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CHARACTER 
 EDUCATION 
 METHODS 
 
 THE IOWA PLAN 
 
 $20,000 AWARD 
 
 1922 
 
 Character Education Institution 
 Chevy Chase, Washington, D. C. 
 
CHARACTER 
 EDUCATION 
 METHODS 
 
 THE IOWA PLAN 
 
 $20,000 AWARD 
 
 1922 
 
 Character Education Institution 
 Chevy Chase, Washington-, D, C. 
 
 C^AiA^ 
 

 NATIONAL CAPITAL PRESS, INC., WASHINQTON, D. C. 
 
 404426 
 '30 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 Introduction iii 
 
 I. Foundation Principles 1 
 
 II. The Goal 6 
 
 A. The Sort of Person at whom the School Aims. 
 
 B. Specific Lines of Preparation. 
 
 III. The Organization and Control of the School 9 
 
 A. The School as a Democratic Community. 
 
 B. Student Participation. 
 
 C. Government, Discipline and Punishment. 
 
 IV. Some Ways of Preserving, Directing and Exercising the Entire 
 Integrity of the Child 17 
 
 A. Noble Deeds. 
 
 B. Socialized Recitation. 
 
 C. The Project Method. 
 
 V. Fitting the Methods and Materials to the Child's Development 25 
 VI. A Moral Curriculum with a Progressive Plan, a Drive, and 
 
 a Goal 29 
 
 VII. Moving Progressively Toward the Objective ZZ 
 
 A. Civic Relations. 
 
 B. Life in th€ Family. 
 
 VIII. The Curriculum by Years 36 
 
 IX. Measurements of Progress and Attainment 38 
 
 X. The Teacher and Her Preparation 41 
 
 XL Cooperating Agencies 43 
 
 XII. Conclusion 45 
 
IV CHARACTER EDUCATION METHODS 
 
 The restriction of interest to public school methods does not mean 
 that the Donor and the members of the Institution do not sympathize 
 with the great service which private and church schools render the 
 Nation, but it does mean that they appreciate the fact that the public 
 school is the only public expression of direct interest on the part of 
 all the people of the Nation in the preparation of the Nation's boys and 
 girls for their life as citizens of the republic and of the states of which 
 it is composed. 
 
 In all fields of education, save that of religious education, which is 
 assigned to the churches (each church furnishing in its own way the 
 religious sanctions for conduct to its own children), the public schools 
 should strive to be complete in their service; but the national system 
 of public education is not now complete, because, while intellectual 
 education is fairly well developed, vocational and physical education 
 are only partly provided, and character education on human motives, 
 covering the wisdom of human experience, although recognized by 
 school authorities and by parents as the supremely important phase of 
 public education, is undeveloped and often neglected. 
 
 The right to compete was limited. For the purpose of this research 
 and competition there was formed in most of the states of the United 
 States of North America a group of research educators to be designated 
 as "Character Education Collaborators," not to exceed nine in number. 
 All other persons interested were privileged to cooperate by means of 
 advice. 
 
 Keen, discerning, thorough, constructive thinking is the highest kind 
 of human action. "Group thinking" of this character, by people organized 
 to think together, which utilizes the best insight of each member of the 
 group, is the highest form of this highest kind of human action. This 
 form of thinking is necessary when an effort is made to solve the 
 problems of character education of children, because the facts of the 
 moral life of children are hidden away in personal memory. A com- 
 pilation or accumulation of the memories of childhood and of observations 
 is essential to an adequate basis for thinking out the general principles of 
 character education. 
 
 In order to give the 432 collaborators in this research a good start 
 in their thinking, another offer was made by "The Donor," namely, 
 that he would pay for the compilation of a volume of extracts from 
 educational literature having a bearing on character education. One copy 
 of this volume was for the chairman of research in each state, and 
 at the close of the year was deposited as a gift in the office of the state 
 commissioner or superintendent of education. The fifty extra copies 
 were put on loan to collaborators during the research, and will be loaned 
 now to any educator who may be making a special study of principles 
 of character education. This volume contains six hundred pages of 
 condensed extracts, done under the editorship of Dr. Harris L. Latham, 
 and is called "The Donor's Library on Character Education, Volume I." 
 Only one hundred copies could be printed, and the cost of editorial work 
 and printing w^as about $5,000. 
 
 The Executive Committee suggested to the collaborators that their 
 study of the problems of character education of children be as com- 
 plete and thorough as possible so that they would be likely to discover 
 and combine in their plans all the elements essential to success in 
 character education. A full explanation of the moral ideas to be in- 
 culcated was not necessary, because this was the problem of the National 
 $5,000 Morality Codes Competition, 1916-1917. Methods of character 
 education in their application to kindergarten, elementary school, junior 
 and advanced high schools, and the preparation of teachers for character 
 education were to be included in the '■esearches of the collaborators. 
 
INTERSTATE RESEARCH V 
 
 The following are typical of the questions which it was proper for them 
 to consider in preparation for their conclusions as to the best methods 
 of character education. 
 
 How to get children to understand and appreciate the wisdom of 
 moral experience? How to develop personal convictions in matters of 
 morality in the minds of the children themselves, and the will to live 
 up to these convictions? How to correlate school and home life so as 
 to influence character development together? What character education 
 should be given teachers themselves as a preparation for personal in- 
 fluence over character development of children? How shall teachers be 
 enlightened as to the moral ideas to be inculcated, and how trained to 
 efficiency in the use of methods of character education? 
 
 In each state the right of selection of research collaborators was 
 granted to a local state "Committee of Selection" composed of the state 
 superintendent (unless he accepted appointment as chairman of the collab- 
 orators, in which case a substitute was found among the superintendents 
 of the state) the president of a university or college and a person of gen- 
 eral influence, usually a woman. 
 
 In the appointment of collaborators no inquiry was made as to 
 religious beliefs, it being the position of the research that religious 
 education is assigned to the churches and private schools by the National 
 Constitution and by established opinion, and that discussion of religious 
 doctrines by public school teachers is undesirable and forbidden. 
 
 The plans as a whole were to be submitted in such shape and organiza- 
 tion of thought as was believed by the authors suitable for presentation to 
 superintendents of schools and boards of education desiring assistance in 
 determining what system of character education shall be used in their 
 schools. . 
 
 The time allowed was from October 1, 1919, to February 22, Wash- 
 ington's Birthday, 1921. Each group of contestants sent their plan 
 direct by registered mail in five copies, typewritten, on paper free from 
 any markings, to an outsider. Principal Calvert K. Mellen, Lafayette 
 High School, Buffalo, New York (who had been selected by the Donor 
 to receive plans), without name attached or any mark to indicate the 
 authors, accompanied by a letter giving names and addresses of the 
 authors. Said outsider attached a number, the same number, to both 
 letter and each copy of the plan submitted, and forwarded three copies 
 of each plan to the Executive Committee of the Institution and one copy 
 to the Donor, retaining the authors' letter, numbered, and one cop5 
 of their plan having the same number. Each judge designated by 
 number the three plans which he considered the very best of those 
 submitted, and sent the numbers to the said Executive Committee, who 
 in turn informed all judges of the numbers of plans thus receiving 
 special approval. The judges on receiving this list of commended plans, 
 by number, further compared these commended plans, and each judge 
 voted for a first choice and also for a second choice, each graded on a 
 scale of ten, among the plans resubmitted, and the prize was awarded 
 the plan having the highest total grade. Said outsider was then informed 
 of the number of the plan receiving the award and notified the Donor 
 of the names and addresses of the successful contestants. 
 
 It was prescribe"d that the board of judges should be selected from 
 the members of the Character Education Institution. Although most of 
 the states organized collaborators, only twenty-six succeeded in working 
 out plans for submission in the competition for the award. In order 
 to secure judges without personal state interest, invitations to the board 
 of judges were confined to those states failing to submit plans. The 
 work involved in being a judge was enormous, since the aggregate for 
 the twenty-six state plans was over two thousand pages. The quality 
 
VI CHARACTER EDUCATION METHODS 
 
 of many of the plans was such as to make it difficult to decide to which 
 plan to award the $20,000. The personnel of the board of judges was 
 as follows: 
 
 State Superintendent Thomas E. Finegan, of Pennsylvania, 
 State Superintendent W. F. Bond, of Mississippi, 
 State Commissioner A. B. Meredith, of Connecticut. 
 
 The award of the judges was to methods plan number 9, which was 
 certified by the said outsider as submitted from the state of Iowa. 
 The names of the Iowa Committee of Selection were: 
 
 State Superintendent Albert M. Deyoe, and later 
 State Superintendent P. E. McClenahan, 
 Department of Public Instruction, 
 Des Moines. 
 President Walter A. Jessup, 
 State University of Iowa, 
 Iowa City. 
 Hon. John Hamill, 
 Attorney at Law, 
 Britt. 
 
 Those of the research collaborators winning the award were: 
 
 Chairman Edwin D. Starbuck, Ph.D., 
 Professor of Philosophy, 
 ^ University of Iowa, Iowa City. 
 
 Superintendent H. E. Blackmar, Ph.D., 
 Public Schools, 
 Ottumwa. 
 President C. P. Colegrove, Sc. D., LL.D., 
 Upper Iowa University, 
 Fayette. 
 Professor Fred D. Cram, A.M., 
 
 Extension, State Teachers' College, 
 Cedar Falls. 
 Professor A. C. Fuller, Jr., A.B., 
 Extension, State Teachers' College, 
 Cedar Falls. 
 Professor Ernest Horn, Ph.D., 
 Educatioii, University of Iowa, 
 Iowa City. 
 Professor Herbert Martin, Ph.D., 
 Philosophy, Drake University, 
 Des Moines. 
 Superintendent A. T. Hukill, 
 Public Schools, 
 Waterloo. 
 Professor J. D. Stoops, Ph.D., 
 Philosophy, Grinnell College, 
 Grinnell. 
 
 The chairman received $4,000 and each collaborator received $2,000 
 as the individual award. 
 
 Professor Edwin D. Starbuck, chairman of the Iowa Collaborators, 
 says that they began with committee meetings for clearing their thought 
 about the entire field. He himself as chairman acted as leader in the 
 constructive work, and the others were advisers and counselors. Three 
 of the collaborators mnde contributions worthy of special recognition. 
 Superintendent Blackmar turned his school into a laboratory and tried 
 
INTERSTATE RESEARCH Vll 
 
 out and perfected the "Golden Deeds" book, originated by Superintendent 
 M. A. Cassidy, of Lexington, Kentucky, which forms a part of Chapter 
 IV. Professor Ernest Horn helped especially to formulate the section 
 of Chapter IV on the socialized recitation and the project method of 
 teaching. Professor Herbert Martin worked out Chapter XI on co- 
 operating agencies. Miss Ethel R. Golden assisted the collaborators 
 by devising a character education course of study, and Miss Margaret 
 Starbuck acted as general secretary and worked on a bibliography. Mr. 
 George Mendenhall, who had been working as a university graduate 
 student on the problem of character rating, was largely responsible for 
 Chapter IX on self-measurement. Miss Maude Brown furnished valuable 
 suggestions on health projects. Many business houses were generous 
 in the gift or loan of their books and devices for use in bibliographical 
 work. 
 
 Five thousand copies of this Iowa Plan for Character Education in 
 Public Schools are being published at the expense of the Donor for free 
 distribution in the United States and abroad, as a means of securing 
 letters of criticism and advice from educators and others toward the 
 maturing of opinion as to the best methods of character education in 
 public schools, and preliminary to extensive experiments. All the think- 
 ing that seems of importance in all the other plans submitted will be 
 given most serious attention in these experiments in verification of the 
 results of this research. The Institution will loan copies of these plans 
 to those who want them for study, and will loan copies of the Iowa Plan 
 on request. 
 
 This "Methods Research" was started under the auspices of the 
 "National Institution for Moral Instruction," but a reincorporation was 
 accomplished on February 2, 1922, 'under the broader title of the "Char- 
 acter Education Institution." The Executive Committee of Washington, 
 D. C, under which the research was put through, included as members, 
 
 Mr. Milton Fairchild, Chairman. 
 
 Dr. Philander P. Claxton, U. S. Commissioner of Education. 
 
 Dr. Willard S. Small, U. S. Bureau of Education. 
 
 Dean Willialn C. Ruediger, Teachers College, George Washington Univ. 
 
 Miss Margaret Bell Merrill, Teacher in Western High School. 
 
 The board of trustees of the Character Education Institution is com- 
 posed of the following officials, each to act during his or her term of 
 office. 
 
 Commissioner John j. Tigert and Dr. Willard S. Small of the U. S. 
 Bureau of Education; Secretary Florence V. Watkins, National Congress 
 of Mothers ; Dean C. E. Seashore, National Research Council ; Dean 
 Wm. C. Ruediger, School of Education, George Washington University; 
 Superintendent Frank W. Ballou and Principal Allan Davis, Washington 
 Public Schools; Milton Fairchild, Chairman of Board of Trustees and 
 of the Institution. State Commissioners and State Superintendents oi 
 Education in various states, or their nominees, and a few other educators 
 at large are the members of the corporation, which is for educational 
 work in the field of character education as a service to the schools of all 
 the states and foreign countries. 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 THE IOWA PLAN 
 A. Foundation Principles 
 
 I. HAVE A GOAL 
 
 Character education must keep before parents and instructors an end 
 as distinct as that before a traveler virho would take a journey or a 
 factory manager vi^ho would turn out a finished product or an artist 
 who would create a work of art. It should be consciously purposeful, 
 not haphazard. The methods herein outHned move towards a definite goal. 
 
 II. MEASURE THE PROGRESS AND THE PRODUCT 
 
 The flower of moral culture eludes scales and measuring sticks. But 
 there are fundamental attitudes that are as measurable as are the "points" 
 in stock judging, or the "skills" in arithmetic, writing and music. Char- 
 acter development promises to be able to know where it is going and 
 what progress it is making. This outline presents a fairly successful 
 scale for character-rating. 
 
 III. THE END IS PERSONAL 
 
 The school is made for the child and not the child for the school. 
 The kingdom of Character Education is in the hearts, minds, and muscles 
 of children, not in general precepts or abstract principles. Cultivate 
 persons who live gracefully and helpfully, not virtues that seem desirable. 
 The virtues are the flowers of the good life. Its roots, trunk, twigs, 
 and fruits are made out of deeds, including thought-deeds. 
 
 IV. THE END IS SOCIAL 
 
 Organize the school as a whole and in every part as a democratic 
 
 community of persons. "To socialize, to citizenize and to moralize are 
 
 the same." Societies and democracies of the future will be safe and 
 
 wholesome if the thoughts, sympathies and activities of children are 
 socially re-centered. 
 
 v. THE END IS PRACTICAL 
 
 The moral person is not simply abstractly good but good for something. 
 He is part of a busy, constructive, creative program. He works, plays, 
 studies, loves and worships. The center of gravity of moral values has 
 shifted once and for all and finally away from the favored ones of wealth 
 and prestige whose virtues are just humanity's adornments, to the mass of 
 busy, common folk who are doing the work of the world. The virtues 
 are not treasures to be won but attitudes towards the actual situations 
 men and women have to face. Not virtue for virtue's sake but Tightness 
 and righteousness for life's sake — the growing, self -realizing life of 
 individuals and societies. 
 
 VI. THE SURE FOUNDATIONS OF CHARACTER LIE IN CONDUCT 
 
 The school throughout must be a personally acquiring, socially adjust- 
 ing, mutually achieving society, not a conversation club or a lecture bureau. 
 Its problems must be real. One actual ethical situation met and solved is 
 worth more to the child than a dozen imaginary moral questions selected 
 as topics of discussion. Practice the good life rather than entertain 
 thoughts about it. 
 
c- CHARACTER EDUCATION METHODS 
 
 VII. VITALIZE CONDUCT THROUGH THE SYMPATHIES 
 
 The likes, the desires, the longings, the loves are springs of action. 
 Build up bodies of specific dislikes and hatreds of ugliness in conduct and 
 sets of tastes and prejudices in favor of that which is clean, kindly, 
 courageous, noble. The moral feelings should be instruments of the real 
 self in the act of meeting actual situations. 
 
 VIII. FURNISH THE MIND RICHLY WITH IMAGERY AND SYMBOLS OF 
 RIGHT LIVING 
 
 Conduct moves surely in the direction of its dominant imagery. Its 
 mental pictures are its pillar of cloud and pillar of fire. See that the 
 mind of every child is attracted to the best pieces of art; is entangled in 
 the plot of wholesome novels, plays and movies ; is resonant with proverbs, 
 poetry, precepts and wise sayings ; is vibrant with the rhythm and 
 melody of the best music ; is inspired with admiration of great personalities 
 and is self -hypnotized by the thought of noble deeds. Every false brooding 
 is the link of a prisoner's chain or the stone of a prison wall. A clean 
 imagination is the true deliverer. An ideal is a conscious image made 
 personal. 
 
 IX. DEVELOP PROGRESSIVE SKILL IN MORAL THOUGHTFULNESS 
 
 During the early years reduce self-conscious goodness and reasoned 
 conduct to a minimum. Don't tempt the child to analyze the moral life 
 untilv he has one : first, conduct ; then the sympathies ; next, the imagination, 
 and finally, reasoned behavior. Cultivate the power, on occasion, to face 
 real moral situations thoughtfully, to criticise conduct, to form clear and 
 accurate judgments of right behavior, to organize the feelings into higher 
 ethical sentiments, to attain conscious self-control and to help direct wisely 
 the life of the group. 
 
 X. TRANSLATE DUTY INTO BEAUTY 
 
 Like all worth-while games the game of living is difficult to learn. 
 The sign of mastery is joy in the performance. Cultivate habits of living 
 out gracefully the clean and kindly life. The good character is full of 
 harmony within and without, like the harmony of music. The good in 
 character is like the good in manners but more. Transform sheer duty 
 into an impelling and inviting sense of beauty. 
 
 XI. FAMILIARIZE CHILDREN WITH THE BEST OF THE RACIAL TRADITIONS 
 
 The life of humanity is a sort of racial organism with unitary being. 
 Its future is created out of its past. The children are its living, growing 
 present. Their characters will be whole and sound in proportion as they 
 draw from the total heritage. They need to live over again some of its 
 myth and legend, its poetry and drama, its work and play, its customs 
 and history. They need to learn its wisdom, respect its great personalities 
 and revere its ideals. 
 
 XII. AWAKEN LOYALTY TO A CAUSE 
 
 Character is a by-product of a worthy cause made personal. The 
 cause should usually be a real situation, always capable of being carried 
 over into a completed and alleviating thought or act, not an imaginary 
 one that ends in a sentiment. It must _ always be within the child's 
 grasp — a flower to a sick child, help to a tired mother, food to a famine- 
 stricken country, completion of a school project. It should summon the 
 child's own discriminating thought and effort and stand out as an end 
 
FOUNDATION PRINCIPLES J 
 
 desired and sought after. Character consists in thoughtful selection of a 
 cause together with personal loyalty to that cause. 
 
 XIII. STIMULATE THE SPIRIT OF REVERENCE 
 
 Feel after, with the child, the Life that is more than meat, the Truth 
 that is more than fact, the Law that is more than event. Don't preach; 
 don't pretend. Be simple, direct, genuine. Admiration of comely objects 
 is schooling in the highest act of worship. Respect for laws of nature 
 and of the state are elements in the truest reverence. To feel the fascina- 
 tion of the quest for fuller knowledge is not different in kind from hunger 
 and thirst after righteousness. Love of noble personalities is not unlike 
 devotion to the Spirit of Life. The person is morally safe who has 
 reverence within his inner parts. 
 
 B. The Problem in Perspective 
 
 Some of the essential points in the foregoing articles of educational 
 faith may possibly become more vivid if set forth graphically by the aid 
 of the two following diagrams, (1) the foundations of character and (2) 
 the three-fold re-centering. 
 
 Mt^tiv'died -Couciucl 
 
 Figure I. — Showing the primary place of conduct, the secondary character of 
 the sentiments, and the tertiary role of the intellectual processes during early years. 
 
 (1) THE FOUNDATIONS OF CHARACTER 
 
 The most essential fact of all, as represented in the accompanying 
 figure, is that the sure foundation of the good life is doing the deed, 
 living the life (VI). Moral ideas not based on deeds are hollow; ethical 
 faith without works is dead. 
 
 Next in point of time and second also in the emphasis they deserve 
 are the moral feelings (VIII). They develop early and behave like 
 
4 CHARACTER EDUCATION METHODS 
 
 instincts. Education does not create them; it may safely assume and use 
 them. That which the child in later years thinks is right will be in 
 terms of what he has done and admired. 
 
 Last in the order of time, but not least in importance, is moral thought- 
 fulness (IX). No child should leave the public school who has not gained 
 the ability to make clear, quick, accurate and trustworthy judgments 
 about such moral situations as the average person habitually meets. 
 
 Practice in thoughtful self-control in the midst of the group, leading 
 and being lead towards that which is likeable and lovable, is the keynote 
 of right citizenship and of the good life. 
 
 (2) THE THREE-FOLD RE-CENTERING 
 
 The child is born into the world with the self relatively unorganized — 
 a bundle of possibilities. The synthesis that takes place is determined by 
 
 The rToj^KPersoa 
 
 Impersonal _ObiCCts 
 Used &>t^ not 
 Admire' 
 
 _Per3orte aa 
 "Provui^s and 
 CoKveniericea 
 
 last i acts aad Xlesirea 
 
 Figure II. — The Threefold re-centering. 
 
 two agencies — (a) the ripening of the native or instinctive tendencies, 
 and (b) the work of education in its widest sense, including the direct 
 efforts of parents and teachers in repressing or stimulating or reshaping 
 the several instincts, and indirectly through creating the right environment. 
 Amongst the native endowments the dominant one is self-regard. The 
 chances are that the child shall become immoderately self -centered, and 
 that the organization which takes place will be on the lower level of 
 cruder instincts and desires. (1) Self-regard has been tremendously 
 strong amongst animals and in primitive human life and crops out in 
 
FOUNDATION PRINCIPLES 
 
 children. (2) The undeveloped child is constantly the recipient of kind- 
 nesses and learns to think that folks and all things exist for him. (3) He 
 takes at face valqe the overestimation of his own worth by jealous 
 parents and kin, resulting in heightened self-esteem. (4) Consciousness 
 is personal and one's own thoughts and interests are far more vivid and 
 real than are those that reach out beyond this self. 
 
 Most of the ills, distresses and tragedies of human kind are directly 
 traceable to blindnesses and selfishness. The supreme task of education is 
 to carry the child so actively out into the life of others, and up into 
 ideal interests that a crude self-centeredness is impossible. 
 
 It must not be forgotten that the original, inherited, relatively unor- 
 ganized selfhood is the raw stuff out of which any character qualities 
 will ever be made. The child's personality must be respected, its dignity 
 and worth assumed at every step. 
 
 In their development the moral values, if liveable and useful, must 
 remain ultimately personal. The average normal child, however, needs 
 a three-fold recentering: 
 
 1. The transformation of a lower selfhood of cruder instincts and 
 desires into "higher" personality of refined tastes (X) of insight, outlook 
 and inteUigent purpose (IX). 
 
 2. An awakening into wholesome appreciation of the interests and 
 well-being of others (IV) and participation in their programs, customs, 
 conventions and institutions (XI), and loyalty to their ideals (XII). 
 
 3. A disinterested admiration of the non-personal values in Nature aad- 
 Life (VIII) that glorify both the self and other-than-self and culminate in 
 a spirit of reverence (VIII). 
 
 To bring about this three-fold othering of the original unorganized 
 life of childhood is the end and aim of character education. 
 
 It will be seen in advance that it does not matter so much whether 
 ethics is taught as a school subject, although that is sometimes unobjec- 
 tionable; it is not necessary to extract moral blessings from the various 
 subjects of instruction, even if they are heavy with "lessons" for conduct; 
 it is not important to discuss the 'virtues," for character often becomes 
 angular and awkward through self-consciousness. The end of it all is 
 that the child should learn to respond to the natural situations he meets 
 naturally and well; that his "schooling" in the moral life should be 
 practice in living happily, faithfully, gracefully and ideally the larger 
 relations into which he is about to emerge. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE GOAL 
 
 A. THE SORT OF PERSON AT WHOM THE SCHOOL AIMS 
 
 A person with powers proportionally developed, with mental discrimina- 
 tion, aesthetic appreciation, and moral determination ; one aware of his 
 social relationships and happily active in the discharge of all obligations; 
 one capable of leisure, loving nature, revering human beings, their aspira- 
 tions and achievements; one observant of fact, respectful of law and 
 order, devoted to truth and justice; one who while loyal to the best 
 traditions of his people, dreams and works toward better things ; and 
 one in whom is the allure of the ideal, and whose life will not be faithless 
 thereto. 
 
 B. SPECIFIC LINES OF PREPARATION 
 
 It is not enough for the schools to aim in general at the ideal person. 
 The task of education is more specific. It must prepare boys and girls 
 with unfailing certainty to meet successfully all the situations that people 
 in their normal life as human beings face. 
 
 These situations are permanent facts either of human nature or of 
 an ordered world to which the person must adjust himself. There are 
 nine situations demanding definite adjustment. If the individual succeeds 
 in meeting these demands, he is already a moral person. If he fails to 
 measure up in any one of them, he is, to that extent, a misfit. 
 
 At least eight lines of preparation are so definite and concrete that 
 projects may be devised and problems set for inducting pupils into them. 
 
 1. Preparation for Health. — We have been trying chiefly to harvest the 
 fruits of culture without sufficient care of the human plant. It is the 
 business of the school, working out into the homes, to know that each 
 child has the right nourishment, invigorating exercise, and habits of 
 cleanliness. Every child has the divine right to be born with the chances 
 in his favor of a reasonably sound body free from predispositions toward 
 weakness and disease. It is his right too that his original energies should 
 develop until they overflow into abounding vitality. Ill health and anemia 
 are the basis of moral delinquency, and are the nation's greatest liability. 
 The grouch, the pessimist, the disturber generally, is a victim of dormant 
 bodily functions. To play, to work, to play again, to feel the zest of 
 being a healthy creature, full of animal spirits, is a sign of health 
 and sanity. 
 
 2. Preparation for Life in the Group. — The school should keep its 
 thought upon the man or woman who is going to move gracefully and 
 helpfully among his fellows. Every one must learn the trick of it or fail. 
 The world is growing smaller. The free space is used up. The free 
 individual who goes his own gait and leads his own life independently 
 of the wishes of others has little standing room left. He must find his 
 freedam through the group, rather than independently of it. In preparing 
 him, the school should begin early and give occasion every day of his 
 career to meet the members of his group successfully. The prevailing 
 type of school that fosters isolations and insulations of child from child 
 will have to undego reconstruction until the school becomes a natural co- 
 operative community. 
 
 3. Preparation for Civic Relations. — Every community or municipality 
 or state is made by the group. Too often a few lead, the rest follow 
 or go back. The fault is to be charged in part against the inertia of 
 human nature. The schools will have to bear their share of the blame. 
 
THE GOAL / 
 
 Educational systems are formed around the idea that the teacher is the 
 sole responsible person for the success of the school. The center of 
 responsibility must shift to the children. The joy of each one is full 
 when allowed to share in the duties and responsibilities of the place. 
 If the pupils learn the delight of helping in the conduct of recitations, 
 projects, and other activities, the outcome is a heightening of the feeling 
 of ownership in the school, and of their pleasure m accepting its tasks 
 as personal. Loyalty to the group and the school should ripen naturally 
 into loyalty to truth, to the State, and even into '"loyalty to loyalty." 
 
 4. Preparation for Industrial and Economic Relations. — Children should 
 learn in the school the satisfaction that comes through productive work; 
 the cost in honest effort of a piece of money, and its value in an honest 
 purchase. They should see the meaning of wealth until a coin becomes 
 a symbol of justice and cooperation among men. They should know full 
 well that all waste and misuse of wealth, or unfair dealings, are acts 
 of violence against the substantial framework of society. These are 
 elements in the building of solid foundations of character in their own 
 lives. 
 
 5. Preparation for a Vocation. — The beggar is now a political outlaw. 
 He consumes and does not produce. He is a parasite upon the thrift of 
 others. During the world war, when our eyes were opened, we saw 
 that the idle rich and the fashionable slackers were skilled consumers 
 and a social menace. "Work or Fight" was a hard but holy slogan. 
 "Produce or suffer social disgrace," is a fair motto for peace as well 
 as war. Schools must see that every child is so trained that he shall be 
 qualified to take his place in the world's work, to share its obligations 
 and benefits. To become both a benefactor and a beneficiary he must 
 gain a vision of both service and personal fulfilment through some 
 vocation, or through allegiance to some cause, and acquire proficiency 
 in that direction. 
 
 6. Preparation for Parenthood and Family Life. — The home is the 
 heart of humanity. Right breeding is the base of the triangle of life, 
 with a clean atmosphere made by parents as one of the sides, and the 
 training of children in a wholesome attitude toward love and marriage 
 as the other. Before the school turns out from its doors a young man 
 with a certificate of character, it should know that he is full of chivalry 
 toward women, tender toward children, scornful of sensual suggestions, 
 pure in mind and heart. Vulgarity in speech of boys and girls is like 
 a disease — a breeding sore in society. Every boy and girl must see with 
 perfect clearness, and vvith an appeal which vibrates through their whole 
 being,_ that their future happiness and also the destiny of the race are 
 in their keeping, and are dependent upon even their secret thoughts. The 
 strong currents of reproductive life must be turned toward healthy off- 
 spring of ideal love. 
 
 7. The Mastery of Tradition. (See XI of Chapter I.) 
 
 8. Preparation for the Appreciation of Beauty. — The use of leisure 
 time will take care of itself if the art impulse is aroused and trained. 
 Children in the earliest years are responsive to objects of beauty. Quite 
 early they may learn to intensify their enjoyment of works of art by 
 being taught something about art's simplest structural features. To live 
 sympathetically with the arts and artists, to become sensitive to the 
 attractiveness of the things of nature, including human nature, is pre- 
 paration for the good life. The art of living is the flower of the joy 
 in right conduct. A fair measure of its attainment is the ability to turn 
 the work-a-day world into poetry. * 
 
 The following three objectives are no less important than the foregoing, 
 and should be as definitely kept within the focus of conscious effort. The 
 
8 CHARACTER EDUCATION METHODS 
 
 first is, however, incidental to all the others, and the other two are so 
 fundamental and inclusive that they should permeate the entire life of the 
 school. 
 
 9. Preparation for the Use of Leisure Time. — The measure of the man 
 is not so much the vigor v^rith which he recoils from the task as the 
 direction of the release. If he learned in school to play a musical in- 
 strument, to succeed as a dramatist, to create a comely design, to enjoy 
 a good book, to judge and execute a work of art even if it be a bit 
 of landscape gardening, or a conversation with a friend, so that he springs 
 toward the distinctly ennobling avocations as readily as in the direction 
 of mere physical play, he is on the way toward the fuller life. Where 
 his heart is, there will his treasure be. It is a well established fact that 
 crimes and misdemeanors in the school and in the state are caused by 
 unused and misdirected energies. Pupils should have training in making 
 up a budget of time, and of using it all profitably and enjoyably. 
 
 10. Preparation for Reverence. — The most sensitive persons there are, 
 to the wonder and mystery of things, are the little folk during the kinder- 
 garten years. Their sense of the poetry of life should not wither, but 
 should be disciplined and deepened until it becomes a reverent insight into 
 ,the profounder meanings behind and within the facts of the laws of 
 ' science, the acts of individuals, and the events of history. Reverence 
 
 and worship need hardly be mentioned during the course of school life ; 
 but unless the spirit of respect for the nobility of manhood and woman- 
 hood, and the sense of admiration for the majesty and beauty that plays 
 through facts and events is alive in the child's thought and heart, he is 
 not being prepared for the fullest and richest citizenship. Unless there 
 is wisdom the people perish. 
 
 11. Preparation for Creative Activity. — The progress of knowledge, 
 the spirit of culture, and the improvement of industry have always been 
 left by the common consent of the "common" folk to the favored few. 
 With the rise of democracy, an experiment has arisen of developing the 
 creative energies of each individual. It is every one's natural right to 
 put the stamp of his own thought and effort upon his work. Every 
 child that has come habitually to find the delight of exercising his own 
 ingenuity in school interests and projects, and to try out by the strength 
 of his own judgment the better from the worse way, is most surely being 
 stolen away from the vast army of the passive ones who must be led and 
 fed. The enrichment of national life, if democracy is to win, will be 
 realized henceforth by harvesting the smaller increments from individual 
 initiative rather than from great discoveries and inventions. 
 
 These main attitudes, constituting the life of the ordinary person, 
 can be made the practical fulfilment of the moral law. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE ORGANIZATION AND CONTROL OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 A. THE SCHOOL AS A DEMOCRATIC COMMUNITY 
 
 1. The right organization of the school can alone go far toward solving 
 the character training problem. — Kindly cooperation is the keynote of the 
 moral life. It is also the prevailing spirit of the rightly ordered school. 
 The educational institutions that have come down to us historically foster 
 individualism rather than cooperation. Our educational traditions have 
 over-emphasized repression of the individual under authority rather than 
 initiative under kindly leadership. The form of organization of the 
 school, just like that of a state, predisposes one to act and think in a 
 certain way so that both consciously and unconsciously it sets standards 
 of conduct and ideals toward which the individuals move. 
 
 2. The right solution of the problem of democracy- can come only 
 through the school. — The highest passion that has actuated the collective 
 movements of peoples during the last five centuries has been that of real- 
 izing democracy. The world war was an heroic step in that direction. As 
 the smoke has cleared away it has left a vision of humankind not so far 
 on the road to the land of goodwill as our fond dreams had pictured. 
 
 There is one sure road and one only leading into that land of promise. 
 It runs through the life of childhood. If the schools can bring up a 
 generation or two of children who have learned through their muscles, 
 instincts, and thoughts that it pays to dwell together in mutual helpfulness 
 and goodwill, that selfishness in the long run breeds pain and defeat, that 
 true happiness comes more surely by giving one's best to the group rather 
 than by sucking like a parasite its sustenance from the group, then 
 democratic institutions will be saved. 
 
 . 3. The organization of the school in form and spirit should be a 
 democratic community. — The best way to prepare for life in a democracy 
 is by practicing it. If all our preachments are for democracy and we 
 allow our practices to be submission to a somewhat arbitrary authority, 
 it is easy to predict the outcome. 
 
 If one should seek the type after which a school should be patterned, 
 its model would be that of the home in which the teacher is a companion 
 and friend, a big sister, or a kindly mother, rather than that it should be 
 built on the model of a business house that handles only dead materials. 
 It should be shaped on the lines of a true democracy in which the state 
 exists for the individual rather than on those of an imperialism that uses 
 men for itself alone. It should take for its type a boy scout camp that 
 prepares children to live in peace and goodwill rather than an army camp 
 that_ trains more predominantly for throwing themselves into the breach 
 in times of crisis. 
 
 4. The schools of the world have been Prussianized. — For a little more 
 than a century now the school systems of western countries have been 
 borrowing their notions of organization from Prussia. It was in 1838, 
 that Horace Mann said that for twenty years all eyes had been turned on 
 the Prussian school system as models for our own. That peerless leader 
 and prophet of education threw out earnestly the warning that while 
 the Prussian methods of teaching the school subjects were' superior to 
 our own, its organization was fit only for an imperialism and not for a 
 democracy. In spite of that warning we have allowed the imperialistic 
 methods to dominate our school systems. They have made for central- 
 ization and domination rather than for freedom and initiative. We have 
 
10 CHARACTER EDUCATION METHODS 
 
 borrowed too much from the volkschule and too little from the gymna- 
 sium. The Prussian school system was consciously constructed in every 
 detail by the favored one-tenth of the nation for the purpose of fixing 
 and holding the common people in their commonness and of fashioning 
 them into instruments of the state. In the truest sense the mighty strength 
 of German imperialism has been founded upon the habits of subservience 
 of the children in its common schools. 
 
 America must be as longheaded as Prussia. It must reconstruct its 
 house by tearing out, insofar as it needs to, its imperialistic structures and 
 rebuilding along lines of democracy. It must plant democracy securely 
 in the minds and hearts and conduct of its children. 
 
 5. The world is in danger of becoming anarchised unless the schools 
 a/re hastily democratized. — The human problem of first magnitude during 
 the next half century is that of interpreting and realizing democracy. The 
 common folk who have suffered under imperiaHstic domination in Russia 
 are now in the saddle. They are joining hands with those elements in 
 other countries including the United States that have been ground under 
 the heel of the injustices from capitalism and imperialism. They are 
 waging war in spirit and in fact with, some show of success against 
 every form of centralization. A clash is sure to come as great, if not 
 greater, than the last unless the spirit of kindliness can take the place 
 of that of selfishness and greed. The schools are the one great hope of 
 averting such a calamity. 
 
 6. An example from the kindergarten. — The kindergarten is the bright- 
 est spot in the educational world. Children learn to play and sing and 
 work together until their joys and satisfactions are found through one 
 another. A few months of that sort of occupation is destined to change 
 the temper of mature life of those who enjoy it. Miss Stovall who under 
 the tutelage of Mrs. Hearst established the mission kindergarten in the 
 slum districts of San Francisco went back years after to study the 
 outcome of those schools. She convinced herself that although the per- 
 centages of arrests for misdemeanors in those districts rose to a con- 
 siderable fraction of the population, not over two or four per cent of the 
 children who had been to the kindergarten had caused any civic disturbance. 
 If the pupils could be kept not a year or two but twelve years or more in 
 schools in which the kindergarten spirit of sociability prevails, the stress 
 and strain of mature years could hardly remake them into a race of 
 Ishmaels in which the hand of each is lifted against the other. 
 
 7. There are three distinguishing marks of a safe democracy whether 
 in school or state. — To organize the school properly requires the clearest 
 of insight into the nature of democracy. The differences that exist in 
 its interpretation are the cause of much of the strife that now exists and 
 of differences in educational policy. Each group or faction is sure of 
 one or two of the three essentials of democracy. These are : 
 
 a. Collectivism, centralized authority, and leadership. 
 
 b. Guaranteed freedom of thought and action to the individual and 
 of his right of participation at every point in the collective will. 
 
 c. Interacting agencies for insuring the adjustment of individual to 
 individual and of group to group and for binding the whole into a living 
 organization. 
 
 The recognition of the first characteristic alone is the secret of 
 autocracy. The state exists for itself and the individual exists not for 
 himself but for the state alone. The recognition of the second mark of 
 a democracy is the keynote of anarchism, nihilism, and Bolshevism. This 
 form of government fears any centralization of power or authority lest 
 the proud right of a free individual should be thwarted. The genius of 
 democracy consists in preserving both these extremes through a discovery 
 
ORGANIZATION AND CONTROL OF SCHOOL 11 
 
 of many mechanisms for plastic adaptation within the state. The indi- 
 vidual exists for the state no more truly than does the state for the in- 
 dividual. The steps leading in this direction have been the greatest oi 
 human discoveries. Instances of these discoveries are found in the ballot, 
 in the selection of representatives, in codes and constitutions, in law 
 courts with their juries, in the initiative and referendum and recall and 
 all those agencies that stand for free expression of individual choice and 
 the guaranteeing of rights and privileges with their accompanying duties 
 and responsibilities. It is government of the people, by the people, and 
 for the people. This third characteristic, which is the secret of democracy, 
 is one which neither imperialism nor anarchism can see. It is that by 
 which the individual can take up into himself the strength of the millions, 
 can share the riches of all, and can find the higher joy of freedom 
 through the group rather than freedom from all responsibility. 
 
 8. The rightly ordered school must have both authority and leadership. — 
 There never was perhaps so great a need of clear vision of the nature 
 of a true democracy on the part of teachers as now. The schools are 
 sure to implant both consciously and unconsciously its true or false 
 ideals into childhood. The shapers of the United States Government, 
 Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln among them, have with complete 
 unanimity opposed a flat democracy that feared centralization and great 
 leadership. Not one of them ever advocated either communism or in- 
 dividualism, which fail to organize responsibility toward constituted 
 authority, the state. True democracy has as great centralization of 
 power as imperialism but with this difference, that the authority rises 
 from and is vested in the people themselves. It is government by the 
 people. The school as an institution represents the collective will of the 
 state and must command the respect of the teacher and pupil alike. The 
 teacher is the representative of the state as an expert leader. Educational 
 practice has had many theorists and experimentalists who have held up 
 an ideal of "education according to nature." Teachers who are seized 
 with this passion throw over entirely the responsibility of shaping the 
 conduct, thoughts, and sympathies of the children. Their temper is more 
 fit for a state of anarchy than a democratic state. The teacher must 
 accept her place as a kind leader of children and men and as a shaper of 
 the destiny of the state. 
 
 9. The school should respect the individuality, the initiative, and the 
 personality of each pupil even to the youngest. — The greatest danger of 
 government in school and state is for vested authority to cut itself away 
 from the group. The state for itself and the individual for the state, 
 this is purely autocracy. When the individual lives for himself and ex- 
 pects the group also to exist for him, this is pure anarchy. The secret 
 of democracy is that the individual and the collective mind exist for each 
 other bound together in an organism. Unless the state or school is a 
 tender mother toward its children, it is already hardening towards its 
 death. The one time superintendent of a large city school system in the 
 United States claimed boastfully that he could take out his watch and tell 
 what every child and every teacher was doing. Nor had the teacher or 
 pupil the slightest determination or control of the system under which 
 they lived. To prepare for kindly cooperation and respect for authority 
 by a" dozen years of practice under an irresponsible autocracy is like 
 learning to walk erect by years of creeping. The dangers of government 
 are nearly all on the side of false centralization. Constantly it must strive 
 to conduct itself as if it existed alone for the individual, to guard and 
 guarantee his freedom. The surest test of a right school spirit is that 
 each pupil should speak spontaneously of "our school" and. should have 
 a feeling of personal ownership in the place and pride in its well-being. 
 
12 CHARACTER EDUCATION METHODS 
 
 The way in which the school can in its government escape the Scylla 
 and Charybdis of autocracy and anarchy, and move successfully in the 
 direction of plastic adjustment of each to all in an organization which 
 is at the same time an organism, will be indicated in the next section. 
 
 10. The democratic spirit in school brings happiness and health to all 
 concerned. — Artificial authority is a heavy burden under which to stagger. 
 It grinds the teacher down. To live under such a system also breeds 
 a rich progeny of unmoralities and immoralities. To assert the courage 
 and fortitude to undergo the discipline of the school without whimpering 
 is a trait of character too nearly like that of a criminal who is able to 
 steel himself against the penalty administered by the state. To trick the 
 teacher and get ahead of her is good training in ingenuity but not in 
 citizenship. It will be a great victory when the symbol of a happy mother 
 and her kindly children is finally substituted for that of the Hoosier school 
 master and Bud Means. The sweetness of real companionship of teacher 
 and pupil in enjoying each other and accomplishing nice things together 
 is an unmixed satisfaction and contains within itself the very essence of 
 democracy. 
 
 11. The mere physical appointments of the school can do much to make 
 or mar the democratic spirit. — The setting in double rows of rigid desks 
 screwed to the floor with pupils marching to and fro is a relic of the 
 military camp and factory ideals of the school and indicates usually that 
 the pupils are also screwed down to a system. The writer visited a con- 
 solidated school in which desks of nearly all the classes had given place 
 to movable seats that could be shifted into groups for common tasks 
 and projects or could be slipped aside to give place for games and folk 
 dances. Such an arrangement was an outgrowth of the spirit of comrade- 
 ship that had seized the community in building the school and reacted 
 in turn wholesomely on the spirit of the place. All were busy and willing 
 to serve in spite of the fact that they were bound by the restrictions of 
 the rather rigid curriculum. 
 
 B. STUDENT PARTICIPATION 
 
 1. Student participation forms character. — If the student feels himself 
 a responsible agent in the conduct and success of the school, he rises to 
 meet it with a new sense of the dignity of his own personality and of 
 the importance of the program in which he is existing. Thoughts about 
 the conduct of others are for him shadowy and unreal ; thoughts about his 
 own conduct are vital; to wrestle out and solve an actual situation that 
 arises in play and work among his fellows and finally make an affirma- 
 tion of his own of relative choices and values goes to the depths of his 
 being. Such affirmations are the stuff out of which character is forged. 
 When the school is a group of cooperating and interacting persons such 
 choices arise constantly. 
 
 To estimate fairly the value of student participation demands a three- 
 fold discrimination, as to time in life, as to methods of doing it, and as 
 to what student participation really means. These three distinctions are 
 the theme of the following three topics. 
 
 2. Student participation does not mean self-government. — In the purest 
 sense no .f<?//-government is possible for a human being in any sort of 
 society. No man lives to himself nor can he. Even on the desert island 
 he finds a Friday and a code and the infaHible laws of nature that en- 
 force upon him their necessities. Student participation means that each 
 one is bearing his share of the joint responsibility of the group. 
 
 3. Student participation belongs principally to the later grades and 
 high school. ---'Dvir'wig the earliest baby years in the home and school the 
 spirit of democracy should be dominant but its expressed forms are 
 
ORGANIZATION AND CONTROL OF SCHOOL 13 
 
 quite out of place. Gradually during the later years as occasion arises 
 the organized life of companionship may take shape in some form of a 
 junior republic. In its inception it is a play government in anticipation 
 of the more serious forms of control that shall follow. 
 
 4. Student participation must observe the natural differentiation of 
 rights and duties. — It is never a question of how much control students 
 should assume; the real problem refers to the kind of duties that fall 
 properly to their lot. Attempts at self-government are constantly ending 
 in foolishness and failure, for the reason that it is assumed that the 
 students are taking a hand in the running of the entire institution. A 
 fair analogy of the right division of labor is found in the state. 
 
 The "inalienable rights" in the state fall materially into three groups. 
 
 a. Those belonging to the state itself over which the individual should 
 have very little control unless it be in the long run and after the collective 
 mind has had time to act, as, for instance, in the case of leading armies 
 and shaping a constitution. 
 
 b. Those in which individuals and the relatively stable government 
 have joint concern as in the institution of marriage and the kind of 
 ceremonies which are observed. 
 
 c. Those belonging largely to the individual, and which the state exists 
 to safeguard, as, for instance, what he shall plant and where he shall sell. 
 
 In school life there is a corresponding differentiation. 
 
 a. That in which school boards and teachers stand as the official rep- 
 resentatives of the collective will and in which the students can have only 
 advisory power, if any at all, like school taxation, or building a curriculum. 
 
 b. That in which school authorities and students may have collective 
 control, as in the question of honor in examinations, society functions, and 
 the like. 
 
 c. That in which students may have essentially complete management. 
 The items of control they assume will depend much upon circumstances 
 and local conditions. 
 
 It is evident that the question of how much control is advisable passes 
 over into one of the kinds that naturally belong to the student. A 
 modicum of participation is a saving grace if it assures a feeling of mem- 
 bership in the school community and sets free pent-up powers that are 
 wanting an avenue of expression. It is well to increase the load placed 
 upon the students just to the extent that they show a taste for it and 
 their capacity to carry it through. 
 
 5. Preparing the student and community sentiment for self-government.—' 
 It must be_ admitted that experiments in student government have failed 
 in a majority of instances. Sometimes they are imposed artificially upon 
 the students without their readiness to accept it. It should arise naturally 
 and grow out of a felt need. It ordinarily arises, when successful, as a 
 transition from an already satisfactory school government. If there is 
 lurking in it a tinge of concession to the students on the part of authorities 
 who have failed, the new organization has also in it the seeds of disorder. 
 It must be founded altogether upon a spirit of cooperation and mutual 
 goodwill. 
 
 6. The problems undertaken must be a man's size.— The duties under- 
 taken must be of sufficient magnitude and significance to summon the best 
 thought and ingenuity of the student body and to call out genuine leader- 
 ship. The writer visited a high school a while ago in which 1,600 students 
 were inducted by the faculty into a ponderous scheme of self-government 
 with the only objective that of preserving the floors, walls, and grounds 
 from defacement and keeping them free from litter. It was a bit of 
 janitor or police duty that was not worthy of their latent energies and 
 was foredoomed to failure. On the contrary one is reminded of the 
 
14 CHARACTER EDUCATION METHODS 
 
 continued success of the Montclair, New Jersey, high school, in which 
 four committees undertake as many great enterprises that ramify through- 
 out the whole life of the place and work for the present and future 
 success of the school. 
 
 7. Students should undertake positive and constructive problems, not 
 negative and preventive. — Even the matter of preventing cheating and 
 other disorders is not a proper place to begin. A question of that sort 
 naturally puts the pupils in a critical and unhappy relationship to one 
 another. The negative and preventive measures will naturally arise, but 
 they should be incidental to greater constructive programs. 
 
 Often times attempts in this direction are not only negative but fictitious. 
 They represent autocracy under disguise. Students appointed as monitors 
 in examinations or to watch the lines of march when not placed there by 
 the will of the student body are not in a position to exercise their own 
 best judgment. They are placed there by the teachers who are screened 
 in the background as prompters ; all such is a spurious imitation of real 
 democracy. 
 
 8. The students should be trusted implicitly. — The responsibility and 
 accountability of their officers should be to the student body primarily and 
 only incidentally and secondarily to the school officers. Mr. Dutch of 
 Montclair in a letter to the writer says : 
 
 "We never hold anyone accountable to us. The responsibility rests 
 between the student and students in charge and ends there. We never 
 meddle, interfere, inquire, or expect information, and we have never 
 been disappointed in the results." 
 
 School authorities must show the officials of the student body the 
 same deference and respectful consideration within the range of their 
 duties that they expect in return from student officials. 
 
 9. In form the school government should be fashioned after that of 
 the state. — This will vary according to the situation. Insofar as possible 
 experience in student government should be preparation for the life they 
 will be leading as members of a larger republic into which they will be 
 graduating. 
 
 The writer of these notes has tried out student participation several 
 times, for example, in a night school in a factory town in New England 
 and in a large high school in the middle west, and knows that it can work 
 to the happiness and profit of all concerned. He has observed it many 
 times, both succeeding and failing in a good many places and believes 
 it will succeed always when undertaken thoughtfully and in the right 
 spirit. It is destined to fail when it cuts sharply across the essential 
 laws of human nature and the processes of good government. It must 
 succeed if democracy in the state remains safe. If ground into the very 
 fibre of a few generations of children, it will stand so secure that nothing 
 can destroy it. 
 
 C. GOVERNMENT, DISCIPLINE AND PUNISHMENT 
 
 There is an unlimited body of sound wisdom on the question of school 
 discipline, which needs not to be reiterated in this discussion. It is easily 
 accessible to most readers. Before giving a few of the precepts that 
 fall directly in line with this report, it will be sufficient merely to 
 mention some of the most stable and useful doctrines in regard to 
 discipline. 
 
 1. A catalog of zvell established precepts. — Corporal punishments are 
 brutalizing to teacher and to pupil. 
 
 Never punish in anger. 
 
 Punishment should be for reform not retribution. 
 
 It should not be resorted to except as a necessary means to a desired 
 end. 
 
ORGANIZATION AND CONTROL OF SCHOOL 15 
 
 Make the punishment fit the deed. 
 
 It should be fitted to the individuality of the child. 
 
 Discover the cause of the misdemeanor and work from cause to result. 
 
 The pupil should feel the majesty of the moral law that lies also back 
 of the teacher. 
 
 Guided by a higher law, the teacher must show undeviating consistency. 
 
 Appeal to the higher motives of self-respect; don't humihate the child. 
 
 Pass lightly by many faults ; they will drop away of their own accord. 
 
 Distinguish always between the child and his fault. 
 
 The teacher's problem is to make obedience to law and order attractive ; 
 to aid the moral law. To follow it by compulsion is no part of moral 
 discipline. 
 
 Ihere are a few precepts so directly in line with the temper of this 
 report that they need perhaps a special word of emphasis. They are in 
 tune with the fundamental notion that the school should be a community of 
 real boys and girls meeting each other and the normal life situations 
 naturally. In such a school the problem of discipline seldom arises. 
 There are occasional cases of misdemeanor that need discipline or even 
 demand punishment. These are rare, however, and are incidental to the 
 active conduct of the school. 
 
 2. Misdemeanors are usually the direct results of pent up passions. — 
 Whatever impulses are slumbering in the heart of a child must find ex- 
 pression ih one way or another. The instincts have the dynamic of race 
 life within them ; they cannot be killed ; they can be harnessed and used. 
 Repressed impulses are like dammed up waters that rise and rise to the 
 breaking point and threaten disaster. Recent studies of human nature 
 have proven this thoroughly. Explosions of temper, fits of anger, rebel- 
 lions and antipathies, stubbornness and anemia and the like are in- 
 variably traceable, by those who can follow them, to repressed impulses. 
 The repressions can be released and dissipated through wholesome and 
 normal activity backed up by interest and enthusiasms. 
 
 There is a subtle delusion to teacher and pupil alike in the supposed 
 results of discipline by repression. The teacher after some disciplinary 
 victory enjoys the feeling of power and imagines that she has hemmed in 
 securely the temptation to disorder on the part of the pupil. She has 
 solved it for the moment, but she or others will reap the harvest. The 
 pupil consciously imagines that he has submitted to the strong hand of 
 authority, but down within his inner parts slumbers usually the feeling 
 of resentment and unfair advantage that will slowly and surely find its 
 way to the surface. 
 
 3. The way to moral health is through expression rather titan through 
 repression. — The game of the teacher is to turn selfishness into the channels 
 of higher self-realization and to shape its energies by allowing the child 
 to taste the sweets of realization through the group. She must use up 
 the fighting instincts, as William James has indicated, by translating them 
 into the zest for combating difficult problems. She must redirect the re- 
 productive passions along lines of innocent companionship. It is possible 
 with a little skill in playing upon the harp of the human instincts to bring 
 them into harmony like that of music. The art of repression alone will 
 bring no music out of an instrument. Equally futile is government simply 
 by repression when applied to the life of the child. 
 
 4. The power of the collective zvill is the real control of conduct. 
 
 The power of public opinion in society and in the state resides in the 
 collective judgments of approval and disapproval that play among indi- 
 viduals. From this there is no escape. This power should have full 
 play in school life and will naturally do so if the teacher will stand 
 sufficiently out of the way to let it express itself. An illustration is as 
 follows : 
 
16 CHARACTER EDUCATION METHODS 
 
 It was a sixth grade room. There was no "order" of the military 
 kind but the spirit of mutual control was as gentle as that of a cultured 
 home. Half the room was occupied with reports from a study of sources 
 and discussions about Washington's relation to his army at Valley Forge. 
 A boy, not of the reciting group, was showing signs of restlessness and 
 of letting off his energies by being "smart." Miss George, sitting in 
 the rear of the room, was the moderator of the discussion. She paused 
 just long enough to ask if L. was disturbing anyone. There was an instant 
 pause when a little girl arose and said, "I should like to say, if I may, that 
 L. seems to think we want to watch his antics, but I should like to 
 assure him, for my part, that I haven't time to do so." The incident 
 had passed in a quicker time than it takes to tell it. There was not a 
 sign anywhere in the room except of bits of approval of the little girl's 
 opinion of the case. The discipline was complete. L. had no appeal and 
 no recourse. Had the teacher been ungraceful enough to reprove and 
 punish the boy he might have caught sly eyes sanctioning his misdemeanor, 
 and he might easily have found ways of escaping from the authority 
 superimposed upon him. To feel the collective judgment of one's peers 
 is the heart of the moral impulse. Conscience is called sometimes a voice 
 because it contains within itself the latent tones of approval or con- 
 demnation of the group. 
 
 5. The power of suggestion on the part of the teacher is her best 
 instrument of control. — Mr. Geyan points out in "Education and Heredity" 
 that the powers of suggestion when carried to the point of hypnosis can 
 transform often a completely distorted nature into one of refined moral 
 perceptions. There is no difference in kind between hypnotic suggestion 
 and the infinite number of moral suggestions that play from life to life and 
 help to shape its sympathies and direct its conduct. The skill in discipline 
 of a right-minded teacher is in her constant expectancy of decorum and 
 of interest on the part of the pupils. That unconsciously directs them 
 in the right channels. She places around them images from art, music, 
 and literature and biography, that play upon their minds through the 
 subtle power of suggestion. 
 
 The up-shot of this discussion is that it is the business of the teacher 
 and the school to translate external authority into discipline and then 
 into self-realization, and to slip by the need of punishment through the 
 operation of social approvals and condemnations. The moral person is 
 one who has become sensitive to the social will and whose heart and mind 
 are attuned to the profounder appeals of the life about him. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 SOME WAYS OF PRESERVING, DIRECTING, AND EXERCISING 
 THE ENTIRE INTEGRITY OF THE CHILD 
 
 The rapid transformations now taking place in the educational world 
 nearly all further the interest of character education. The keynote of 
 them all is the preservation of the natural tastes, insights and purposes 
 of children while at the same time giving them wise direction. They are 
 all in terms of developing the conscious, purposeful self-activity of the 
 child. They naturally move in the direction of calling out his sense of 
 moral values. There are three aspects of this educational transformation 
 that deserve particular mention — Noble Deeds, The Socialized Recitation, 
 and Project Methods. An important part of this report is the presenta- 
 tion of bodies of first hand material along each of these lines. 
 
 A. NOBLE DEEDS 
 
 Since the time, about eighteen years ago when Lexington, Kentucky, 
 began making a success of books of "Golden Deeds," in which pupils 
 recorded and illustrated with pictures significant moral acts, there has 
 been some progress. Superintendent Blackmar of Ottumwa, a member 
 of the committee, has been trying out a method of varying the procedure 
 for the different grades of the school and with success. The transcriber 
 of these lines learns from a citizen of Ottumwa that "Nothing in the 
 recent history of our city has aroused more genuine interest and enthusiasm 
 among the pupils and parents, than the building of these character books." 
 Children find new incentives for hunting through books for choice bits. 
 They rummage the periodicals for attractive illustrations. They draw 
 the members of the family into their projects. All the while they are 
 making the liveliest judgments of the moral worth of selections of litera- 
 ture and works of art. 
 
 This plan is based upon the law that whatever calls upon the creative 
 energies of the child and leads him to wholesome self-expression is a 
 valuable factor in his ethical development. For this work children are 
 best grouped into three divisions, the first group consisting of first and 
 second grades; the second group consisting of third, fourth and fifth; 
 and the third of sixth, seventh and eighth. 
 
 The teachers select a number of short, beautiful, suggestive, inspiring 
 quotations from current or classical literature, suited to the age and 
 mental development of the respective groups. These are discussed, mem- 
 orized, and illustrated by material drawn as far as possible from the 
 experience and observation of the children themselves. Each child is 
 provided with a note book to be decorated after his own taste, and entitled, 
 "Things Which Make Life Worth While," or some similarly suggestive 
 name. Children then begin a daily quest for good and pleasing pictures 
 to illustrate the sentiments and ideals which they have studied; and as 
 proper material is discovered it is brought in, and under the supervision 
 of the teacher — not too freely exercised — it may be incorporated in the 
 book, properly accompanied by its quotation. These pictures are selected 
 and used not primarily for their artistic value but for the appeal which 
 they make to the interest and intelligence of the child himself. Children 
 are surprisingly observant, apt and ingenious in selecting illustrative 
 material when their energy has been directed to such a quest. 
 
 The plan is varied in different grades to suit the pupils' stage of 
 development. In the first group, the book is compiled as a class effort, 
 children bringing their material at a given time, comparing and passing 
 
 17 
 
18 CHARACTER EDUCATION METHODS 
 
 as a class upon the suitability of the selections. By a natural process, 
 through the law of suggestion, the cooperation of eye, hand, memory, 
 and imagination stimulate the forming of ideals and the clarifying of 
 motives which govern conduct. In the older groups the work is left 
 more and more to the initiative of the pupils, the teacher confining her 
 efforts to assisting in the selection of the literary material which serves 
 as the basis for the work. She must study the moral codes of children 
 in different stages of development in order that she may find material 
 which will enlist their interest. 
 
 In the first group, such simple virtues as bodily cleanliness, love of 
 pets, animals and babies should be dealt with; in the next group, industry, 
 personal honor, truthfulness, loyalty to friends and country ; in the last 
 group, in addition to using pictorial illustrations, pupils keep a journal 
 galled by some such title as "My Treasury of Experience," in which 
 each writes from day to day incidents exemplifying active or positive 
 exercise of the will in virtuous conduct, such as self-control, kindness 
 to the weak and dependent, self-sacrifice, or cooperation in games or work; 
 these incidents to be drawn absolutely from his own experience and ob- 
 servation among school fellows, friends, or neighbors. All incidents of an 
 unwholesome and degraded nature are positively barred on the principle 
 that whatever things are good, pure, lovely, and of good report are the 
 things that must be thought on if strong character is to be builded. 
 
 B. THE SOCIALIZED RECITATION 
 
 1. Meaning and Value of the Socialised Recitation. — The recitation 
 has had an unhappy history. It has been a search for flaws and weak- 
 nesses, a sort of severe diagnosis of a possibly disordered intelligence, 
 even when not an act of mental vivisection. Fortunately the analytical 
 or diagnostic method is falling away all along the line. To think together, 
 to plan together, to enjoy together — that is the right parent-child and 
 teacher-pupil relation. The recitation is a time set apart for closer con- 
 tacts with one another and with some thought-project or problem. 
 
 In life, problems are not attacked usually by the isolated individual. 
 Indeed, it is very unlikely that an individual will long maintain an interest 
 in them without the sympathetic support and cooperation of others. The 
 problems will be better solved when a number of persons are interested 
 and like-minded with respect to what is to be done." Here is the first 
 great function of the socialized recitation. No individual student studying 
 in isolation will get the same conviction regarding a public moral question 
 as he will get when working in a group. In other words, a class of pupils 
 may be regarded as in training for that intelligent like-mindedness which 
 is essential for group action in public affairs. 
 
 It seems certain that some of the greatest moral lessons are learned 
 as a by-product of the regular activities in and about the school. In 
 other words, we can learn how to act in a social way not merely by the 
 direct study of what constitutes good conduct but also by the practice of 
 good conduct in all of the activities of the school. The school recitation 
 offers opportunities which are unusually rich in their possibilities for whole- 
 some moral training. 
 
 Many of these possibilities have been realized in the socialized recita- 
 tion. The essence of this method is that it be conducted in such a way 
 as to duplicate conditions under which people work in life outside the 
 school, and so train pupils in proper cooperation and in right attitudes 
 toward ea_ch_ other. There are several conditions which must be provided 
 if the socialized recitation is to make these contributions. First, the class 
 must work upon a problem which they feel to be socially worth while. 
 This may seem but one way of stating the fact that the pupils must 
 
THE INTEGRITY OF THE CHILD 
 
 19 
 
 take the problem as their own. It really involves more than this. The 
 pupil's motive for attacking the problem must arise from his recognition 
 of the importance of- the solution in life outside the school. Such a 
 problem is almost certain to have a moral setting. The second require- 
 ment is that the class, in solving this problem, work cooperatively much 
 after the manner of the committee of the whole. This involves a feeling 
 on the part of every pupil that not only he but every pupil in the class is 
 responsible for giving his best efforts to the attempt to secure a satis- 
 factory solution to the problem at hand. The third requirement is that 
 much of the initiative for the formulation of the problem and for suggest- 
 ing steps for its solution shall lie with the class and be accepted definitely 
 as their responsibility. 
 
 Particular attention is called to the first of these requirements, for 
 unless the problem seems vital in life outside the school and can be 
 appreciated to be so by the class, the foundation and proper initiative 
 for cooperative work is lacking. Recitations which do not involve an 
 attack upon a vital social problem are almost certain to degenerate into 
 mere artificial make-believe. 
 
 2. Examples of the Socialised Recitation. — There are many examples 
 of socialized recitations in the now extended literature of the subject. 
 Stenographic reports of good instances are found in C. L. Robbins' "The 
 Socialized Recitation." 
 
 A remarkably successful experiment in the socialized recitation is the 
 work of Miss Ethel R. Golden. An essential aspect of the plan is that 
 the classes each organized for their work so that they became not only 
 democracies but republics with their proper officers. They and the teacher 
 laid out the work and after that the pupils assumed the "weight of 
 responsibility for carrying the plan to completion. The teacher became 
 a friendly adviser rather than a taskmaster. Several teachers under her 
 supervision adopted the method and also with success. 
 
 There is never one of the boys and girls who have come from those 
 classes but speaks of the work with a smile of enthusiasm. Three of 
 them were asked to write confidentially their impressions of it and their 
 replies are given below. There is little doubt that it is the socialization 
 of Miss G.'s recitations that has been an important factor in turning 
 indifferent boys and girls into wide-awake, morally responsible young 
 men and women. 
 
 Miss Golden has been asked to describe briefly her methods in ''The 
 Golden Circle," a title concocted by one of the groups : 
 
 "Twenty pupils entering the ninth year were selected to do four 
 semesters' work in three semesters. No really poor students were in- 
 cluded but more than half had been rated only ordinary by their former 
 teachers. The pupils were not informed of the proposed increase in speed 
 until they noticed that they were far ahead of the other sections. 
 
 "The instructor believed that no one has a right to restrict the activities 
 of children unnecessarily or arbitrarily, and that the English teacher 
 herself receives the best part of the training in the usual recitation work. 
 Therefore the restrictions of the school were gradually removed. One 
 privilege at a time was conceded, or right granted, but nothing was 
 said about the ultimate intention of putting the responsibility upon the 
 pupils. It was perhaps three months before they were fully in charge. First 
 they were allowed to sit where they wished each day, then to move about 
 or talk provided they were courteous and did not interfere with the ac- 
 complishment of the work. Later the idea of organization was broached, 
 and received by the pupils enthusiastically. The officers were a chairman, 
 secretary, substitute, and two critics. The instructor became a Director 
 and her duties were defined by the constitution. This important docu- 
 
20 CHARACTER EDUCATION METHODS 
 
 ment, framed by a committee in conference with the Director, gave to 
 the members of the group all the freedom that would be given by the 
 ideas of courtesy and consideration for the work to be done. The 
 chairman appointed a program committee who met with the Director and 
 divided the lesson assignments into topics or sections which were presented 
 by the pupils standing before the class. These programs were duplicated 
 and distributed in advance, three or four programs on a sheet. A desk was 
 placed in the front of the room at which the chairman and secretary 
 sat. At the stroke of the last bell the meeting was called to order without 
 reference to the presence of the Director. The minutes of the previous 
 meeting were read and necessary business transacted before the program. 
 In the report of their critics much emphasis was placed on constructive 
 criticism rather than mere fault finding. After this the Director was 
 asked to take charge and this gave her an opportunity to round up the 
 work. 
 
 "The chairman was expected to control the sessions in proper form and 
 the critics were severe in their condemnation of any inefficiency, or 
 lapse from courtesy, or interference with the work. Officers were elected 
 every two weeks by ballot which gave all a chance for practice in par- 
 liamentary procedure. 
 
 "They exacted of their speakers correct position, and a presentation 
 of the topic which was complete and as interesting as possible. If the 
 pupil was assigned a section in the composition text he was expected 
 to invent a new way to call out from the class the important points. They 
 were very ingenious in this, and skilful in working out questions which 
 would 'require a real recitation from the one called on, a most excellent 
 training ift methods of study. The class responded as carefully and 
 courteously to the questions of their mates as to those of the Director. 
 Speeches, debates, impromptu dialogues, and discussions of current events 
 were part of the daily work. Dramatization was used whenever it was 
 possible in the literature, one group reading the parts while another 
 directed their movements. In case of any uncertainty as to procedure 
 they appealed to the Director who would discuss the point with them and 
 let them work it out themselves if possible. 
 
 "Standards for rating their work were placed on the bulletin board. 
 At the end of the six weeks period they handed in their estimates. If 
 this did not agree with that of the Director a conference was held 
 and an agreement reached before the grade was sent to the office. They 
 were very successful in their self-measurement except in the oral English 
 where their natural embarrassment sometimes made them underrate their 
 efforts. 
 
 "Pupils_ said they looked forward all day to that period and the 
 teacher enjoyed it as much as they. The attendance was very regular, 
 and the amount and quality of work done was a revelation to pupils, 
 teacher and parents. The pure joy of living and working together 
 carried both teacher and pupils on with the minimum of effort to the 
 maximum of result. 
 
 "The same form of organization was later introduced in many other 
 classes and under other teachers with great success. The feature that 
 was most gratifying was the marked improvement in the poorest pupils, 
 those on whom prodding had no effect. They were soon happily at work 
 and eager to do their share in the work of the group." 
 
 OPINIONS OF PUPILS 
 
 The following letters were confidential responses to a request from 
 the Chairman of collaborators asking for their judgment of "The Golden 
 Circle." They are condensed by omitting duplications. 
 
THE INTEGRITY OF THE CHILD 21 
 
 LETTER FROM M. E. C. 
 
 "Miss G. conducted her class on the honor system. The boys and 
 girls were entirely on their own responsibility as far as order was 
 concerned. We thought it was only because we loved Miss G. that we 
 had so much respect for her in the class room. But I believe now it 
 was not only our love for her but the fact that we were on our honor. 
 We were unaccustomed to it and it pleased us to be trusted. 
 
 "All recitations were given to the class and not to Miss G. It might 
 have been easier to face the teacher when we recited but it was one of 
 the points she stressed, that we should talk to the class, and it helped 
 us to overcome self-consciousness. I should never have been able to 
 speak in the class room if I had not had that training as I was very self- 
 conscious at that time in my life. We always thought it funny when 
 Miss G. would be displeased at our turning to her in our reports or 
 speeches. But now I realize that she wished to create a class feeling 
 and this she evidently did, for we felt glad to speak when we thought 
 we were giving to the class. In this way we became personally interested 
 in each other and a feeling of fellowship was created. 
 
 ''I looked forward to this class from the moment that school started 
 in the morning. The subject I enjoyed most was the study of Macbeth. 
 Scenes from this were acted in the class room. We gave the witch 
 scene, the banquet scene, the temptation and downfall of Macbeth and 
 the sleep-walking scene. We were never so delighted as when Miss G. 
 darkened the room for our banquet scene. We had a real ghost who 
 appeared from behind a screen, murderers who came from behind another, 
 a long table (imaginary of course) with guests in rows along each side. 
 We all loved to be in those scenes and I think we did them quite well. 
 
 "Miss G.'s room was always so pleasant and bright. She had plants 
 just filling the windows and there was a vine beginning to trail itself 
 over the blackboard at the back of the room. At the front there were 
 inspiring posters (this was in war time) and two crossed flags. 
 
 "Another thing that made me love the class was the discussion of 
 current events. I had always dreaded these because they seemed dry. 
 But Miss G. made them very interesting because she was so interested 
 herself. 
 
 "I enjoyed Miss G.'s class more than any other because I got more 
 out of it mentally, morally and spiritually, but whether I worked or 
 not I can not say. I contributed more to that class than to any other, 
 but I didn't consider it work. 
 
 "My respect for the order and discipline of the group — well, I never 
 considered respecting it because it never occurred to me to disrespect it. 
 The class was always so well planned and so interesting that we never 
 thought of being disrespectful. When a newcomer to the class had to be 
 spoken to by Miss G. it shocked me so it haunted me for days and I 
 dislike to remember it. 
 
 "I felt the same about doing my part. I never considered not doing 
 it, although it was hard at first because I was naturally self-conscious. 
 
 "Until just now I never thought of the Golden Circle as a "class." 
 The "classes" I have known have been so stilted, most of them; they have 
 meant hard work and relief when they were over for the day. But Miss 
 G.'s class was so formally informal, so refreshing and interesting. "Class- 
 mates" in my other classes merely meant people whom I should speak to 
 when I met them. There was no common interest. But Miss G.'s pupils 
 were brothers and sisters, we had strong common interests, so strong 
 that after our class relationship had been taken away we formed a 
 social relationship through a club." 
 
22 CHARACTER EDUCATION METHODS 
 
 EXTRACTS FROM LETTER FROM F. F. H. 
 
 "You hint in your letter of the point of bringing out the best there 
 is in young folks. This seems to me precisely what the result is, after 
 you sum up all the different works of Miss G. She always brought 
 out the best there was in us. 
 
 "One thing that may appear a very small thing will always stay by 
 me. She surrounded us with an atmosphere of interest and pleasure. 
 One never failed to find it much easier to be interested in his studies in a 
 room filled with flowers and ferns that spoke clearer than words of how 
 she wanted us to be happy with her, rather than in a work-a-day, inevitable 
 school room. Her room never gave the school room idea ; it was primarily 
 a pleasant place for us to come together and have an hour of pleasant, 
 instructive recreation. We enjoyed that class more than any other. The 
 discipline of the class was as nearly perfect as I can imagine in a high 
 school class. 
 
 "One other part of the work we enjoyed with Miss G. was entirely 
 unique in my experience in school. She was the one teacher that made it 
 a part of her definite aims that we have fun in her classes. She made up 
 games for us for variety in learning our lessons and the serious side 
 of our work was never emphasized too much. I think that is one big 
 part of her charm for us." 
 
 EXTRACTS FROM LETTER FROM K. B., A MEMBER OF A SENIOR CLASS CONDUCTED 
 
 IN THE SAME WAY 
 
 "I wish to say that during my whole high school career there was not 
 any class from which I derived so much benefit and received so much 
 pleasure as Miss G.'s English. 
 
 "In all my other classes there didn't seem to be the same spirit put 
 into the work. Some of the poorest students in the others were Miss G.'s 
 best. There was a spirit of cooperation, something unheard of in the 
 other classes. Each fellow did his part and depended on the others to 
 do theirs. It taught a wholesome respect for your superiors, even though 
 they be your classmates, a thing that must be learned sooner or later 
 and a class is an ideal place for it. 
 
 "The respect for order and discipline was wonderful. Miss G. could 
 leave the room and be satisfied that things were running as smoothly 
 as though she were there. Many a time I have seen the chairman call 
 the class to order at nine o'clock without Miss G. being there and the 
 students obeyed to the last man." 
 
 3. Socialised examinations. — The writer has been trying out the plan 
 for more than four years of having students grade themselves. These 
 grades are turned in unless there is some lack of agreement between 
 the teacher's judgment of the quality of the student's work and his ranking 
 of himself. Such differences of opinion seldom arise. In order to show 
 the pupil up to himself and to the group a good many tests are given, 
 sometimes as a surprise. Often the examinations are a running fire of 
 forty specific points to be answered in half as many minutes. The pupils 
 grade their own papers, or, by exchanging, grade one another's, and the 
 grades are read. No one regards the matter as more than a game, for the 
 serious concern is with the thoughtful, constructive work of the group. 
 
 There is a close correspondence always between the pupil's self-rating 
 and the teacher's judgment of him. The correlation runs as high as .94. 
 A colleague of the writer has found an equally close correlation in his 
 classes. 
 
 The method helps to place the responsibility for good work where 
 it belongs, and changes the attitude of the pupil towards himself, his 
 subject of study, and the teacher. 
 
THE INTEGRITY OF THE CHILD 23 
 
 C. THE PROJECT-PROBLEM . METHOD 
 
 1. Illustrations of the project-problem method. — One of the foundation 
 principles of the course in moral education is the provision for carrying 
 moral ideas into action. Any device which will tie up the instruction 
 in the school with practical situations in life is a means which may be 
 used to accomplish this purpose. In the field of home economics, agri- 
 culture, and manual training this has been accomplished under a technique 
 known as the "project" or the "project method." As the term has been 
 used in these fields such a method involves attacking the practical problem 
 taken in its natural setting, and also the use of concrete materials, 
 particularly in a constructive way. Examples of such projects are: 
 baking a cake, making a chair, constructing a miniature reinforced con- 
 crete bridge, raising a prize calf. In all of these projects the pupil 
 faces essentially the same situations, encounters the same type of difficulties, 
 and succeeds or fails for the same reasons that are found in life outside 
 the school. In all cases the measure of the teaching involved is per- 
 formance. Such activities essentially make for interest and insure a 
 more rigorous training on the part of students. 
 
 It is clear that this type of instruction provides an unusually direct 
 training in conduct. It is, happily, receiving sympathetic consideration 
 by educators. A simple example in the primary grades is the following : 
 A group of primary children, having noticed that lawns in the vicinity 
 of a school were being spoiled by students who were cutting across lots, 
 decided to take for their responsibility the job of protecting these lawns. 
 Their work consisted not in the discussion of what might be done, but 
 in the making of plans which were to be executed by them. They made 
 sign boards, upon which they printed such signs as "Please, Help Save 
 the Grass," "Don't Spoil the Lawn." If such a training could be given 
 for meeting all moral situations the problem of moral education would 
 be essentially solved. 
 
 2. Some principles determining the selection of projects. — The project 
 in education, while in tune with old and well established usages, is so 
 new as a pedagogical device that it needs to discipline its procedure 
 by the recognition of certain guiding principles. 
 
 a. Every project should involve one or more problems that appeal to 
 the child's interests and challenge his ingenuity. 
 
 b. The problem should at least seem to be of the child's own devising 
 and the solution his own discovery. Without doubt the pupil progresses 
 most rapidly_ and works most persistently when attempting to accomplish 
 purposes which are accepted as his own. 
 
 c. The project should unify all the pupil's powers around some mean- 
 ingful activity. A right project or problem is one that seems to him 
 significant — the building of a sled, the successful rearing of a pet, helping 
 purchase a victrola. In its prosecution the fulness of play and the 
 discipline of_ work are fully blended. Fresh powers are summoned. The 
 personality is organized around a purposeful end. Such integration of 
 the selfhood in the direction of worth-while achievement is the heart 
 of "moral integrity." 
 
 d. Though not necessarily so, most projects should involve a community 
 of eflFort. The spirit of the group vitalizes the interests of each one. 
 The truest fellowships spring up among those devoted to common causes 
 The surest mark of the good person is his ability to enter sympathetically 
 into the activities of a group and to accept his share in common enter- 
 prises. Habits of social responsiveness are the best training in moral 
 responsibility. 
 
 e. The best projects are usually those that prepare for those pursuits 
 that are socially desirable. The teacher must accept with great caution 
 
24 CHARACTER EDUCATION METHODS 
 
 the notion that education should be organized around childrens' interests 
 and purposes. To cater overmuch to their more or less whimsical desires 
 is to make spoiled children, and may produce social misfits. The teacher 
 at her best is the mediator between the child's interests and society's ideals. 
 She combines the functions of artist, creator and social leader. She is 
 to induce and strengthen the wholesome interests and right purposes 
 of the pupil and identify with the commonly accepted standards and 
 ideals of the best persons outside the school. 
 
 /. Many projects are valuable for orientation and thus for vitalizing 
 the flatness and f actuality of ordinary humdrum existence. In reproducing 
 the customs and habits of the North American Indians, for example, 
 pupils get outside their own round of life, sympathize with the ways of 
 another tribe, reproduce in fact and fancy its problems and come back 
 into their own tribe much enriched, with fresh power to estimate and 
 appreciate its ways and to see them in perspective. 
 
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 Self-realization 
 
 Moral thoughtfulness 
 Self-discovery 
 
 Mental poise and 'stability 
 Organization of a new self-hood 
 
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 THINKING IN TERMS OF OBJECTS 
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 IX X XI 
 
 THINKING IN TERMS OF IDEAS 
 
 I) 3 
 
 Spontaneous play impulse 
 
 Dramatic impulse 
 
 Finer sentiments 
 Individualization 
 
 Nature admirations 
 
 Socialization 
 
 Apprenticeship In citizenship 
 
 Individualization Gang Spirit 
 
 Interest in detail Hero-worship 
 
 Suggestibility Passion to count as a person Self-realization 
 
 Competitive socialization Moral thoughtfulness 
 
 Unmoral Self-centred Adventure Restless striving Self-discovery 
 
 Pubescence Mental poise and stability 
 
 Symbolism "Moral interregnum" Organization of a new self-hood 
 
 /' Storty telling 
 
 Dramatization 
 
 Cutting 
 
 Modeling 
 
 s 
 
 Projects 
 Plays and games 
 
 Make-believe — fairies and fables 
 
 Free expression 
 
 Myth and legend 
 
 Memorizing 
 
 Projects 
 
 Heroes Rationalized conduct 
 
 "Case methods" 
 
 "Noble deeds" Adventure 
 
 Stories of great men 
 
 Moral thoughtfulness 
 
 Elementary Ethics 
 Vocation and group Ethics 
 
 "Cubs" Scouting 
 
 Cooperative play and work 
 
 Socialization Idealization 
 
 Fiction Call to life and action 
 
 Chart I. Showing the Nascencies of Development and the Centres of Ethical Emphasis 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 FITTING THE METHODS AND MATERIALS TO THE CHILD'S 
 DEVELOPMENT 
 
 The proper selection of character training materials and how to use 
 them depends somewhat upon the tastes and needs of children as deter- 
 mined by the period or stage of development through which they are 
 passing. What are the fundamental needs of child nature at the different 
 epochs, to which the curriculum must temper itself? In other words, 
 what are the latent moral demands of each period of growth? That is 
 the topic to which we must briefly address ourselves. 
 
 The accompanying diagram is meant to indicate how in the complex 
 stream of consciousness various interests and enthusiasms rise and fall 
 within it. The relatively unified stream runs from left to right through 
 the middle of the chart. The time reference is represented by both ages 
 and school grade. The powers and functions that are liveliest at any one 
 time in the child's development are indicated in two ways : In the first 
 place, a phrase describing any particular nascency is placed under the 
 scale of years as nearly as possible at its proper time ; secondly, as an 
 added suggestion of the relation of nascencies to years, the rise of a 
 few of them is represented by swelling curves that play through the 
 scale of ages. Those selected for the curves are not necessarily the 
 most important ones. They are chosen because they fit fairly well into 
 the divisions of the school grades. Two or three of the dotted lines 
 indicate how certain of these nascencies correspond not at all to the 
 conventional divisions of school life. At the bottom of the chart are 
 placed words for the ways in which the happenings in human nature 
 directly influence the methods and materials that are properly employed in 
 character training. 
 
 At the top are a few phrases and words indicating the ways in which 
 the under currents have formed successive norms or centers or nuclei 
 of ethical emphasis. We may briefly summarize in words the purport 
 of the chart, confining ourselves, however artificially, to the usual divisions 
 of the school. 
 
 Kindergarten period, age three to six, inclusive. — Three mental traits 
 are in the ascendency at this time, and rather more lively in their function- 
 ing than they have been or will be again. They are (a) the free play 
 of fancy, (b) spontaneous play impulse, (c) the dramatic impulse backed 
 up by the instinct of imitation. The history of the kindergarten is a 
 record of the building of a school so nearly in accordance with the laws 
 of child life that it stands out as the brightest spot in educational practice. 
 The kindergarten, freed from "gifts," perhaps does more moral work than 
 does the teaching of any successive set of years. The educational leaders 
 and prophets of this period have found in the powers developing at this 
 stage, a door of entrance into the innermost parts of the child's conscious- 
 ness. The purpose is not to entertain the little ones. On the contrary 
 each day's activities may be used in making a definite moral appeal through 
 the play of the finer sentiments. This is the time above all others for 
 vitalizing the feelings of trust, confidence, kindliness and cooperation 
 that are so essential to the moral life. There is no period more fruitful 
 for the awakening pi a fine appreciation of the powers that lie behind 
 things and of meanings that transcend the mental grasp. 
 
 Ethical stress at this time may well be upon such central themes as 
 ways of helpfulness, love and kindness, cooperation, and nature's care for 
 her children. In this time of fairyland and fancy the babe is reaching 
 
 25 
 
26 
 
 CHARACTER EDUCATION METHODS 
 
 out into the lives of animals, dolls, and folks. Selfishness is giving place 
 to kindness. To enter sympathetically into the lives of others, is not this 
 the secret of the moral life? 
 
 The primary and intermediate periods, six to eleven, inclusive. — There 
 are so many characteristics of the mentality of children common to the 
 next two periods that it is well to discuss them together. It is v^rorth 
 noticing in passing that the varied studies so far made are in agreement 
 that the year six belongs still to the baby consciousness. It is usually 
 treated as a kindergarten year in the practice of the schools. 
 
 During the stretch of years from seven to eleven there are three 
 mental functions that are distinctly not developing. The imagination 
 is not so delicate. The mind acquires a somewhat tougher fibre. Prac- 
 tical interests immediately begin to crowd out the fanciful ones. The 
 mind is a little less permeable to direct moral appeals. 
 
 Secondly, there is little improvement in the power to reason in 
 abstract terms. A score of studies prove this. To expect children to 
 reason out why they should behave in a certain way is usually a waste 
 of energy. Their moral assents to the precepts that are diligently 
 ground into them are apt to be attended with very little depth of conviction. 
 
 Thirdly, there is little improvement in the sense of moral responsibility. 
 The turning point for this awakening, like that of the ability to reason in 
 abstract terms, is on the average at twelve or fourteen with a rapid 
 increment thereafter. The lightness with which a child at this stage 
 carries the burden of a sense of duty is no matter for concern or anxiety. 
 If only those methods are employed which are in tune with the things 
 that are happening, there will be, on the whole, as much progress not in 
 the keenness of the moral sense but in the foundations of morality as at 
 any other period. The distinction should be borne in mind at this period 
 between cheerful non-moralities and obliquities. 
 
 The case is entirely hopeful if we turn to inquire after the things 
 that are coming out into their full fruition during the period from seven 
 to eleven. Two things among others are coming out into full activity. 
 
 a. Thinking_ in terms of objects. — Children are interested in the world 
 of concrete things and like to observe, collect, manipulate, and discourse 
 about them. _ All the senses are hungry. The motor life is bouyant and 
 seeking all kinds of outlets for full expression. 
 
 b. Memory for detail. — Pupils at this age are more efficient in the re- 
 tention and recall of unassociated detail than at any later period. 
 
 The above two considerations taken together point the way to the 
 right methods and materials of instruction. It is the time to furnish 
 the mind richly with choice bits of history and all those concrete facts 
 that are to be food for later reflection. It is the time for becoming 
 familiar with choice selections for memorizing, for knowing at first hand 
 the world's artists and their schools, for storing away the details of 
 history and geography. The moral training at this time may be as suc- 
 cessful as that in the kindergarten if teachers will seize upon this passion 
 for detail and use works of art and the facts of the various school sub- 
 jects as doors of entrance into a rich understanding. The secret of 
 right moral training is to utilize those occupations and projects that are 
 in their very nature saturated with moral significance. 
 
 The period nine to eleven considered separately. — The first distinguish- 
 ing mark of this period as against the last is thoughtfulness in "terms 
 of objects as against satisfaction from sensory contacts. In addition, the 
 vigorous_ upmsh of the gang spirit and other traits show the dawning 
 of a social impulse. 
 
 Both these periods are extremely individualistic. The latter half, 
 along with the beginnings of the group instinct, is marked by what Kirk- 
 
THE child's development 27 
 
 Patrick has designated "competitive socialization." It is the time above 
 all others for the beginning of team work in games, of group activity 
 like the Scout club, interests and enthusiasms which lead rapidly towards 
 conscience. 
 
 This is a time above all others for the use of biography as a means 
 of moral appeal. The gang spirit together with an instinctive admiration 
 of the leader, particularly if he be of the red-blooded type, is the back- 
 ground of a genuine hero-worshiping stage. The child's interest in 
 personalities sometimes amounts to reverence and may be used by the 
 teacher, if she so inclines, to awaken in him a lively enthusiasm amountmg 
 to ambition and even idealism. 
 
 The high school period considered as a whole, twelve to eighteen. — 
 There is usually a sharp transition at twelve or soon after in the ability 
 to think in terms of ideas. The power to think logically and with insight 
 develops rapidly. Miss Kate Gordon shows in her Educational Psychology 
 that high school pupils are able on the average to solve logical problems 
 and syllogisms with an efficiency about equal to that of adults. There 
 are many studies leading toward the same conclusion. This power should 
 be utilized in tempting high school students to throw the weight of their 
 entire mentality, on occasion, into moral thoughtfulness. Just as there 
 is a habit among teachers to try more or less in vain during the primary 
 and grammar grades to analyze the reasons for right conduct, there is 
 the complementary mistake of a prevalent timidity on the part of high^ 
 school teachers in inducting young men and women into thoughtful in-"' 
 sight and vigorous expression of their judgments of men and movements. 
 The giggling, jostling stage play that so often characterizes young men 
 and women and which is only a thin curtain of disguise thrown around the 
 deeper lying selfhood that is forming during this period has been too much 
 pampered by educators. The pupils themselves in their giddiest moments 
 are hungry for more serious occupation and respect those who in turn 
 treat their deeper selves with respect. 
 
 A second mark of the adolescent period is the birth of a new sense, 
 of a new selfhood. There is a profound uprush of instinctive life that 
 sweeps the youth rapidly on beyond childhood ways into a new world of 
 meanings. These sometimes burst with the suddenness of a new awaken- 
 ing. The high school curriculum should be rich in direct though artistic 
 appeals to the new selfhood to come forth and experience its full birth. 
 What youth can escape the life-giving quality in Emerson's Self Reliance, 
 Carlyle's Sartor Resartus or the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, or can 
 withstand the challenge of the life of a Roosevelt, a Newton, an Elizabeth 
 Fry, and other heroes and heroines of peace and war? The period should 
 not be passed by without the result that most young men and women 
 should be called out into a high resolve to live and achieve. 
 
 A third characteristic of the high school period as a whole is the 
 awakening of the social impulses. If all goes well, the individualism 
 and the social indifference of the earlier years are broken down. They 
 give place to a lively appreciation of other persons. The youth now 
 enters freely into the life of others and finds pleasure in companionship. 
 The way is open for entrance into the social inheritances of the race 
 and the problems of the present time. High schools are already imbued 
 with a congenial atmosphere of sociability. They should proceed to 
 capitalize the stock of social impulses and focalize them into a world citizen- 
 ship. Is it not an indication of a weakness of heart in this respect that 
 sociology rarely appears in the high school course of study? Should 
 not every young man and woman before graduating from the "Peoples 
 College" gain a thoughtful understanding of the laws of society? 
 
 The junior high school, twelve to fourteen, inclusive. — The early half 
 
28 CHARACTER EDUCATION METHODS 
 
 of the high school period is marked by the impulsive awakening of the new 
 personality. , It is full of uncertainty and instability but of blind striving. 
 There are to the impatient parent and teacher symptoms at this time 
 of moral ill health marked by fitfulness and explosiveness. This stage has 
 been called by Hall the "moral interregnum." One suspects that the moral 
 difficulties are due in part to pedagogical unwisdom. The right regimen 
 would seem to be : 
 
 a. More projects calling out active self-expression rather than passive 
 attitudes of receptivity in class instruction. 
 
 b. More sympathy and confidence on the part of elders for the vacil- 
 lating and unsteady mental feet of the new selfhood. They may well 
 be as tender in this respect as toward the uncertain steps of a toddling 
 child. 
 
 c. More chances for buoyant self-expression through the biography 
 of heroes and the tales of adventures. 
 
 d. More frankness of recognition that young men and young women 
 are not still the children that they once were. Respect the new selfhood 
 and it will rise in dignity to meet the expectation. 
 
 e. More calling out of the latent powers that are beginning to function 
 and helping focalize them upon what seem to be big enterprises, be it in 
 athletics or missionary enthusiasm, so that the Dr. Jekylls and Mr. Hydes 
 and all the other selfhood struggling underneath shall come forth and 
 fuse their interests in dominant purposes. Cast out the evil with the 
 good. Keep the youth busy and interested. The junior high school, as 
 a whole, may well become a sort of overgrown Scout camp. 
 
 The senior high school, fifteen to seventeen, inclusive. — This is the 
 period of the realization of the prophecies of the junior high school. 
 A half dozen or more studies of this period have shown there is, under 
 normal conditions, an awakening of a higher sense of self and that there 
 is an instinctive wish to attach the inner personality to other persons, 
 groups and causes. The years sixteen and seventeen on the average 
 are those of most frequent awakenings. The school might well try to 
 make of these years a time of self -discovery through the vocation, through 
 music, through athletics, through science, through the arts and through 
 idealisms close akin to religion, if they are not really religion. 
 
 After the period of awakening and choosing there should remain a 
 year of apprenticeship in citizenship before graduation. 
 
 For a further discussion of periods of growth which underlie possible 
 improvements in character training, the reader is referred to the various 
 excellent books now available on this question. Among these may be 
 named Kirpatrick, The Individual in the Making, Weigle, Pupil and 
 Teacher, Athearn, The Church School, Forbush, Guidebook to Childhood, 
 and Hall, Adolescence. 
 
 It w^ill be necessary only to call attention to the centers of ethical 
 emphasis that are catalogued along the top of the chart accompanying 
 this chapter. They should stand out high in the thought of the teacher 
 above the work of the various years as objects to be realized and also 
 as points of vantage from which to direct the details of the school. 
 
 We shall not enter upon the doubtful question of the advisability of 
 a high school course in ethics. That will depend upon the definite build- 
 ing up through the work of the school of a body of disciplined insight 
 that will make such a course profitable and upon the good fortune of a 
 high school faculty if it should have an artist teacher who could make 
 ethical problems and situations live in the hearts of the students. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 A MORAL CURRICULUM WITH A PROGRESSIVE PLAN, A DRIVE, 
 
 AND A GOAL 
 
 The prevailing state of mind with respect to character education has 
 been too much that of moving by no especial plan towards nowhere in 
 particular. In the early days of this inquiry, the writer sent out an in- 
 quiry to hundreds of school people in the state of Iowa, to every county, 
 city and town — containing eleven questions. The first three were the 
 following : 
 
 1. Have you a moral end or objective in training your children as 
 definite as your intellectual objective which you seek to realize? 
 
 2. What is that objective? 
 
 3. What means do you employ to realize it? The answers came in 
 quite generously. Only one city and one county in the state confessed 
 to having a real plan and they were described as indefinite and unorganized. 
 The composite picture of the character training situation is not unfairly 
 presented by the statement of one superintendent who said: 
 
 "The joke is on me. Although I have said often that the whole 
 aim of education is a moral aim, I have never stopped to tell myself 
 what that aim is nor how to reach it." 
 
 In the preceding chapters we have described the end or ends of character 
 training and have shown some of the roads that clearly lead in that 
 direction. In this chapter we propose to inquire how the regular curriculum 
 of the school may, if it so chooses, be a powerful agency in character 
 development. 
 
 In turning our attention to the curriculum and the various school 
 activities that have grown up around it, there are several basic considera- 
 tions that should be borne in mind. 
 
 1. The moral program here presented is not superadded to the regular 
 curriculum. — The plan proposed in this chapter is in no sense a burden 
 to be superimposed upon an already heavy course of study. It leaves 
 the school activities intact. It means only to enrich them by giving such 
 temper and content as will bend them in the direction of character training. 
 The writer- has found by two extended investigations, one under the 
 auspices of the Religious Education Association and the other undertaken 
 privately, that teachers are eager to do something in the way of character 
 training but seem helpless to know how to accomplish it. Occasionally 
 a response came like a cry for help. The usual supposition is that one 
 must turn aside from the curriculum and school activities and find some 
 other way for character training — must save an interval of time in the 
 too busy day to wedge in an added duty. Could such a means and such 
 freedom be found it would in all likelihood defeat its own. purposes. 
 Morality is not a preachment plus an emotional response but a way of 
 acting a self-realization, of entering into the life of others, of moving 
 towards better adjustments. Instead of talking about moral qualities 
 it is the business^ of the teacher to see that the spirit of morality dom- 
 inates the entire life of the school. 
 
 2. The school studies as they stand have moral content. — The school 
 subjects in the old-fashioned way of chopping off units of intellectual and 
 informational food are certainly at variance with the character education 
 program. Fortunately the once hard boundaries of subjects have been 
 almost completely broken down at present by correlations, project methods, 
 
 29 
 
30 CHARACTER EDUCATION METHODS 
 
 and socialized recitations. They are no longer recognized as real units at 
 all but only as centers or norms of interest in focusing some of the 
 essential facts of experience and in bringing about certain life adjustments. 
 The question of the educational value of the different subjects will 
 not be discussed in this report. We are concerned here with a far more 
 fundamental consideration. If the teacher is occupied consciously and 
 definitely with the direction of the whole tenor of her school towards 
 true moral objectives, everything she teaches will both consciously and 
 unconsciously help in reaching the true goal. 
 
 3. An illustration from the fourth grade curriculum. — The rich char- 
 acter content of all the usual school subjects is symbolized in the accom- 
 panying chart. On the left are catalogued the subjects of the average 
 course of study for the fourth grade. It is a composite of the Baltimore, 
 the Speyer school and other standard curricula. On the right of the page 
 are the objectives we have set out as ends of character training. 
 
 If one should ask what school subjects rightly handled by a wide 
 awake teacher could contribute to any single phase of life preparation as, 
 for example, the vocation, it is clear that lines run from essentially all 
 of them towards that point. Literature can hardly avoid the thrift 
 writings of Franklin; geography has a deal of its solid framework in 
 the story of products and occupations and their influence on national life. 
 Physiology and hygiene are vitalized by picturing the effect of physical 
 wholeness upon success and so on through the entire list. 
 
 On the other hand, to the inquiry what moral ends are contributed to 
 by a single school subject like geography, the answer is, there is hardly 
 one of vthem that is not directly served by that subject. This is indicated 
 by the spread of lines from the left to the right on the chart. Further 
 detailed description is needless. It is clear that each school subject is 
 fruitful for essentially every moral objective and vice versa. Our program 
 is to vitalize the already existing curricula and give easy access to sup- 
 plementary materials that can be drawn upon as desired. 
 
 A similar story would be told were one to draw a chart of the rela- 
 tionship of extra-curricular activities and character ends. That can be 
 done in imagination by the reader. It is evident that a course in char- 
 acter education chiefly gives moral point, purpose, meaning and content 
 to the existing educational agencies. 
 
 4. The moral curriculum must busy itself with problems, projects, and 
 actual situations rather than with "virtues." — The virtues will take care 
 of themselves if children learn to live well together, meeting situations 
 as they arise in the midst of vitalizing occupations. It will have to be 
 acknowledged that definite conscious attempts at nurturing the virtues 
 become more or less artificial and have not met with hearty acceptance 
 in the schools. The normal impulses must be planted in the muscles of 
 children rather than pass smoothly across the lips. When mouthed, the . 
 virtues become trite; when constantly reiterated they lose their freshness; 
 when rubbed into the surface of consciousness they cause irritation. 
 
 The names of the virtues should finally of course symbolize the most 
 familiar and vital points in the child's experience. They are the very 
 essence of the packed wisdom of the race, the very essence of conscious- 
 ness. But the child's moral muscles, like those of his body, are made for 
 use rather than for analysis. The program herein outlined keeps the 
 child's interests and attention on the outward meaningful situations, not 
 inwardly upon himself. 
 
 5. A bird's-eye view of project-problem m-ethods for character train- 
 ing. — For the sake of clearness and brevity, suggestions of projects and 
 problems to enrich the school curriculum are presented in the accompanying 
 chart. It is not meant to be complete. From the extended literature on 
 
o 
 o 
 
 X 
 u 
 in 
 
i».. 
 
GRADE HI1I£ 
 
 GRADE TEB 
 
 GRADE ELEVEB 
 
 GRADE TWELVE ^ 
 
 Entertainment of 
 visiting tecim 
 
 Ooqpaxa 
 Ideal Aotual 
 plan use oi 
 fox a time 
 day In dajr 
 Coamlttee report oi 
 •Self Culture 
 
 Through the Vaoa* 
 
 tlon." Griggs 
 
 Beroea of eolenoe 
 Pasteur, and othert 
 
 Atbletlos 
 
 Committee report 
 on eoae martyrs 
 and heroes of 
 solenoe 
 
 Athletics 
 
 "Self Reliance" 
 Emerson, Carlyle 
 and others 
 Overcoming obsta- 
 cles - a group 
 of examples 
 Roosevelt etc. 
 
 Athletics 
 "What Men Live By" 
 Cabot. Work, play 
 love, worship 
 Dse of Iielsuze 
 Soott and other 
 classics on saae 
 theme 
 
 Scout emd Campflre 
 Act out the 
 courtesies of a 
 Roman and a Hebrew 
 home 
 
 Rewrite several of 
 
 Aesop's fables to 
 
 fit present social 
 
 conditions 
 
 Forms of salutation 
 
 in all countries 
 
 Dramatize "The 
 Melting Pot" 
 Junior-Senior 
 banquet as model 
 of social forms 
 
 "The Culti- 
 vated Man" Eliot 
 Class study 
 Friendship, Emer- 
 son, Tennyson 
 and others 
 
 Impersonate classes 
 in American life 
 When duties clash 
 what? "loyalty to 
 Loyalty" Royoe 
 
 Select a delegate 
 or officer by the 
 election methods 
 of 1789 
 
 Project a plan of 
 student government 
 
 Dramatiie "The Man 
 Without a Counrty" 
 Make a bibliography 
 and card catalogue 
 of the civics 
 library 
 
 Drskmatize a session 
 of Lincoln's cab- 
 inet 
 
 The vow of citizen- 
 ship 
 
 Catalogue the 
 organizations in 
 your neighbor- 
 hood. "Amer- 
 icanization" 
 Ruassll and Wadw 
 "The Soul of 
 Democracy" Griggs 
 .Distinguish be- 
 tween a democracy 
 and a republic 
 
 Draft a oonstlttttiont 
 
 fox the family of 
 
 nations 
 
 "American Ideals yet; 
 
 to be Attained" 
 
 Cabot 
 
 Who malces our 
 currency? 
 How many miles of 
 turnpike will one 
 dreadnaught build 
 Individual inven- 
 tion (a) camp 
 utensil (b) auto 
 or agricultural 
 applianos 
 
 Credit buying - how 
 much Interest does 
 the debtor pay 
 Get a merchant to 
 help class estimate 
 "overhead" in a 
 store. Specific 
 studies on value 
 of system in bus- 
 iness. The value 
 of truth in adver- 
 tising. The money 
 value of courtesy 
 
 Visit and study 
 bank 
 
 Vocational self 
 measurement - 
 use a stande^d 
 scale 
 
 Forming vocation 
 clubs. See Davis 
 
 Self Measurement 
 Bee Hyde 
 A display of 
 vocations - Seo 
 Muensterberg 
 Visiting vocations 
 and classifying 
 them 
 
 Partial apprentice- 
 ship in vocation 
 as part of school 
 work 
 
 Controlled exper- 
 iment in cross 
 fertilization 
 Committee report 
 on "The Meaning 
 of Infancy" Fiske 
 
 "Improvement of 
 the Human Plant" 
 Burbank 
 
 "Carrying on" the 
 present race prob- 
 lem 
 
 "Mutation" de 
 
 Vries 
 
 ■The Blood of 
 
 the Hat ion" Jordan 
 
 Committee report 
 on xeoe improve- 
 ment 
 
 "Call of the 
 Twentieth Century" 
 Jordan 
 
 Make several family 
 
 budgets 
 
 Collect dascxiptiona, 
 
 of home life of 
 
 great Americans 
 
 ^Genetics" Walter 
 
 Pick out and dxaw 
 three best pieces 
 of architecture in 
 the neighborhood 
 Devise, finance 
 and carry out a 
 plan for the yearly 
 purchase of a work 
 of art 
 
 How to treat an 
 enemy - collect 
 examples 
 
 Origin and meaning 
 of forms of civil- 
 ity 
 
 Con^are mxisic, 
 poetry and archi- 
 tecture 
 
 A study of "The 
 Art of Truth 
 Speaking* 
 
 Biographies of 
 Great Americans 
 
 .The "Over soul" 
 Emerson - colleot 
 similar senti- 
 ments. Write 
 a companion piece 
 to a winter poem 
 Collect pieces 
 of music and 
 painting with 
 theme of "Over- 
 soul" Make a 
 model or design 
 observing laws of 
 
 ■ structure 
 
 "The Soul of 
 America" Stanton 
 Colt 
 
 Projects related to the tradition contained in 
 various subjects 
 
 "Through Nature to 
 God" Fiske ~ 
 Devise plan fox the 
 art improvement of 
 youx sohoolhouse 
 
 Dramatize "The 
 Christmas Carol 
 
CHART III 
 
 BUOQESTIOHS OF PROJECTS ASD FRQBLEHS TO CBRZOB A CHARACTER TRAXBIHa OURRXCaLOlC 
 This outlino presupposes that all eubjeots be taugbt in the light of their 
 
 % OBJECTIVES 
 
 EIBDERCARTES 
 
 Making a bit of 
 Fairyland 
 Health Falriea 
 Health choree 
 
 Gaoee requiring 
 group movements 
 Making plane and 
 specifications for 
 something to be 
 built by Grade VI 
 
 Prepare and act a 
 
 scene which teaches 
 
 neatness 
 
 A Health T&i.xj 
 
 ^^eont 
 
 0RADE TER£E 
 
 Clean~up oluba 
 Plan isolation 
 of case of infec-' 
 tioua disease 
 at home 
 
 Pageant emphasis- 
 ing proper eating 
 and sleeping 
 Sunshine club to 
 promote happiness 
 In offn group 
 
 Garden Club 
 Plan a surprise 
 party for Grade V 
 
 Report to Board of 
 Health breeding 
 places of flies 
 and moscjaitos 
 
 oontributlon to life 
 
 Campaign for extor- 
 aination of fliee 
 Committees plan & 
 HfbbX-end oaop 
 
 Maks ioelses refrlg-^Jif J^J^^Mhit 
 erator for caxe of^ gJTpiS? )•*"'"* 
 
 OaiDE SEVEH 
 
 Kathenatiot of the 
 eportlng page 
 Construct a min- 
 iature stage and 
 act out a scene 
 with paper figures 
 Soulptux* proj'ot 
 
 -ORADE EIGHT 
 
 Write a school 
 
 creed 
 
 Hold a tournament 
 
 Training table 
 
 Uanoge measurins 
 and weighing of 
 school chi'ldrea 
 Study physical 
 excellence of 
 Greeks 
 
 GRADE HUE 
 
 Entertainment of 
 Tielting team 
 
 Ooopaxe 
 Ideal Actual 
 
 plan use of 
 
 for a time 
 
 day In day 
 
 Oommittee report oi 
 •Self Culture 
 
 Through the Vaoa* 
 
 tion." Qrlggs 
 
 GRADE ELEVEI 
 
 Athletloa 
 
 "Self Reliance' 
 i^erson. Carlyle 
 and others 
 Overoomlng obsta- 
 cles - a group 
 of exaomlee 
 Roosevelt etc. 
 
 GRADE TWELVE T 
 
 Athletics 
 "Vhat Hen Lire By" 
 Cabot. Work, play 
 Ion, worship 
 Use of Leisure 
 Qoott and other 
 olaseloe oa ease 
 theme 
 
 LIFE IB THE GROUP 
 
 Games for getting 
 
 acquainted 
 
 Doll party acting 
 
 Winter feeding of 
 birds 
 
 Courtesy ganes show- 
 ing customs in 
 other lands 
 Acting home and 
 street scenes to 
 show courtesy 
 Proper distribution 
 of pkg of varied 
 kinds of confections 
 
 Making a bird res- 
 taurant and support 
 ing it collectively 
 Acting story to 
 entertain other 
 grades 
 
 Two groups act out 
 settlement of a 
 quarrel 
 Present story in 
 scenes, tableaus 
 
 Playing teacher 
 
 in eettllng a 
 
 quarrel 
 
 Plan a ThankeglV' 
 
 ing dinner for 
 
 newsboys 
 
 Claee la a party 
 of explorers e.g. 
 De Soto's 
 Organize to ao- 
 oompllsh their 
 pxirpose and to 
 live together 
 Class land aa a 
 colony - group 
 eolutlon of prob- 
 
 Livlng with Indians 
 neighbors 
 Solve thsir 
 problem - avoid 
 their mistake 
 Font and Indian 
 tribe and land an 
 English colony and 
 live together 
 
 Scouts or "Cuba" 
 Building something 
 for Grade I in 
 accord with their 
 specifications 
 Journey Geography 
 Christmas in other 
 lands 
 
 Soout and Campfire 
 Organise a Round 
 Table for seek- 
 ing "quests" 
 Adopting a family 
 
 Soout and cao^flre 
 Plan and carry out 
 ■ isaon for drill 
 and review which 
 win interest anl 
 help the class 
 Publish a sohcol 
 
 Scout and Campfire 
 Act cut the 
 ocurteeies of a 
 Roman and a Hebrew 
 home 
 
 Rewrite several of 
 Aesop's fables to 
 fit preuent social 
 
 Dditlons 
 Forma of salutatlor 
 In all countries 
 
 Dramatise "Th«' 
 Melting Pot" 
 Junior-Ssnicr 
 banquet as model 
 of aooial forms 
 
 "The Cultl- 
 vatod Man" Eliot 
 Class study 
 rrlendehlp, tnex- 
 lon, Tennyson 
 and others 
 
 Impersonate classes 
 in imerloaa life 
 inien duties clash 
 what? "Loyalty to 
 Loyalty" Royoc 
 
 CIVIC REUTIOBS 
 
 Stories of UTashinf 
 ton's and Lincoln 
 boyhood 
 
 Songe and stories of; . ^ . „„, 
 
 Amellcan patriots /Make badges to wear 
 •^ Feb 12 and 23 
 
 ECOBOUIC RELATIONS 
 AID VOCATIOB 
 
 Bird houses 
 
 Starting a group 
 account 
 
 Collection of seeds 
 from the harvest 
 Make an Indian 
 Corn Husk doll 
 Cooperative pur- 
 chase of bird houses 
 from Grade VII 
 
 Make a doll house 
 
 Doll's tea party 
 
 etc. 
 
 Dramatize house, 
 
 mother and helpful 
 
 children 
 
 APPRECIATIOH OF 
 BEAUTY 
 
 Finding nature's 
 favorite colors 
 and combinations 
 of color 
 Feeding birds 
 Arranging flowers 
 in a vase 
 
 MASTERY OF 
 TRADITION 
 
 Child patriots of 
 
 fiance 
 
 Design decorations 
 
 for the table for 
 
 party Feb. 22 
 
 Make booklet of 
 history of first 
 settlers in your 
 community 
 Origin of the flag 
 
 Form two Indian 
 
 "A Message to Gar- 
 cia" 
 
 Washington's 
 Journey to the 
 Ohio 
 
 Construct a class 
 flag 
 
 When Lincoln's 
 humor eaved'the 
 day 
 
 Establish a post- 
 
 offloe 
 
 Draw up an oath 
 
 of alleglanoe 
 
 Draw plans and 
 
 make relief map 
 
 of Valley Forge 
 
 Vork out the story 
 
 of the builders of 
 
 your comiainity or: 
 
 city 
 
 Construct & gove.*n- 
 
 ment on a desert 
 
 island, make lawi 
 
 and sstablish 
 social customs and 
 rules of conduct 
 
 Select a delegate 
 or offloer by the 
 election nothods 
 of 1789 
 
 Project a plan of 
 student government 
 
 Dramatise "The Man 
 Without a CouMty" 
 Uake a bibliography 
 and card catalogue 
 of the civics 
 library 
 
 Dramatise a session 
 of Lincoln's cab- 
 inet 
 
 TOW of oitisen 
 
 Catalogue the 
 organitaticns in 
 your neighbor- 
 hood. "Amer- 
 iotinlzatlon" 
 lessen and Vodw 
 "The Soul of 
 Democracy" Griggs 
 Distinguish be- 
 tween a domooracy 
 and a republic 
 
 Draft a constltntloai 
 for the family of 
 
 ' ions 
 'American Ideals yet 
 
 Starting a savings 
 account 
 
 Plan entertainment 
 to raiee money for 
 group account 
 Cooperative build- 
 ing of bird houses 
 
 How many people 
 help bring tlie 
 bread to the 
 table 
 Organized barter 
 
 Plan and earn 
 money for dinner 
 for adopted family 
 A day properly 
 divided for work 
 and play 
 
 A stomp collection 
 Estimate profits 
 on home garden 
 
 Establish a school 
 bank 
 
 Flan a picnic or 
 camp dinner to 
 come within set 
 price 
 
 Ineect enemies oi 
 trees, a collect- 
 ion 
 
 A school expendi- 
 ture card to deter- 
 mine waste In 
 eohool materials 
 CoiApute waste is 
 your district from 
 .weathering of 
 machinery 
 Estimate in detail 
 the cost of some 
 product - labor's 
 share - capital's 
 share 
 
 Plan and oarry o^it 
 a "cooperative 
 store" for the 
 school 
 
 Goneervaticn of 
 trees 
 
 Shop visitation 
 Organize an em- 
 ployer 'e council 
 and labor union 
 and settle dispute 
 Conetruot a soheae 
 of tax for revenae 
 
 Who makes our 
 currency? 
 How many miles of 
 turnpike will one 
 dreadnought build 
 Individual Inven- 
 tion (a) camp 
 utensil (b) auto 
 or agricultural 
 appliance 
 
 Credit buying - hew 
 mioh interest does 
 the debtor pay 
 
 a merchant to 
 help claoe oatlmate 
 "overhead" in a 
 store. Specif 
 
 Tbe value 
 of truth in adver- 
 tising. The money 
 value of courteoy 
 
 Visit and study 
 bank 
 
 Vocational self 
 measurement - 
 use a standard 
 scale 
 
 Forming vocation 
 clubs. See Davis 
 
 Self Measurement 
 
 Bee Byde 
 
 A display of 
 
 atlons - S«» 
 Uuenaterberg 
 Visiting vocations 
 and olaaslfylng 
 them 
 
 Partial apprentice-. 
 ship la vooation 
 as part of school 
 work 
 
 Mothering on orphan 
 animal 
 
 Observation trip 
 to locate insect 
 borne e 
 
 Build an Eskimo 
 
 house 
 
 Booklet of animal 
 
 families compiled 
 
 by claae 
 
 Locate and observe 
 
 animal houses 
 
 Estimate the 
 
 work of a pair 
 
 of birds in one 
 
 day's feeding of 
 
 young 
 
 Make a winter 
 
 home for pets 
 
 How to set a table 
 
 Collect pictures 
 of homes and 
 children in other 
 lands 
 
 Estimate mother's 
 work in homw 
 Book of bird 
 families 
 
 Construct a model 
 kitchen 
 
 FlcwerSf winds, and 
 bees, working to- 
 gether in fertil- 
 ization 
 
 Observations on 
 heredity In stock 
 and poultry breed- 
 ing 
 
 Design a hall 
 clock 
 
 A study of Madonnas 
 Indian Homes 
 
 Trace the evolu- 
 tion of homes, 
 and make models 
 of enough examples 
 to form a series 
 Dramatize King 
 Arthur stories 
 
 Design from plos^^ic 
 materials a home 
 and environment 
 Service to huoan'.ty 
 from plant breeding 
 Burbank 
 
 Controlled exper- 
 iment in cross 
 fertilisation 
 Committee report 
 on "The Meaning 
 of Infancy" Fl»ke 
 
 "Improvement of 
 the Human Plant" 
 Burbank 
 
 "Currying on" the 
 present race prob- 
 lem 
 
 Bature'e color 
 work 
 
 a. Autumn - color 
 combination - ob- 
 servation and col- 
 lect ion of corre- 
 sponding colors 
 for permanent ex- 
 hibit 
 
 Find the age of a 
 tree 
 
 Collection of 
 seeds for spring 
 planting 
 Chart locating 
 most beautiful 
 shade trees in 
 oommunity 
 
 Find conditions 
 of strength and 
 weakness in 
 plants 
 
 Planting for the 
 future, "Apple 
 Tree John" 
 Leaf forms and 
 colors (a col- 
 lection) 
 
 Carefully recorded 
 
 one bird's nest 
 
 Find a winter 
 
 Bceae - rearrange 
 
 80 aa to put in a 
 
 rood 
 
 Hake a model of a 
 
 church interior 
 
 Make collections of 
 shells and stones 
 Herbarium 
 Change a summer 
 scene into a winter 
 
 Living for a week 
 "in training" 
 Collect pictures 
 of Greek Heroes 
 ^n sculpture 
 
 Create beautiful 
 
 designs 
 
 A pageant of 
 
 knighthood 
 
 Collection of 
 
 pictures of 
 
 knights 
 
 vice, Invention tito 
 Make a plan for 
 pork 
 
 of architecture la 
 the neigh torhood 
 Devise, finance 
 and oarry out a 
 plan for the yearly 
 purchase of a work 
 of art 
 
 mv to treat an 
 enemy - oolleot 
 examples 
 
 ity 
 
 Compare music, 
 poetry and archi- 
 tecture 
 
 A study of "The 
 Art of Truth 
 Speaking" 
 
 Representation of* 
 Santa Claus and 
 his hone 
 Flag ceremonies 
 
 Indian projects 
 Make an Indian 
 canoe etc 
 Make furniture 
 like that In Lin- 
 coln's home 
 Book of Xfflos songs 
 
 Devise a gome to 
 be played with 
 choice sayingfl 
 of Lincoln 
 Collect stories 
 about protecting 
 the colors 
 -Plan and give a 
 Xmos program lor 
 Grade I 
 
 Dramatize incidents Collect ejorlos 
 
 in lives of Wash- fro"" ^'^'^ *"»! °" 
 
 ington and Lincoln Pilgxla pageants 
 
 Pioneer life projects; 
 
 Make model of 
 
 cabin showing the 
 
 first Thanksgiving 
 
 in face of haxd- 
 
 ehipa 
 
 Give on exhibition 
 of spartan gymnaa- 
 tlc training 
 Indian woodcraft 
 
 Living pictures 
 of knights, 
 Raleigh eto 
 A book of Indian 
 traditions of 
 your state 
 Journey geograph y 
 
 History of Chrletffl. 
 
 customs 
 
 Pantomime of herces 
 
 f the Civil War 
 Modele and plctuies 
 of prairies schocnr 
 ers, stags coachc 
 
 "Mutation" de 
 
 Vrles 
 
 ■The Blood of 
 
 the Hatlon" Jordan 
 
 Committee report 
 
 on race Improve- 
 
 ment 
 
 "Call of the 
 
 Twentieth Century" 
 
 Jordan 
 
 -The "Ofersoul" 
 Emexeoo - oolleot 
 similar santl- 
 ments. Write 
 a ccnqpanicn piece 
 to a winter poem 
 Cclleot plecea 
 of music and 
 painting with 
 theme of "Over- 
 aoul" Make a 
 model or design 
 obaexTlDg laws of 
 
 " structure 
 
 "The Soul of 
 Amerioaf Stanton 
 Colt 
 
 Hoke several family 
 
 budgets 
 
 Colleot desorlptlonsi 
 f home life of 
 ;reat Americans 
 Oenetlos" Walter 
 
 Through Mature to 
 Ood" Fiske 
 Devise plan for the 
 t Improvement of 
 your sohoolhouse 
 
 Projects related to the tradition contained In 
 various subjects 
 
A MORAL CURRICULUM 
 
 31 
 
 the subject, and from our own experience, a few score are presented for 
 illustration. 
 
 The vertical columns stand roughly for the school years from the 
 kindergarten to the end of the High School course. At the left of the 
 chart are some of the objectives to be kept in mind as ends of all school 
 activities. The projects and problems are somewhat arbitrarily grouped 
 in the horizontal columns in accordance with their objectives. Seven 
 headings are chosen which do not correspond to the eleven defined in 
 chapter two. A good project leads out in many directions. There are 
 fundamental kinships among the objectives. Industrial and economic 
 relations and vocation, for these reasons, are thrown together. Certain 
 essential objectives, like reverence and creative activity, do not appear 
 in the chart. To honor them with separate horizontal columns in the 
 chart would be to discredit them, for they represent the spirit and purpose 
 of all school life. 
 
 There are many omissions and misrepresentations of which such a 
 chart is necessarily guilty. It is too rigid. There is in reality much 
 freedom of movement of the projects as to years in the curriculum 
 and as to objectives they subserve. The chart fails to lift out into suf- 
 ficient perspective the significance for character training of opening and 
 closing days, and the sacred days of the calendar, like Thanksgiving, 
 Christmas and Easter and the great birthdays. All these times and seasons, 
 when rightly observed, are intensely formative of character. They offer 
 occasions, prepared for by long series of projects, when the moral leaders 
 of the race and their ideals can be brought very near to the hearts of 
 children. The moral value of the ordinary school subjects has too much 
 fallen out of sight in the chart. All these things will, however, be sup- 
 plied by imagination of the reader as he feel his way through the 
 suggestive catalogue of projects. Indeed, the reader who can work 
 through the display with kindly eyes will see it as quite a plastic affair, 
 symbolizing the unified and organic life of the entire school, movinig 
 through the years toward a definite set of ends. Each teacher or school 
 system will add or substract, stress or deprecate, as he glances through 
 the program, in the particular way determined by personal taste, locality, 
 peculiarities of city or country residence, prescribed books used as texts, 
 and many other factors. 
 
 Two things perhaps need be said about the relation of these projects 
 to the regular curriculum. The two observations cut in opposite direc- 
 tions. In the first place, the project program assumes that the regular 
 school subjects are being, taught, as prescribed by educational custom, 
 and that each school subject be taught in the light of its relation to life 
 within and without the school. When the several studies and occupations 
 are thoroughly vitalized by a true teacher, they become, in and for 
 themselves, sets of projects. In such an event the chart exists as a set 
 of hints to the wise for edification and stimulation. On the other hand, 
 to the extent that the school regime is mechanical and formal, the project- 
 problem program is radically antagonistic to it. The formal subjects, 
 for example, like reading, writing, spelling, drawing, grammatical ex- 
 pression, are far more skillfully and economically mastered when taught 
 in connection with meaningful activities, as educational practice is richly 
 demonstrating. Conduct is becoming circumspect, and the moral impulses 
 being made fine and strong, whenever pupils are busy in mind and muscle 
 with a worthy enterprise. 
 
 There are two or three further points that may require particular 
 stress. 
 
 6. Every good project stands for a zvidening stream of moral value. 
 
 The following out of a single project as, for instance, the building and 
 
32 CHARACTER EDUCATION METHODS 
 
 furnishing of a doll's house leads in the direction of appreciation of 
 family lite, of social proprieties, of vocation, of initiative, of civic relations 
 and essentially all the other vital objectives. Or, again, a study of 
 Indian life in w^hich the children are for the time Red Men of the 
 forest, gets hold of essentially every fundamental personal and social 
 problem. It has radiating lines of influence for the rest of that year 
 and for succeeding years as virell. A study of the "virtues" tempts one 
 to cage up each of them in set days or weeks. 
 
 7. The cumulative force of various sets of related projects. — Each 
 set of projects can be made to move with change and variety rather than 
 with repitition and monotony from year to year until they gain high 
 momentum. The chart indicates this progressive movement in the Christ- 
 mas symbols, all the way from the baby fancy of Santa Claus on to some 
 great presentation like the Christmas Carol, dramatized on the stage by the 
 high school students themselves. Another instance is found in the events 
 connected with the life of Lincoln. They proceed from instances and 
 anecdotal items finally by recurring cycles into an understanding of the 
 weightier matters of government. It is desirous that teachers, working 
 cooperatively and by the aid of superintendents and principals who can 
 see the school program in its entirety, should avoid the constant repetition 
 and reiterations in celebrating the important days that come to pall upon 
 the pupils and breed indifference. 
 
 It is clear that the progressive plan here outlined moves with cumula- 
 tive force, so that the entire program throws its energies towards the 
 attainment of each and every desired end. This fact will become even 
 more' evident in the next chapter. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 MOVING PROGRESSIVELY TOWARDS THE OBJECTIVE 
 
 In the last chapter it was evident that the cumulative force of the 
 entire curriculum could be directed towards the realization of the essen- 
 tial occupations and attitudes that constitute the good person. We shall 
 now come into closer quarters with the question by indicating more par- 
 ticularly what can be done. The problem in its completeness would be to 
 follow through the school life and point out how each of the seven or 
 eleven objectives is reached through the curricular and extra curricular 
 activities of each part of each year's program. That would be a pleasant 
 but a long journey upon which to enter It will be sufficient perhaps to 
 take but two instances out of the greater number and let a detailed presen- 
 tation of each of these stand as types of the others. We shall choose 
 for illustration one of the easiest topics — Preparation for Civic Relations, 
 and one of the most difficult — Preparation for life in the Family, and let 
 that suffice. 
 
 A. MOVING TOWARDS PREPARATION FOR CIVIC RELATIONS 
 
 There is no day of any year that is not preparing for civic relations. 
 The school, as we have outHned it, is a community of intreacting person- 
 alities, who play the game according to mutually accepted rules. The 
 entire school group is getting ready for citizenship if only the activities 
 of each day are good in and for themselves. The moving, growing 
 democracy of today will be the democracy of tomorrow. 
 
 Each pupil, furthermore, is doing and studying topics that lead him 
 definitely in one or another direction. They inviolably tend to fix the 
 unity of the life of today and tomorrow. By wisely selecting the occupa- 
 tions and projects, and directing the activities of pupils, the outcome 
 can, within limits, be anticipated. Is it not the desirable thing that the 
 school should predispose the sympathies and ideals of the children? 
 If it does so, is it not the case of humanity consciously directing its own 
 destiny? Too much direction would be deadening; too little would be 
 scattering to the winds. For the sake of brevity and clearness a chart 
 is presented herewith. It indicates several connected lines of interest 
 running quite through the school life, from the earliest years to the close, 
 which bear upon citizenship. Related sorts of interest are bracketed and 
 are designated by words and phrases at the center of the brackets— study 
 of civics, life in the group, clubs and societies, biography, a study of 
 unifying agencies, and the like. By a little browsing through the chart, 
 the drama it opens up will be evident enough. The reader will find 
 himself supplying a score of extra items that have driving power in the 
 direction of citizenship. The entire force of the school can clearly be 
 directed into this channel. 
 
 The growing custom is a good one of providing for frequent civic 
 excursions to Citj'- Hall, Courthouse, repositories of public records and 
 other places of civic interest, and of having various public officials talk 
 with the students. These men open up to them an inside view of their 
 duties and what their vocations mean to them and to the community. 
 It is strange that these sources of deliverance from pupils' blindnesses 
 have not been drawn upon more freely. It has grown to be a maxim 
 of character education but too little practiced that offences against society 
 are usually due to blindness and ignorance rather than to perversity of 
 nature. To have the pupils to become acquainted by actual contact with 
 the State and its machinery, and by a lively act of imagination picture 
 
 3.^ 
 
34 CHARACTER EDUCATION METHODS 
 
 its progress is essentially equivalent to interest in citizenship. It is well 
 to form as many contracts as possible between the pupil and the things that 
 are around him that are pulsing with life, rather than have civics limited 
 to bookish tasks. 
 
 B. PREPARATION FOR LIFE IN THE FAMILY 
 
 This is the most important of all the school problems and the most 
 baffling. In the midst of the biases and prejudices that surround the topic, 
 so much is as clear as need be: if the teacher should have deep down a 
 wish to lead the child toward ideal love, happy marriage and a successful 
 parenthood, that wish will both unconsciously and consciously be realizing 
 itself in the spirit and emphasis with which she meets the child and the 
 common school tasks. She will be selecting those materials of instruction 
 lying all around her, leading towards that end. To be successful in 
 carrying out her wish, she need not say perhaps a single word about 
 sex, nor wade through the facts of sex physiology and sex hygiene. On 
 the mooted question of the direct teaching of sex in the schools, we 
 shall not enter. The arguments for and against it are too familiar to all. 
 There is, however, a deal of common ground that represents safe pro- 
 cedure from the standpoint of either type of bias. 
 
 1. Secure the service of a woman either inside or outside the school 
 who will be a wise counselor for the girls, and discover an expert 
 among the men as an advisor for the boys. 
 
 2. Have occasionally intimate assembly talks with the boys as a group, 
 and other talks to girls as a group by advisors or by teachers who are 
 equip^ped in mind and heart for so important and delicate a task. 
 
 3. Call in occasionally a great interpreter of life from the outside who 
 will lift the students out of themselves into a higher level of interest and 
 outlook. It is the gift of great, noble souls to be able to lift the level 
 of spiritual living of those who sometimes live in the nooks and crannies 
 and blind alleys of experience. 
 
 4. Arrange for confidential talks with individual students as occasion 
 demands. The mischief connected with sex instruction usually attaches 
 to wholesale methods, giving to the majority of students the advice 
 and information for which they are least adapted or prepared. 
 
 No matter what one's prejudice, there are a few precepts that seem 
 important as guides in this delicate undertaking. 
 
 a. Approach the question of sex usually from above rather than from 
 below, i.e., from ideal considerations rather than from practical or factual 
 ones. The sex instruction must have a spirit, a momentum, a drive, an 
 atmosphere that impels the life in the right direction. Occasionally the 
 appeal is from the standpoint of art, sometimes from that of science, some- 
 times in connection with the problems of race improvement. 
 
 h. Avoid filling the minds with imagery that is wholly apart from a 
 vigorous aesthetic or moral appeal. The rudeness and crudeness oi 
 physiology and hygiene in this respect have usually overlooked the ideo- 
 motor laws of mental life in accordance with which all the pictures that 
 are held before the mind are unconsciously passing over into some type 
 of expression. 
 
 c. Respect the feelings of delicacy and modesty of all refined person- 
 alities. Modesty is one of the finest products of human culture and 
 should not be brushed away with ruthless speech. 
 
 d. Let knowledge do its proper work. When, in connection with the 
 profound insights into biological progress, for example, one is able to 
 picture possible race improvement through right breeding, it becomes as 
 impossible for the young man to despoil the human breed through foolish- 
 
XI XII 
 
 Elementary sociology 
 
 ies Student government 
 
 law 
 
 Dramatization of 
 i Man without a Country " 
 
 *«The Sower" 
 
 ri Civic 
 
 r= Relations 
 
 of the Twentieth Century 
 
 Examination of records 
 Press 
 
 League of Nations 
 
 Civic Relations 
 
Grade 
 
 Kindergarten I 
 
 II 
 
 III 
 
 IV 
 
 V 
 
 VI 
 
 VII 
 
 VIII 
 
 IX 
 
 X 
 
 XI 
 
 XII 
 
 Rules of living together 
 
 Case civics 
 
 Play societies . 
 
 A doll society 
 
 America 
 
 — V 
 
 Study of civics 
 
 Civics as schools study Elementary sociology 
 
 Clean-up club 
 
 V 
 
 Clubs and^socielties 
 
 Mosquito brigades Scouts Literary societies Student government 
 
 \ with parliamentary law 
 
 '^v Dramatization of 
 
 Indian Life A settler's\;abin Cooperative buying A desert island society "The Man without a Country " 
 
 X Y^'T ^ 
 
 Projfects\ 
 Star Spangled^Qanner ^s ^^ "The Sower" 
 
 ^"x:^ ^o: ■- 
 
 PatriotiiMnusic Jind rnovies ^ v ^ > ^ 
 Dramas^ >ictures^ etc . ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ 
 
 r'r^^-^^^iCivic 
 
 =0-^-0^: Relations 
 
 Lincoln 
 
 Biograp'hy 
 
 Franklin 
 
 Literature , ' 
 
 ^Edison / ^' 
 
 Pasteur 
 
 'Ant and Grasshopper" 
 
 "Hats Of!" "Man with a Hoe" ,' / Gettysburg Address Call of the Twentieth Century 
 
 ' Visits and'excursions 
 
 "Raggy-Lug" Animal societies 
 
 Barter Roads Canals 
 
 City Hall Court House . All occupations Factories Examination of records 
 
 Commerce Press 
 
 Study of unifying agencies 
 ^yy j Language 
 
 Institutions 
 
 In story and legend Animal societies Homes Neighborhood clubs Church State League of Nations 
 
 Chart IV. Showing the Progressive Movement of School Studies and Activities in the Direction of Preparation for Civic Relations 
 
Grade 
 
 Kindergarten 
 
 I 
 
 II 
 
 III 
 
 IV 
 
 V 
 
 VI 
 
 VII 
 
 VIII 
 
 IX 
 
 X 
 
 XI 
 
 XII 
 
 Drama 
 
 "The Lost Sheep" 
 
 Music 
 
 "Sweet and Low" 
 
 Poetry 
 
 "Rock-a-by Baby" 
 
 Sculpture 
 
 "Her Son" 
 
 Paintings 
 
 "Two Families" 
 
 Fiction 
 
 "Snow-white and Rose-fed" 
 
 Dance 
 
 Folk Dance 
 
 "Romeo and Juliet" Drama 
 
 "Dedication" Music 
 
 "Celestial Love" Poetry 
 
 Adapted to the various grades, continue thru-out curriculum Venus of Milo Sculpture 
 
 "Beatrice" Paintings 
 
 "Adam Bede" Fiction 
 
 Spanish Dance Dance 
 
 — ^ — V 
 
 The Love Theme in Art 
 
 Care of 
 
 doll clothes 
 
 Garden 
 
 projects 
 
 Preparing foods 
 
 \ N^"" 
 
 Providing^for Home 
 
 Cooperative buying 
 
 Family budgets 
 
 
 Observes family Plant fertilization 
 
 kinships 
 
 /^ 
 
 ^ip- 
 
 '<!' 
 
 "y^ 
 
 p" 
 
 Her€»dity 
 
 Cross jbreeding 
 
 ' /' 
 
 ' / ' 
 
 Homes and Families ' 
 
 Dolls and Bird homes 
 
 doll families 
 
 Homes around 
 the world 
 
 Care of pets 
 
 Courtesies 
 
 Order 
 
 Plan a house 
 
 Life in the group 
 
 Mothers' 
 
 'Day 
 
 Kallikak 
 
 Race improvement 
 
 Evolution of Families and homes 
 
 Knight-errantry Brother-Sister 
 
 Neighbor! iness 
 
 Chart V. Showing the Progressive Movement of School Studies and Activities in the Direction of Preparation for Family RelaUon. 
 
MOVING TOWARDS THE OBJECTIVE 35 
 
 ness as it would be for him to destroy a highly developed breed of animals 
 or variety of plants. 
 
 e. Approach the question usually on the positive side rather than on the 
 negative. It is doubtless true that lowly souls, who are dwarfed, bent and 
 deformed, must be frightened by the thoughts of disease and death, but 
 such procedure is rather poor pedagogical tactics for cultivated boys and 
 girls. They should be stimulated to feel the pull of loves and admirations, 
 rather than feel the sting of fear and remorse. 
 
 /. The strongest appeal is through the arts. Indeed the arts are 
 essentially the expression of the idealized love relations. Remove the love 
 theme from fiction, for instance, and it has become by the act seriously 
 impoverished, if not almost destroyed. The arts exist as the idealizing 
 agencies of life that is in danger of groveling. It is a strange anachron- 
 ism and anastigmatism that the arts should have found so little place 
 in the school curriculum. Every high school surely should have a course 
 in the History of Art and Art Appreciation. 
 
 g. Show how ideal love has come only through self control. With the 
 Arthurian legends and with the vigorous appeal of literature and science, 
 the pupil's mind can be filled with the ideals of chivalry involving the 
 dignity of perfect control. 
 
 h. Open up all the vents of suppressed desires through the full and 
 free expression of normal social and love activities. The moral evils of 
 sex, we are coming to see, are the result of suppressed desires. When 
 pupils are found fighting temptations, they should be set busy with art, 
 including fiction, the dance, music, and social activities, until they ex- 
 perience the sanity and wholeness that come through expulsive emotions. 
 
 With these precepts and truisms in mind, looking through the accom- 
 panying chart, one can readily see that the school is quite rich in studies, 
 devices and activities that move in the direction of preparation for true 
 ideals of love and marriage, and for right participation in the family, 
 which has been and should still be the garden in which the finer virtues 
 flourish. 
 
 It takes but a little imagination on the part of the reader to see how 
 all the other objectives, in addition to the two we have described, are the 
 theme and subject of the entire curriculum. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE CURRICULUM BY YEARS 
 
 It is the business of leaders in Character Education finally to map 
 out a character education program by years and in detail for the work 
 of the separate grades. As was clear in the preceding two chapters the 
 program must be so definite that the schools know where they are going 
 and by what steps they will arrive. No essential links can be missing. 
 To build such a program will be a heroic undertaking, as great as that 
 which the Committee of Ten or the Committee of Twelve faced in their 
 labor on the regular curriculum. 
 
 The collaborators, who submit this report, with a pardonable optimism, 
 embarked upon such an undertaking. They feel that they have made 
 distinct progress towards the building of such a detailed program. The 
 necessary research and the accumulation of bodies of material have 
 grown to such proportion, however^ that it must take weeks, if not 
 months, with skilled readers and assistants to complete the project. 
 
 The work has involved : (a) an inquiry into all the essential types of 
 courses of study to learn what shall be the subject matter each year that 
 needs enriching in a character education program, (b) To discover such 
 projects and materials as are consistent, both with the prevailing curricula 
 and with the objectives of character training, (c) To accumulate and 
 judge as to its worth essentially all of the available publications that prom- 
 ise assistance, (d) To set up an inquiry among thousands of school 
 people into the materials and aids that have practically proven useful in 
 such concrete instances that the result of its use can be specifically 
 described, (e) To classify the tested and tried materials and place them 
 in a form for convenient reference for the use of teachers. 
 
 Through the cooperation of publishers and teachers so vast a fund of 
 material has been accumulated that it has proven to be entirely out of 
 the question to complete it for this report. 
 
 The object the committee has held in view is suggested by the chart 
 accompanying this chapter. Grade IV is taken as a type. It is proposed 
 to prepare thirteen or more similar charts— at least one for each grade — 
 that should put a teacher easily in touch with the best character training 
 materials for her grade in both curricular and extra curricular activities. 
 
 The chart is practically self-explanatory. It is proposed to furnish a 
 classified bibliography of supplementary material for each grade. The first 
 number of each reference in the chart indicates the numerical place of 
 that reference in the bibliography for that year, and the second number, 
 the page on which the citation occurs. It is worthy of note that the plan 
 as presented, consistent with the spirit of this entire report, emphasizes 
 projects primarily, and incidentally the moral attitudes involved. The 
 selection of projects for the different years will vary greatly. It may be 
 necessary ultimately to construct an alternative chart or two for each 
 grade. The projects we have chosen for the fourth grade are in accord- 
 ance with a widespread usage in the schools. A valuable feature is the 
 manner in which projects interweave during the progress of the year so 
 that more work is done and so that the same moral attitudes are empha- 
 sized from different angles. 
 
 In the fourth year, for example, the Early Settlers project emphasizes 
 certain moral attitudes that are similar to those called out by the Thanks- 
 giving season. 
 
 If such a diagram and accompanying bibliography were easily at the 
 disposal of every teacher who would like to begin the enrichment of her 
 36 
 
n History] 
 
 3770 McKinley St., Washington, D. C. 
 in Two or More Books. C = Comic Selection 
 
 Geography 
 
 Nature Study, 
 
 Physiology and 
 
 Hygiene 
 
 Civics 
 
 Plays and 
 Games 
 
 10.14:53.211 
 
 10.6:14.212 
 11.3:152.42 
 
 5.16:29.63 
 
 309.125:60.200: 
 [91 .25 :13 .40] 
 
 [19.31:140.542] 
 
 16.2:132.412 
 [12.4.9.22] 
 
 43 .6 :551 .970 
 [13 .7 :26 .72] 
 
 24 .10 :65 .320 
 [19.41:37.210] 
 
 111.15:29.661: 
 
 12.14:22.60: 
 
 [4.9:11.390] 
 
 [10.4:165.391] 
 
 9.20:133.421: 
 [12.25:19.30] 
 
 10.5:172.830* 
 
 12.17:43.75 
 
 [42.20:13.521:] 
 [12.9:25.360] 
 
 13.25:141.424: 
 [9.4:10.24] 
 
 9.30:25.312: 
 [14 .4 :2 .219] 
 
 12.7:490.500: 
 [11.8:30.251] 
 
 19.5:120.30 
 
 [17.3:15.24:] 
 9.3:26.49 
 
 10.4:25.360 
 [11.7:112.413] 
 
 [113.71:41.75] 
 10.7:121.462 
 
 [12.4:152.130:] 
 19.16:130.30 
 
 13.5:20.250 
 
 [912.403:12.27] 
 
 19.7:12.251: 
 42.30:101.750 
 
 14.2:36.5 
 
 14.4:19.360: 
 [5.2:212.650:] 
 10.3:9.96 
 
 [62.74:123.241] 
 [5.4:10.14] 
 
 [16.9:311.791] 
 
 [116.50:41.3:] 
 15.7:4.19 
 
 [5.3:919.741] 
 
 [16.41:122.35:] 
 9.4:13.120 
 
 14.36:21.92: 
 [15.3:316.990] 
 
 313.59:42.97: 
 [15.3:7.24] 
 
 16 .4 :20 .266 : 
 [190.132:21.34] 
 
 [9.3:120.25] 
 
 [42.9:360.792] 
 
 [14.30:57.92:] 
 [3 .1 :22 .60] 
 
 [12.11:23.92:] 
 10.7:140.651 
 
 [41.27:52.73] 
 
 
 —- 
 
 
 
 
GRADE IV 
 
 Suggested Materials for the Enrichment of the Regular Curriculum [Beginning American History] 
 
 Chart Issued In 1922 by the CHARACTER EDUCATION INSTITUTION 3770 McKinley St., Washington, D. C. 
 Key-Numbers = Book and Page in Accompanying Bibliography. Bracketed Numbers Show That Same Reference Occurs in Two or More Books. C = Comic Selection 
 
 Situation 
 
 or 
 
 Project 
 
 Moral 
 Attitude 
 
 Opening Days 
 (Work) 
 
 (Cooperation) 
 
 Health 
 
 Early Settlers 
 (1) (Adventure) 
 
 (2) Fortitude 
 
 Changing Seasons 
 Admiration 
 (3) Thrift 
 
 (4) Neighborliness 
 
 Armistice Day 
 
 (a) Service 
 (5) Bravery 
 
 (b) 
 
 (6) 
 
 Thanksgiving 
 (7) Sharing 
 
 References for "Opening Exercises," "Assembly" and Entertainments 
 
 Recitations 
 and Readings 
 
 20.6:47.201; 
 [16 .3 :22 .60] 
 
 14.3:29.230: 
 [12.9:10.30] 
 
 15.20:4.60 
 
 [19.30:140.19: 
 [10.8:23.48] 
 
 9.30:C120.9 
 
 90.500:43.51: 
 [12.3:29.4] 
 
 18.7:41.150: 
 [8 .2 .CI 16 .31] 
 
 14.9:33.24: 
 [10.8:11.16] 
 
 41.5:121.10 
 
 |37 .9 :128 .43 :] 
 [51.12:101.2] 
 
 Dialogues and 
 Dramatizations 
 
 48.12:13.90: 
 [10.3:131.17] 
 
 12.161:4.18 
 
 91 .101 :16 .26 
 [9-117:C44.10] 
 
 [371.69:123.10: 
 [14.42:19.60] 
 
 29.132:121.12: 
 30.127:19.40: 
 10.3:21.80 
 
 19 .27 :12 .30 : 
 [143.800:1.7] 
 
 13.94:10.161 
 [12 .4 :91 .32) 
 
 101.461:49.302 
 
 19.56:131.58: 
 [12 .3 :22 .60] 
 
 91 .3 :14 .69 : 
 10.4:120.80 
 
 Selections for 
 Memorizing 
 
 62 .20 :14 .93 : 
 [10.3:92.103] 
 
 14.3:27.91: 
 
 [52 .25 :14 .54] 
 
 [20.37:3.42] 
 
 13.27:19.87 
 
 42.31:15.35: 
 [19 .4 :C22 .75] 
 
 13.27:19.64: 
 10.3:21.40 
 
 121.91:364.211 
 [19.3:41.60] 
 
 [11.41:47.201:] 
 [12.5:43.71] 
 
 [10.5:42.302] 
 
 112.46:15.92: 
 [13.3:921.30] 
 
 Problems and 
 Forum Discussion 
 
 "Current Events" 
 Local Situations 
 
 "Current Events" 
 Local Situations 
 
 "Current Events" 
 Local Situations 
 
 "Current Events" 
 Local Situations 
 
 "Current Events" 
 Local Situations 
 
 "Current Events" 
 Local Situations 
 
 "Current Events" 
 Local Situations 
 
 "Current Events" 
 Local Situations 
 
 "Current Events" 
 Local Situations 
 
 "Current Events" 
 Local Situations 
 
 Music 
 
 113.30 
 
 15.4: 
 12.3 
 
 29.7: 
 52.20 
 
 12.9 
 
 29.4: 
 13.2 
 
 12.7 
 
 19.5 
 
 130.50: 
 21.12 
 
 25.9: 
 19.3 
 
 11.4: 
 5.2: 
 1.27 
 
 Art 
 Appreciation 
 
 47.201 
 
 48.327: 
 22.60 
 
 38.400: 
 19.30 
 
 43.163 
 
 83 .212 : 
 26.46 
 
 14.290 
 
 26.309 
 
 41 .95 : 
 13.61 
 
 47.211: 
 22.51 
 
 41 .20 : 
 
 12.95: 
 
 121.10 
 
 ? 
 
 (A 
 
 C 
 
 1. 
 
 OQ 
 
 
 09 
 
 
 a 
 
 
 
 at 
 
 
 
 03 
 
 O 
 
 
 3 
 
 O 
 
 (» 
 
 IT 
 
 o 
 
 
 
 
 n 
 
 a. 
 
 SI 
 
 •0^ 
 
 ?! 
 
 
 
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 7 
 
 S S 
 
 r;^ 
 
 3 ^ 
 
 » 
 
 
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 3 
 
 m& 
 
 oq 
 
 n fi) 
 
 s: 
 
 sr » 
 
 SI 
 
 
 
 WH 
 
 
 C ET 
 
 2. 
 
 C A 
 
 p 
 
 £•'< 
 
 « 
 
 <: {P 
 
 Chart VI. Index to Supplementary Character-Training Material 
 
 Literature and 
 Biography 
 
 History and 
 Biography 
 
 Gfeography 
 
 Nature Study, 
 
 Physiology and 
 
 Hygiene 
 
 Civics 
 
 Plays and 
 Games 
 
 191.27:111.423 
 [16.4:21.70] 
 
 13.4:12.190: 
 [12.5:9.120] 
 
 10.14:53.211 
 
 10.6:14.212 
 11 .3 :152 .42 
 
 5.16:29.63 
 
 309.125:60.200: 
 [91.25:13.40] 
 
 [15.3:43.71] 
 
 [12.3:43.72] 
 131.50:22.60 
 
 [19.31:140.542] 
 
 16.2:132.412 
 
 [12.4.9.22] 
 
 43.6:551.970 
 [13.7:26.72] 
 
 24.10:65.320 
 [19.41:37.210] 
 
 12.5:27.201: 
 19.3:23.95: 
 [15.4:10.60] 
 
 [151.49:29:81] 
 
 111.15:29.661: 
 
 12.14:22.60: 
 
 [4.9:11.390] 
 
 [10.4:165.391] 
 
 9.20:133.421: 
 [12.25:19.30] 
 
 10.5:172.830' 
 
 14.5:43.80 
 12.2:26.47 
 
 11 .6 :121 .950 
 [13.2:120.49] 
 
 12.17:43.75 
 
 [42.20:13.521:] 
 [12.9:25.360] 
 
 13.25:141.424: 
 
 [9.4:10.24] 
 
 9.30:25.312: 
 [14.4:2.219] 
 
 [51.8:231.575:] 
 [19.8:28.61] 
 
 36.41:19.371: 
 [4.2:10.74] 
 
 12.7:490.500: 
 [11.8:30.251] 
 
 19.5:120.30 
 
 [17.3:15.24:] 
 9.3:26.49 
 
 10.4:25.360 
 [11.7:112.413] 
 
 [161.83:48.207:] 
 14.9:16.72 
 
 [137.2:47.201] 
 [19.5:121.394] 
 
 [113.71:41.75] 
 10.7:121.462 
 
 [12.4:152.130:] 
 19.16:130.30 
 
 13.5:20.250 
 
 [912.403:12.27] 
 
 [13.4:121.175:] 
 [13.10:23.91] 
 
 [131.74:95.110] 
 
 19.7:12.251: 
 42.30:101.750 
 
 14.2:36.5 
 
 14.4:19.360: 
 [5.2:212.650:] 
 10.3:9.96 
 
 [62.74:123.241] 
 [5.4:10.14] 
 
 15.3:33.95 
 [112.101:22.73:] 
 10.9:12.35 
 
 [42.10:36.52:] 
 [21.9:39.501] 
 
 [16.9:311.791] 
 
 [116.50:41.3:] 
 15.7:4.19 
 
 [5.3:919.741] 
 
 [16.41:122.35:] 
 9.4:13.120 
 
 [10.5:47.201:] 
 [16.3:22.60] 
 
 [92.8:37.491] 
 
 14.36:21.92: 
 [15.3:316.990] 
 
 313.59:42.97: 
 
 [15.3:7.24] 
 
 16.4:20.266: 
 [190.132:21.34] 
 
 [9.3:120.25] 
 
 14 .2 :48 .212 
 
 33.15:48.205: 
 [17.4:30.42] 
 
 [42.9:360.792] 
 
 [14 .30 :57 .92 :] 
 [3 .1 :22 .60] 
 
 [12.11:23.92:] 
 10.7:140.651 
 
 [41.27:52.73] 
 
 
 
 
 
 ^^^__^ 
 
 
THE CURRICULUM BY YEARS d/ 
 
 school activities, she would hardly find an excuse for not starting directly 
 to reach out for available aids. 
 
 A few points of interest for the future prosecution of character educa- 
 tion research have grown out of our experiences. We are convinced 
 that the richest source for determining the best materials will come from 
 the schools themselves. With a nation-wide inquiry, it ought to be pos- 
 sible to bring together a well-tried body of standard materials. Experts 
 at the art of writing for children are not so accurate always in judging 
 good food for them as are teacher-artists v/ho know by experience what 
 devices and aids have proven profitable to specific children at definite times 
 in their experience and in describable ways. 
 
 Through the misunderstanding of a superintendent we were acci- 
 dentally brought into touch with the confidences of a group of high-school 
 students as to what biographies, poems, pictures, etc., had proven to them 
 really useful in doing character training work. The student papers have 
 the quality of freshness and sincerity that suggest a new mine of wealth 
 that might well be worked. 
 
 The bibliography of material for classroom use which was submitted 
 as a part of the Iowa plan can be borrowed from the Character Education 
 Institution for two weeks' study, by those who need it for the develop- 
 ment of character education work in public schools. 
 
CHAPTER PX 
 
 MEASUREMENTS OF PROGRESS AND ATTAINMENT 
 
 We have seen that it is possible for the schools to be very clear in 
 their thought of the ends to be achieved, and of specific ways of reaching 
 them. Equally important is the question of estimating the successes and 
 failures in having each pupil reach the desired objectives. The present 
 chapter is a study in character-rating. 
 
 Valuation of character, far more important than the rating of intel- 
 ligence, must be faced on its own ground. We have ascertained, as have 
 other students, that intellectual skills are not an index of moral health. 
 
 For five years the chairman of the Iowa Collaborators has been 
 conducting studies, by the help of graduate students, on this problem. 
 The attempts of some other students have been studied and tested, 
 usually with the net result that they hardly as yet meet the requirements 
 of mental rating scales, namely, that they should be usuable and valid, 
 and that they should establish objective standards, or norms, for estimat- 
 ing proficiency or attainment. Various methods of attacking the problem 
 have been devised, with a view to overcoming the difficulties. 
 
 On the whole, the most hopeful set of character-rating charts is that 
 presented herewith. Much credit for its formulation and for the exacting 
 statistical work connected therewith is due Mr. George H. Mendenhall. 
 During the past two and one-half years he has been working with the 
 chairman during his post-graduate career at improving, testing and stand- 
 ardizing the scales — looking toward this report. That work is still in 
 progress. 
 
 Most effort, to the present, has been expended upon the scale for 
 high-school pupils as shown in the attached sheet. While probably not 
 in its final form, it has been found to be practicable and profitable to 
 pupils and teachers. The most important single step in advance was in 
 allowing pupils more than one judgment concerning each of the thirty 
 qualities of character, in distributing 10 points among the gradations 
 of each. 
 
 While we have not, as yet, been successful in establishing norms or 
 standards for the estimate of character, the ratings are accurate enough 
 to be useful. There are many lines of evidence for this fact: (a) There 
 is a surprisingly high degree of constancy in the average of plus and 
 of minus estimates for different schools and for various groups. (&) The 
 mean variation of the plus and minus averages is small, showing they 
 are not haphazard, (c) If a group of students rate themselves at a 
 given time and are later required to repeat the performance, there is a 
 reasonably high correlation between the first and second ratings. That 
 depends, of course, upon the pains and conscientiousness of the procedure. 
 In one instance the correlation was .92. (d) There is a reasonably high 
 correlation between the pupil's rating of himself and the teacher's rating 
 of him. They range from zero correlations, where there is evidence 
 of haste and carelessness, to .90 in the instance in which pupils and 
 teachers are really doing their best. 
 
 The exercise in occasional self-rating is a valuable one to students. 
 They seem to enter into it cheerfully. Many confessions have been col- 
 lected of its usefulness. It calls attention to points essential to character 
 about which they had never thought. There is a profit and satisfaction 
 in getting a straight look at themselves which is often the prerequisite 
 to taking themselves in hand. 
 
 Character-rating is found to be a challenge to teachers : to treat 
 
 38 
 
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Name Age . . Sex. . 
 
 City Street Address 
 
 School Year 
 
 Nationality of Father of Mother 
 
 Occupation of Father Age of Father Mother. 
 
 Number of children in family No. older than you. . . . 
 
 Church connection or preference Member. . . 
 
 Your favorite games and pastimes 
 
 Your favorite books. 
 
 Your supreme ambition if any. 
 
 Your choice of occupation if any. 
 
 Address communications to; 
 
SELF-MEASUREMENT SCALE 
 
 Where do you stand in the human scale, as compared with 
 your fellows? Are you average, above average, or below? 
 What are your weaknesses and what are your points of strength? 
 Suppose you take yourself in hand and try to find out. 
 
 We have learned to rate or judge our livestock and our 
 crops and we find that it pays. The business man rates every 
 article he handles, he knows what stock he has on hand and 
 what it is worth. He finds that it pays. Teachers are learning 
 to test out the various "skills" of the pupils in spelling, number 
 work, reading, etc., and they find that it pays. 
 
 All this rating is in the right direction. A little clearhead- 
 edness and thoughtfulness can do wonders in individual and 
 group progress. The most important of all rating is self-rating 
 in matters of character. That rests with you. You and you 
 alone can estimate your own traits of character for you know 
 them as no one else does. 
 
 The Self-Measurement Scale is intended to help you rate 
 yourself that you may find in what points you are strong and 
 in what points you may be weak. Examine it carefully and you 
 will find it suggestive and helpful in getting a correct view of 
 yourself. It will pay. 
 
 You will notice that the Scale is divided into thirty sections 
 called Qualities, each one being essential in character formation. 
 Toward the right, each Quality is divided into four gradations 
 that denote the desirable characteristics of the Quality, ranging 
 from "fair," through "good," "excellent" to "best possible." 
 Toward the left there are also four gradations, but these 
 denote the undesirable characteristics of the Quality, ranging 
 from "lacking," through "poor," "very poor," to "worst pos- 
 sible." These gradations are intended to move by even steps 
 from the center toward the right and toward the left. Words 
 and phrases are used to describe what each gradation stands 
 for. The fourth gradations are supposed to be the limit each 
 way and will therefore be used very sparingly if at all. 
 
 Notice this interesting fact : as you glance over the grada- 
 tions of a Quality, several of them will seem to describe your 
 
 character. Some will seem to fit your case distinctly and clearly 
 while others will be faint and barely recognized. To meet this 
 situation you are given ten points to be distributed among 
 the eight gradations. Where the gradation fits you most dis- 
 tinctly, place there the largest number of the ten points, where 
 it is not so distinct, place a smaller number, etc., until the ten 
 points are all used. Use all of the ten points but use only ten. 
 
 For instance let us suppose that Deportment were one of 
 the Qualities on which you were going to grade yourself. Your 
 school grades perhaps have been good and you would think that 
 you deserve 4 points in "plus two." Occasionally you may have 
 been very agreeable and obedient and would give yourself 1 in 
 "plus three." Your general behaviour at home may be average 
 and you think 1 point in "plus one" would be about right. On 
 the other hand suppose that sometimes you have a tendency 
 to be disobedient and in justice deserve 1 point in "minus one." 
 Again, let us suppose when you are out with the "crowd" or with 
 "the gang" you are likely to "turn loose" and think that you 
 ought to have two points in "minus two" and sometipies you 
 have a strong inclination to "be bad" and deserve 1 point in 
 "minus three." Your record might appear about as follows : 
 
 1 2 1 DEPORTMENT 14 1 
 
 Another person might grade himself 7 points in "plus two" 
 and 3 in "minus one" or vice versa. 
 
 You would not want the photographer to make a distorted 
 picture of you. In rating yourself try to make the picture as 
 true as possible. You will then be able to locate the weak 
 spots and can begin to correct and strengthen them. You will 
 also locate your strong traits of character and can use them in 
 making your life what you would like to have it be. You will 
 find that it will pay. 
 
 Use ten and only ten points. When you have finished add 
 the number of points under each gradation and the sum of the 
 eight gradations should be 300. 
 
 Age Sex. 
 
 Street Address 
 
 Name 
 
 City 
 
 School Year 
 
 Nationality of Father of Mother 
 
 Occupation of Father Age of Father. . . .Mother. 
 
 Number of children in family No. older than you. . . . 
 
 Church connection or preference Member. . , 
 
 Your favorite games and pastimes 
 
 Your favorite books. 
 
 Your supreme ambition if any. 
 
 Your choice of occupation if any. 
 
 Address communications to: 
 
A SELF-MEASUREMENT SCALE FOR CHILDREN, 
 GRADES V TO VIII 
 
 There are twenty-two qualities listed in the center of the scale 
 with three gradations on each side. On the right side the grada- 
 tions are plus or favorable for the development of the right 
 kind of character and on the left side they are minus or unfavor- 
 able — hindrances to the right development of character. Most 
 of us find that we have both favorable and hindering conditions 
 in our lives. 
 
 To rate yourself, take up the qualities one at a time. Allow 
 yourself ten points for each one. Examine the six gradations 
 and find which ones seem to describe you as you know yourself, 
 then distribute the ten points among those gradations, placing 
 the largest number of points where the description seems to fit 
 you best and a smaller number for the other gradations until 
 you have distributed the ten points. If only one gradation 
 seems to fit you place the whole ten points there, but if several 
 gradations seem to fit your case distribute the ten points among 
 them. 
 
 Take up each of the twenty-two qualities in the same way and 
 when you have finished add up the number in each of the six 
 gradations and place the totals at the bottom of the scale. Then 
 take the totals in the second gradations and multiply them by 
 two and the totals in the third gradations and multiply them by 
 three and add the products to the totals in the first gradations 
 and you have your total score, those on the left your total minus 
 score, and those on the right your total plus score. 
 
 In rating yourself be honest and mark yourself as you know 
 yourself or the rating will be practically useless. 
 
 Name Age Sex 
 
 City • Date 
 
 School Grade 
 
 Number of children in family No. older than you. , 
 
 Occupation of Father , 
 
 What do you expect to do when you get through school ? , 
 
 Who is the best person you have ever known or read about ? , 
 Why do you think this person is good 
 
PROGRESS AND ATTAINMENT 39 
 
 pupils as individuals and not as groups; to take a more discriminating 
 attitude toward the individual pupil, rather than to consider him roughly 
 as this or that boy or girl; to centre the weight of his interest in those 
 fundamental impulses and attitudes of pupils that make for personality 
 rather than in the skills and proficiencies of thought that lead to high 
 intelligence-rating. The self-analysis of the pupil is a complicated snap- 
 shot, not always objectively accurate, of the ins and outs, the ups and 
 downs, the tendencies and strivings of an interesting life. It is, capable 
 of diverse readings, always useful. We have found, for instance, that 
 if a hundred students who have already rated themselves are required 
 later to pick out the seven most important moral qualities of the thirty 
 and the seven least important, they will have rated themselves more than 
 twice as high in the first seven qualities as in the last. By so much are 
 their confessions a true picture of their ethical attitudes. 
 
 One of the chief benefits is the natural common ground the exercise 
 furnishes for exchange of opinion of pupil and the teacher who is pro- 
 fessedly a helper. Whenever there arise discrepancies between the pupil's 
 judgment of himself and the teacher's estimate of him, the causes are to 
 be sought. To rectify such judgments has been found to be a pleasant 
 and profitable undertaking. Usually there is a deal of similarity. We 
 have found it to be the pretty substantial rule that teachers rate pupils 
 slightly higher than the pupils rate themselves. There is the slight 
 sprinkling of bluffers and self-deceivers whose assurance is to be softened, 
 and the larger showing of the self-distrustful who need stimulation, and 
 who are always grateful for a bit of friendly encouragement. 
 
 A scale for the grades V to VIII, inclusive, has been devised and 
 is presented herewith. It is much simplified as to number of qualities, 
 and attempts only three gradations above and below the standard. It is 
 found that these grades can use the simplified and modified scale as 
 readily as the high-school students can theirs. There is the same degree 
 of constancy in the plus and minus averages. The mean variations are 
 less, indicating greater constancy among the younger pupils. There is 
 even higher correlation also in these grades than in the high school of 
 teachers' and pupils' ratings. It has been ascertained that this scale can 
 be used as low down as grade IV. The pupils stumble, however, in 
 understanding the distribution of the ten points, and it is accordingly 
 practicable to use it only from the Sth grade upward. 
 
 We have devised two tests for the lower grades, the one to be used 
 among the kindergarten and primary children, and the second in the grades 
 2 to 4. Copies of these are presented herewith. 
 
 A sufficiently full description of these tests is found in the instructions 
 to teachers and need not be repeated. It should be borne in mind that the 
 attempt with the little folk just as with the older pupils is to turn their 
 attention invariably outward upon the things they ought to do and the 
 attitude they should assume to other folk and the situations they face 
 rather than to tempt them in the direction of self-analysis. There is an 
 important suggestive value in the questions and required answers. The 
 pupil is brought of necessity to focalize upon the niceties of behavior 
 and upon the habits that form the warp and woof of his moral life. 
 
 It seems reasonable to expect that ultimately the practice will become 
 well established by which teachers, parents, and pupils working together, 
 shall see to it that each child's behavior is moving in the direction of a 
 well-ordered life. It is coming now to be a well-established educational 
 dogma that it is the school's responsibility to know that pupils are acquir- 
 ing the right intellectual skills. Is it not equally the responsibility of 
 education to know that the child is attaining reasonably correct standards 
 of moral conduct? 
 
«-a? 
 
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40 CHARACTER EDUCATION METHODS 
 
 There have been some attempts in the direction of character rating. 
 President W. DeWitt Hyde devised a scale for the measurement of ten 
 qualities and published a booklet entitled Self -Measurement (Huebsch). 
 Mr. Milton Fairchild has devised a practicable scale and described it in a 
 pamphlet entitled Nuclei of Character (Character Education Institution). 
 A significant contribution in this direction is made by S. M. Upton 
 and C. F. Chassell, A Scale for Measuring the Importance of Habits of 
 Good Citisenship. (Teachers' College Record, Vol. 20, pp. 36-65.) 
 
A CHARACTER TEST FOR PRIMARY CHILDREN 
 
 This test is intended, first, to help the teacher to get an idea 
 of the character habits of the child; second, to suggest to the 
 pupil the right things to do and the things he ought not to do; 
 third, to aid the teacher, parents, and pupil working together to 
 form the right kind of character habits in the child. 
 
 The test should be kept at the teacher's desk and used soon 
 after the opening of school each school day for two weeks. It 
 should be given only as often as thought necessary to keep the 
 suggestions before the pupils. When the teacher is convinced 
 that the proper habits are fairly well formed, she should dis- 
 continue it. 
 
 If possible, get the parents to cooperate by taking a copy of 
 the scale and checking the pupil at home and by verifying the 
 checking of the pupil. Emphasize the necessity of truthfulness 
 in order to make the test of any benefit. 
 
 Name Age Sex 
 
 City School Grade. . . . 
 
 Number of children in the family 
 
 Number older than you 
 
 Occupation of father 
 
 Number of rooms in your home 
 
 Are you a member of a Sunday School class ? 
 
 Signature of parent with remarks as to the correctness or in- 
 correctness of the checking and of observed benefits. \ . 
 
 Address communications to : 
 
 (a) 
 
A CHARACTER TEST FOR PRIMARY 
 CHILDREN 
 
 1. Did you sleep 10 hours or more last night? 
 
 2. Did you take ten or more long, deep breaths 
 yesterday ? 
 
 3. Did you wash your hands before each meal 
 yesterday ? 
 
 4. Did you wash your teeth yesterday? 
 
 5. Did you spend 30 minutes or more in the open 
 air yesterday? 
 
 6. Did you put away your wraps when you came 
 home from school yesterday ? 
 
 7. Did you arrange your clothes last night so that 
 they would be easy to find and put on this 
 morning ? 
 
 8. Did you take a bath yesterday ? 
 
 9. Did you go straight home from school yes- 
 terday ? 
 
 10. Did you' try to keep from soiling or tearing 
 your clothes yesterday? 
 
 11. Did you step aside to let anyone pass you yes- 
 terday, on the sidewalks, in the halls, or at 
 doors ? 
 
 12. Do you have a savings account or bank?... 
 
 13. Did you earn and save anything yesterday? 
 
 14. Did you do anything yesterday that you ought 
 not to have done? 
 
 16. Did you share anything (apple, candy, nuts, 
 cake, etc.) with brothers, sisters, or playmates 
 yesterday ? 
 
 17. Did you cry yesterday ? 
 
 18. Did you complain when asked to do anything 
 yesterday 
 
 19. Did you quit playing or pout yesterday when 
 you could not have your own way? 
 
 20. Did you quarrel with anyone yesterday? 
 
 21. Did you go away from home yesterday without 
 telling anyone where you went ? 
 
 22. Did you bite your finger nails or put pencil in 
 your mouth yesterday ? 
 
 (b) 
 
 c 
 o 
 
 3 
 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 
 
 — 
 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 
A CHARACTER TEST FOR CHILDREN, GRADES HI 
 
 AND IV 
 
 This test is intended to help the teacher to gain a knowledge 
 and an understanding of the strong and weak points in the per- 
 sonal character of the pupil and to suggest to him the things he 
 ought to do and the things he ought not to do, and in this way 
 aid him in forming the right kind of habits. 
 
 The test should be given as often as thought necessary to keep 
 the suggestions before the pupil until the teacher is convinced 
 that the right habits are fairly well established. It may then be 
 discontinued and be given only occasionally as a measure of 
 the permanency of the habits formed. If possible enlist the co- 
 operation of the parents. 
 
 Name Age Sex 
 
 City School Grade 
 
 Number of children in the family 
 
 Number older than you 
 
 Occupation of your father 
 
 Number of rooms in your home 
 
 Are you a member of Sunday School class ? 
 
 Signature of parent with estimates as to correctness or incor- 
 rectness of answers of pupil, and observations of benefit derived 
 
 Address communications to : 
 
 (c) 
 
A CHARACTER TEST FOR CHILDREN, GRADES HI AND IV 
 
 1. Did you do your health chores yesterday? 
 
 a. Wash your teeth ? 
 
 b. Wash your hands before each meal ? 
 
 c. Take a bath? 
 
 d. Spend 30 minutes or more in the open air ? 
 
 e. Take some special exercises ? 
 
 2. Did you waste any time yesterday when you ought to have been 
 at work ? 
 
 3. What did you do yesterday to help someone at home? 
 
 4. What did you do yesterday to help someone without being asked? 
 
 5. Were you tardy at school or late at meals yesterday? 
 
 6. What did you see yesterday that was really beautiful? 
 
 7. What good music did you hear yesterday? 
 
 8. Did you hurt anyone or make anyone cry yesterday? 
 
 9. How much did you earn yesterday ? 
 
 10. Did you quit playing or pout yesterday when you could not have 
 your own way? 
 
 11. What did you have to hunt yesterday because it was not put 
 away in its proper place ? 
 
 12. Did you step aside to let someone pass you yesterday on the side- 
 walks, in the halls, or at doors? 
 
 13. Did you plan last night something to do today? 
 
 14. Did you do anything wrong yesterday 
 
 Did you own up to it? Did you try to make it right? 
 
 15. Did you promise to do anything yesterday that you did not do? 
 
 16. What did you read yesterday just because you wanted to? 
 
 17. What did you hear or see yesterday that was funny? 
 
 18. Did you refuse to do anything yesterday that someone wanted 
 you to because you thought it was wrong? 
 
 19. Did you quarrel with anyone yesterday ? 
 
 20. What did any of your playmates do yesterday that you thought 
 was wrong ? 
 
 21. Why did you think it was wrong? 
 
 22. Are there any of your playmates that do not like you? 
 
 23. Why don't they like you ? , 
 
 24. What did you do after school yesterday ? 
 
 25. Did you try to keep cheerful yesterday ? 
 
 id) 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 THE TEACHER AND HER PREPARATION 
 
 1. The Teacher as a Moral Leader. — The success of any course in 
 character training rests in large measure with the teacher, her personality, 
 her preparation, and , her skill as an educational artist. This is the 
 consideration of first importance. With the right teacher alive in mind 
 and pure in heart, the question of keeping the flame of morality burning 
 while the necessary tasks of the school day are performed will solve 
 itself. Developing childhood is the growing point in the life of the race. 
 Whatever the teacher puts into children is the surest of all investments 
 in race improvement. As the home, in preforming the habits and tastes 
 of children, is the heart of humanity, so the school, in its conscious 
 direction of that development through wise teachers, is the living, directing 
 agency in human evolution. The teacher is becoming progressively the 
 prophet-leader of her kind. She must be the incarnation of the best 
 traditions of the race — its thought, its tastes and its purposes. For the 
 state to select its finest personalities as the teachers of its children, 
 and to pour into their minds and hearts, through long and careful prepara- 
 tion, the richest of its treasures, that act is the conscious thought of 
 humanity finding itself in the direction of its fulfillment. The increasing 
 interest during recent years in the character training program is the 
 purposeful will directing itself towards the production of the best type 
 of manhood and womanhood. The success of the venture will depend 
 largely upon the selection and training of teachers as the preformers 
 of character during the plastic years of infancy. 
 
 2. Some Qualifications of the Teacher. — The ideal teacher has been so 
 picturesquely portrayed in literature and so faithfully described in educa- 
 tional literature that there is no need of trying to add to the vividness 
 or accuracy of the picture. A few observations are required that are 
 in keying with this report. There are at least four points worthy of 
 emphasis. 
 
 In the first place it is necessary, in connection with the sort of school 
 and curriculum we have presented, that the teacher be a very human 
 person. While knowing books as tools of knowledge, she need not be 
 afflicted with bookishness. Although living up faithfully to a course 
 of study that hundreds of persons have devised and millions should 
 respect, she may escape through every hour of her career the deadness 
 and heaviness of slavery to its prescriptions. We have stressed much 
 the need of preserving constantly the vital interest and the entire integrity 
 of the personality of pupils. That is not possible unless the teacher 
 herself is a vital and vitalizing personality. 
 
 Secondly, it is needful that the teacher be companionable. The ex- 
 pectancy that a teacher be chiefly a rigid disciplinarian, a purveyor of 
 wisdom, a prescriber of tasks — an unholy inheritance from ancient autoc- 
 racies — is the arch enemy of educational wholesomeness. Moral impulses, 
 like diseases and humor, are infectious. Under those circumstances there 
 is too little chance for the contagion. It is entirely possible for a teacher 
 to subordinate herself to the wishes and interests of her pupils and to 
 enjoy their companionship, at the same time being a true leader, finding 
 and directing their thought and conduct. Indeed such a combination 
 seems to be one of the essential marks of the greatest teachers, like 
 Socrates, Jesus, Buddha, and Pestalozzi. 
 
 Thirdly, the_ teacher should be well versed in the technique of the 
 profession and in those sciences that underlie her methods and materials. 
 
 41 
 
42 CHARACTER EDUCATION METHODS 
 
 An intimate knowledge of the laws of the mental life and of child growth 
 are as essential to the teacher as are physics to the engineer and physiology 
 to the physician. A thorough discipline in ethics, so far as practicable, 
 should be required. It should be a foregone conclusion that she can 
 safely shape and direct the moral ideas of her pupils only if she is an 
 expert herself in ethical thinking. 
 
 Lastly, she needs ripened insight and wide outlook. She should come 
 to see in clear perspective the entire progressive course in moral educa- 
 tion, whatever that proves to be or what her speci'al part is in the entire 
 program. The true objective of character training should stand out 
 in her thought as vividly as do facts of geography or rules of grammar, 
 so that they may temper the spirit and method of everything she does. 
 The teacher is becoming more and more a specialist, centering all her 
 ingenuity upon one particular task. Breadth of view should keep pace 
 with the degree of specialization. Unless she sees the entire curriculum, 
 sympathizes with the end and purpose of it all and appreciates the lines 
 of continuity running through the whole, her devices are too likely 
 to prove petty schemes that destroy rather than build up. Her work in 
 relation to others might well be like that of an athlete in a game or an 
 artist in an orchestra with every act throbbing in sympathy with the com- 
 mon purpose. 
 
 3. The Duty of Colleges of Education and Normal Schools. — It must 
 be acknowledged that the effort spent among institutions for the prepara- 
 tion of, teachers, in inculcating skills and in clarifying the thought 
 about the mechanics of culture is quite out of proportion to the ingenuity 
 exercised in matters bearing directly and indirectly upon the humanizing 
 and moralizing of boys and girls. Little time is employed with the 
 arts. Child study as a science languishes and practical ethics is at a 
 minimum. Character training hardly appears in the schedule of courses. 
 Let none defend this situation on the ground that everything in the 
 curriculum when rightly taught is food for moral education. Although 
 moral lessons should never appear among the Elementary School subjects 
 we have been able to show that the cultivation of character traits has 
 a technique as definite as that of any phase of education. It is sadly 
 true that the character training ends of school work, while universally 
 recognized as of first importance, are the ones habitually lost to view 
 in the rush after the acquisition of information. It is to be hoped that 
 training-schools for teachers will give first place to courses in character 
 training. To keep prospective teachers sensitive to this aspect of education 
 is the surest means of vitalizing the school activities throughout. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 COOPERATING AGENCIES 
 
 1. The home. — Well-bred and well-nurtured children, i.e., good animals, 
 are a contribution of first importance. The character possibilities of the 
 school are limited by these. The sharing of home life, its privileges and 
 responsibilities, is a sort of "first step" in the way of larger social life 
 whose gateway is through the school. The home is the earliest, and the 
 most impressive school of character. Disharmony between home and 
 school is obstructive of moral growth. The home, the school, adult citizen- 
 ship, are successive stages in the soul's experience and development. The 
 sympathy, friendliness, and helpfulness of the home gain in range and 
 definition in school and later social life. The home, with a more intel- 
 ligent grasp both of its own function and of the purpose of the school, 
 in co-operation with the school, has large moral possibilities. 
 
 2. Parent-Teacher Organisation. — The home and school, the parent 
 and teacher, center about the child. Their meaning and being are in him. 
 Each has its function in his development. Neither can do its part best by 
 itself. The parent can profit by the teacher's insight into the principles 
 of physical and mental health. Nutrition, rest, and exercise may be 
 understood in their moral significance as well. The teacher, in turn, can 
 better accomplish her mission by sharing the parent's more intimate 
 knowledge of the habits, disposition, and needs of the child. Mutual 
 sympathy and co-operation between home and school yield in the child 
 a consciousness of community, of social unity, of purpose and solidarity, 
 morally significant. Such relationship mediated and deepened through 
 the Parent-Teacher Association invests education with purposefulness, 
 and creates in the child a sense of social expectation and a desire to 
 measure up to it. It centers adult life upon the child ; it creates a com- 
 munity consciousness and betters conditions for the making of citizens. 
 Similar ends between church and school would be served by the proposed 
 Church-Parent-Teacher Association. 
 
 3. The Church. — The church has ever stood as the conserver and 
 quickener of moral life. Man as a spirit, the absolute worth of the good 
 life, participation in a larger life through faith, worship, works, and 
 love, are some of its great pronouncements. Its prophetic demand for 
 personal and social righteousness has been morally impressive. The mes- 
 sage of the church will be found in the background of causes that have 
 given rise to the present demand for moral training in our schools. 
 
 The Church is because of a great moral personality. The building 
 itself stands to the youth of the community as a testimony to unseen 
 realities, to moral and spiritual values. Respect for facts as taught in 
 the school is deepened by the church in the teaching of reverence for 
 values. The democracy sought in the school is re-enforced by the church 
 in the fellowship of its worship, in its appeal to sacrificial living, and 
 in the enthusiasm engendered in common in behalf of inspiring ideals. The 
 social values of the school are supplemented by the activities of young 
 people's organizations in the church where the emphasis is more ex- 
 plicitly moral and religious. 
 
 4. The Church School.— Its ideal is the intelligent nurture of the 
 church and its adherents in Christian citizenship. In practice, however, 
 its constituency consists largely of the boys and girls of the public school. 
 
 Its function is instruction and training in social righteousness of such 
 character as to qualify for efficient and happy membership in the Christian 
 community. The motive whether moral or religious is social and practical. 
 
 43 
 
44 CHARACTER EDUCATION METHODS 
 
 Its method is psychological and situational, i.e., interests are a func- 
 tion of instinct and environment. Needs vary with growth. Nurture is 
 determined by need. Material is graded according to growth. It employs, 
 too, the laboratory method. Learning by doing, impression by expression, 
 knowing the doctrine by doing the will, are statements of it. 
 
 As to its curriculum content, experience with persons in actual life 
 relationships is of primary importance. The method is participation 
 much more than proclamation. The content is living epistles rather than 
 a traditional doctrine. Love, mercy, and truth are first incarnate. Pic- 
 tures, stories, plays, history, literature, biography, and the Bible, as 
 study material have a meaning and value only as interpreted in terms of 
 personal experience. Love of the unseen is mediated through the seen. 
 The Bible to reveal its moral and religious worth with its stories for 
 childhood, its friendships and heroisms for youth, and its wisdom for 
 mature minds, must be retranslated, so far as possible, into the actual 
 social experience of persons such as we. 
 
 Growth means increasing capacity to share satisfactorily in increas- 
 ingly complex social relationships. Moral development means increasing 
 capacity for fulness of participation in social life rather than an intel- 
 lectual acquaintance with the so-called moral virtues. 
 
 5. The Community. — The principle of community is native to man. 
 Community is a spirit first, an area afterward. It is a state of mind, 
 a socialized will, a mode of life, a steadfast fellowship in "singleness of 
 heart." Love is its essence. 
 
 Community finds its best cultivation and expression in the true family 
 where the good of each is the common good. Love pursues the good of 
 the whole. The community motived by love is the family extended. 
 "Love thy neighbor as thyself." So interpreted the cultivation of the 
 religious life is one of the best means for the nurture of the community 
 impulse in the child. Then, too, the actual practice of community in any 
 form of neighborhood cooperation develops the spirit of community. 
 Pride in neighborhood cleanliness (physical or moral), community play- 
 grounds, social centers, consolidated schools, and community churches, are 
 all practical expressions of it. When the whole school enterprise is seen 
 as a public utility, as socially motived, owned, and administered, it 
 becomes to the boy his very own. He becomes its guardian, and is loyal 
 thereto. The school cannot do this by itself. 
 
 The spirit of community could be furthered in our young by more 
 actual participation on the part of the public in the life of the school 
 and its associated interests. Commencement could be invested with a 
 social significance as marking a stage in citizenship. Armistice Day, 
 Lincoln's and Washington's Birthdays, among others, offer opportunity 
 for public participation in and emphasis upon the principles of citizenship. 
 
 6. Less Formal Agencies. — The press is our national educator. It is 
 a power for good or evil. As a chronicler of human vices, it dulls and 
 may destroy moral perceptions and sensibilities. As a preacher of right- 
 eousness, standing squarely for the right on all moral issues, it creates 
 an atmosphere, a community standard, that grows in impressiveness and 
 inviolability. In its interest in the school and in school events it builds 
 for itself a constituency in the formation of whose ideals and values 
 it exercises a determining influence. 
 
 The Public Library is a public utility. The child, the youth, the 
 adult, are its patrons. It cooperates with the school in the story-hour for 
 the little ones, and in selecting and providing selected readings and refer- 
 ences for the older children. Through it a carefully chosen literature 
 is provided and made readily accessible. In cultivating a taste for reading, 
 in providing good literature for the leisure hours of school pupils and 
 for working boys and girls, it makes contribution to moral character. 
 
COOPERATING AGENCIES 45 
 
 The movie has ten million patrons daily. In influence it is becoming 
 a competitor of the school and the press. It appeals to the dramatic im- 
 pulses. It arrests and holds attention, gives suggestions and stirs imagina- 
 tion. Suggestion is more powerful in periods of relaxation. The suscepti- 
 bility of the movie audience necessitates for moral ends some sort of 
 supervision of films. It may become a powerful ally of moral education. 
 It has already made important contributions in its special educational 
 films. The public school is providing itself with this equipment. 
 
 The Boy Scouts and Camp Fire Girls are typical organizations of 
 major moral significance. In their appeal to adventure and romance, to 
 comradeship and loyalty, to freedom and cooperative activity, to initiative, 
 self-reliance, and self-expression, their moral possibilities are very great. 
 They make for citizenship through practical serviceable living in both home 
 and community. They invest the adolescent boy and girl, otherwise a 
 nondescript element in our life, with rights and duties and transform 
 them into the junior citizenship of the nation. In that they supply worthy 
 forms of recreational activity during leisure these and such organizations 
 have great moral possibilities. They may properly be regarded as a sort 
 of informal continuation school. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 CONCLUSION 
 
 We have spoken hitherto of projects. There is just one project — 
 the most challenging of all. It is that of the culture of humanity through 
 childhood. It is an old story in the saying of it, that all this work of 
 education, this striving, this aspiring, are elements in the process of human 
 self-realization. But it is novir a project, as concrete and definite as 
 any that are set for boy or girl in the school. To carry it through to 
 final completion will take the combined effort of educators working 
 through many years. The ends to be attained are becoming clean-cut 
 in their definition. The ways leading thereto are opening up. They run 
 through schools, and homes and communities and pass through the muscles 
 and hearts as well as thoughts of active children, doing meaningful 
 things together. We can see many of the specific activities with which 
 children may be well occupied. 
 
 The task of character research is to try out under controlled conditions 
 the various projects and methods that have distinct moral value and to 
 discover others. It must study, work, and build until every teacher in 
 America is clearly conscious of the entire program of which she is a 
 part and exactly the meaning of what she is domg in the furthering of 
 the collective plan. 
 
 There is little danger that ever again, with the start we have made, 
 the end and means should be sought in a set "system" or imprisoned 
 in a fixed "curriculum." The ends are personal, social and ideal. The 
 methods to be used are such as will foster the purposeful, thoughtful, 
 and creative activities of pupils. These truths will hardly be shaken. 
 
 The project herein outlined, we trust, is clearheaded and business- 
 like. It is finding ways of checking up step by step its methods and 
 progress. It is discovering how to make the self-realization of each 
 and every pupil a community endeavor in which parents, churches, and 
 all agencies concerned shall concentrate their efiforts. It takes individuals 
 singly and severally instead of collectively and generally. It sees already 
 how to estimate within reasonable limits the finished product so that 
 when the school turns out from the "people's college" young men and 
 women with a certificate of "good moral character," that testimony 
 shall have one hundred per cent of truth in its statement. 
 
 The project is a national one. Too long has America contented herself 
 with merely preaching the gospel of democracy to her youth. She must 
 now instill the spirit of democracy into the inner parts of her boys and 
 girls by giving them years of practice in democracy. 
 
 While the project looms large as an appealing program it is also 
 simple. The teacher who wishes to do so can begin forthwith. If she is 
 able to have at hand some such first aid as the chart suggested in Chapter 
 VII, along with a bibliography and available materials, she can immediately 
 begin to vitalize the work of her pupils. She may well keep in touch 
 with an organization like the Character Education Institution of Wash- 
 ington, D. C. This and similar organizations exist for the sake of keeping 
 teachers in touch with right methods and new materials. Her knowledge 
 will grow with the doing until she in turn is an active unit in the 
 combined endeavor. 
 
 46 
 
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