The duck knows how to swim when it is born. Millions of the lower forms of animal life come into the world full-grown, each born an adult, able to go imme- diately at the complete round of his life's activities. But not so with human kind. The child comes into the world more helpless than the new-born beast, and destitute of all the characteristics which fflhl^chUd!^ later in life distinguish him from the lower animals. And not only must man begin lower in the scale than the young of lower forms, but his rate of development is also slower. The young animal playmates of the child pass hun in growth, and have reached their maturity while the child is yet a helpless dependent. While the child is climbing the ladder of development slowly and painfully, the lower forms at once leap into efficiency. Long period Why should it take so long a time? Our of human political infancy lasts twenty-one years; infancy. ccouomic infancy from fifteen to twenty years; and physical and mental infancy almost a quar- 196 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION ter of a century. At first thought this seems like a great waste — a third or a half of the life gone before the pow- ers are at their best. Has nature erred or been less kind to the human young than to the lower forms? Is there a reason why man needs this long probationary period of youth and the lower animals do not? The answer is not far to seek. The animal can begin its activities at once because they are few and simple. Instincts and impulses inherited from the past are its guides to action. It finds its environment ready made and does not seek to change it. What its race has done from the beginning, it continues to do. The lower forms are not inventive. They are not progressive. Education is unnecessary, for instinct tells each individual what to do; it is im- possible, for the lower animal is cut short on the period of plasticity called youth. But the child confronts a very different problem. Man does not submit to his environment, but learns to Complex control it. He does not blindly follow in- environment stinct and impulse as does the animal, but modifies his instincts by experience and reason. Instead of a simple environment and few ac- tivities, man has an environment of amazing complexity and is called upon to perform many and diverse activities. The culture and wisdom gathered by the race through the ages the child of to-day is called upon to master and make a part of his own experience. The attainment of centuries awaits him. All the systems of philosophy, the triumphs of art, the beauties of literature, the discoveries of science — all that man has thought, and felt, and done, is offered the child by the past as a preparation for the future. And all these things and many more must in some degree be accomplished; and they cannot be ac- MODE OF INDIVIDUAL DEVELOPMENT 197 complished in a day. There must be a season of life set apart for preparation, a time when mind and organ- ism are in a plastic, receptive condition for the mastery of the matter and technique of living. And it is at this point that nature has been kind instead of cruel to man in giving him the longer period of youth. He must have a time when economic press- to^*hrchUd. ^^^ ^^ ^^^ ^^^^' ^^^ when the wants are pro- vided by others; a time when state and nation can impose no duties of citizenship except that of going to school; a time when body and mind are not ripe for the sterner activities of life; a time when the child can- not be so profitably employed in any line of work as in get- ting ready for future work — that is, in being educated. Here, then, we find the answer to our question. The child must have a long period of plasticity because he must establish an almost inconceivably necessitates complex System of responses. He must education, and garner a large set of useful reactions as po^sfbie! habits; he must gather a great body of in- formation and learn to use it in adjusting himself to the social process; he must develop motives, establish standards of values, and learn the technique of control of self and environment. He must construct and reconstruct a system of personal experience that shall function as a guide in the control of his experience-process — he must be educated. And no animal that lacks the period of youth can be educated, for it lacks plasticity of nervous system. On the other hand, an animal that has the period of youth can and must be educated; can be educated, because of the plasticity of its nervous sys- tem, and must be educated in order to compete with and serve others of its species which are educated. 198 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION A period of helplessness on the part of the young im- plies helpfulness on the part of the grown. The ignorance of youth implies the wisdom of age. In- of'yoSh!'^"''^^ experience on the part of the child impKes experience and guidance on the part of adults. And the youth-time of the child is a time full of strange paradoxes. It is the least burdened and most care-free period of life; yet every child is impatient to have done with it and get at the more serious business of life. Youth is seemingly a waste time through which all must pass in order to reach the estate when things can be done that are worth while; yet a year lost out of the life at the age of five would cripple its ultimate achieve- ment far more than a year lost out at twenty-five or fifty. In youth the mind and brain are unripe and undeveloped; yet many things are learned faster and better then than at any other age. Youth is impulsive and lacks experi- ence, yet the most important and far-reaching decisions of life must be made in youth; for it is in youth that habits are formed, moral and rehgious standards are set up, education determined, vocation selected, and a mate chosen. A false step taken in youth is far more fatal than one taken at any other time; yet youth's pathway is most thickly strewn with perils and pitfalls. These con- ditions are inevitable, since they belong to plasticity. They give society its responsibility, and also its oppor- tunity in guiding the development of the child. Development is always the result of forces working from within and never from without. A mine may be "Self-activity" developed, but it never can develop, for the process of it is uot sclf-activc. A plant or a child can development. j i r -^ t. develop, lor it has an organizing, recon- structing force inherent in its inner nature. Every being MODE OF INDIVIDUAL DEVELOPMENT 199 capable of development carries the law of its own de- velopment within itself, and its development, normally evolved, is but an expression of this inner law. That the individual may develop in one way under certain condi- tions of environment, and in quite a different way under other conditions of environment, does not alter the fact. The original nature of the individual ultimately contains the germ of all development, and the environment only gives now one set of activities their adequate stimulus, and now another. The controlling influence in development exerted by original nature may be seen from such a simple fact as that from the one setting of eggs placed to development hatch under a hen, one egg might produce inherent in ^^^ eagle, another a dove, another a goose, individual. o ^ / 0^7 and so on. Nor can these diverse indi- viduals be made to become alike by placing them all in the same coop after they have left their shells, and feeding and mothering them in the same way. The eagle may never become a perfect eagle nor the dove a perfect dove under treatment that will produce a perfect goose; but the eagle will remain an eagle and the dove a dove, and neither will tend to become a goose. Each must develop in accordance with the principle inherent in its own organism. The most fundamental and universal attribute of this inner principle or force is that it eventuates in activity. „ ^ , Activity is a sine qua non of development. No develop- . -^ 1 i i ment except Nothing static progresses, much less de- through velops. There is no mysterious something inherent in life which of itself produces growth and development, and which incidentally hap- pens to be accompanied by certain manifestations of ac- 200 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION tivity. Activity is itself the controlling element in devel- opment, the only means by which it can take place. If it were possible to take a child on the day of its birth and give it a normal environment, but by some magic eliminate all the results of activity as fast as they ac- crued, the child might go on living for a year, ten years, a lifetime, and no development would have taken place, either physical or mental. Now since development grows out of an inner force so identified with the self that its nature serves to define This activity ^^^ Very Centre and core of the nature of the must be individual, it follows that the process of -ac m y. development may be defined as self-activ- ity. For it is the self that develops; it develops only through activity, and this activity must be an activity of the self. Stated differently, the potential in the indi- vidual is made actual only through self-expression; powers are realized only through their use; the self rises out of its own acts. Avoiding the metaphysical discussions as to the ulti- mate nature of the self, we may agree that the aspects Concreteness ^^ ^^ which we are discussing constitute no of the active vague, unknowable entity, but it is con- ^® * Crete and empirical. It consists of a com- posite unity including a physical self, a mental self, and a social self, each of which is known and defined through its activities. Any activity, therefore, that in- volves the whole self will include each of these three aspects. If, for example, the child is to express the whole self in his play, the play must involve physical, mental, and social activities. The physical activities must be spontaneous and free from restraint; his in- terest, imagination, perception, and invention must be MODE OF INDIVIDUAL DEVELOPMENT 201 constantly employed, and all this must be accompanied by the stimulus of social companionship. It is very probable that the whole self, or even a large proportion of it, is seldom involved in our activities. The difference is plainly seen in the slow, self demanded, half-hearted, and forced movements of the boy hoeing the hated rows of corn, and the movements of the same boy bounding toward the base- ball field or the swimming-hole. The same difference is seen in a discouraged or uninterested student's forced, listless, and ineffective efforts at studying a lesson, and this pupiFs avid attack on an interesting story or a fas- cinating game. In the one case the self was in abeyance, and some form of external necessity prompted the ac- tivity; in the other case the whole self was present and demanding the activity. No doubt the indifferent boy should learn to hoe his corn, and do it well. This may be worth while even if he must be compelled by external force to affirm^its^cte. Perform his work. But before he will be a successful hoer of corn, and, more important still, before through hoeing corn he receives the training and development it has for him, he must come to exert the compulsion himself. The activity must come to be a 5e//-activity. Similarly, the student must learn to master his lesson, even if external necessity is required. But before the student secures the full measure of development from the lesson, his efforts must be mo- tived from within the self. The self must be brought ultimately to afhrm and support the compulsion ex- erted by external forces, and to take their place in bringing the powers into activity. Only in this way will activity have its full result in development and the 202 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION self come to secure control over the processes of its own experience. Nor does this mean that the activities of the self are to be compelled against the current of personal inclina- The self must ^^^^ ^^^ desires all the time nor perhaps give itself fully much of the time. For, while it is often necessary that this be done, yet the full powers of the self cannot be brought into effect in this way. When activity is at its best, whether physical or mental, it has back of it all the individual's powers and resources. The whole being urgently calls out for and demands this activity. The self wills it fully and com- pletely; interest and desire prompt it; the entire organ- ism affirms it and gives itself gladly to it; no part of the self is latent or withheld. If it is some problem of manual skill, not only the cunning of the hand, but all the best of the mind's enthusiasm, its invention, its discrimination, and whatever other powers can lend themselves to the work in hand, are marshalled to the accomplishment of the task. If it is a matter for the mind to grapple and master, not just the memory, the simplest processes of association and the most elementary forms of discrim- ination are employed, but all the powers of the mind are called forth, and the subject is conceived in all its relations and fully assimilated to the mental possessions. And this makes all the difference between superficial learning and complete learning. The most powerful factor in compelling the entire self to participate in its activities is interest and emotion. Interest and ^^ ^^s dynamic side interest is one of the emotion the most impulsive aspccts of the mind. What grea mo ives. |^ attaches itself to becomes at once an object of response; the entire mind and organism reaches MODE OF INDIVIDUAL DEVELOPMENT 203 out for it and desires to function with reference to it — to see it, handle it, have to do with it, or in some way incorporate it as a part of experience. Interest is the great motive force, leading to action and achievement. Under its promptings, powers of the self that can be commanded in no other way come forward and function in experience, and the foundation is thereby laid for the exercise of compulsion through effort and the exercise of the will. Lacking interest, the powers of the self lag and will not be fully compelled by any of the ordinary necessities of external control. The foundation for self- compulsion is absent and the will cannot bring its effort to bear. The general emotional attitude is hardly less important than interest in its bearing on the power to bring all the Pleasure and ^^^^ ^^^^ action. Roughly classified, the pain as pleasant-feeling states prompt to full and mo ves. effective response, while, on the other hand, unpleasant-feeling states cripple action and lower effi- ciency. The bright, cheerful, happy mood tends to bring every power to its best, while the mood of dull and heavy character reduces power of action and ac- complishment. A feeling of doubt and discouragement presages failure, and a feeling of mastery and assurance goes far to insure success. The activities of the self are not only powerfully affected by the characteristic feeling responses of interest gQPj^j and emotion, but also by social incentives, incentives The influence of the social motives in exert- as motives. .j^g pressure on the powers of the individual has already been shown. The compelling force of public opinion is powerful, both in its restraining and in its stimulating effects. In industrial and commercial ethics 204 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION it has often proved more effective than statute law; it is one of the greatest safeguards in poKtics; it often accompHshes in the administration of a school what rules and authority could not effect. Worthy traditions and high standards of scholarship render accomplishment easy on the part of the student, while their lack deprives him of a powerful incentive. The spirit of emulation aroused by the co-operation and competition of those in similar activities is a constant appeal to the powers of the self. The old lust for contest and the desire for mastery and control are revealed in their best and highest form in this set of motives. There is little danger in the use of social emulation in education, providing that it is balanced with social motives of altruistic nature, causing the individual to desire to measure himself by his companion when he is at his best and not under some handicap. In other words, emulation needs to be accompanied by the spirit of true sportsmanship. Finally, a knowledge of the objective value of the ac- tivity has an important bearing on the amount of the self Knowledge of ^^^^ §^^^ ^^^^ ^^' This is, of course, not the value of true of the play activities, which are an VI y. ^^^ .^ themselves and do not depend for their value on any objective utility. But in the more serious activities the end sought is an important aspect of the question. Other things being equal, the activities that are most closely related to personal experience, immediate or remote, are the ones that most appeal to the individual. Experience is an unbroken unity which permits of no gaps or breaks. The activities of the school must grow naturally out of those of the home and the community if they are to appeal. The work of the student must relate itself to what he is doing and think- MODE OF INDIVIDUAL DEVELOPMENT 205 ing in the run of his daily experience; leading this ex- perience to a broader and higher outlook, it is true, but vitally articulating with it in order to do this. Failure to connect the activities of the school with the interests and activities of life outside the school is probably one of the sources of greatest weakness in our system of edu- cation. This failure is not only responsible for much mediocre achievement in personal development on the part of the pupils, not all of whose powers are called into requisition, but it is also responsible for much of the elimination of pupils from school before completing the curriculum. Society has been slow in providing for the expression side of education. In fact, in the earlier concepts of edu- Piace of ex- cation expression had little or no part, pression in Only the necessity for impressions was con- development, gi^ej-ej The mind was to be ''impressed" with facts; knowledge was to be "stored in the mind,'' or was to be "imparted" to the pupil; education was somewhat synonymous with information. Later, this concept was broadened to include the interpretation of the facts learned. Not just the memory, but also the reason, was to be trained; what was learned was to be understood. A certain amount of information reasonably well understood constituted an education. It has re- mained for comparatively recent times to comprehend in its educational significance the fact that no impression has fulfilled its function until it has eventuated in expression. And it is doubtful whether even yet we fully understand the double relationship of expression in individual devel- opment: first, as the means by which development is accomplished, and second, as the means by which it is made effective in the reconstruction of experience. 206 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION A reason has also existed on the practical side for the lack of emphasis on the expression phase of education in ^ ,, , the schools. It is easier and costs far less reason for to cquip for the imprcssion side of educa- the neglect ^jqj^ than for the expression side. All that of expression. . j i • . i r • . i is needed m the former case is a teacher and text-books reasonably full of information; but in the latter case much equipment is required in the way of laboratories and material, workshops, gymnasiums, and playgrounds. And all these cost money. Instincts and impulses are the motives to activity. Each individual when born is the heir of all the genera- tions that have preceded him. Through instincts and couutlcss ages the cyclcs of life have been impulses in cominsf and soinG[. Each sreneration has development. .,.,.., ... ., performed its life s activities, tried out its various experiments, and been subject to the tests of environment — and thereby learned its lesson. That the individuals were not conscious of the import of the lesson learned, or even that a lesson had been learned, does not matter. Nor does it matter to us in this connection just how the lesson was acquired and transmitted. But somehow there has come to be ingrained in the structure of the organism, and in the consciousness of the race, the lessons from this experience of the ages. In this way the race has gathered up something of the power and tech- nique of living; it has learned how to do some things that were found best to do, and how to refrain from doing other things that were found best not to do. Preorganized ^^ ^^ ^^^^ that, just as many of these les- neurai sons did not enter into the consciousness of encies. those learning them, so they are not trans- mitted to the consciousness of the individual receiving MODE OF INDIVIDUAL DEVELOPMENT 207 them. But they are all the more universal and useful because they do not require consciousness for their re- ception or operation. They come to each individual as a set of preorganized tendencies to response carried in the nervous system. A million generations acting in a given way have left this particular way as their gift to their progeny. And thus has efficiency been accumu- lating. In this way the race has been standardizing its activities, making fruitful acts a part of racial her- itage and allowing unfruitful acts to drop out through the process of natural selection. Thus the racial habits, the lines of action that have been found on the whole to favor successful living, are transmitted to each new gen- eration as impulses and instincts. In this way each individual is enabled to start in with his activities where the race left off in its progress. He , . does not have to wait to experiment for Instinct a , , i i • r i ^ • means of the best Way to take his food, move his economy in body, or do a thousand other acts that are development. "^ r i • • ^ a ^ necessary for his existence and develop- ment. To be sure, these instinctive tendencies do not cover all the details of living if the individual belongs to the higher cycles of life. They deal rather with the great fundamental lines of action, and leave the highly specialized activities to be worked out in the course of individual experience. These impulses to action are so timed in their ripening that each one appears at the time when the organism needs the activity which the instinct prompts, and when the activity is no longer required the impulse drops out and the activity disappears. Thus the individual is supplied by the race with great starting-points for development ; that is, with tendencies to lines of action vital to the full realization of the self. If 208 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION these starting-points are taken advantage of when at their height as impulses, they render development easy and , ^ ^ effective; if they are let go by, they soon Instincts are . •' i \ - ^ starting-points fade out from Want of use, and their advan- for develop- j-^ ^e is lost to the individual in his educa- ment. . . tion. It IS safe to say that there is no great line of development that does not have lying back of it a set of impulses leading to achievement if they are given opportunity for expression. The child's instinct of curiosity makes him eager to know; his impulse to activity makes it easy for him to Instincts have an interest in doing. The art impulse functioning opcus the way to aesthetic development and in education. j. • • • ^u a i. • r traimng m the techmque of expression. The dramatic impulse insures a love for stories and leads to efficiency in expression. The constructive impulse leads out to training in the manual industries and to the cultivation of skill. The impulse for adventure and daring prepares the way for the reading of history and literature. The rise of the social impulse prompts to co-operation in work and play and forms the basis for altruism. The problem for education is to seize upon these impulses and utilize them as sources of great lines of activity, and hence of development. Indeed, education may be looked upon from one standpoint as but a process of modif^dng through reason and ex- perience the responses set up in the individual by in- stinctive tendencies. A best time ^^ ^^ ^^ i^s best as a motive for activity, for utiHzing the impulse must be seized upon neither too ""^ ^^^* early nor too late. There is a time when each of the great impulses is at its best as a force back of the growth of experience. The language impulse and MODE OF INDIVIDUAL DEVELOPMENT 209 the impulse to imitation have their rise early and at the same time. Here, then, is the great basis for language learning and also a suggestion of the method to be em- ployed. When the impulse to physical activity and self-expression through construction has arisen, then is the time for training in the arts and handicrafts. And so we might go on through the list of impulses; not only should we find them correlating with lines of develop- ment, but also with the educational material upon which development rests. It therefore becomes one of the im- portant problems in education to understand the funda- mental impulses of the individual and to effect the corre- lation of these educational agencies in a practical way. Imitation, suggestion, and language determine the course of development. We have already seen that cer- Deveiopment ^^^^ fundamental impulses of the child are directed by the contribution of former generations to suggestion ^^^ present welfare. Through the agency and Ian- of a preorganized nervous system arranged guage. ^^ respond in definite ways to adequate stimuli, the most necessary reactions connected with physical existence are assured. The tendency to take food, to move, to escape danger, is independent of in- struction, and depends upon present environment only for its stimuli. No intelligence is required for the initial operation of these acts, and no training is necessary to enable them to fulfil their primary function. , .^ ^. But nature does not provide a preorgan- Imitation , . . . , ^ i insures ized Set of rcactions large enough to cover appropriate g^n ^^ responses required of an individual response. . •<• of the higher order of life. In order to meet a wide range of environment, the reactions must be great in number and highly specialized. Instinct in- 210 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION sures that the child will develop an articulate speech, but does not settle the question whether he shall speak Ger- man, English, or Chinese. It provides for the tendency to eat when hungry, but does not specify whether it shall be with his fingers, forks and spoons, or chopsticks. It makes certain that he will be social in his nature and de- sire to mingle with others, but does not dictate whether he shall employ the social conventions of the clown or the courtesan. The race did not find the particular mode in which these things are done of sufficient importance to crystallize them in instincts, hence they must be learned as needed. The fundamental impulses, therefore, only provide for the universal and biologically neces- sary responses, and leave the special modifications of these to be settled by each individual with reference to the demands of his environment. The simplest method of adapting the highly specialized forms of response to their social requirements is mani- festly for each new generation to adopt the ways of doing things which are followed by their social group. This is accomplished through imitation, or the tendency to respond to suggestions from others by repeating their acts. The instinct of imitation has its rise in the child at an early age, probably being at its height before the age of five, and slowly decreasing through adolescence, but never entirely losing its force. The increase of ultimate efiiciency effected in the in- dividual through imitation, and the saving in time and energy, both on the part of children and Economy and , , , , . . • t ^ efficiency adults, are beyond computation. Long be- through fQj.g ii^Q child could be successfully in- imitation. . , , r i • .1 structed, and before he can conceive the necessity of learning the social technique of his group, MODE OF INDIVIDUAL DEVELOPMENT 211 he has begun to incorporate their methods in his reactions and make them an integral part of his experience. Start- ing with no fund of knowledge, and with no practice in learning, he has at the end of a few years secured a ready and accurate command of a difhcult language, having greater facility in its use than he will find possible to develop in any other language studied later in life. Through imitation he has become proficient in the social manners and customs of his group long before he realizes the value of his acquisition. In this way he comes into possession of the forms of play and work and secures his introduction into vocational activities. Through imi- tation he adopts the moral and religious standards of his social group and fits himself into its institutional prac- tices. The consequence is, that during the years of bodily and mental unripeness constituting the time when the individual is incapable of economic contribution to so- ciety, and while he still requires the care and nurture of the home, he has, without effort to himself and without expense or trouble to society, secured the most funda- mental and valuable part of his education. It is true that the capacity for imitation has also its dangers. For the individual will imitate an imperfect Dangers model as readily as a perfect one. Imita- inherentin tion is uncritical. Nature says to the imitation. child. Imitate, and he has no choice but to obey. Coarse and vulgar language, boorish and uncouth social conduct, slovenly methods of work and play, and faulty standards of morals and religion are as readily incorporated into the experience of the child as those of opposite character. When it is also considered that the period of freest imitation is likewise the time of the formation of personal 212 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION habits, the responsibility of setting the models for the child to imitate becomes still greater. The young child Necessity ^^ ^^ large degree helpless between two great for good controlling forces, the impulse to imitate on the one hand, and the social models pre- sented him on the other. Nature commands that the individual imitate the acts he sees going on about him; society sets the pattern; habit crystallizes the acts into conduct, and character is formed almost before the indi- vidual is conscious of what is happening. The child's impulse to imitate affords one of the great- est educational opportunities. For what the child can Imitation to learn through imitation he learns much be utilized faster, morc thoroughly, and can use with more facility than what he learns through formal instruction. As a matter of economy, therefore, both to the child and to those who provide his instruc- tion, imitation should be taken full advantage of as an educational agent. The subjects of the curriculum that are most easily learned through imitation should be pre- sented during the imitative age, and should be so presented that imitation rather than formal analysis shall char- acterize the method employed. Thus language should occupy an early position in the course, but should be taught from the standpoint of the free use of speech guided and stimulated by the best models of both oral and written language rather than from the standpoint of grammar. The same principles will apply both to the learning of the mother-tongue and all spoken foreign languages. An incalculable amount of time is at present wasted by approaching the study of languages from the standpoint of grammatical analysis instead of from the standpoint of imitation. A similar source of waste comes MODE OF INDIVIDUAL DEVELOPMENT 213 from introducing subjects that are necessarily formal and analytical, such as arithmetic, into the course too early, while the powers of imitation are still predominating over those of analysis. Imitation naturally widens out and shades off into sug- gestion. In imitation the response copies the overt act of another individual, this act serving as ^^ggelZr^ its stimulus. In the case of suggestion, the stimulus may be either an act, an object, or a symbol, which tends to produce a response. The child watches an older person swinging a hammock, and, copying this act, himself swings the hammock; here he imitates as exactly as he can the model set before him. But also, acting on this stimulus as a suggestion instead of a model, the child may tie the ends of a rope to two chairs and swing the rope for a hammock; suggestion instead of imitation now controls the response. Or the child sees some one take a book and begin to read. But the book itself soon becomes a sufficient stimulus to set off the reaction, and the child gets the book and goes through the motions of reading without waiting for the act of the older person to serve as an immediate model; he can now act from suggestion as well as by imitation. The ability to act through suggestion vastly increases the stimuli adequate to produce response. And this per- mits a wider range of responses, and hence fn^rllflr inore rapid development. If the child were stimuli to be wholly dependent on direct imitation, the'chiid.*^ his physical environment could never afford a very wide range of stimuli, since it would always be necessary to have some adult at hand first to respond to these natural stimuli in order that the child might have a model for his own response. But the power 214 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION to act through suggestion places at the disposal of the child an environment rich in stimuli of widely varied types, and also allows him to develop an individuality of his own in his responses. It permits him to follow out the inner law governing his own development in a way that would be impossible acting under imitation alone. To be sure, the child, even in imitation, acts in an individualistic way. The imitative act is never precisely a copy of the model. Yet the play of ini- allows larger tiative and invention is here at a minimum. freedom in -^^^ until Suggestion begins to operate does response. ... . . individuality commence any rapid develop- ment. While imitation, therefore, serves to give the child an indispensable basis for originality, it is only a basis. An organized, growing body of experience in a constant state of reconstruction is possible only when the individual is reacting to his environment as a series of suggestions, and when he is left a large degree of free- dom in his responses. In both imitation and suggestion the response may be either conscious or unconscious of its stimulus as the de- Conscious and termining factor. The child may con- unconscious sciously seek to imitate the act of another response. because he thinks it desirable and wishes to perform it, as when boys become trapeze performers im- mediately upon going to the circus. But by far the greater proportion of imitation is performed without any intention of copying on the part of the one who imitates. The young playmates of a child who stammers are almost certain to contract this mode of speech; a case of St. Vitus dance may cause other cases by unconscious imi- tation; modes of speech, manners, qualities of voice, attitudes of mind, moods, and various other attributes of MODE OF INDIVIDUAL DEVELOPMENT 215 personality are copied unconsciously by the child from those about him. The same holds true for suggestion, though perhaps not to the same degree. The child at first consciously directs Habit tends ^^^ response to most of the suggestions pour- to fix ing in upon him; but the response once response. started in a given direction, habit takes hold and tends to fix the response in this one direction. Attention to the stimulus then falls away. While of course the action of habit is necessary in order to secure a set of automatic reactions dealing with typical situa- tions, yet there is a constant battle between habit and idea. The idea which serves as the suggestion tends to drop out when the response to it has become automatic and attention is no longer required. The problem at this point is to preserve a proper balance between habit and idea, so that there may be a constant supply of stim- uli for new and different reactions; that is to say, so that the different aspects of the environment may continue to serve as suggestions demanding a constant reconstruc- tion of experience. It is also true that suggestion may work unconsciously in determining the tastes, standards, and attitudes of the individual. The child reared in a home shapes tastes, environment of disorder, squalor, and dirt stajidards, and ^j} £j^(^ }^jg standards influenced by these attitudes. . . . conditions; one reared in a home of culture, refinement, and cleanliness will unconsciously develop tastes requiring these things. In Hawthorne's "The Great Stone Face," Ernest found his character uncon- sciously shaped by the influence that had played upon him. The prevailing quality of moods, and finally the disposition, is largely determined by the characteristic 216 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION emotional atmosphere of home and school. It becomes one of the requisites of education, therefore, to keep the sources of suggestion and imitation such that the re- sponses shall result in progress and development. Language affords the child the opportunity for the next great advance in the range of stimuli. Once in com- Language niand of language, he is no longer limited affords a greater to natural environment and people for his range s imu i. 5^JJ^^1J Words come to Stand for ideas; a new medium of expression and communication is pos- sessed; people, objects, and places are created out of hand by means of description ; acts and events are made to take place through narration. Through language the child thus becomes independent of immediate environ- ment as the sole source of stimuli. Environment is gen- eralized, and the range of stimuli made limitless. A new world is opened up, and the child, through entering it, becomes a thinking being, able to communicate his thought and understand the thought of others by means of effective and easily used symbols. After reaching the language stage, development goes on with great rapidity, and his mental progress can be measured with fair ac- curacy by his growth in vocabulary and its use. The language impulse, like other impulses, has its rise when the child is ready for the activities that it prompts. Rise of the ^^ grows immediately out of and ministers language to a concrctc, growing experience. The impu se. reason why the child learns language is that he feels the need of it, his activities demand it, his experi- ence calls out for it. He wants to ask for this thing, call attention to that thing, and communicate another thing. To do this he must have words, and so he gropes for them. And, having through imitation found them, he makes MODE OF INDIVIDUAL DEVELOPMENT 217 them vitally his own by employing them in the working out of his immediate experience. This is the natural course taken by language in any stage of its development. While the impulse can be forced, yet it is forced with waste and at the cost of efficiency. A child can be taught to imitate words, parrot-like, when he is very young. But words learned in this way do not add to his language ability nor to his general development. Similarly, an older child, when in school, may be taught many words from the printed page so that he can pronounce them, and spell them, and perhaps put them into a sentence modelled after one in the text-book. But this does not add to the language equipment of the child, nor to his general development. Indeed its tendency is rather to cripple both. Development in the command of language is correlative with the growth and reconstruction of experience; neither can successfully advance without the other. Words must get their content from the experi- ence content of the individual, and the content of experi- ence is summed up, housed, and rendered stable through the use of words. The desire for self-realization is a motive in later de- velopment. Just as in his phylogenetic development ^ „ ,. . man is compelled first to attend to the most Selr-realization . ^ . . as a motive pressmg necessities of his material environ- in develop- ment before he has time to reflect on him- ment. ,^ . , . . i i i self, so in his ontogenetic development the child follows the same order. The world of the not-self is the first conceived by the child ; the world of self comes to his consciousness only when he has progressed some distance in his mastery of the not-self. Starting at birth with simple, impulsive responses to purely physiological stimuli, the child soon comes through 218 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION his reactions to his environment to a consciousness of the stimuli themselves. He has now made his start on ^ J . the mastery of the not-self. Next follows a Predominance - . . . of the not-self large group of mstmctive reactions m re- in early sDonse to a wide range of natural and so- expenence. . , . ,. ^ . . . cial stimuli. Imitation has its rise, and the individual begins the great process of modifying his in- stinctive reactions to adapt them to a particular environ- ment; the not-self is looming still larger in consciousness. Suggestion takes hold, again vastly increasing the range of stimuli and more closely linking the not-self to the experience process. Language is added, generalizing the different classes of stimuli, and placing at the disposal of the child, without limitations as to time or place, the typ- ical stimuli that have entered into the experience of the race. The world of the not-self, the stimulus world, has now come to occupy a very large place in the conscious- ness of the individual. But gradually out of the activities of the experience- process a new order has its birth in consciousness; the self appears. The individual is now not the^seif. ^^ty conscious of the great world of stimuli about him, but also becomes conscious of himself. A new and important reality has now entered into his experience-process; a puzzKng reahty, it is true, but an interesting one. The self is no longer dimly taken for granted, but becomes a subject of reflection and in- sistent questionings as to its origin, its nature, the part it has to play, and its final outcome or destiny. Self-conscious- '^^^ ^^^^ ^^ ^^^^ ^^ty ^^ ^^^ throes of the ness originates Hfe-proccss. It has its risc in the crush of in experience. • , j j. • Circumstances, and comes to consciousness in the storm and stress — the crisis of experience. The MODE OF INDIVIDUAL DEVELOPMENT 219 meeting of an obstacle here, the overcoming of a difficulty there, and the confronting of an inexorable law in another ^ place, and the individual comes out of it all to realize that there are the two related orders, self, and other things. The power to conceive the self is an innate ca- pacity, a part of the original nature of the individual; but, like other powers, it must reach its development through the reactions of the self to its environment. The self therefore takes in large degree its form and quality from the character of the social process in which it comes to development. This new consciousness of the self introduces an im- portant factor in determining the direction and extent of The self development. It adds purpose, certainty, demands and ideals. The individual now demands rea zation. more than self -activity; he must attain self-realization. Deferred goods, and ends that cannot be immediately reahzed, begin to exert their influence. Ideals are set up for future accomplishment and plans are made whose fruition lies far ahead. Ability to con- front the disagreeable with patience and without loss of efficiency is being developed. All this takes place, how- ever, as a part of the desire for self-realization, and once the individual fails to see the connection between a line of activity and the realization of the self, the concept of the self loses its power as a compelHng motive. Through the consciousness of the self as an order wholly distinct from its environment, the individual is The sense of brought to reaHze that he is not only one value of the among many, a part of society, a social self, persona ity. |^^^ ^ person as well. He comes to see that he must not only aim to realize the social ideal, but, even more, to realize a personal ideal. There is, of course. 220 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION no conflict between these two ideals; indeed they cannot exist apart; but yet they are not identical. One is respon- sible in some degree for the attainment of the social ideal; he is responsible in far larger measure for the attainment of the personal ideal. It matters much to the individual whether the social process is resulting in progress; it matters still more to him whether his own experience is resulting in personal progress; that is, in self-realization. Social destiny and personal destiny are closely interre- lated, but not wholly parallel; for the Kfe of society is long continued, and error may be redeemed through centuries of better living; but the life of the individual is limited to his three-score-and-ten years and mistakes cannot be atoned for in the flesh. Perhaps the first step in the conscious realization of the self is self-appreciation, or a recognition of the worth of the person. This concept is fully attained *56"— ^Ppr®— -1 • ft 11**11*1 p ciation Only as man views himself m the light of necessary to ^g divine Origin, his great capacities, and his high destiny. To take oneself seriously in the great life drama, to believe that he has a part to play which cannot quite be played by another, to believe that he is helping to work out a great, constructive plan, which involves his own destiny and that of the race, and to feel that his own part, though small, is of infinite im- portance — this concept will serve at once as balance wheel and motive power in experience. The individual who has paused to reflect seriously on his origin, his ca- pacities, and his destiny will hardly be satisfied with a small self. He will hardly question whether it is "worth while," even when the way seems steep and the load heavy, but will calmly determine, "I shall arrive;" and no toil will then seem too arduous if he but feels that he MODE OF INDIVIDUAL DEVELOPMENT 221 is making progress. He will hardly dare to defeat the larger purpose for his life by lack of purpose or by small purposes. What one is worth to himself, what he may do and be with his great powers, what his opportunities and responsibility as a person are — all this constitutes an ob- ligation and motive for self-realization transcending even the obligations growing out of social relationships. Nor will this coveted self be a selfish self. For this is a contra- diction of the very notion of a large self. This larger self will not be to hoard and laud and admire, but to serve. As it could have no existence outside of the social process, so it would have no function except as put at work in doing its part to further social progress. ///. The Social Stimulus to Individual Development All development, as we have seen, is the product of stimulus and response. Response is conditioned by the stimulus and original nature of the individual; stimulus response are is the function of the environment. There co-or mates. ^^^ l^^ ^^ response except to some stimulus that calls it forth ; neither can any phase of environment constitute a stimulus except as it excites a response. Stimulus and response are therefore not only co-ordinates, they are also complements; each is dependent on the other for its very existence and reality. Nor is this a chance or accidental relation. The nature of the indi- vidual's responses is dependent upon the demands of the stimuli; at the same time the individual defines the stimuli, so far as his own powers and capacities are con- cerned, by the character of his response to them. Hence stimulus and response are but obverse and reverse sides of the one unitary situation in experience. 222 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION While response is primarily individualistic in its nature, stimulus is chiefly social. It has already been shown that stimulus ^^^ natural aspect of environment is ap- primariiy proached and interpreted through the social, social. rpj^g stimuli arising from natural environ- ment alone may determine the character of certain of the more elementary forms of response, but even here the social motives soon begin to exert their influence. The rigors of the climate are the immediate stimuli compelHng the activities that provide clothing and shelter. These are a fundamental necessity for mere physical existence; yet social conventions almost from the first determine the precise form of clothing and house. Hunger requires the activities of the chase or the cultivation of the soil. But social usage prescribes certain rules for the hunt, and provides for ownership of the fruits of labor. Without doubt the wonderful natural beauty and the blue skies of Italy were a great stimulus to the artistic Influence of impulse of her people; but religious fervor physical and the rewards offered by the church and environment. society for masterpieces of art were a still more powerful factor in producing her wonderful galaxy of artists. So also the placid islands of Greece were favor- able for philosophic reflection; but we must look for the immediate forces that produced Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle in Greek society much more than in Greek geography. The external influences that go to shape the individual are therefore a combination of both physical and social Social and Stimuli. To the individual himself, cer- physicai tainly before he reaches the reflective stage combine. ^£ development, the physical and the social are never consciously differentiated. They rather unite MODE OF INDIVIDUAL DEVELOPMENT 223 to form one complex situation, whose elements he does not classify. When an analysis is made, it is usually found that the social stimuli are at the immediate point of contact with the individual. Yet there is always the background of natural stimuli upon which the social stim- uli rest, and which play a considerable part in shaping the trend of social development. For example, it is doubt- ful whether the famous Italian school of art could have developed in the midst of a highly industrial and com- mercial civihzation ; but neither did the natural resources of Italy permit the growth of such a civilization. The celebrated Greek philosophers would have had their meditations disturbed by living neighbor to Wall Street and Fifth Avenue; but the riches available to Greece did not render Wall Street and Fifth Avenue possible. The nature of our physical environment has had a great influence in shaping the social ideals of our own T,,- • w . times. The untold wealth of America's Physical factors influencing natural rcsourccs has exerted a constant American appeal to the economic impulses of our peo- development. i * • i mi i pie. A rich soil has stood ready to return bountiful harvests with little labor; mines of coal, iron, gold, and other minerals and metals have called for de- velopment; immense forests have been waiting for the mill and the factory; great natural waterways have in- vited to commerce ; diversity of products and of climate has made many different industries possible. Added to this, an age of science and invention supplied the tools and equipment for exploitation of these great opportuni- ties. A virile, energetic, and cosmopolitan people were at hand to undertake the conquest of all this material wealth. The response to the stimulus afforded by such conditions has been a very natural one, and has simply 224 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION followed in the line of least resistance. Social evolution has taken its direction from the most insistent and effec- tive stimuli. If it is asked why we do not in our civilization of the present have our Shakespeares and our Miltons, our Raphaels and our Leonardos, the answer is takes line of that it is entirely probable, or rather very most effective certain, that we do have them. The differ- ence is that we are making them into in- ventors and financiers, into captains of industry and scientists. Man's inherent powers cover many lines of development and extend to many kinds of achievement. And those powers that are most demanded and stimulated are the ones that come to fruition. We are to-day de- veloping in our youth what our material resources make possible and what our social ideals are calling forth. Our age is material and industrial, rather than philosophical and artistic. The bilKon-dollar trust, the ten-thousand- mile railway line, and the fifty-story office building are insistent, if not obtrusive, facts of our civilization. These things tend to £lk the standard, fire the ambition, and set the goal for endeavor. The response but follows the most pressing line of stimuli, and development in this direction is the inevitable result. Evidences of the materialistic attitude of our civiliza- tion can be discerned even in the schools. Our people are proud of their schools and lavish much mate^Srsm. money upon them. All administrators of educational systems find, however, that it is greatly easier to secure financial appropriations for the extension of school-houses and equipment than for the payment of adequate salaries to teachers. Society is most ready to pay for values that can be seen. During the MODE OF INDIVIDUAL DEVELOPMENT 225 last generation, the material side of education has vastly improved. Buildings, laboratories, libraries, gymnasiums, and equipment of all sorts have been generously suppHed from the public purse. But during this period of rapid advance in the material basis, the personal side of edu- cation has not been given the same support. Teachers have been kept on what is barely a living wage, and no adequate preparation for teaching is yet demanded. The result has been that while the brick-and-mortar aspect of education has made great progress, the spiritual side has lagged far behind. We may say, then, that the social matrix, the atmos- phere, in which each new generation receives the stimuli necessary to their development comes pri- environmentai marily from the civilization round about influences a them. The social institutions, the manners complex. and customs of the people, the nature and organization of the vocations, the habits of mind, the interests, and ambitions of their people are the great de- termining factors which go to shape their lives. On the other hand, the character of the soil, the streams, the mountain ranges, the oceans and deserts, the sky and the climate, have all built themselves into the social structure of which these things are the basis. These two agencies, the physical and the social, are inseparable. Their influence can be traced in the evolu- tion of all the great nations of history, and the immediate it is constantly at work in moulding the point of development of the individual. Yet it must contact. not be forgotten that the social is, after all, the immediate point of contact of the individual with his environment. Richness of soil, productivity of mines, and availability of lakes and streams as highways of 226 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION commerce, mean nothing to the child until they are in- terpreted to him through the values put upon them by society. It is the social stimulus that must finally act as the chief factor in calling forth the powers and capaci- ties of the individual. Further, the development of the individual takes place through a growing, reconstructing process of experience. Experience must have content; and the experience content is social. Both the stimulus, therefore, that prompts the response and the experience that results therefrom are ultimately social in their nature. Two sources '^^^ social Stimuli affecting the individual of social come to him in two ways: (i) from what stimu 1. j^^y 1^^ called unorganized sources, or those having their origin in the heterogeneous activities of the social process; and (2) from the organized source that we call the school. It is, of course, obvious that the activities of the various social institutions and vocations are not organized with reference to the development and training I^urce^'"^ of the child. They rather have in view the carrying out of the social aims of the adults who participate as members in the social process. These unorganized agencies, nevertheless, constitute one of the most important, if not the most important, educational influence in the Hfe of the child. That their educational effects are not specifically anticipated and planned by society, and that they are not consciously received by the individual, does not lessen their efficiency. Powerful '^^^ home, for example, is not organized or educational its activities directed primarily for the train- agencies, .j^g ^£ ^^^ child; yet the atmosphere of the home, its moral and religious standards, the type of its MODE OF INDIVIDUAL DEVELOPMENT 227 social intercourse, and the nature of the fundamental relations that obtain there are the most important factors going to prepare the individual for his present or his fu- ture relations to the home. Similarly, the religious, civic, and industrial activities of society do not have as their end the education of the young; but the most powerful influences going to prepare the individual for participa- tion in these activities are the influences resulting to the child from his contact with these phases of the social process. Or, again, the avocations and recreative activi- ties of society are not shaped for their effects on the child; yet, out of his contact with the plays and games, and the social diversions and amusements of his com- munity, the individual develops his avocational stand- ards and tastes, and learns the technique of play and diversion. The great effectiveness of the stimuli coming from the unorganized agencies of education is due, first of all, to their close and vital relation to the experi- Source of , , . effectiveness ence of the chfld. Their appeal is very im- found in mediate and concrete. There is nothing immediacy. , distant and forced about them. Each ac- tivity of home or vocation is planned and carried out with reference to needs and desires that form a vital part of the experience-process. All is continuous and related ; no gaps are left in experience. There is not only a reason, but a necessity for every activity. Means are never di- vorced from ends, for the end is consciously in view and its achievement sought. Hence interest is direct and effort is supported by desire. The unorganized stimuli to development also possess a great advantage through the continuity of their influence upon the life of the individual. They begin to play upon 228 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION him at birth and do not cease until death. Before he goes to school the individual has secured an amount of Also through education that he could ill afford to ex- continuity of change for all that he will receive after that in uence. time. While he is going to school, also, the unorganized stimuH continue their effect, and vie with the school in directing the development of the child. And even after the school has done its part, and the individual is engaged in the wider activities of the so- cial process, these unorganized forces are still operating to shape the experience-process. In a very real sense, therefore, all the world is a school and the whole of life is education. Through the school, society effects an organization of the stimuli that are to be brought to bear upon the de- The school vclopment of the individual. By selecting the instrument the most ncccssary stimuli and assembling them within the activities of the school, it is no longer left to chance to insure that the stimuli requi- site to development will present themselves, and at the right time and in the right order. In the school, society has invented an instrument for the carrying out of its purpose with reference to the education of the new gen- eration. Through this means any desired end in the development of the individual may be approximately reached. The primary function of the school is therefore easily defined; it is to present stimuli to the child. These stimuli Function of ^^^ ^^ ^^ ^^ ^^^^ nature that they shall re- the school sult in responses leading to development, stimuli^''* Stated differently, the school is to direct the child's growing experience in such a way that it shall articulate with the wider social ex- MODE OF INDIVIDUAL DEVELOPMENT 229 perience-process. In order to this result, the control exercised by the school over the child's experience must be chiefly an indirect control. That is to say, control over the individual is to be exercised through controlling the stimuli that determine his responses. If certain lines of activity are desired, the stimuli appealing to this line of activity are to be presented; if, on the other hand, certain lines of activity are to be suppressed, the stimuli prompting to these lines are to be eliminated. Further, whatever acts are to be conserved as a part of the system of responses of the individual are to be rewarded through social approval, and other means of causing pleasure to attach to them. Similarly, acts that are to be prevented as a part of the habitual response of the individual are to be suppressed through social disapproval, and other forms of unpleasant experience that are made to attach to them. Direction of the child's development through control of the situations that eventuate in conduct leaves the way open to the individual for self-activity and for cultivation in the motives and technique of self-control. Any other form of direction exercised over the experience of the child substitutes artificial motives for conduct and fails to lead to a full development of the self. The control by the school over the stimuli effective in shaping the child's development is exerted (i) through the intellectual organization of the school which the as defined in the curriculum, and (2) in school exerts ^j^g social organization of the school as manifested in its organic unity with soci- ety. A further analysis of these two factors will now follow. 230 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION REFERENCES Betts, The Mind and Its Education, ch. XVI; Bolton, Prin- ciples of Education, chs. XVI, XXI-XXIII ; Dewey, How We Think; Fiske, Meaning of Infancy; Halleck, Education of the Central Nervous System; James, Talks to Teachers, chs. III-VII; Morgan, Animal Behavior, chs. III-V; Swift, Mind in the Mak- ing; T&rde, Laws of Imitation, ch. YI; Thovndike, Educatiotial Psychology. CHAPTER X THE CURRICULUM I. The Social Origin of the Curriculum Society offers to each new generation the aggregate fruits of its own achievements. From the beginning of human history, man has been accumulating culture!* culture and civilization. Out of the daily lives of the millions of peoples of all times — out of their toil and suffering, their hopes and dreams and deeds, have come some permanent values. Some phases of experience have been tried and tested until they have been found typical and fundamental. Culture and civilization consist of these valuable and more or less permanent aspects of social experience. That which remains to us as culture is, therefore, the sum total of social experience up to this time, with the mistakes and failures left out, and with that valuable and which was Only temporary forgotten. And typical from much of the experience of every generation experience. must thus fall by the way. For no matter how fruitfully man lives, or how vital the experience-process, a considerable proportion of his ex- perience has but partial and temporary value. Much that goes on in the social process lacks significance for any other social situation than that of which it forms a part, and hence cannot be transferred to other times and places. Some phases of social activity may lack value 231 232 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION even for their own day, and thus not be worth trans- mitting to others. A great deal of that which seems most valuable and typical to one age must of necessity possess less value, or even no value, for later generations who have grown away from the older concepts and values. For example, much of what was called science in the older day has been proved false, and we no longer study The tern- ^^' ^^ ^^^ ^^ relation to our life of to-day porary is exccpt having supplied a stepping-stone for orgotten. ^^^ higher knowledge. Astrology gave way to astronomy; the old empirical chemistry has been sup- planted by the modern exact science. Much that was taught in theology has disappeared or become the basis of new concepts. Matter that was prized as vital history has been forgotten. Tongues that prided themselves on their power to sway the world have ceased. Literary productions hailed as final in finish, form, and content are no longer read. Institutions have arisen, lived their little day, and disappeared. Only time and change are permanent. These are the test of all things, the measure of all permanent values. This does not imply, however, that nothing has value as experience except that which can withstand the rav- Even the tern- ^S^^ ^^ ^^^^ ^^^ change. The pseudo- porary may scieuce of aucicnt times did supply the foun- ave va ue. dation for later scientific achievement. The literature of other ages than the Victorian, even if it has not come down to us as a permanent contribution, served the generations that produced it and became the foun- dation for other literary eras. Slavery and feudalism have passed away, but they seem to have been necessary stages of social evolution. Monarchical forms of govern- ment are just disappearing, but they were the only fitting THE CURRICULUM 233 form at certain stages of social progress. Generalizing these facts, we may say that in any advancing society old knowledge, old philosophies, and old culture must con- stantly be in a state of reconstruction that shall keep pace with the race's progress. Without the old the new could not come into existence, yet the old must ever give way to the new. Just as youth is intolerant of age, and thinks that youth has the greater wisdom and the greater power, so the present is likely to be intolerant of the past, for- getting its great achievements and the debt that each generation owes to those that have put it into possession of the tools of progress. But even with the dropping out of the phases of cult- ure that are ephemeral or unfit, there still remains a vast amount as the result of ages of accumula- The vast . ... . *^ ,., , . „ amount of tion, and this amount is steadily and rapidly culture increasing with every generation. Litera- remaimng. . ^ 4. u ^ir^ tures m many tongues have crystallized m_an's best thoughts, his deepest feehng, and his most sublime aspiration. Art has made permanent his greatest concepts. Science has pried into so many lines that no one person knows more than an infinitesimal part of the whole. History sums up the lessons of all times and peo- ples. And so we might go on until we had catalogued all the points of contact of man with his environment. At every point he has been learning; experience has been growing; values have been taking form. Here in a poem, there in a mathematical formula, again in a scientific law, at another time in a picture or a statue, or in the organization of an institution, the invention of a machine, the perfecting of a philosophy, or the evolution of a re- ligion, man has been organizing and formulating the most vital phases of his experience. And this is what 234 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION each generation offers to the one that follows, thus put- ting into its possession the incalculable riches of the ex- perience of countless millions of men. Nor can the new generation refuse the heritage; it is theirs. They must have it for their own development, and must conserve it for those that are to come after. It is, of course, impossible for the child to assimilate to his experience all, or even any large part, of this great . , mass of social culture. It is necessary. The curriculum ■, r i i ^ ' a selection therefore, to make some more or less arbi- from this trary selection from the accumulated social material. -^ . ,.,,., experience for the use of the child in intro- ducing him to the achievement of the race. The phases of social experience set out for the individual to recapitu- late is called the curriculum. It consists of society's se- lection of the best from its own achievements set apart and organized especially for the child. It is the gate- way through which the individual is to pass into a fuller consciousness of the collective life and achievements of his race. II. The Function of the Curriculum The curriculum develops the social consciousness of the individual. The child is lacking in perspective. He Social ^^^^ himself only in his relation to the pres- consciousness ent and to those objects whose activities of individual • j • j. i j. u u • • t^i. developed immediately touch his own experience. The through the distant in time and place is either unknown curriculum. i i • • t^ o^u ^ t. ^ or lacking in reality. Ihe concept has not yet arisen of the great succession of human generations of which his own life is a part. The sphere of social rela- tions is very narrow, and their mutual interdependence THE CURRICULUM 235 has not entered the child's consciousness. The com- munity of interests and the continuity of social experi- ence do not yet appeal to him or impress him. All this could not well be otherwise, since the stimuli acting upon the child at the beginning are wholly local and immediate. The distant, the past, and the future do not greatly concern him, since they do not relate directly to his experiences. It is the present that creates the situations demanding his interest and activities; in a very true sense, therefore, the child lives, moves, and has his being in the present. A large part of the development of the individual is concerned with the broadening of this point of view. Development Narrowness, provincialism, and immediacy requires this are sigus of imperfect or retarded social socialization. gj-Q^th. The sense of time must come to include a long past and a limitless future, and the sense of terrestrial space to extend beyond the confines of com- munity or nation. Nor are these to be conceived as empty duration and mere physical distance, but as filled with human generations, each a link in the great chain of life that began at the beginning and will go on till the end. And with this concept must rise the feeling of kinship, the sense of relationship, with all that have come before and that will come after. The great opportunities open to the individual to-day are to be accepted as a gift from other times and people. The flag is to represent not only the freedom of our present, but also the treasure, the sacrifice, and the suffering of those who gave the flag and are maintaining its principles. ,_Literature, art, and science; all inventions and discoveries; the wealth of spiritual culture and the comforts of material civiliza- tion are to be accepted as bonds of human brotherhood. 236 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION With the growth of this concept, the individual will be broadened in his social interests and sympathies. From being a member of a particular family, he will grow into a member of a state, a nation, a race. He will become socialized. The basis of any deep sense of relationship is the reali- zation of a common experience. We expect sympathy and understanding only from those who experience have had experiences similar to our own. the basis of Those who have together gone through reiatLnship. common hardships or dangers thereafter feel a bond of relationship. Persons uniting in a common cause find themselves drawn closer together personally. Soldiers feel a special interest in soldiers, artists in artists, and inventors in inventors. Member- ship in a common society, fraternal order, or church serves as a ground for personal acquaintance and relation- ship. Even so slight a basis of common experience as that of having had ancestors who were in the war of the Revolution creates the feeling of relationship sufficient for the founding of an organization united only by this bond. Common experience is therefore the meeting- ground where the consciousness of relationship and com- radeship emerges. It is the ground upon which the in- dividual must meet society and come to reaHze his part in the drama that is going on about him. \ Through the curriculum society places before the child an opportunity for common experience with the race. The phases of culture that have been Common ^ ... experience found of most value in social evolution, through the ^^^^ ^jjg phases that are most vitally related curriculum. i • i r ^ i to the social process of the present day, are organized and placed before the child that he may incor- THE CURRICULUM 237 porate them in his own experience. Through mastering in his experience what has been wrought out in the cen- turies of struggle and growth on the part of his race, the child comes to feel himself of a kind with those who lived what he has to learn. He thereby comes to conceive him- self as one of the great family of human kind, and catches step with the spirit of progress in society. It is through mastering the technique of the manual arts, and learning the history of their use among other peoples, that the child enters into the experience of the workers of all time and feels himself as one with them. Through the study of geography he rediscovers the con- tinents and the oceans, the natural resources of the earth, and a!ll that goes to make the earth the home of man, thus epitomizing in his experience what the race has been ages in accomplishing. In his study of science, of art, of institutions, the opportunity is the same. The child recapitulates in brief the achievements of society, and through this common experience develops his social con- sciousness until it can conceive man in the large and feel kinship with all. The curriculum stimulates the activities leading to development. The child owes his original nature to The curriculum heredity; his powers and capacities come a stimulus to him from the race, and therefore bear oacmy. racial characteristics. This implies that ontogeny follows the trend of phylogeny; the individual develops under the same stimuli and according to the same laws that hold for the race. It is true that the individual takes advantage of many short cuts, and pos- sibly even wholly omits many aspects of racial experi- ence. Making allowance for this fact, we may say that the individual develops his powers and capacities by 238 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION recapitulating in his experience the typical activities of the race. Just as the child at birth has implicit in him all the powers and capacities that will be his in the ripeness of The child adult life, so the race at the dawn of its develops history had potential in itself all the powers pU^uiatkigThe ^^ ^^^ ^^^^ ^^ ^^^^ meridian of its life. Man activities of has made those potential powers actual the race. through their use in the mastery of his world, and in the process he has achieved the culture that he offers to each new generation. The individual must follow the same course. The child will reach the development of his powers and capacities only through their use in solving in his experience the problems that the race has solved before him — through living in minia- ture the life that society has lived in large. Man owes the technique attained by the hand to the problems that have resulted in the evolution of the arts In concrete ^^^ ^^^ handicrafts; the child attains con- situations of trol and manual skill through that part of experience. ^j^^ curriculum that provides for the manual and industrial arts. Man developed the number concept through meeting those problems of social experience that have resulted in the growth of the science of mathematics; similarly, the child develops his number concept by hav- ing reproduced in the curriculum the situations demand- ing a knowledge of number. Again, man developed much of his ability to think through confronting in his experi- ence the situations whose mastery has given us the sciences; similarly, the child develops his power of thought by rediscovering the typical problems of science- supplied by the curriculum. Development occurs, as we have already seen, only THE CURRICULUM 239 through the reconstruction of experience. But experi- ence is not empty; it must have content. The curric- . , ulum immensely increases the content of The curriculum i i .1 i, . • 1 i ^ broadens the the Child s experience; it also defines to the content of individual the typical and universal from experience. , . . . ,^, the experience of society. The content of experience dependent wholly on stimuli coming from the immediately present cannot but be narrow and trivial. Values are distorted, and the trivial and insignificant come to dominate. Through the curriculum the child finds himself in the presence of stimuli coming from all times and peoples. His thought is emancipated; he is freed from the accidents of time and place. His concepts become generalized, and his interests and sympathies correspondingly broadened. The curriculum leads the individual to adjustment in the social process. We have defined the aim of education as that of fitting the individual into the inthe*Sciai social activities of his time as a positive, process secured contributing force. This is accomplished curriculum! through Cultivating in the child a constantly growing, reconstructing experience increas- ingly controlled by himself with reference to social needs and demands. This is to say that the experience-process of the individual and that of society shall come more and more to merge, but without the individual losing his identity as an individual in the process. The chief instrument devised by society for effecting the union between the activities of the individual and Methods for those of Society is the curriculum. The cur- securing riculum accomplishes this end (i) through a JUS men . ^j^^ creation of certain attitudes, or stand- points, toward the various social activities; and (2) 240 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION through providing the individual with the knowledge and technique required in the typical social activities. Each individual must have some life-theory, some judgment of social values, an estimate of what is most worth while in experience. He must con- o?attitude! sider how best to invest his powers in order to achieve the largest returns for himself and society. Above all, he must feel the necessity of making an investment of his powers, of entering fully into his share of the world's work and its play. To ac- complish these ends, the individual must have some basis for comparison. He cannot judge from the data supplied by his immediate environment. He must know what mankind has done, what it is now doing, and what lies ahead waiting to be done. He must come into touch with all the broad lines of the world's achievements. He must apprehend the meaning and value of the social institu- tions, and feel his relation to them. He must see the sig- nificance of the vocations through which the work of the world is accomplished and its civilization built. The world's science, its literature, and its art must exert its appeal to his experience. Only when the individual has thus come into posses- sion of the typical aspects of social culture has he ade- Need for quate ground for personal decision as to the basis for most desirable and profitable lines for the comparison investment of his own activities. Without such basis, chance, or trivial circumstance is the deter- mining influence, and the individual has little control over the processes of his own experience. He is but a puppet, a cog in the great wheel, the direction of whose turning, even, he does not know and cannot in- fluence. THE CURRICULUM 241 The curriculum is a powerful factor in shaping the individual's standpoint toward the various social activi- „ ties and in defining his attitude toward Social ideals • i i ttt-i • • ^ to be incui- social valucs. What society puts into the cated through curriculum of its schools finally comes out the curriculum. . t . i i i i • t as national ideals and achievements. Let England decide that the aim of education is to produce a gentleman, poHshed and elegant of manner, impatient of labor, and more able to spend than to earn his money, and the desired product is easily secured through the public schools of the empire. On the other hand, let Germany determine to inculcate in her youth the spirit of patriotism for a united fatherland, and in a generation she can accomplish the result through the office of her schools. Similarly, our own schools are found to be the most effective agency for teaching the elements of de- mocracy to the milKons of foreigners who flock to our shores. If literary and aesthetic fines of study are not given a place in the curriculum of the schools, a national decfine in literature and art may be expected to follow. If scientific subjects are neglected, the nation will soon be found to suffer, by comparison with the nations which emphasize these subjects, in the record of its scientific achievements. Similarly, a cur- riculum rich in literary, scientific and aesthetic studies, but lacking all industrial and vocational subjects, has a tendency to produce a people who neglect industrial pur- suits and seek occupations in the direction taken by their training. Such a society will be at a disadvantage in the economic aspects of its social activities, and will suffer in competition with other nations having a curriculum which includes the industrial and vocational studies. 242 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION One result of the relative neglect of vocational subjects and the emphasis put upon what have been called dis- « ,* r ciplinary studies in our schools is seen in Results from i i lack of the tendency for too large a proportion of vocational q^j. educated people to find occupation in lines where the work of the hand is reduced to a minimum. The consequence has been for many people to look upon education as a means of escaping the industries and attaching themselves to the professions or other occupations not requiring manual labor. The effect of this attitude has been to overcrowd nearly all profes- sional lines, clerkships, small mercantile positions, and similar occupations. A second result of the lack in our curriculum of sub- jects bearing directly upon the concrete problems of the Formation of social process is a corollary growing out of educational the result just discussed. This is the wide- spread notion that education is, except in its rudiments, for the class who do not work with their hands and that it does not belong to the workers. The relation of education to successful participation in the activities of vocation, home, state, or other social insti- tution, is not seen. The outcome of this attitude toward education cannot be other than to produce social caste — the feeling that education is for one class of society, but not for another; that it is for one group of occupations, but does not affect other groups. Thus, the great funda- mental aim of education, that of socializing the indi- vidual and increasing the force and effectiveness of the social bond, is defeated through the agency of education itself. It has already been shown that education does not consist in disciplining powers and capacities in the ab- THE CURRICULUM 243 stract, but in training them to successful functioning in the activities of an immediate social process. Knowledge The concrete ^^^^ ^^^ ^^^^^ ^^^ ^^^ ^^^ Sake, but to give bearing of a basis for control in the real affairs of life, e ucation. Culture is not the result of the poHshing and refining of a set of intangible attributes of the person- ality, but consists in developing, balancing, and perfect- ing the powers and technique of the individual function- ing in a fruitful way in social activities. The concept of the disciplinary functions of the cur- riculum has prevailed in large degree for several centuries, and is even now but slowly giving way be- Prevalence of •'^ . r; -' disciplinary lore the social couccpt. Disciplmc must aim in finally come to be defined as synonymous education. , . ./ ^ with increased control on the part of the individual. The disciplined mind is the one that knows how to meet and solve the problems of a certain field of experience in the best possible way. And in order that the discipline shall be of value to the individual, the field of experience for which the discipline prepares must co- incide with the social activities in which he is to engage. Discipline, therefore, not only means power of control, but it implies a control that is so immediate and concrete that it extends to every problem met in the routine of experience, whether this experience be in the home, the shop, the office, the studio, on the farm, or any other form of activity whatever. Set over against the disciplinary aim of education has been the utility aim. As understood by many, these two utility vs. ^^^^ ^^^ ^^^ ^^ty distinct, but in large de- discipiinary gree mutually exclusive and opposed. In ^^^' the disciplinary concept the emphasis is put upon the activity of consciousness, with little reference 244 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCx\TION to its content. In the utility concept, on the other hand, the chief emphasis is placed on the content, or information, side of experience. Stated differently, if the content of experience has no immediate or particular point of contact with the social activities, the educational result is discipline; but if the experience content immediately and directly touches the activities of the social process, the educational result is utility. The final outcome of discipline in education has been vaguely conceived as culture, and that of utility as a kind of practical ability lacking in the elements of culture. But the relationship between these conflicting con- cepts is not quite so simple as it would appear from this Relation Statement. True utility is not synonymous between the with mere . information any more than dis- two aims. • t • vi. ^* '^ ciplme IS synonymous with mere activity of mind. It is true that utility rests upon information; the individual must know the field with which his experi- ence has to deal. The content of his experience must be a social content, related to his activities. But mere quan- tity does not make information useful as a guide to experi- ence and hence does not constitute utility. Information must be organized into a unified body of knowledge capa- ble of functioning as a stimulus and guide to the con- tinuous reconstruction of experience before it becomes utility. It is not packed away as so many facts, or so much acquired technique, but is constantly utilized in adding to the knowledge and skill of the individual in mastering the problems arising from his social activ- ities. Viewed from this standpoint, there is no fundamental conflict between the concept of discipHne and that of utility in education. Or, differently stated, this point of THE CURRICULUM 245 view eliminates altogether the concept of discipline as an end in education, in so far as it undertakes to separate the educative effects of any activity of con- efficiency sciousness from the content of conscious- inciudes disci- ness. The Content of experience becomes uimty^aims. ^^^ ^^^^ matter of consideration in educa- tion, and the method of organizing this content in the learning process the next consideration. The result of effective organization of valuable content in experience is culture. Culture is, therefore, but a name for the entire process, and cannot exist in the absence either of fruitful content or effective organization of ex- perience. The educational concept could without doubt be greatly clarified by dropping out of discussion the three controverted terms, discipline, utility, and culture, no one of which has any accepted definition, and substi- tuting for the vague and overlapping meaning of the three the term social efficiency. Social efficiency means the abihty to enter into a pro- gressive social process and do one's part toward advan- Meaning of ™S the interests of the whole, while at the social same time attaining the highest degree of e ciency. realization for the self. It is the function of the curriculum to put the individual into possession of the knowledge and technique necessary for the ac- complishment of this end. To illustrate: the relations in the home require not only right attitudes and impulses, but also a basis of „ . , knowledge with reference to the particular Social , , ° . . .11 AT 11 efficiency problems arismg m the home. A knowledge as appUed to Qf home economics leadinsr to a wise ex- the home. , . . p ^ j e J.^ penditure of money for the support oi the home would immeasurably increase its efficiency as a 246 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION social institution. A knowledge of certain biological laws and the course of genetic development is essential to the care and rearing of children. An understanding of the rules of hygienic living would greatly decrease the amount of sickness and disease, lower the rate of mortality, and increase efficiency. Knowledge of child nature and the laws of mental development would enable parents to contribute much to the education of their children. These matters deal with some of the greatest and most fundamental values of experience, and their control can- not be left to natural impulse or chance information without grave danger both to the individual and society. And similarly in the case of other social institutions and activities. Efficient participation requires knowledge Social ^^^ technique. To be a good citizen of the efficiency in state, one must have a knowledge of the purpose of government, of the machinery of his own government, and the nature of the social problems confronting the state. If one is to stand in right relations to the school and do his part as patron, taxpayer, or official, he requires a comprehension of the nature and aim of education and a knowledge of the organization and functions of the school as the instrument of educa- tion. To enter successfully into a vocation, whether in- dustrial, professional, or any other, the individual must have a concept of the place of work in human progress, and a particular knowledge of and technique in the vo- cation selected. Or, if one is to make fruitful use of the avocations, he must see the relation of avocations to de- velopment and efficiency, and learn the technique of the avocations chosen. And so we might catalogue all the more significant and fundamental phases of social participation, and in each THE CURRICULUM 247 field we should find that the knowledge required is too complex, or the skill demanded too refined, to leave its acquisition to chance contact of the individual with opportunities for learning it empirically. The curriculum finds one of its greatest functions in equipping the indi- vidual for the meeting of social demands. ///. The Content of the Curriculum The content of the curriculum is to be determined by its function. If, as we have concluded, the function of the curriculum is to bring to consciousness the curriculum in the individual a sense of social values, determined ^q serve as a stimulus to the development by aim. . , , -^ of his powers and capacities, and to lead to his adjustment in the social process, then the curriculum must contain the subject-matter that will accomplish these ends. If through the curriculum the child is to learn to judge and appreciate social values, it is evident that these values must be represented in the curriculum ; if, through this agency his powers and capacities are to receive the stimuli adequate to their development, then the curriculum must contain the matter that will secure response from the individual; or, if he is to be led to ad- justment in the social process, the matter of the curricu- lum must be of such nature as to create right attitudes to- ward social values and supply the knowledge and skill necessary to efficient social participation. ^ . . , We may look upon the curriculum as a Principles determining scrics of stcpping-stoues by which the child content of mounts from the isolation of individual curriculum. consciousness and the weakness of unde- veloped powers to the fulness of social consciousness 24S SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION and the strength of ripened pcnvers. It is, therefore, important that the curricuhun should present the very cream of social experience and culture. It must be well rounded and balanced, not omitting important phases of subject-matter, nor insisting on an excess of other phases. It must deal with what is significant and fundajiiental. It must not overwork the child nor crowd his time so full that opportunity is not given to develop a permanent interest in the great lines of culture and secure more than a smattering of knowledge about them. The field of culture from which the selection of the curriculum is to be made is so rich and so broad, and the time. of the child for its mastery is so short, that the problem of the content of the curriculum becomes one of the most vital questions connected with education. With tlie enormous increase in the amount of material available for the curriculum in modern times, and with Modern ^^^^ growing couccpt that it is through the enrichment of mastcry of this culturc that the child be- the curriculum. ' n- • ^ i c • j. 'i. • comes an eliicient member oi society, it is not strange that the curriculum has grown greatly richer than in earlier times. Bacon and other philosophers of his day dreamed of and worked upon a pansophic scheme of education — a plan by which the child could accom- plish the mastery of all social culture. No such dream is indulged to-day, yet the amount of material organized as a curriculum is ratlier appalling. Field after field has been opened up, and new subjects have constantly been seeking admission into the curriculum. Old sub- jects have been loth to give way, and the consequence has been an overcrowding of the curriculum in certain parts of the educational system. The volume of material available for the curriculum THE CURRICULUM 249 has resulted in its division into various courses of study, each arranged with reference to tlie correlation of its sub- Multiplication J^'^-^'^ and the time required for its comple- of courses tion. This has gone on until many high an su jects. gchools HOW offer courscs sufficient to need twelve or even sixteen or twenty years for their mastery, instead of the four years allotted to the high-school work. Colleges are offering a curriculum that would require from twelve to twenty- five years for its com[)letion. Univer- sities are multiplying their courses almost endlessly, so that it would now take some four hundred years to cover the courses of the greatest universities. It has now come to the point, therefore, where there must not only be the selection of a curriculum for our schools, but also a selec- tion within that curriculum suiting it to the capacities and needs of the individual students. The factors that go to determine the content of the curriculum are chiefly three: (i) Iradilion, (2) profession- alism, and (s) social demands. J^adiLion Influence of i , . , • • i tradition in plays a large part m determinmg the cur- determining riculum. The vcry fact that education curnculum. r • must draw so largely on the past ior its material makes it conservative. That which has been found serviceable as educational material in one genera- tion or century has a tendency to carry over to the next generation or century. The old finally becomes sacred through its very antiquity, and he who suggests the elim- ination from the curriculum of anything which has long held its position is looked upon as an iconoclast, if indeed not as an irreligious and irresponsible meddler. So firmly do these traditional values take hold of the popular imagi- nation that many parents would select one certain pro- fession for their son, not because they think he is best 250 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION fitted for it, but because in their minds it stands tradi- tionally for larger honor and position. It is not unusual to choose courses of study in the college or the high school in the same way. Nor is it strange that branches that have been long in the curriculum should come to be looked upon as absolutely essential to education; though many who so regard them could probably give httle or no reason for this opinion except that such branches have long been studied. The force of tradition exerts its influence in all phases of our experience and proves a valuable balance-wheel to our activities. We need to be saved from too readily giving up the old and tried values for the new. The problem is to save the old without allowing it to block our progress. It is not meant, therefore, that a branch should be dropped from the curriculum just because it has been _. , ^ , long there. The time that a subject has Right of a 1.1 . 1 1 1. 1 1 . branch to hold been m the curriculum has little or nothing Its place ^Q (Jq ^j^Jj |.]^g question of its remaining in curnculum. ^ . i . i there. That question should be decided solely upon the ability of such branch to educate the powers and capacities of the child of to-day for the life of to-day. That the branch has had value, or that it may have value now, will not sufl&ce. It must have greater value than others that are waiting for admission. If it can meet this test, it should be allowed to keep its place; if not, it should give way to more serviceable material. -, - A supplemental factor growing out of the a factor in influence of tradition is found m the matter determining ^f text-books. It is easy to understand that the curriculum. i i i mi i a subject that has long been taught will be most likely to have a well written series of texts for its use. From generation to generation the new text-book THE CURRICULUM 251 writers profit by the mistakes as well as the successes of their predecessors, and an excellent series of books is the result. Naturally, this tends to make the teaching of such a branch easier for the teacher and more valuable for the pupil. New subjects in the curriculum must of necessity be under the handicap for a time of relatively poorly organized material and the lack of standardized text-books. This, of course, constitutes no reason for keeping a subject out of the curriculum, since it is only by its use that proper organization and serviceable texts can evolve; but it illustrates an important factor tend- ing toward conservation as against change. Professionalism is the second great factor going to determine the content of the curriculum. By profession- alism is meant the influence of educators professionaUsm and tcachers. This class is looked upon by in determining society as a group of quasi experts, whose the cumculum. . . i i . ^ i i • i opmions and advice should carry weight. And such should be the case. Education should be as much a profession as medicine or law, and a teacher's advice upon an educational problem should be as trust- worthy as a physician's upon a question of medicine or a lawyer's upon a question of law. There are two great reasons why such is not now the case. First, teachers and educators are not strictly a „ , ^ professional class at all, because they lack X 6fl.Cil6rS HOl / •/ looked on as technical knowledge of society, culture, professional 2,nd. the child, and the interrelations of these educational factors. Secondly, it is impossible to test the vaHdity of an educational theory as easily and satisfactorily as that of a medical theory or a theory of jurisprudence, the reason being that the results are so slow in education, and that there are so many supplemental factors to be taken into account. 252 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION Possibly it is this very difficulty in the way of accurate measurement of educational results that makes so many Inexpert inexpert critics ready to express their edu- criticism cational convictions. For there is nothing p en 1 u . ^^^^ ^j^^ average man loves more to do than to publish and defend his own particular educational creed. It therefore comes about that many who would not dare to show their lack of information and grasp in the fields of science or mathematics by writing articles or appearing in public lectures in these fields, rush into print or readily proclaim their educational doctrines with at least as little technical knowledge of the educational fac- tors as they have of science or mathematics. This prob- ably explains why much of the matter printed upon edu- cational theory is without value, and no small part of it actually misleading. The teachers themselves have comparatively little to say about the curriculum. It is true that there are Teachers say teachers here and there who are strong little about cuough to make their views felt. By far curriculum. .1 . .• r r * ^ • the greater proportion of professional in- fluence, however, is wielded by a class coming to be called ^^ educators." Those of the latter class most responsible for the curriculum consist, for the greater part, of superin- tendents and principals in the public schools, professors of education and psychology in the higher institutions, and the authorities having to do with admission require- ments in the colleges and universities. One of the greatest professional influences at work in shaping the curriculum in this country during the last score of years has been several differ- thei^.^KA. ^^^ groups of educators acting as commit- tees appointed by the National Education Association. Especially important was the report of THE CURRICULUM 253 the "Committee of Ten," issued in 1894. This report discussed educational values at great length, and recom- mended a high-school curriculum which received the sanction of the association. Naturally this curriculum served, with but shght modifications, as the type for many schools, and it has not yet fully lost its dominance. Similar committees recommended curriculums for ele- mentary schools, both grade and rural, with like results. The Department of Superintendence of the National Education Association is also a powerful factor in public education, and has had much to do in shaping the cur- riculum. The most important professional influence at work in determining the content of the high-school curriculum in recent years has been university and college Influence of i • . • 1 i 1 . r college authorities, acting through the medium of entrance their entrance requirements. It is naturally the ambition of each school of lower grade to articulate with the one next higher. Ability to do this is not only a warrant of the standing of the lower school, but also encourages its graduates to continue their edu- cation in an unbroken line. It is also to the interests of the higher institution to secure a perfect articulation of the lower school with itself, for it is in this way that it secures studehts prepared for the higher work. The mutual interests of secondary and higher educa- tion on matters relating to the articulation of the two . . have resulted in the forming of various Associations . . r ^^ 1 1 of college associations of colleges and secondary and secondary schools, having for their purpose the estab- lishment of criteria and methods of admis- sion of high-school graduates into the colleges. As a re- sult of this co-operative work, an approximately uniform 254 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION standard of admissions for all higher institutions has been agreed upon, and provision made either for a system of accredited high schools, whose graduates are admitted to the colleges without examination, or for a uniform system of examinations for entrance into the higher in- stitution. In order to accomplish the desired articulation of the lower and the higher schools, it has been necessary for each to modify its curriculum in some degree to meet the other. In this, as in other educational situations, however, the influence of the higher institution has proved the stronger, and the high-school curriculum has been shaped largely in accordance with college requirements. The departments and schools of education in the higher institutions are exerting an increasing professional in- influence fluence. This influence is exerted through of higher the membership of their faculties in the u ons. various educational associations already discussed; through the pubhcation of educational litera- ture; and even more through shaping the educational standpoint of their students, who are pursuing the study of education as a profession in constantly increasing num- bers, and who are rapidly coming to occupy the places of importance in educational affairs. Social standards and demands are slow in making them- selves felt educationally, but they are in the last analysis Influence of ^^^ ^^^ source of authority and power, social National ideals come at last to be expressed s n ar s. ^^^ conserved in the schools. There are two reasons why social ideals are comparatively slow in shaping the curriculum: First, social ideals are not al- ways clearly formulated; they often are but half conscious to the great mass of society until some leader arises who, by formulating the ideal, brings it to the social conscious- THE CURRICULUM 255 ness. And it is evident that an ideal but half felt and dimly known cannot exert sufficient compulsion to secure a place in the curriculmn. The second reason for the slowness of social ideals in modifying the curriculum is that society does not deal directly and at first hand with the schools; but rather through the medium of a pro- fessional class, who are often slow to interpret or respond to a social demand. It is true that the theory of our educational system provides for small local units, with the social group man- aging directly their own school affairs. influence "^^^ ^^^^ ^ Condition does not obtain in not directly practice. In the case of the rural schools, education ^^^ State superintendent usually makes up and sends out a course of study which is to all intents and purposes binding upon the schools. The county superintendents insist upon the state course being followed, and the teachers natually obey. Without doubt this arrangement gives far better schools than to depend upon each school district to arrange for its own curricu- lum; but the illustration shows how far the people are from managing their schools directly. In the grades of the town and city schools the course has been prescribed largely by the superintendent and . ^. , his principals or assistants. That the school but indirectly . . . . through board is legally commissioned with the duty a^inistrative q( prescribing a course of study is true; but they, not feeling expert in such matters, are usually ready to sanction without modification what- ever curriculum the superintendent proposes. The high-school curriculum in the United States has from its inception in 1636 been largely under the control of the colleges and universities. The old Latin grammar 256 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION school was confessedly a college preparatory school, and hence had its curriculum dictated by the college. The next secondary school, the academy, arose Movement . , '^. . toward social as a protest agamst the narrow curriculum control in the gf ^j^q grammar school, but the academy United States. . r n i i t- ^ i also soon fell under the sway of the col- lege and became a preparatory school. In the high school, the ''people's college," it was thought that so- ciety would have an institution that would respond im- mediately to the needs and ideals of the people. But after half or three-quarters of a century of existence the high schools, as has already been shown, find themselves very largely college preparatory schools. Many of the middle-sized and smaller ones are straining every nerve to meet the college requirements, even to the neglect of some of the most fundamental branches. The college, being still further removed from immediate contact with social demands, has maintained a curriculum that has been dictated very completely by tradition and profes- sional influence. The ultimate source of authority in determining the content of the curriculum must lie in the needs and de- ^ . , mands of society. What the social proc- Curnculum . , . , . must respond CSS requires the curriculum must contain, to social When society outlives old ideals and enters demand. t ^ . i • i upon new lines of experience, the curriculum must change in conformity with the new conditions. In all progressive societies, therefore, the curriculum will be in a constant state of reconstruction. If the curricu- lum proves unable to make this readjustment in accord- ance with changing social demands, and continues in traditional but outgrown lines, it obstructs instead of furthering social progress. It is not meant by this that THE CURRICULUM 257 the curriculum will consist of new and different subject- matter for each successive generation. On the contrary the basis of the curriculum will always be old and tried matter. This must needs be the case, for social changes work out slowly, retaining a large measure of the old in what seems to be new; and the curriculum always is conservative, lagging far behind the front in a social movement. While the social demand is to be the source of authority in determining the curriculum, this does not imply that „ ^ . , professional influence should have no place. Professional >a i ^ i factor to On the contrary, educators and teachers be responsive should have far more educational influence to social. than they now possess. They should come to be looked upon by society as true leaders in education; as experts whose word possesses the weight of authority. But their leadership must not be exerted from a point outside the social process. They must clearly interpret and formulate the social ideal, thereby bringing it fully to the consciousness of society as the educational aim. If educational leadership thus takes its cue from social conditions and needs, there can then be no conflict be- tween the professional and the social ideal, as is now often the case. More than this, the professional educa- tor should himself be an active participant in the social activities of his day, that he may have an effective part in shaping the ideals which he is to carry out in the curriculum and the school. „ ,, The selection of studies within an elec- Problem , • i i of selecting tive cumculum bccomcs m the higher phases studies within Qf education hardly Icss of a problem than curriculum. . , . the selection of the curriculum. With from two to five times as much material as the child can study 258 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION in the high school, and from four to ten times as much as he can study in the college, the matter of selection of studies becomes one of moment. Too often the choice of studies depends on trivial or accidental considerations. The parents form a notion Choice often ^^^^ ^^^ ^^^ must have a classical education depends on or the daughter a scientific education with- trmai factors. ^^^ ^^^ consideration of the aptitudes of the child or the use to which such knowledge is to be put. Often the advice of older schoolmates who have liked or failed to like certain branches is a determining factor. The personal equation of the teacher is also one of the most potent influences in determining the studies elected. In general there is probably too much of whim and too little consideration of educational values in the selection of subjects. The election of studies within the curriculum should rest on two broad principles: (i) the importance of the Two principles subjects as a part of human culture, and for selection particularly their relation to the social o stu les. process in which the child is a participant; and (2) the adaptability of the individual's powers and capacities to pursue certain lines of study and secure development from them. As an illustration of the first principle, it would seem that their importance in the evolution of civilization and Application ^^ ^^^ social activities of the present would of first demand that the child should have some pnncipe. touch with each of certain great fields of culture. Among these are such groups as the social sciences; the material sciences; language, especially the mother tongue; art and literature; the manual arts; religion and ethics. The particular phase of the fields THE CURRICULUM 259 presented will depend upon the application of the second principle, and will, of course, involve the question of the age and advancement of the individual. With reference to the second principle, it is to be expected that, since the curriculum uses so small a por- AppUcation ^^^^ ^^ human culture, not all individuals of second will possess just the powers and capacities pnncipe. i^^^^ suited for mastery of the particular phase of culture presented in the curriculum. On the other hand, an individual may possess many excellent powers and capacities not demanded by the curriculum. It is evident, therefore, that a child's response to a cur- riculum is not a sure test of all his abihties, but only of those that specifically apply to the curriculum offered. It is often the case, however, that some accident or notion turns a child against a certain line of study which, if pursued under other conditions, could capacUy easily be mastered. Thoughtless criticism includes all of a study by older people, the tradition Un^s?"*^"^**^ of the particular school concerned upon this branch, poor teaching, attempting the subject too early or before sufficiently prepared — these are some of the things that may handicap a child in a line of study in which he might ultimately come to excel. It is safe to assume at the beginning that every normal individual has capacity for, and will develop an interest in, all the lines of study which are fundamental to the race's progress; and only after the most earnest attempts at mastery tmder favorable conditions should it be con- cluded that the failure to grasp a subject is because of a lack in the requisite capacity for such study. In response to the growing concept of social efficiency instead of mental discipline as the aim of education. 260 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION the content of the present-day curriculum has been undergoing marked changes during the last generation. These changes have been effected in two changes in ways : First, by the modification of the sub- content of ject-matter within certain branches; and, curriculum. . , second, by the addition of new branches of study. As illustrations of the first t3T)e of change may be mentioned the new content that has been given to geography, language, physiology, and in less degree, arithmetic. Among the additions to the curriculum are commercial branches, the handicrafts, music, and art. It is fair to say that the entire curriculum has felt the vitalizing influence of the social aim in education, both in its content and in its organization. Significant as these changes have been, however, we are obliged to concede that even if the disciplinary con- . cept is losing ground, it still exercises the concept yet dominating influence in the curriculum. It rules in jg responsible for at least half of the subject- curriculum. , , V, , matter given m the grades, and probably for more than half of what is given in the high school. Consider, for example, the arithmetic taught in the grades. First, the amount of it; a large majority of our schools begin training in number in the first school year and continue for the eight years of the elementary school. This is supplemented by at least three years of additional training in mathematics in the high school. Almost one- fourth of the time and energy given to education is thus spent in developing the concept of number. Of course, the mere numbering of the objects or items of our ex- perience does not possess any such relative importance as this proportion would indicate. The only explanation is to be found in the theory of mental discipline. THE CURRICULUM 261 Much has been done recently to bring the subject- matter of arithmetic closer to the experience of the child, Arithmetic yet y^^ ^^^ greater part of our texts is still taught as made up of problems of difficult analysis iscip ne. rarely or never met with in the actual con- ditions of Hfe. So clearly is this type of subject-matter calculated to result in discipKne instead of efficiency, that a large majority of those who have studied mathematics for eleven or twelve years are without the power to add, multiply, divide, and subtract simple numbers with speed and accuracy. The summing up of a month's household expenses, or the computation of a bill of lum- ber, would severely test the skill of many intelligent boys and girls who have spent from eight to twelve years under the 'MiscipUne" of mathematics. The amount of time devoted to arithmetic in the ele- mentary school could probably be reduced one-half not Desirable ^^^Y without any loss in efficiency in num- changesin bcr, but with an actual gain. The change ant mstic. would Contemplate the ehmination of those parts of the subject whose value is intended to be chiefly or wholly disciplinary, and the placing of greater empha- sis on the phases relating to home and business activi- ties. This would necessitate dropping out a large pro- portion of the problems in the complicated forms of analy- sis, combinations of compound and complex fractions, simple fractions with large or irreducible denominators such as are never met with in business life, various sec- tions of measurements involving technical tables and measures, many parts of percentage not in practical use in the business world, the most of proportion, and nearly all of square and cube root. The arithmetic taught would then consist of much 262 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION practice in the fundamental operations, seeking for both accuracy and speed; the common problems that have to Social ^^ ^^^^ ^^^ household, the shop, or the content of farm, correlating these especially with the arithmetic. other work of the school; common and decimal fractions of the denominations usually met in business computations; the elements of percentage as employed in interest and the discounts; and the compu- tation of the common business forms, such as bills, checks, and drafts, and whatever else enters into the business routine of the modern home. A criticism similar to that of arithmetic may be ap- plied to the subject of grammar as taught in many Grammar also elementary schools. Much has been done taught as in recent years to emphasize the expres- discipUne. ^^^^ ^-^^ ^£ language as against its ana- lytical aspect. A great deal of technical grammar is, however, yet given those of tender years. This mode of approach to language violates the natural order of learning, failing to make the best use of the impulses of imitation and expression, which are at their height in childhood, and which constitute the best basis for the attainment of facility and accuracy in speech. Gram- mar is logic of a rigid type, and, except for the simpler grammatical relations, has no place in the elementary school. Its position there can be defended only from the discipHnary standpoint, and it is so far beyond the grasp of the pupils of this age as to fail of whatever might be claimed for it on this ground if presented at a later stage of development. The loss of time in the study of language in the ele- mentary school is probably nearly as great as it is in the study of arithmetic. Much effort has been given THE CURRICULUM 263 to teaching the correct forms of speech at a time when vital content is lacking. Facility in expression cannot Educational ^^ secured whcH there is nothing to ex- waste in press. When the child enters school the grammar. language impulse is strong, and further de- velopment in language depends far more on the acquisi- tion of new ideas and the development of new interests than on instruction in language forms. The child is ready enough to express his thought when he has in- teresting, vital thought to express; and no amount of training can result in language ability without this sub- jective demand for expression. Expression cannot be divorced from experience. The immediate activities of the child, therefore, both in and out of the school, are the basis of all elementary language training, and suggest the content the basis of of the language course for the elementary language school. The handicrafts, nature study, traimng. it • r i i • play, literature in story form, and biog- raphy all supply material for language content, provid- ing they call forth a real response that demands expres- sion on the part of the child. In the development of the individual as well as in that of the race, spoken language precedes written. The tongue is better adapted to speech than language the hand, hence written forms of expression precedes must be an outgrowth from oral forms. written. The first several years of language work should therefore be chiefly oral, and oral work should predominate over written work well toward the end of the elementary school course, if indeed not all the way through. There is grave doubt whether language should be differentiated as a separate study with its own text- 264 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION book earlier than the seventh grade, although no doubt it should have a distinct place in the programme earlier than this. During the last two years of the elementary school course, the forms of oral and written composition may well be studied from a text, and the simpler rela- tions of words in the sentence mastered. But here as in the beginning the language content must relate itself to the experience of the individual. The content of geography has also undergone great changes under the stimulus of the social ideal. Traces of the old catechetical method are still to geography. ^^ found nevertheless, and many children are yet committing to memory the defini- tions of geographical terms, when the real objects are lying ready at hand for study. The names of many bays, rivers, gulfs, straits, and towns are learned and recited, never again to enter into the experience, while the natural environment of the child, the earth as it touches his own life, is but a dim reality. The subject of geography should lie very close to the experience of the child. It begins wherever his life Social touches nature in his environment. It basis of deals with the earth not as a ball of mat- geograp y. ^^^ revolving around the sun, nor even as the home of man, but as the home of himself and those whom he knows. The content of geography is there- fore synonymous with the content of the experience of the child as related to his own interests and activities in so far as they grow out of the earth as his home. Towns and cities begin with the ones nearest at hand. The concept of rivers has its rise in the stream that flows past the child's home. Valleys, mountains, capes, and bays are but modifications of those that lie within THE CURRICULUM 265 the circle of personal experience. Generalizations must come to be made, but they must rest upon concrete and particular instances if they are to constitute a real- ity to the learner. The earth must finally be conceived as the home of man, but it is first conceived as the home of particular men. The earth as the home of real people, engaged in real activities, gives the cue for the content of geography. What kind of people Hve in a country, what they work at, what they eat, and how they live in their homes and their schools, what weather they have, and what they wear, how they travel, and speak, and read — these are more vital questions to the child than the names and locations of unimportant streams, towns, capes, and bays. For they are the things that touch his own ex- perience, and hence appeal to his interest. Only as geog- raphy is given this social background, and concerns it- self with the earth as related to social activities, can it fulfil its function in the elementary school. Few subjects have been more misused in the element- ary curriculum than physiology. It began with a mixt- Recent ^^^ ^^ medical anatomy and advanced changes in physiology, to which were added a few p ysioogy. suggestions on hygiene. Later a large amount of quasi-scientifLC matter was added on the ef- fects of narcoti(!s and stimulants. Nearly all of this matter was beyond the comprehension of the child, or else outside his interests and unrelated to his experi- ence. Much of such content has now been dropped out, and matter introduced bearing upon the conditions of right living and the relation of health to physical and mental efiiciency. Further reform is still needed, however, in the con- 266 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION tent of physiology as an elementary school subject. The child is at this age not only in the most critical Social content Stage of development, but he is also form- to be further ing his personal habits as to the care and eve ope . ^^^ ^^ ^-^^ body. It is, therefore, important that he should learn and come to practice the element- ary rules of hygienic living. He should be taught the importance of pure air, and the ways by which it can be secured; the necessity for exercise, and also for rest; how to secure the best conditions for sleep; the neces- sity for cleanliness, and the way to bathe and care for the body; proper foods, their preparation, care, and manner of eating; the care of the eyes, mouth and nose; the simpler facts of sex and its hygiene; and the treat- ment of cuts, bruises and burns. Not only are these and similar topics adapted to the child's interest and under- standing, but they have a vital bearing upon individual and social efficiency. The handicrafts are a comparatively recent addition to the curriculum, and hence have been less subject to the disciplinary aim than the older sub- handicrafts, jects. Indeed they owe their introduction into the curriculum largely to the rise of the social concept of education. The handicrafts now constitute one of the most important and valuable of the elementary-school subjects. At tKis stage of the child's development the impulse to activity is very strong, and the time is ripe for securing muscular co- ordination and control. The manual activities not only aid greatly in this development of the individual, but they also connect very directly with the child's life out- side the school, and thus serve to articulate the activi- ties of the school with the wider social activities of the THE CURRICULUM 267 home and the community. It is hard to estimate the great socializing effect of this influence. Music is also one of the later subjects of the curricu- lum. It not only ministers to a natural impulse of the _, . individual, but develops one of the most Music. . ' \ important aspects of his nature as relates to social participation. Almost every normal child can be easily taught to sing, and all can be led to enjoy and appreciate music. It is not the function of the school to develop musical artists, but to lay the foundation of interest, knowledge, and skill necessary to the enjoyment of music by all. Art is at present winning its way into the curriculum. A generation ago it was a pedagogical crime for a child to take time from his lessons to draw a Art. . . . . . picture in school. Drawing, pamtmg, and modelling are now an integral part of the curriculum of many schools. Here again the social has triumphed over the disciplinary aim in securing a place for a vital sub- ject. The aesthetic instinct is strong in childhood, and hence this is the time to shape the artistic tastes and standards. Just as in music, it is not the purpose of the school to produce finished artists, but rather to use art as a medium of expression for the child, and to culti- vate through a study of pictures, statuary, architecture, and other forms of art, an appreciation for the beautiful. The secondary school curriculum has from the begin- ning been shaped largely in accordance with college re- ^. . ,. quirements, and has therefore been domi- Disciplinary ... concept in nated by the disciphnary concept. Its re- high-schooi ^q^j^ broadening through the addition either cumculum. r i • T • i • n i of elective subjects, or elective parallel courses has resulted from the public demand for sub- 268 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION jects having a more direct bearing on the social activi- ties. Although so high professional authority as the National Education Association once declared that the college preparatory course is the most fruitful even for pupils not going to college, the social mind has remained unconvinced, and the changes in the curriculum have gone on. The high schools that have found it possible to add sub- jects or parallel courses to their curriculum have thereby reduced the proportion of purely discipH- Situation in ^i. rr j • j.i ^ ±. high schools. ^^^y i^^a-tter oiiered, smce the greater part of the additions have been of other than dis- ciplinary character. All such schools still maintain, how- ever, the college preparatory course, and tradition, added to the prestige of admitting its graduates to college, goes to place this course at an advantage as compared with other courses of the curriculum. The large number of somewhat smaller high schools not able to maintain more than one course, but still desirous of meeting college re- quirements, both for their own reputation and for the advantage of those of their graduates who enter college, offer only the traditional curriculum. All students in these high schools are, of course, obliged to take the studies offered whether they are preparing for college or not. Below this group is yet another large group of still smaller high schools not able to offer more than three, or even two, years of the four-year course. Most of these schools are following out the traditional curricu- lum of the college entrance requirements as far as their work extends. It is seen from these facts that a very large proportion of the high-school pupils of the coun- try are still to be found in the traditional curriculum of college preparatory studies. THE CURRICULUM 269 That the college preparatory course contains a large preponderance of discipHnary matter is evident from an College • S'^alysis of its content. The standard entrance amount of high-school work required by requiremen s. ^lost of the higher institutions of the coun- try is thirty semester units of acceptable subjects. Less uniformity exists as to the nature of subjects required, but still the divergence is not great from the following requirements for entrance into the arts course: Latin or Greek, ... 8 Geometry, ... 3 German or French, . . 4 Material science, . 2 English, 6 Social science, . . 2 Algebra, 3 Elective, .... 2 The requirements for the science course do not differ essentially except in the requirement of but eight units of foreign language instead of twelve. It should be said, however, that the present tendency is toward greater leni- ency in the nature of the subjects offered for admission. But it is seen that the high-school pupil who follows out the course just outlined will have twenty-four out of thirty credits in what may be called proportion of formal subjects. For the first four years disciplinary Qf Latin or Greek must be spent chiefly in SUD16CtS* the mastery of the mechanism of the lan- guage and very little of social content is possible. The spirit of Greek and Roman social life can be but dimly felt through the difficult medium of declensions, conjuga- tions, syntax, and lexicons. The first two years of Ger- man or French must likewise be devoted to the mastery of the form of the language, and little of the literary or social phase is possible. The content of the three years' work in EngKsh can be greatly modified according 270 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION to the standpoint of the teacher, but probably at least half of the time is devoted to the linguistic phase of the study as distinct from the literary. Practically all of algebra, and a large proportion of geometry, is of neces- sity purely formal, dealing with the numbering of things, but not with things themselves. We find, therefore, approximately three-fourths of the high-school course of this t3^e consisting of formal sub- „ , . , , ject-matter. To this amount we must Material and . . social science make some addition from the material and taught as social scienccs growing out of the nature of their teaching. For example, physics is quite generally presented from the mathematical and abstract standpoint, instead of approaching the subject from the point of view of its relations to life and experi- ence. Botany is often taught as the analysis and classi- fication of plants, and little related to the actual experi- ence of the pupil. The same is true in some degree of chemistry, physiology, and the earth sciences. And his- tory has not infrequently been little more than a skel- eton of events and military achievements, and hence failed to enter into the life and spirit of society. It is not meant to imply in this connection that the formal studies of the high-school curriculum are without „ J value as educational material. The point traditional is rather that the content of such subjects curriculum jg not a social content, and that it does not not social. . , , . therefore relate itself directly to social ac- tivities. The values contained in the traditional curric- ulum, whatever else they may be, are not primarily so- cial values. And the aim attained by such subjects must be stated in terms of mental discipline rather than social efficiency. THE CURRICULUM 271 The problem therefore arises as to how far the pres- ent curriculum enables the high school to fulfil its aim. What is the aim of the high school? Is it high school that of "disciplining the faculties" of its fuifiiiing^its pupils, or of developing them in social effi- ciency? Should it seek to prepare the few for college, or to fit the many for the more immediate social activities in which they shall engage? It is very necessary that we should have schools pre- paring for college, and that these schools should be easily accessible for all the people. It is f ur- for^couTge. ^^^^ desirable that the college and the pre- paratory school shall perfectly articulate, so that it may be as easy and natural as possible to pass from the high school to the college. On the other hand, of all the pupils enrolled in the high school at any one time, less than forty per cent graduate. Of those that graduate, a small proportion go to college. A very small minority, therefore, of the high-school pupils are prepar- ing for college. Unless the college preparatory course offers the best type of training for all, it would seem un- just to require the large proportion who will go no fur- ther than the high school to take this course. The boys who close their schooling with the high school are looking toward a career as merchant, farmer, ac- . , countant, mechanic, or in some other such Prepanng for . i . i i i immediate vocation; the girls are to become teachers, ^°^?*?. clerks, and stenographers, or housewives. activities. <_j i -> Besides the vocational relations, each will function as a member of a family, a community, a church, as a citizen of a state, and in other social capacities. All must, through their education, be fitted into these so- cial activities, with their powers so developed that they 272 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION may themselves attain to the fullest possible experience and make the largest contribution to society. In other words, the outcome of their education must be social efficiency. It may well be doubted whether, for example, the mathematical training received in the high school re- sults in greater efficiency in any of these mShematics. lines. Certainly it has no more bearing than the same amount of training from geology, music, or drawing, for the content of the high- school branches of mathematics has no relation to the non-technical social activities. Algebraic formulae are learned, but they are not applied to the problems of the farm, the home or the shop. The solution of a triangle is mastered, but the method is not employed in comput- ing the slope of a roof, the strain on a girder, or the excavation of a basement. Similarly, the relation of the study of Latin to social efficiency may be questioned. Its effect in producing facility in the use of English is urged, but one is justified in questioning whether the same amount of time spent on the study of English it- self would not 3deld far greater returns. The socializing influence of contact with Roman civilization is also pre- sented in defence of Latin; but the spirit of Roman civiHzation can be approached far more easily and effec- tively than through the medium of a language so diffi- cult that the student cannot read it after four years of study Says Emerson, "I should as soon think of swim- ming across the Charles River when I wish to go to Boston as of reading all my books in the original when I have them rendered for me in my mother tongue." Latin, like mathematics, must finally come back to THE CURRICULUM 273 formal discipline for its defence as a part of the high- school curriculum, at least for those who are not going on into higher education. The same criticism may, of course, be made on Ger- man or French when pursued but two years, as is usually the case. The pupil gets only a knowledge langiwges. ^^ grammar and the ability to read halt- ingly the easiest matter. He has read no literature of value/and is able to read none. He therefore carries with him only the mental effects of his study, for it possesses no social content. English, which offers so rich a social content, may be so taught as to result chiefly in discipline. It may well be questioned whether English has not taken its method too largely from the method of the foreign languages, and been overbur- dened with grammar. The relation between ability in grammatical analysis and readiness and faciHty in the use of speech has not yet been established. And even in the teaching of literature, it is possible to make the formal aspect overshadow the content to such an extent that the human interest is lost. It is a fact greatly to be regretted that the high-school course in English has so little influence in molding the taste of the pupils in their reading, and leading them to a love of literature. Here again the social opportunity is often lost through aiming primarily at discipKne instead of efficiency. The high-school curriculum is at present undergoing some significant changes. A growing tendency exists to Changes in emphasize phases of subject-matter more high-school directly related to the life and occupations su jects. ^£ ^j^^ people. The first of the subjects to feel the eflects of this movement have been the ancient 274 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION languages. Greek has almost passed away as a high- school branch, and the recent trend is similarly away from Latin, and toward scientific, industrial, and com- mercial lines. Algebra and geometry have not yet been affected by the changes going on, and will, no doubt, hold their present position for a considerable time. The material and the social sciences are being greatly revi- talized both in the content and method through em- phasizing those aspects of the subjects that bear most directly on concrete social interests and problems. In- deed, every phase of the curriculum, whatever its con- tent, is in some degree responding to the new social de- mands being placed upon education. One effect of these changes in the high-school curric- ulum will be to increase public interest in this phase of education, and hence ultimately to result these social- in a larger proportion of our population re- mng ten- ceiving the advantages of secondary school- ing. The high school itself is already feel- ing the influence of increased interest and appreciation on the part of the pupils. This is particularly true of the high-school boys, who are considerably exceeded in numbers by the girls. Careful study has shown that the chief cause of this shortage of boys is caused by a lack of interest in the studies of the traditional high- school curriculum, and the feeling that they have little bearing on practical affairs. The proportion of boys in the high schools of the country is at present slowly on the increase. And the percentage of increase is almost uniformly greatest in those high schools that have intro- duced the social efficiency courses. All things considered, it seems safe to conclude that the traditional disciplinary high-school curriculum is los- THE CURRICULUM 275 ing its dominance. The educational concept of society is. against it as a preparation for the social activities. Disciplinary '^^^ pupils themselvcs havc had a taste of concept losing other lincs of study, and are demanding ^^°^^ ' opportunity for broader and more vital subjects. And, finally, the college, the great bulwark behind which this course has taken refuge for several centuries, is shaping its entrance requirements so as to receive the newer subjects on equal terms with the tradi- tional. Social efficiency as the aim of education is crowding hard the ideal of discipline, and bids fair soon to become the ruling concept throughout the whole range of the curriculum. When education is conceived as related to the immedi- ate social experience of the individual instead of having The girl and ^^^ ^^^ function the "disciplining" of cer- the high-school tain "powcrs," the question is at once curncuum. raised whether the high-school curriculum should be the same for girls as for boys. This question is not so acute in the grade curriculum, although it has its beginnings as early as the seventh and eighth grades. But during the high-school period boys and girls cease to be just children, and take on qualities of sex. New interests arise, new ambitions are born, new plans are laid — the whole world of experience is reconstructed in accordance with concepts of values not thought of in the elementary school. Education takes on a deeper meaning. Fundamentals '^^^ fundamental aspects of the curric- the same for ulum will, of coursc, be the same for both both sexes. sexes; for many of the great lines of ex- perience are the common property of the race, and do not depend on sex. Both sexes alike must come into 276 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION possession of the *' tools of knowledge," and also the more fundamental aspects of culture. But the most significant basis for the division of labor existing in so- ciety is that of sex. Diversity of function is far greater here than in the different vocations. And it is also true that the most vital functions performed by the two sexes are precisely the ones that are possessed by one sex or the other, and not shared in common. The man becomes the founder and supporter of the home. He seeks the mate, engages in a vocation to ,, - , supply the economic necessities for the Man's rune- *i tions and household, and, when necessary battles to woman's defend the home or other social institu- functions. . • ^ ■, tions. The woman is the keeper of the home, and largely determines the organization of its ac- tivities. She is the bearer of children, their nurse, care- taker, comrade, and teacher. Upon her attitude toward the relations and activities of the home depends a great proportion of its happiness; upon her knowledge and appreciation of aesthetic values depends much of the quality of refinement in the home environment; upon her business ability depends a great part of its economic success; and upon her knowledge of the fundamental truths of procreation and the nurture and training of children rests not only the welfare of the individual, but of society as well. The girl has never been seriously considered in con- nection with the curriculum. It was centuries after sys- The girl tematic training for boys had been pro- given a boy's vided before it was thought necessary to curricu um. ^.^^ ^^^ ^.^^ equal opportunities for educa- tion. She was then admitted into the boy's school, and given the boy's curriculum. When schools were finally THE CURRICULUM 277 organized specifically for girls, the curriculum from the boy's school was borrowed and made to do service for the girls. This was not so illogical under the disciplinary concept of education, for the content of the matter studied is, under this concept, of minor importance. But under the social-efficiency concept this situation cannot well continue. If the content of education is really related to the successful carrying out of one's life problems, then the content of the girl's curriculum, par- ticularly in the high school, must be different from the boy's curriculum. And this does not involve a question of either sex having a ''better" education than the other, as has sometimes been argued; but each will have an education that is different from that of the other, and better for its possessor in so far as it prepares for the particular functions of each. A beginning has been made in thus differentiating the curriculum for the sexes in providing manual training for boys and domestic science for girls. f^ftiiTsefes.'' Further differentiation still needs to be worked out. It is hard to defend an edu- cational policy that will require a girl to spend several of the best years of her life in the mastery of mathemat- ical processes and formulae which she never employs, and in the acquisition of the linguistic inflections and vo- cabulary of a language she never uses, and then send her into the most crucial and important experiences of her life in absolute ignorance of the problems to be confronted. Lines taken ^he girl has long since proved her men- by girl's tal ability; where her curriculum differs curriculum. ^^^^ ^^^^ ^^ ^^^ ^^^^ j^ j^ ^^^ ^^ ^^ ^^^^ easier, but only to be related to the woman's problems 278 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION in the home. The girl's curriculum may contain as much science as the boy's; but, without attempting here to differentiate it into its branches, it will teach her con- cerning foods, both as to their value and preparation; it will give her a knowledge of house sanitation, includ- ing heating and ventilation; it will instruct her with reference to the human body, and particularly her own body, together with the laws of physical development, health, and efficiency; it will give her a knowledge of fabrics, including their coloring and wearing qualities; and much other knowledge of immediate value. In the social sciences also the girl must be as well edu- cated as the boy; but here again, there is room for dif- ferentiation. She needs to study econo- Social science • i , •,! ,• i t i* ^ ji for girls. mics, but With particular application to the home. The economic basis of the home, the relation of income to expenditure, the proportion of expenditure that should go to the different sources of outlay, and the methods of judging values in purchas- ing for the home are types of applied economics impor- tant to the high-school girl. The girl's curriculum should contain business train- ing, not primarily for the store or the office, but for the home. Methods of keeping household ac- Eusiness ^ 4.1, r • i i training. counts, the usc 01 Commercial paper, and the ordinary business forms and usages are essential to the manager of the modern home. The courses in domestic science should give the high-school girl an opportunity to learn sewing and various forms of needlework. Here she should also be able to find instruction in the art of serving meals in the family or to guests. She should have opportunity to study house- hold art and decoration, and the art of entertaining. THE CURRICULUM 279 She should find available thorough training in music from the standpoint of the lover of the beautiful. And similarly for each of the great lines of activity that await her in her experience as central figure in the household. Society demands of the woman that she efficiently man- age a home. Women therefore have a social right to the training that will prepare them for this function. It is true that some of these lines are not at present well organized for instruction, nor are teachers available for them in all the high schools. It is not the intention to recommend an immediate substitution of these lines for the present curriculum, but rather to suggest certain fundamental principles which must ultimately be worked out if the social concept of education is to prevail, and be applied to women as well as men. IV. The Organization of the Curriculum The organization of the curriculum is of hardly less importance than its content. The great mass of cult- Organization ^^^ ^^ ^^ mastered by the child cannot of the successfully be attacked as a miscellaneous curncuum. aggregate, nor in an unnatural sequence. A thoroughly articulated system of subject-matter adapted to the powers and interests of the individual must be devised. The broad fields of knowledge must be divided into various co-ordinated subjects, and these subjects again subdivided into related branches. The relation of the various branches to the stages of devel- opment of the child must be considered and the inter- relations among the studies themselves discovered. The different branches that are to constitute the curriculum 2S0 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION are finally to be fitted into the scheme of years, terms, grades, and classes constituting the machinery of the school organization. In considering the lines of cleavage in the field of so- cial culture which result in the division of the curricu- Synthetic nat- ^^^^ ^^^^^ studies and branches, it is to be lire of subject- remembered first of all that social experi- ^^ ^^' ence is primarily a unitary thing, and hence that culture is at root all one unbroken whole. In the concrete life of society, meeting its problems from day to day, there is no separation of science into the organic and the inorganic, the mathematical and the social. There is rather one growing and developing field or mass of knowledge, of which these branches come ultimately to be the difi'erent phases or aspects. The genetic view of the curriculum is therefore always a synthetic view. Only after a considerable field of knowledge has been developed can the di\T[sion into the different branches be made. Not until the product is relatively finished can it be classified on a logical basis into its related parts. Just as the unity of subject-matter parallels the unity in social life, so the principle governing the division of „ . , , this subject-matter into studies is identical Social pnn- • i i • • i r ^ • ^ cipies in organ- '^^th the prmciples of the social process, ization of the j^^ i\^q social points of coutact with inani- cumculum. ^ . . . mate nature, the inorganic sciences have their origin; w^here social experience meets the animate world, the organic sciences emerge; and where in their common activities men find problems arising out of these relations the social sciences have their birth. Each branch of study represents so much organized social cult- ure ready to be translated back into experience through the medium of tlie child. THE CURRICULUM 281 In the organization of subject-matter into a curric- ulum it may be viewed from either one of two stand- points: the logical or the psychological. and the psy- The logical vicw is the view of the scien- choiogicai ^jg^ ^]^q takes so much of truth already points of view. . . , •' assembled and arranges it mto a consistent and organized body of knowledge. The logical view is not concerned with the processes by which this body of truth was discovered, but seeks for a cross-section of it as it stands. It does not busy itself with explorations seeking new fields, but charts and maps of territory al- ready explored. It is not concerned with processes or partial products, but with completed products. It does not have in mind the learner, but the subject-matter. On the contrary, the psychological view is the view of the learner, and not of the scientist; of the explorer, and not of the maker of classifications. The psycholog- ical view is concerned with the processes by which the culture was developed, and by which it can be trans- mitted to others. This view follows the irregular devia- tions of concrete experience at work upon real problems, rather than a classification of experience-products already achieved. It does not deal with theoretically complete products, but with partial products, so that they meet the immediate need. It has for its aim the incorporat- ing of the subject-matter into the experience of the child. ^ . ^ As the learner grows to maturity and ap- Two points of , - . ° . . , , , view tend to proachcs the scientist in development, these become the |-^q yiews approach each other and tend to become identical. That is, when the learner has possessed himself of a considerable body of sci- entific truth and has mastered scientific method, he is 282 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION then able so to control his processes of knowledge that he can eliminate much of the empirical cut and try, and can leave out many of the devious wanderings of earlier stages and proceed more directly to results. But the child must be a learner before he can be a scientist; he must approach subject-matter from the psychological point of view before he can approach it from the logical point of view. Science is ultimately more of a standpoint and a method in approaching subjects than a body of knowl- edge. It is true that science is "a classi- of science!^^^ fied body of knowledge." But it is also true that a mere classified body of knowl- edge divorced from the method that goes with it would not constitute science, but only so much of information. Of course the method cannot be wholly separated from the subject-matter, but what makes a body of truth science is the general principles and concepts which dic- tate the proper description and classification of facts within this field. In this sense science becomes a mode of thought, an organization of concepts and principles giving control in its particular field. No external classification of so much scientific truth can therefore constitute a body of subject-matter sci- ence to the child. No matter how perfect The child .1 tj* <• j.m ■* * *i must organize ^^^ co-ordmation of matter may be m its the material arrangement within the branch or how well mind. ^^^ arranged the branches of study, there can be no coherence of subject-matter until it is effected in the experience of the child. Organization must proceed from within, and cannot be imposed from without. A proper arrangement of the subject-matter will greatly assist in this internal organization, but the THE CURRICULUM 283 relating is ultimately of the learner. Any attempt to enforce upon the child an organization of subject-matter for which he is not yet ready, or which does not fit into his experience, only results in memoriter work. He may commit the matter to memory, but he will lack the con- cepts and the principles of organization necessary to unite the facts into a coherent, useful body of knowledge. The final source of authority for the organization of the curriculum must therefore be found in the nature of Final source ^^^ child, and not in the scientific classi- of authority fication of the scholar. The character of m the chii . ^-^^ child's interests and activities, his nat- ural mode of attack on a field of experience, the method and order of his mind's unfolding, the final meaning and outcome of present attitudes and ambitions — these must determine the arrangement of subjects in the curriculum and the order of procedure within the branches them- selves. It is hardly necessary to say that the present organi- zation of the curriculum does not proceed from this point of view. The curriculum was originally present organ- arranged by scholars who had in mind the ization violates £ttest Organization of so much subject-mat- this principle. , ^ , , , , - , ter, rather than the best mode of procedure for the uninitiated learner in approaching this field. In- deed, the child mind was not thought of as being different in its processes from the adult mind; there was only less of it in power and scope. Text-books were not even ar- ranged in a graded series until a century or two ago. The child was expected to begin at whatever point in the subject-matter a logical classification set out as a beginning. The study of language was begun with grammar. And parsing, declensions, conjugations, and 284 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION rules of syntax afforded the child his entrance into the subject. Similarly, the rules and principles of arith- metic, instead of concrete and practical exercises in the use of number, introduced the learner to the subject of mathematics. This order of procedure has been greatly modified in recent years, especially as to the organization of matter Illustrations of within a particular subject. The applica- the logical tion of the principles of induction to teach- ^^ ° * ing has resulted in an attempt at a psy- chological instead of a logical mode of approach to many of the subjects. In the matter of organizing the sub- jects themselves into a psychological series in the curric- ulum, there has been less progress. It is still common to find the more abstract subjects, and those that are far- thest from the activities and experience of the child, placed ahead of the more concrete and vital subjects. Thus, in the elementary curriculum, the child is in many schools first given such formal branches as reading, numbers, and writing before the social and industrial activities and nature study. In the high school the more abstract and symbolical sciences frequently pre- cede the concrete and practical ones. Individual experience, as Well as social experience, is a unitary process; there are no gaps and no abrupt breaks. The child begins his life in the of^experi^nce.^ midst of Concrete social activities of the most immediate and vital nature possible. He deals with real objects, real problems, and real in- terests. There is nothing distant, abstract, and symboli- cal in the whole round of his experience. There is no separation of social experience from his own individual experience ; it is all one. There is no such thing as culture THE CURRICULUM 285 or knowledge outside the processes of his own daily life This is the situation up to the time of entering school. Now, it is precisely upon the basis of this unity and concreteness of the child's experience that the curriculum The cue to the should be organized. The child's interests elementary are specifically related to the social activi- curnc um. ^j^^ ^^ which he participates, to people, and to things. Herein is the cue to the core of the curricu- lum for the elementary school. L3dng closest of all to the social experience of the child is the group of occupational subjects, involving Social ^^^ various handicrafts, drawing, painting, activities at and modelling. Immediately related to the occupations are the subjects having to do with nature and with man ; namely, geography in its broadest sense, and history approached largely from the biographical standpoint. Growing out of the necessities of these subjects, language and number will soon be de- manded as tools, and later, the formal aspects of sci- ence will be approached in the same way. It is not meant, of course, that this is to be a strictly chronolog- ical order, as all of these groups will in some degree be represented all the time. It is rather an order of em- phasis, a method of genetic procedure. This order is thoroughly in accord with the progres- sive development of experience in the child. It begins closest to his socialized interests and leads out to his environment on the social and the physical sides. The symbols of language and number, the so-called "tools" of knowledge. He farthest from the child's immediate in- terests and experience, and hence are given their true place as a means instead of an end. 286 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION Under the type of organization that introduces the learner to the curriculum through the medium of the "three R's," this is all turned about. Ac- organization customed to social activities based on con- reverses Crete and immedikte interest in people and things, the child is withdrawn from all this life, an absolute break is attempted in his experience, and he is given a set of books full of symbols of lan- guage and of number. Up to the time of entering school, the child has never been interested in language as Ian-, guage, but always as a means of expressing himself to those about him with reference to his wishes or needs, or else in interpreting their attitude with reference to himself. He has never been interested in number as number, but always for the sake of real computations deaHng with his own playthings or play interests. He has never been- interested in using his hand to produce symbols, "as in writing, but rather his handicraft has been exercised in constructing playthings or in perform- ing errands and duties about the home. Under the re- gime of the "three R's," the child is forbidden the nor- mal course of his accustomed experience and required to address himself wholly to a new type of experience, which lacks social activity, lacks immediacy of interests, lacks concreteness, lacks reality. He is given material which is wholly s3anbolical, in the highest degree abstract, and which has no immediate relation to the run of his daily experience. But shall we not, then, teach the children ttiT"tooi?' to read and write and number? Surely. It is only that manual training, geogra- phy, and history are to be the core of the curriculum, the centre of immediate activities. If such is the case, THE CURRICULUM 287 the need will soon arise in the experience of the child for a command of reading, of numbers, and of writing. He will require these things in his business. He is ham- pered without them, hence he wants them. And when the need for a thing is consciously felt, the thing is half achieved. Not but that the cliild will have to be taught reading, and perhaps made to learn the multiplication table; but even so^ the centre of the motive lies within the demands of his own experience, and the effort will be with better effect; and further, the symbols will have a vital significance for him as he learns them, which they do 7iot have under the barren system of the ^^ three i?'5," of the logical curriculum. The accompanying diagram represents the organiza- tion of a curriculum for the elementary school and the Analysis of ^^S^ school bascd on the psychological accompanying mode of procedure. As already stated, the lagram. basis of such an arrangement is found in the social activities of the child ; hence there is no break in his experience between the activities of the school and those outside. The social activities of the child natu- rally relate themselves to the handicrafts, to art, to the immediate natural environment, and to the social envi- ronment. These four lines are not at first sharply dif- ferentiated, but are rather different aspects of a unified experience: In connection with the activities in these subjects, language, nimiber, and writing are required; hence the symbols are mastered and the technique ac- quired. What may be called the real experience of the fundamental subjects possessing social content is made the basis for the formal experience of the ancillary sub- jects considered as tools. As the child advances through the elementary school, 288 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION differentiation begins to take place in the various sub- jects. The handicrafts may subdivide into manual train- ing and domestic science. Art comes to in- dMer^enStion! ^lude painting, drawing, modelling, music, and designing. Nature study will involve lessons concerning the human body, plant life, animal life, and the earth as the home of man. The study of society will be carried on through the medium of the story, biography, history, and the social activities of the community. These subjects, with whatever subdivi- sions and modifications are required, together with lan- guage, number, and writing as tools, will therefore con- stitute the curriculum of the elementary school. The differentiation that began within the various sub- jects is carried still further in the high school. Manual „ .„ , , training expands into its various lines, and still further & i- ^ . .. , . , differentiation may eventuate m specialized vocational in the high training. Domestic science likewise is still further subdivided, and made to cover the most important phases of the home activities. Art in its various forms may be studied either from the stand- point of its technique or of appreciation. Science is represented by the organic and the inorganic groups, each of which is still further subdivided into its various branches in the order of their concreteness or their re- lation to the experience of the individual. The field of the social sciences develops into concrete sociology and ethics, history, civics, and economics. Mental science is represented by psychology and by linguistics, or the logical aspect of language. In the high school as in the elementary school the formal subjects, language and mathematics, are looked upon as tools and hence made supplementary to the subjects possessing social content. THE CURRICULUM 289 The high-school curriculum therefore represents a much higher degree of differentiation than that of the Growth of elementary school; it also represents a scientific higher degree of generahzation. The con- concepts. Crete and immediate facts of the undiffer- entiated elementary branches have been thought into general truths and principles. Concepts have evolved, and method and technique of experience been developed. Mere information has been organized into science, and is used as an instrument of control in the further recon- struction of experience. The psychological point of view has come to approach the logical. Education is seen to be synonymous with experience, and social efficiency is conceived as its aim. The arrangement of branches in the high-school curric- ulum, like that in the elementary school, is based on the Arrangement of ^^^-^ure of the pupil's experience. The sub- branches in ject-matter must relate itself to the order g sc 00 ^£ ^j^g individual's interests and develop- ment. Material science should be approached, not through the generalizations and abstractions of phys- ics and chemistry, but through botany, zoology, geol- ogy, and physiology, leaving the more formal parts of physics and chemistry for the last. Literature should not begin with the writings of Chaucer, Dryden, and Milton, but with those whose spirit and subject-matter lie closer to the experience of the pupil. History should not start with the earliest period, causing the pupils to study peoples whose governments, industries, and insti- tutions were so different from our own that they lack interest and reahty to the learner. The study of civics should begin with the points at which the activities of the state touch the experience of the individual, and 290 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION proceed outward to the federal and state organizations. And so on throughout the high-school curriculum. The psychological principle of organization will demand, both in the arrangement of the branches in the course of study and in the organization of the matter within the branch, that we proceed from the concrete to the ab- stract, and from the immediate to the more distant in the pupil's experience. REFERENCES Brown, The Making of Our Middle Schools; Butler, The Mean- ing of Education, chs. I, II; Davenport, Education for Efficiency; Dewey, The Child and the Curriculum; also, The Educational Sit" nation; Eliot, Education for Efficiency; Hanus, Beginnings of In- dustrial Education; Hollister, High-School Administration; Mark, The New Movement in Education; Monroe, History of Education, chs. VIII-XIV; Russell, Industrial Arts in the Elementary School; Snedden, The Problem of Vocational Training; Snyder, Manual Training in the Grades; Thorndike, Individual Differences in Ed- ucation; Tyler, Growth and Education, chs. XI-XVI; Mathematics in the Elementary School, Bulletin U. S. Bu. Ed., No. 460; Math- ematics in Secondary Schools^ Bulletin U. S. Bu. Ed., No. 463. CHAPTER XI THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION OF THE SCHOOL I. The Social Nature of the School The school, both in its function and its organization, is a social institution. It is the agency selected by so- gQj.j^ ciety for the socialization of the individual, function of Its curriculum consists of the social culture of the past selected and arranged for the use of the child. Teachers stand as the representatives of society in helping the child to adjust himself to the social activities. The organization of the school must be such as to further the aim of society in socializing the individual. It must embody the social standards and ideals, and stand as a type of the wider social organiza- tion of which the school is a part. The problem of the organization of the school therefore involves the prin- ciples of social organization in general. The school is in fact a miniature society. It possesses social coherence, and is united by social bonds the same as society in its broader organization. The a social unit. activities of the school present many situa- tions typical in the activities outside. The demand upon the individual for the subordination of personal preferences and desires with reference to the common good is insistent. Emulation and competition and the opportunity to measure the self by social stand- 291 292 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION ards are always present. Labor is demanded and social penalties are inflicted for laziness or low-grade achieve- ment. Success is rewarded by the approval of pubKc opinion and the elevation of the efficient to positions of leadership. Misdemeanors are punished by social depreciation and by the application of the social law covering the offence. Nor is the school's social organization something forced upon it from without in violation of its own N tu f th nature. The principle of its orga,nization school lies deep in the inner nature of the school determines its jtself; that is to say, in the nature of the organization. ., i - ■, i i ^^ i . pupils who constitute the school. Both in his original nature and in his experience the child is social. In his activities outside the school the individual is vitally in touch with social stimuli, and constantly in- volved in social situations that demand a response of adjustment, effort, and co-operation. The school, at its best, not only presents social situations of the same type as those outside, but is organized and controlled with particular reference to emphasizing the most funda- mental and significant social stimuli as motives to ad- justment and control on the part of the individual. The inner law of the organization of the school is therefore but the law of the organization of society; and what- ever modifications are necessary to adapt this broader law to the school are but changes in its administration and not in its spirit. The great problem in the organi- zation of the school, therefore, is to make it present in all its complex activities the situations that are typical of the social situations common to the experience of the child. SOCIAL ORGANIZATION OF THE SCHOOL 293 II. The Social Spirit of the School No more important factor exists with reference to the organization of the school than that of the spirit or at- titude of the pupils toward the school. For the^chooi. upon this depends in large degree the suc- cess of the school both in its social and in its intellectual organization. How do pupils look upon the school: as an opportunity or an imposition? What interest do they feel in its organization and activities? In how far is the school their school, and not the teacher's or the district's school? Are the interests of the school identical with the interests of the pupils, or are there two sets of interests here, which, if not antagonistic, are at least not identical? Is the school something rather foreign to the most vital interests and activities of the child, a phase of experience that must perforce be ac- cepted but not valued as a present mode of experience? It is significant that these questions do not ordinarily arise in the mind of the child with reference to the A negative home, nor in the mind of the adult with attitude often reference to the state. These institutions ^^^^ ^' are accepted as a natural and necessary part of experience, and no divorcement of interests is felt in connection with their activities. It is to be feared that this cannot be claimed for the school. The same feeling of the unity of aim and spirit does not exist be- tween the child and the school that holds for the home. Too often the school is looked upon by the pupils as an institution rather forced upon them, and not having any particular claim on their loyalty and appreciation. The school often seems to the pupil to have its own aims, 294 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION standards, and standpoints, which must in some degree be conformed to, but which are, nevertheless, not the aims, standards, and standpoints of the pupils. It is evident that this situation, in so far as it exists, tends to create a constant condition of strain between the pupil and the school organization. It is true that this lack of identity of interests be- tween the school and the child is not formulated in any- complete and positive way by the pupils co-operation. themselves. In so far as such a breach ex- ists, it is more a matter of negative spirit, or of indifferent attitude, than of calculated opposition or open rebellion. ■ The teacher is looked upon as pos- sessing certain authority, and as being, within reason- able limits, justified in using it; but at the same time, teachers in their role as governor and administrator are quite commonly looked upon as natural enemies of the pupils, and any advantage that may be taken of them is legitimate in the code of many schools. If misde- meanors are committed, it is the business of the teacher to discover the culprits, who are counted to have scored one on the teacher if they escape detection. If lessons are poorly prepared and the teacher does not discover the delinquency, so much the worse for the teacher; the responsibility is his. Growing out of this attitude a bar- rier has frequently arisen between teacher and pupils in their school relations, which prevents the full identi- fication of interests and the complete response of sym- pathy and co-operation necessary to the best results in education. Undoubtedly this attitude, wherever it exists, is a source of great educational waste. It gives the child a wrong impression of the school and of the value of its SOCIAL ORGANIZATION OF THE SCHOOL 295 activities. Instead of looking on the school as an op- portunity for vital and fruitful experience, it is to the Waste through child a place where so much of effort and lack of so many tasks are to be exchanged for a cer- co-operation. ^^-^^ number of passing marks, promotions, and diplomas. This cannot but result in a failure to bring all the powers of the individual into action, and hence is a hindrance to development. It also tends to create a feeling of indifference to the subject-matter of the curriculum, and leaves the child without incentive to continue his education. It would seem that the school should claim the pupil's deepest affection and fullest loyalty. It should appeal Why lack ^^ ^^^ ^^ ^^^ school in the same sense that of loyalty his home appeals to him as his home. The to t e sc 00 welfare and good name of the school should be second in the child's regard only to the welfare and good name of his home. Why is such not more often the case? How does this negative attitude arise? Whether we succeed in answering this question or not, one thing is certain from the start: the fault does not The fault ^^ primarily with the child. His very nat- not in the ure leads to loyalty and responsiveness, and ^ ' these qualities will attach to the school when the school is able to claim them. The adults or- ganize the school and determine its policy and manage- ment; whatever lack of responsiveness there exists on the part of the pupils must be looked for in the organi- zation of the school, and not in the nature of the child. Attitudes do not arise by chance; they grow from a suc- cession of experiences, and take their color and quality from the series of concrete situations in which they have their origin. If we should find the children of a nation 296 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION deficient in respect and loyalty for their homes, we should be justified in concluding that the home experience of these children was lacking in certain qualities; similarly, when we find children deficient in responsiveness to their schools, we must seek the explanation in the type of experience afforded by the school. What is to be found in the organization of the school to explain this seeming defection on the part of many pupils? One of the two factors affording which the the explanation has already been discussed ; school is namely, the content and organization of the responsible. . •" o-i, j- • v • i curriculum. Ine disciplmary curriculum, possessing formal instead of social content, is divorced from the interests and activities of the child, and hence his school tasks have little relation to real experience. When this curriculum is organized from the logical point of view instead of from the psychological, it is still fur- ther separated from the life of the child. This situation makes it necessary, or at least easy, for the child to con- ceive two related, but more or less antagonistic, orders : the interests and activities of his own concrete experi- ence and the activities demanded by the school. This divorcement in the intellectual organization of the school is being remedied by the modification of the curriculum in its content and organization as already shown. These changes in the curriculum have already gone far enough to warrant the statement that they are responsible for a marked improvement in the spirit of the school in many instances. The second of the factors upon which the spirit of co- operation on the part of the pupils depends is the social organization of the school. By social organization is meant the organization of the activities and relation- SOCIAL ORGANIZATION OF THE SCHOOL 297 ships by which the work of the curriculum is carried out. This will include all phases of the machinery of the school, such as classes, grades, and the various mat- ters of routine, and, in addition, the relations between the pupils with each other in the prosecution of their work and also between teachers and pupils. These questions may now be viewed somewhat more in detail. ///. The Organization of the Elementary School One of the chief desiderata in the education of the child is to provide conditions favoring a continuous and „, , , unbroken line of experience. There should The school to , t rr • i i continue be no tangents or split-on particles that ®^p®"®^^® ^^ become divorced from the main body of experience. This principle requires that, just as in the intellectual organization of the curriculum the child is to be started at the nearest point of con- tact with his home and community activities, so in the social organization of the school the highest type of home and community conditions are to be simulated. The school should not appear as a foreign element in the life of the child, but as an integral part of a devel- oping experience. A primary requisite in giving the school organization a home atmosphere is to give it a home appearance on Material ^^^ material side. It is true that our equipment school-houscs, especially in the cities, are of the school, ^^^j^g reasonably well built, both from the practical and the architectural standpoint. Yet the rooms, when they are finished and furnished, have a strangely stiff, barren, and uninteresting appearance. Usually the floor space is well occupied with unshapely 298 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION desks fastened in parallel rows to the floor. The walls may be well tinted and adorned with good pictures, but the entire effect of the room is far from being that of a place to live. If it is said that the school-room is not a living-room, but a workshop, then we must an- swer that the typica school-room does not look even like a workshop, but only like a place to sit in rows while one reads books. The problem is rendered all the more serious by the fact that in many schools, especially outside the cities, Poor buildings ^^^ buildings are poor, and Httle atten- and fur- tion is given to making the rooms attrac- ms ings. ^-^^ rpj^^ desks are often scarred and dirty, and the floors not well kept; the walls harshly tinted or soiled and discolored, and decorations either lacking or not in good taste. To say that many chil- dren find conditions better in the school than they are accustomed to in their homes does not answer the ques- tion. Society should in its schools set standards and inculcate ideals that are measured by the best of its membership, and not by the worst. It is one of the anomalies, explained only by the fact of social inertia, that so many parents who surround their children with an environment of taste and artistic excellence in the home are wilhng to have them spend almost half of their time during the formative period of their lives in surroundings lacking most of the quahties that make the home attractive. School Tradition is an important element in de- equipment termining the type of our school-rooms and ags e in . equipment. Our schools originated in a time of poverty and forced economy. There was no money to equip the school better than was done, and SOCIAL ORGANIZATION OF THE SCHOOL 299 indeed the school was as well furnished as the home. Further, under the older concept of education, there was little need for equipment other than desks, since the study of books constituted the sole function of the school. We have greatly changed our concepts of edu- cation, but have not fully kept pace in supplying the means for their realization. One of the first steps necessary in changing the atmos- phere of the school to a freer social atmosphere is to re- Toomany ^^^^ ^^^ number of pupils assigned to a pupils to teacher and to a school-room. A group of t eteac er. forty children cannot constitute a family and would only degenerate into a mob if given the same degree of freedom as in the home. Here we at once encounter the question of the economic basis of our schools. A society cannot put more than a fair pro- portion of its wealth into the education of its young. There are numerous lines of economic expenditure ab- solutely demanded of society in addition to that of edu- cation. The resources of the country must be devel- oped and its industries extended; a system of national defence must be provided; government must be sup- ported; homes and churches must be maintained, and many other lines of activity carried out. It may well be seriously questioned, however, whether America is putting a large enough proportion of her wealth into education. It is at least cer- support?^ tain that, instead of increasing the propor- tion, as might be expected of a highly in- telligent democratic society, we are actually expending a smaller proportion of our wealth on education than we were a generation ago, and far less than in the earlier stages of our history. A people that expends twice as 300 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION much for its tobacco as for the current expenses of pub- lic education can hardly be said to be draining the public purse for its schools. The large number of pupils assigned to each teacher also seems to necessitate a more or less rigid division Limitations ^^^^ classcs and grades. Not only are imposed by forty children too many for a true family, rigid gra mg. |^^^ ^-^^^ ^^^ ^^j^^ ^^^ many for a good working group; hence they must be taught largely in mass. There is no special reason, except that of eco- nomic expediency, why pupils should follow each other through the curriculum just a year, or even half a year, apart. Likewise, the same reason must be invoked to explain why a child who can do a certain section of work in three months should be kept upon it four and a half months because that is the speed of the average of his class; or, on the other hand, why one who requires six months for it should be passed over it in the regular time. It is true that mental measurements have shown that a very large proportion of children fall within reasonably narrow limits of school ability. It is not to be forgot- ten, however, that these measures were made upon chil- dren who had already been subjected to the levelling process of general class instruction. It is also probable that in not adequately caring for the interests of the exceptionally able child an occasional genius and not a few persons of high-grade ability are lost to society. The disadvantages coming from the close limitations. grading and formation of classes rendered almost necessary by the large number of pupils taught by one teacher are accompanied by other disadvantages connected with the preservation SOCIAL ORGANIZATION OF THE SCHOOL 301 of order and quiet in the room. The highly desirable freedom and spontaneity that would be suitable in a small group of children would rapidly become riot and disorder in a room full. The spirit of the crowd takes hold in the larger group, and renders restraints more necessary and harder to apply. Thus the problem of control with reference to movements and acts perfectly harmless in themselves, but constituting an offence against school regulations necessary because of the number of pupils, becomes one of the chief sources of difficulty in many schools The result is not only a condition of strain between teacher and pupils, but a Hmitation upon the pupils which becomes irksome, if not finally a menace, to physical health and devel- opment. The massing of children together in large numbefs under one teacher also Hmits the opportunities for group ,, . and co-operative work. Many of the school prevents activities could be carried on to good ad- co-operative vantage by small groups working together under the suggestion of the teacher and without the formal restraints necessary with the larger numbers. Such is the case with the handicrafts, geogra- phy, and various lines of concrete elementary science, drawing, and other subjects. In schools where agricult- ure and gardening are taught, it is highly desirable to secure co-operative participation by the pupils. Such co-operation is necessary not only from the standpoint of administering the course, but also as a counterbal- ance against the strongly individuahstic influence of text-book work in the training of the child. For the spirit of co-operation, the give and take required in all lines of social activity is best developed through exer- 302 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION cising these very qualities in the real stress of actual experience. Few factors are more influential in shaping the atti- tude of the pupils toward the school than the spirit shown toward it by their parents and community! ^^'^^^^ ^^ ^^^ Community. The child im- itates his standards quite as readily as his manners. Thoughtless, irrelevant, and half-meant crit- icism of the school has a tendency to undermine the child's confidence in it, and hence to weaken his loyalty toward it. The efficiency of the elementary school in particular could be immensely increased by the sym- pathetic co-operation of the patrons. One of the prob- lems in the organization of the school is, therefore, to secure co-operation. It is not enough to say that the parents should have enough interest in the school to offer their full co-operation without further incentive than the welfare of their children. Social problems must be taken as they are found; and the fact is that patrons have very little knowledge of, or touch with, the schools. But this seeming lack of interest on the part of par- ents must not be misinterpreted. The American people Lack of deeply beheve, at least in theory, in the interest only valuc of education. The chief difficulty apparent. |^^g been that, under the older concept of education, the work of the school seemed so far divorced from the interests of the home and the shop or the store, that there was little point of contact between the ex- perience of the parent and what was going on in the school. The consequence was that parents did not feel that they understood fully the activities of the school or were competent to judge them. They believed that SOCIAL ORGANIZATION OF THE SCHOOL 303 it was worth while to educate the child in what the school offered, but concerning the process of education going on in the school they felt themselves unable to understand or advise. Since the introduction of studies more closely related to the social activities, this attitude on the part of the Influence of patrons of the schools has been rapidly dis- the social appearing. It has been found that par- concept. ^^^^ freely come to the school to inspect the work done in manual training, domestic science, agriculture, and allied lines. Here are fields close enough to the actual affairs in which parents are themselves engaged to make them feel interested in the subjects. Moreover, parents know enough about these fields to be able to judge the efficiency of the work being done in them. A further step lies just ahead in the social organiza- tion of the elementary school ; this is to make the school The school as ^^^ social and intellectual centre for the a community patronizing Community. This problem is ^^^ ^^' already well toward solution in several of the larger cities of the country, notably in New York. Thousands of smaller cities and towns and rural com- munities have not yet discovered the advantage of mak- ing the school building the neighborhood centre. It is not too much to believe that the school-house of the future will have an audience room capable of seating several hundred people, and one or more reception-rooms for social purposes in addition to the regular equipment of shops, laboratories, reading-rooms, gymnasiums, and the like. When the patrons go to the school-house as a matter of course for their clubs and societies, for their lectures and entertainments, and occasionally for their 304 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION social functions, the problem of the divorcement of the school from the home and community spirit will be well toward settlement. And what is more natural than that the centre for the education of the young should also be the centre for continuing the education of the elders. On the other hand, what is farther from a wise educational policy on the part of society than to make a large and permanent investment in buildings and equipment for educational purposes, and then lock them up for eigh- teen hours out of every day during three-quarters of the year and all the time during the remainder of the year? That the type of school buildings would need to be mod- ified somewhat to meet this wider sphere of usefulness is true, as has already been suggested, but the educa- tional benefits would be out of all proportion to the additional cost. The wider concept of the social organization of the school has already resulted in offering the advantage of Extension of ^^^ school in the evening to those who are the functions obliged to work during the day, but who of the school. ^ggjj.^ ^Q continue their education. The evening school has become a regular part of the educa- tional system in most of the larger cities, and will no doubt be extended as occasion requires. A more re- cent line of extension has been in the direction of va- cation schools. While these schools differ much in the character of the work offered during the summer months, one general principle seems to underHe their aim; namely, to afford the child an opportunity for the pursuit of in- teresting and profitable lines of study not available in connection with the pupil's work of the regular year. This work constitutes, therefore, a change, and much SOCIAL ORGANIZATION OF THE SCHOOL 305 of it a recreation. Prominent among the vacation sub- jects are the various handicrafts, domestic science, art, nature study, and physical training. These schools have been enthusiastically received both by pupils and pa- trons, and bid fair to become an integral part of our educational system. IV. The Organization of the High School The problems of high-school organization are identical at many points with the problems of organization pre- sented by the elementary school. In both common^to instances it is to be remembered that the elementary school, while it cxists for the ultimate pur- school.^ P^^^ ^^ preparing children for social effi- ciency as adults, must primarily exist for the child as he lives to-day's life here and now. That is to say, the only way to prepare for ultimate efhciency is to make sure that the individual lives efficiently in the present. True, this present is never to be understood as complete in itself, but always in the light of what it is moving toward; the interests and attitudes of the child are never an end in themselves, but are to be in- terpreted as related to a final outcome in experience. Giving the present this broader meaning, then, we may say that the basis of the social organization of both elementary and high school is the present social inter- ests and activities of the pupils. This is the point of contact between the individual and the school as a so- cial organization. We are often told that education is ''preparation for life." Education is life. The only preparation for life is life itself; the only way to learn a thing is to five it. 306 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION Youth is not primarily interested in preparing for life, but in living. If any form of school organization or activ- Both related ^^^ ^^ ^^ receive a full response, therefore, to immediate it must itself represent vital experience, needs of pup' s. ^^^ ^^^ relate itself to some remote end. Applying these generaHzations to our problem, we may say, then, that the high school must be organized not primarily for prospective men and women, but for adolescent boys and girls. Just as we found the funda- mental principle for the organization of the elementary school in the nature of the child, so we shall find the prin- ciple for the organization of the high school in the nature of the adolescent youth. It is necessary first of all to recognize the fact that the high school presents certain very different problems from the elementary school. In passing between*^Wgh ^^^^ ivom the elementary school to the school and high school, the individual also passes over sch^oi?*"^ from childhood to youth. Profound phys- ical changes take place, and these are ac- companied by mental changes and modifications of atti- tude no less deep. The child of the elementary school, even if found occasionally in overt rebellion against authority, is, on Adolescent ^^^ whole, under a regime of authority, changes in He takes his standards, beliefs, and atti- * ^ " ®* tudes ready made, imitating them from his elders. He does not pause to question the sanctions for right and wrong; for him right is what he is allowed to do, and wrong what he is forbidden to do. But with adolescence a change comes about; a new consciousness of self arises. The youth finds himself able to think, to judge for himself. He now subjects the standards, be- SOCIAL ORGANIZATION OF THE SCHOOL 307 Hefs, and attitudes of childhood to examination, and makes them his own in a new sense, or rejects them. His thinking may be illogical and crude, but he thinks. He is no longer a puppet; it is even probable that he becomes very arrogant in the new-found freedom of his thought. The emotional reconstruction of adolescence is per- haps even more marked than the intellectual. New Changes in emotions arise, not only creating hitherto emotional Unknown problems in their own right, but atitu es. ^jg^ necessitating a readjustment among the complex of emotions already familiar. The new emo- tional meaning of the opposite sex begins to define itself, and values undreamt of in childhood assert themselves. Insistent impulses create new problems of control. The fanciful and indistinct ideals of earlier youth begin to crystallize into ambitions and plans. The childish no- tions concerning desirable vocations are given up and the matter of a desirable occupation seriously consid- ered. Practical considerations begin to control in a new way; activities pursued must not only have a value of their own, but must relate to plans for the future. The youth begins to reach out for the larger estate which he is approaching. Accompanying these intellectual and emotional changes, the adolescent also imdergoes a great change Change in ^^ ^^^ attitude toward authority. As a attitude toward child he expected to obey constituted au- authonty. thority, just because it was authority. He did not question the adaptability of the regulations in the home or the school, but conformed to them when he was required to, or violated them when he found the opportunity. But he did not go so far as to question 308 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION the sanctions by which this authority was constituted and put in control over him. He was a child, and chil- dren were expected to obey. The attitude of the adolescent is very different. He feels himself no longer a child, and bitterly resents being treated as one. He feels that he has a SdLplndence. ^'^S^^ ^^ ^^^ own judgment in many mat- ters, and questions by what right others are in authority over him. This attitude often becomes exaggerated to the degree that the adolescent youth is something of an anarchist, and ready to recognize no authority not first fully consented to by himself. It is a notable fact that by far the greater proportion of the boys and girls who run away from home in rebellion, leave during the period of this reconstruction in the at- titude toward submission to authority. One of the mistakes that may be made in the organi- zation of the high school is the failure to recognize the difference between it and the elementary school rendered necessary by the attitude and spirit of adolescence. This is not to say that the whims, the follies, and the arrogance of adolescence are to determine the organiza- tion of the high school. It is rather to suggest that there are certain fundamental facts of human nature and de- velopment emerging at this time, which must be taken into account if the high school is to relate itself vitally to the lives of its pupils. The organization of the high school must, schoo/must therefore, first of all provide for a large provide for mcasurc of sclf-control over conduct. It ofpupi?s!^° is not the province of this discussion to advise whether this be accomplished by means of what is called student government, or other- SOCIAL ORGANIZATION OF THE SCHOOL 309 wise. The movement toward student government has not gone far enough in the high school to prove its wisdom, and probably will not receive wide acceptance. But without this precise form of machinery, the chief motives for control of conduct can be found in the pu- pils themselves, and be brought to bear on the govern- ment of the school. This does not mean that conduct in the high school shall be less controlled than now; it will be better controlled if the organization is properly effected. Adolescent boys and girls have in them the requisite quahties o. seriousness and responsiveness to social necessity to control their own conduct for the common good, when once they see the opportunity and the problem. That this is true is being proved in many of our best high schools at the present time. Not only does the standpoint of school organization that places the chief responsibility for control of con- Schooi conduct ^^^^ ^n the individual himself tend to to be related eliminate a chief source of strain between a con uc . teachers and pupils, but it accomplishes an even more important thing: it trains the pupil to subjective standards of conduct and develops a reflec- tive attitude toward ethical problems School experi- ence is full of situations involving questions of conduct that are typical of questions constantly met in the course of social activities outside the school. If the individual is led to recognize in each of these situations the ethical problem involved, and to assume personal responsibility toward it, a most important bond has been established between the school and social experi- ence. Any plan of high-school organization is therefore to be condemned that places the responsibility for the 310 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION pupil's conduct wholly or chiefly on the teacher. Reci- tations or examinations must not be so organized and conducted as to cause the pupil to feel that responsibility there is to be a game of wits played be- *°^rf*!i" tween himself and the constituted author- ity of the school. If such is the pupil's interpretation of the situation, he can bluff or cheat, priding himself that he has beaten in the game, and have no qualms of conscience; for it was all a part of the game. The oversight of an assembly room or a class must not be so organized that a premium is placed on sharp conduct, trickery, and evasion. The double stand- ard of morals growing out of just such situations as these constitutes one of the greatest weaknesses of our school system. There is all too general a feeling on the part of the pupils that immoral acts committed in school are of different quality from immoral acts committed out- side of school, since school experiences are in some way conceived as divorced from the real experience of so- ciety. Such a standpoint makes the school, the chosen instrument of society for socializing the individual, a means of cultivating the habit of shifting moral respon- sibility and juggling with ethical values. In co-educational high schools, the social relations of the sexes creates one of the most difficult and insistent problems of organization. It is during the of^the sex^^?^^ high-school age that a complete transfor- mation takes place in the attitude of the sexes toward each other. The old playfellowship and comradery of the elementary school has been supplanted by an attitude of shyness and diffidence, which, never- theless, only masks an irresistible impulsion of each to- ward the other, by a law of nature as old as life itself. SOCIAL ORGANIZATION OF THE SCHOOL 311 Thoughts of the other sex occupy an amazingly large proportion of the time of adolescent boys and girls. They seek each other's company in a social way. Par- ties are planned, excursions organized, or social functions - projected with a view to being in each other's presence. Now, all this is natural and right, but it has a tendency to run to excess, if not into undesirable or dangerous lines. Two types of solution have been attempted in dealing with this problem in the school. One is to forbid all manifestations of interest in the other sex involved.^ in connection with the activities of the school and to ignore the existence of the social impulse. The other is to recognize the natural- ness and inevitableness of the impulses leading to these new social relations of the sexes, and provide, through the activities of the school, some means for their expres- sion and guidance. It is hardly necessary to say that the first of these methods does not meet the problem. The great dominating impulses of nature are not to be suppressed by rules and regulations, and they continue to act even if they are ignored or deplored. To take a negative attitude toward the social relations of the pupils is only to divorce the school still further from the problems of social experience. A recognition of the part to be played by the social impulse in the development of the adolescent will re- quire that the organization of the high Isoci^ceLtee. ^chool provide for its proper expression. If the school, as suggested in the preced- ing section, comes to be the accepted intellectual and social centre for the entire community, it can naturally assume the general direction of social functions of its 312 SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION pupils arranged under the organization of the school. Various high schools throughout the country have al- ready undertaken this function with excellent promise of success. More or less formal parties, dances, dra- matic entertainments, debates, musical entertainments, and athletic contests are among the different social events carried out. One of the first advantages from the oversight exer- cised by the high school over the social relations of its pupils is to provide clean and suitable en- Thepartof ^ ^ . r -- i o-u- the school tertamment for its young people. This in controlling jg |-]^g gj-g^ g|-gp [j^ defending our youth against the insidious evils of the cheap theatre and amusement halls of the cities, and against the hardly less dangerous monotony of the smaller town. A second advantage comes through giving the high school better regulative control over social clubs, fra- ternities, and sororities which have sprung up within re- cent years in the high schools. The social organization of the high school must be democratic, and hence can- not permit exclusive organizations to gain a foothold. The remedy here, as already suggested, is primarily to give opportunity for expression of the social impulse in more healthful ways, and to suppress the undesirable by substituting something better than that which is taken away. And so we might go on through the various matters of relationship between the pupils and the high-school or- ganization. But the same principle under- of social lies all the problems. The social organiza- organization ^[^^ ^f ^^g w^ school, like its intellectual of high school. . . r ^ . , orgamzation m the curriculum, must start from the fundamental nature of adolescence and pro- SOCIAL ORGANIZATION OF THE SCHOOL 313 ceed toward social efficiency as its aim. Social and eth- ical judgments later to be demanded must have their prototype in the life of the school. The honesty and fairness required in all social relations outside the school must be demanded and grounded by school problem.s and situations. The subjective sanctions for conduct necessary to personal freedom must find stimulus and encouragement in the school. In short, the high school in its organization must present, not a section of experi- ence isolated and cut off from the remainder of present or prospective experience, but must itself constitute an integral and vital part of a growing experience that leads without break immediately out into concrete and efficient social participation. REFERENCES Brown, Our National Ideals in Education; Button and Snedden, Administration of Public Education in the United States; Gilbert, The School and Its Life; Hanus, A Modern School; Suzzalo, The School as a Social histitution; Tompkins, School Management; Young, Isolation in the School. INDEX Activity and development, 199. Adolescence: Changes in attitude, 307; determining high-school organization, 306. Aim: Disciplinary in education, 243; educational, 32, 42, 99; and social eflSciency, 243; ex- perience as a criterion of, 37; nature of, 32; and social progress, 35; guiding the social process, 43 ; man's search for, 34. America: Factors in development of, 223; materialism in, 224; technological education in, 106. Arithmetic : In elementary schools, 261; social content of, 262. Art in elementary schools, 267. Artist, the: As an educator, 112; the work of, in. Attention: And development, 179; and interest, 180. Attitude: Importance of, 240; to- ward school, 241. Automatism, tendency toward, 179. Avocations: Classes of, 120; inci- dental, 127; mental, 123; place of in education, 114; physical, 121; rise of in society, 114; the school and, 129. Bond, the social: Function of the social, 10; nature of the social, II, 24. Business: Training for, 103; prob- lem of vocations, 102; as a voca- tion, lOI. Capacities: For control, 162; for impression, 135; for interpre- tation, 148. Change: And progress, 33; uni- versality of, 32. Child, the: In the home, 63; in- fancy of, 195; and his parents, 63; and school, 86. Church, the: Crisis in, 77; and education, 74; function of, 73; social nature of, 71; social pro- gramme of, 72; and religious education, 77. Citizenship and education, 83. Colleges: Business, 104; entrance requirements, 253, 269, Community, the: Recent changes in, 69; and the child, 67; duties of, 70; and the school, 92; school as centre of , 303 ; spirit of, 302. Conscience, awakening of, 85. Control: Direction of, 165; over environment, 184; measure of education, 164; mental, 176; physical, 166; powers of, 162; self-control in high school, 308; social, 188; sources of, 164. Culture: As an aim in education, 243; social nature of, 231. Curriculum, the: Changes in, 260; content of, 247; diagram of, opp. 287; the old disciplinary, 260; of elementary school, 261; factors determining, 249; func- tion of, 231, 234; for girls, 276; of high school, 268; organiza- tion of, 279, 289; social origin of, 231. Death, place of in progress, 27. Democracy: Foes of, 83; nature of, 83. Development: And control, 163; and environment, 136; and imi- 315 316 INDEX tation, 209; of the individual, 23; and language, 216; laws of, 199; nature of, 192; and sug- gestion, 213, Discipline: As an aim in education, 243, 275; in arithmetic, 261; in the elementary-school curricu- lum, 260; in grammar, 263; in the high-school curriculum, 268. Divorce of parents and children, 65. Ear, sensory limitations of, 138. Economic necessity: As a social bond, 11; as a stimulus, 15. Education: Aim in, 32; as a selec- tive agent, 41; and the artist, 112; business, 103; and the church, 74; and the community, 67; definition of, 44, 164; as discipline, 243 ; unorganized fac- tors of, 43, 226; function of, 137; and home, 60; industrial, 99; and social institutions, 58; means and ends of, 47; and play, 122; professional, 109; and the school, 86; scientific, 107; social,' 21; and the state, 79; support of, 83; technological, 104; and voca- tions, 95; waste in, 88. English in the high school, 273. Environment: Community, 67; control over, 184; and develop- ment, 136; home, 59; limited by impressions from, 135; physical in education, 222; social in edu- cation, 225. Ethics: Individual basis for, 20, 182; instinctive basis for, 181; social basis for, 182. Evolution: Social, and vocations, 95; as teleology, 33. Experience: As a measure of aim, 37; as a norm, 40; as a process, 38; as a product, 39; recon- struction of as education, 46, 164; social nature of, 38; vo- cations and, 97. Expression : And development, 205; neglect of in education, 176; physical, 171. Eye, the sensory limitations of, 138. Family, the: Threefold basis of, 60; social changes in, 60; and the individual, 59, Feeling: Classes of, 161; functions of, 156; as a mode of interpre- tation, 155. Finances of the school, 299. Geography: In elementary school, 264; social content of, 264. Girls and the high-school curricu- lum, 275. God, concepts of, 71. Grading, limitations by, 300. Grammar in elementary schools, 262. Hand, the: As a tool of expression, 175; education of, 176. Handicrafts, the: In elementary schools, 266; in high school, 286. High school, the: Cuiriculum of, 267; social organization of, 305. Ideals, social, and the curriculum, 241, Imitation: And development, 209; social, 19; and suggestion, 213. Impression: Capacities for, 135; physical, 137; social, 141; types of, 136. Incentives: Economic, 14; social, 14, 203. Individual, the: Attributes of , 194; contributions of, 22, 24; as a bearer of social culture, 25; de- velopment of, 192; and educa- tion, 58; and family, 59; ini- tiative of, 20, 57; obligations of, 30; powers and capacities of, 133; and progress, 27; and soci- et}^ 5, 22; and state, 82. INDEX 317 Industries: In the home, 6i; im- portance of in education, 97; training in, 99. Infancy, biological meaning of, 195. Instinct and development, 207. Institutions: Conservation of, 28; social divorcement of, 48; and education, 92; evolution of, 55; social nature of, 56. Interest: And attention, 180; as a motive, 202. Interpretation: Through feeling, 155; through knowledge, 149; powers of, 148. Knowledge: Function of, 150; nat- ure of, 149; as science, 152. Labor: Dignity of, 98; division of, 99. Language: Ancient in high school, 272; and development, 216; ex- pression through, 174; rise of impulse, 216; modern in high school, 273. Latin in high school, 272. Leaders, function of, 28. Man and his environment, 165. Mathematics in the high school, 272. Method, logical versus psycho- logical, 281. Mind, the: At birth, 177; develop- ment of, 177. Morality: Individual, 20, 182; in- stinctive, 181; levels of, 181; social, 21, 182. Motives: Economic, 14; emotion as a motive, 202; self-realization as a motive, 217; social, 203. Music in elementary schools, 267. Nature, man's control over, 187. N. E. A., the influence of, 252. Observation, need for training, 140. Organization: Of elementary school, 297; of high school, 306; principles of, 312; social of school, 291. Pain as a motive, 203. Parents: New demands upon, 66; divorcement from children, 63. Personality: As a model, 144; value of, 219. Philosophy: .Method of, 2; mean- ing and problem of, i; scope of, I. Physiology : In elementary schools, 265; social content of, 266. Plasticity: And education, 197; as a basis for development, 194. Play: Classes of, 120; and educa- tion, 116; incidental, 127; men- tal, 123; necessity for, 115; phys- ical, 121; social, 124; spirit of, 118. Pleasure as a motive, 203. Powers: Of control, 162; of im- pression, 135; of interpretation, 148; nature of, 44, 133. Professions: Education and, no; place of, 109. Pupil, the: Attitude of, 293; num- ber of pupils under teacher, 299. Reality: Found in the concrete, 37; of religion, 71. Recreations: Classes of, 120; ne- cessity for, 115. Religion: And feeling, 160; as a social bond, 11. Response: And development, 93; and stimulus, 193; and sugges- tion, 214. School, the: Attendance, 188; and avocations, 122, 128; buildings and equipment, 298; and com- munity, 92; as community cen- tre, 303,311; demands upon, 91; social divorcement of, 48; in- creased functions of, 304; and the home, 64; as a social insti- 318 INDEX tution, 90; as an instrument of education, 228; social organiza- tion of, 292; tests of, 87; waste in, 88. Science: Contributions of, 107; as social control, 153; and educa- tion, 109; method of, 282; so- cial nature of, 152; and tech- nique, 186. Selective agent: Education as a, 42; necessity of, 41. Self, the: And its activity, 198, 201; appreciation of, 220; and control, 165; nature of, 167; the physical, 167; realization as a motive, 217; rise of concept of, 218. Senses, the limitations in range of, 137- Sexes, the social relations of in edu- cation, 310. Social bond, the: Function of, 10; nature of, 11, 24. Social efficiency as an aim in edu- cation, 245. Social process, the: And aim in education, 43; analysis of, 52; nature of, 51; summary of, 129. Society: Organized activities of, 18; individualistic concept of, 6; organic concept of, 28; so- cialistic concept of, 7; contribu- tions of to individual, 13; cri- teria of for conduct, 20; deter- mining curriculum, 256; as a "medium" for development, 13; conservative nature of, 28; ob- ligations of, 30; stimuli from, 14, 141, 222. Speech and expression, 174. State, the: And education, 75; functions of, 80; and the indi- vidual, 82; nature of, 79. Stimulus: And development, 193; economic necessity as a, 13; language as a, 216; social press- ure as a, 14, 143, 221; physical environment as a, 137. Suggestion: And development, 213; and imitation, 213. Sunday school, the: And religious education, 76; inefficiency of, 77, Teaching: As a profession, 89; waste in, 89. Technique and science, 186. Technology: Contributions of, 105; and education, 106; place of in education, 104. Teleology: Nature of, S3) in dif- ferent realms, 34. Tradition, influence of in curricu- lum, 249. Utility as an aim in education, 243. Values, educational, and aim, 36, Vocations: And educational aim, 99; of the artist, in; the busi- ness, loi; industrial, 98; in- terrelations of, 96; professional, 109; and social progress, 95, 97; scientific, 107; technological, 104. Waste: In education, 88; in life, 35- Youth, its paradoxes, 198. '^^^ .-^^ ^.^' .0^^- .X^^ "-^ /^.^ '^/k ^' .\ 'A \^ ■// "c o 0^ \^ .^^-. y^^^. " / -s ^-^ ^*. -9 N^ ,^ \^ - .#■ .*> ,*s !# /T^ ''• % p ^*. - ?^ ,:> ^/^. - •>^ <* -^ kV /■ '^ s^-^ ''^^ .0 J' X-^^ V .<^ -V " ' ^^- s "^ » 7- 'A Is 0^ -v c <-- ■r ^, 0^^ v^ ^ ^ * « ^ ■^oo^ X^^x. A ^^v .^"^^ < ^^ .\ -/- ^^.'^c.:5^>%.^ '^. •1^ 0- '^ w >, ^.'-^^'^^"/^-'^ ..^^' \ > ,. ^' * ^ "oo^ ,0^ ,5 ■'^ ':^. • "^ <' >? <^. ^>- v' -^^ >^^ ^