Class A Book Jl G*yrightN°__ COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATIONAL PRACTICE BY PAUL KLAPPER, Ph.D. INSTRUCTOR OF EDUCATION, COLLEGE OP THE CITY OF NEW TOBK NEW YORK D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 1912 V^V Copyright, 1912, by D. APPLETON AND COMPANY Cc ■ r.\ a.i?.r1 10 TO MY ALMA MATER THE COLLEGE OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK THE EXPONENT OF EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY AND DEMOCRACY IN EDUCATION TABLE OF CONTENTS PART I The Meaning and Function of Education CHAPTER PAGE I. The Function of Education 3 PART II Education as Physiological Adjustment II. The Physiological Basis of Education .... 21 III. Manual Training and Vocational Education ... 37 IV. Manual Training and Vocational Education (Con- cluded) 50 Y. Physical Education Through Play, Gymnastics, and Athletics 71 PART III Education as Sociological Adjustment VI. The Child and the Curriculum 91 VII. The Curriculum: Its Social Organization . . . 108 VIII. Social Content of the Curriculum 114 IX. Social Content of the Curriculum (Concluded) . . 132 PART IV Education as Mental Adjustment a. the instinctive aspect of the mind X. Self- Activity and Mental Development . . . .153 XI. Instincts . . . 163 TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE XII. Imitation and Emulation 173 XIII. The Doctrine of Interest and Effort 194 XIV. How to Arouse Interest and Effort 211 B. THE INTELLECTUAL ASPECT OP THE MIND XV. Perception: How Does the Mind Acquire Its Knowl- edge? 243 XVI. Apperception: How Does the Mind Assimilate New Knowledge? 268 XVII. Memory: How Does the Mind Retain the Knowledge It Has Assimilated? 287 XVIII. Imagination: How Does the Mind Picture What It Retains? 308 XIX. The Thought Processes of Conception, Judgment and Reason : How Does the Mind Use the Knowl- edge It Possesses? 332 XX. The Thought Processes (Concluded) 353 XXI. Formal Discipline : Does Special Training Influence General Ability? 381 C. THE EMOTIONAL ASPECT OP THE MIND XXII. The Education of the Emotions 395 D. THE VOLITIONAL ASPECT OF THE MIND XXIII. The Will : Its Place and Function in Human Life . 423 XXIV. Habit and Habit Formation 437 XXV. Education for Social Responsibility 451 PART I THE MEANING AND FUNCTION OF EDUCATION CHAPTER I THE FUNCTION OF EDUCATION Education From a National Standpoint. — In our political and social development there have been two conceptions to explain and justify the existence of the state. These are extremes in aim and spirit and have given rise not only to limitless discussion and conjecture among philosophers and students of political and social sciences, but even to blood- shed among the classes constituting the social group known as a state. The Older Theory: The Individual for the State. — The first and the older of these two theories of the state holds that the individual exists for the benefit of the state. The state is supreme. State preservation is the highest function of the individual, both as an individual and as a member of society. Personal pleasure and ambition, family ties, and even life and limb must be unhesitatingly sacrificed at the will of the ruler if the welfare of the state is threatened. Assyria, Egypt, India, Sparta, the modern Mohammedan countries are the classic examples of the civilization and the political organization which have been founded upon the com- plete repression of the individual. The State for the Individual. — The more modern concep- tion maintains that the state exists for the benefit of its mem- bers. The highest duty of the state is therefore to promote the well-being of its component individuals. Their rights are supreme, their will the ruling force, their needs the ultimate aim, for they are the state. This theory holds that all indi- viduals have ceded certain rights to a central body, the state, for their own better protection. They created the state, they 3 4 The Meaning and Function of Education can recreate and reshape it, make the most radical modifica- tions, if their happiness and their well-being demand the change. This conception of the state shows appreciation of the true worth of man, the apotheosis of the individual. This doctrine is responsible for the rise and growth of republican government, the separation of church and state, the death of the divine right of kings. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries it secured religious freedom, in the eighteenth and the nineteenth, political freedom, and our economic sooth- sayers predict industrial freedom as its result in the twentieth. Conclusion for Education. — Opposite as these two views are, they nevertheless lead to a common conclusion when viewed from an educational standpoint. If the state is supreme and its welfare is the center about which individual life must revolve, then its growth and power depend upon the moral strength and intellectual enlightenment of its mem- bers. In the final analysis the state is no stronger than its representative member; like a chain, it is only as strong as its weakest typical constituent. The better the development of its component individuals, the stronger w T ill the state, as a whole, be. Its final safety and ultimate permanency lie in the education and progress of its members. If, on the contrary, the state exists for its individuals, the very best protection that it can give to them is to help them realize their own native powers, to teach them to use their own strength and to rely on their own resources. We know, full well, that we are destined to a life of social interdependence and mutual social help. True social effi- ciency can be attained only when each individual is prepared to contribute his best endowments to society and to enjoy the advantages which society has to offer him. This process of self-realization through social life is the highest result of the educative process. From the educational standpoint, both theories seem to teach the same lesson, viz. — Education is the greatest function and I In final safeguard of society and its organized form, the state. The Function of Education 5 What Kind of Education Should Society Give? — Admitting this broad and theoretical conclusion, we come to a considera- tion of the kind of education which society must give. Before attempting to formulate a program of education, we must analyze very carefully the nature of the individual whom society is to educate. All human conduct and action are out- ward expressions of inner motives; they are only the result- ants of conflicting inherent impulses. If we turn the search- light upon our inner motives, we find that each individual is the slave of two instinctive tendencies, all-powerful and all- controlling. Conduct in Terms of "Individuating" vs. "Socializing" Nature. — First, we note the "Individuating Nature" which impels man to be himself, to differ from everybody else, to excel others, to stand above and apart, to lead. The teacher, the reformer, the inventor, the social and religious leaders are people with strong individuating natures. They assert them- selves, set up new standards of civilization, of right and wrong, of good and bad, because existing conditions, satisfac- tory to the average person, offend them. They are the prime factors in the movement for progress; they are the moral derricks that lift mankind to a higher plane and a nobler destiny. But let us note the implication; how can we excel and lead others unless we associate with them ? The individuating nature, in trying to assert itself or merely to make itself manifest, must give way, partially, to a second and almost opposite impulse, the "Socializing Nature." We suppress our individuating natures to such an extent that we become, at least, tolerable in the society of our fellow men. We find a peculiar pleasure, therefore, in being in the company of others. This social nature not only makes communal life pos- sible but encourages us to follow as well as to lead, to remain partially content with existing conditions, to live within the standards and customs of the rest of the community. Each person is hence a duality, a composite of two con- tending forces, one striving toward individualization and the 6 The Meaning and Function of Educ ion other toward socialization. Should society, in its edu< suppress the individuating nature? Evidently not, fo all initiative, all invention, all improvement, all pr< would be stifled. Stagnation and decay would be the itable results. Should society, on the contrary, then gi. s the individuating nature unlimited sway and allow it to ex press all its inherent promptings? This may be an attractive ideal to some, but it can lead only to an exaggerated ego, to selfishness; it puts a premium on domineering haughtiness; it unsocializes the individual and makes organization impos- sible. Individuality is a blessing indeed. But too much indi- viduality is as bad as too little. It is an infallible sign of an anti-social personality. The question is not, therefore, which of these two natures shall we develop and which neglect. Both are inherent ; both make up the sum total of man; both help make the balance which means safety. The problem is rather, in what propor- tional relations shall we develop these two natures so that man may live in harmony with himself and the rest of man- kind. The best possible education, from the point of view of society, emphasizes both the individuating and the socializing nature. That education, then, is the best which gives the indi- viduality the greatest possible latitude, the freest possible development that is consistent with the welfare of the rest of society. How Can This Ideal Be Realized? — We have accepted an ideal in education, an ideal both broad and liberal. The very vital problem which confronts the teacher is the practical one of how to attain this ideal, how to make it approach reality. Let us consider the solutions offered by the great figures and the leading thinkers in the history of education. I. Education as Harmonious Development. — Many be- lieve that education can realize this goal if it will seek to give each individual a "harmonious development of all his powers and capabilities . " For a long time the definition of educa- tion which held sway declared that education was the process which sought the harmonious development of the individual. The Function of Education 7 "' • is the Greek ideal which many would eagerly set up to- ; a modern desideratum. This was the educational of Plato and his followers for centuries. Will such a tion of education lead to a realization of our ideal? i see. J What is the whole scope of the educative process, accord- ag to this conception? The individual. An education which fees no further than the individual, whose field of operation does not transcend the individual, is narrow. In the final analysis we are social beings and must be prepared for life in society. Our highest development is attained only through life and contact with others. All individuals are social in- dividuals, and all society grouped individuals. Education which seeks only the harmonious development of each indi- vidual 's powers does not point sufficiently to a training which will fit man for his social environment. Then, too, why should man's powers be developed at all? Why do we consider them an asset in life ? For the same rea- son that everything else that is valuable is so considered, — for its use. A picture is- valued because of its use in giving the pleasure which the aesthetic nature craves. A commodity or power is appreciated and wanted merely because it is usable. Utility is the keynote of value. Does this concep- tion of education suggest the use to which these powers will be put in society? It merely sets up as the goal of its en- deavors the attainment of harmoniously developed powers and capabilities. Before we develop our faculties, we must decide on their use, otherwise we are developing powers for their own sake. We must remember that in the economy of human life, a truism of axiomatic force is, "Aside from its function, a power has no value." To the two limitations that were noted above we must add that it is an error to presuppose that we need a harmoni- ous development of all our mental and physical endowments. No graver error is ever made than to labor under the belief that nature intended us to be equal. "We are born equal" is . catch phrase, as empty as it is erroneous. By nature we are 8 The Meaning and Function of Education gifted in one direction rather than in another. We have capa- bilities which fit us for one line of activity rather than for another. Nature shows a most decided and positive prefer- ence for specialization. She has intended some of us to do one thing, others another. There is a special niche in the great social structure that each is to fill. Our varying gifts and degrees of endowment show clearly that we each have a special message to deliver, a special mission to fulfill for society. Education must take cognizance of this primary law and give each individual a training in harmony with his natural gifts, but not a training which seeks the harmonious development of all his powers and capabilities. The person artistically gifted must be artistically trained, the intellec- tually favored must be educated accordingly. To give each of us a harmonious development of all capabilities would neglect our natural aptitudes, and develop us along the weak as well as along the strong lines. If the modern sponsors of this Greek ideal had taken social needs and social life into ac- count, if they had not been so individualistic, they would have realized that each member of the community must be given the opportunity to be trained for the special life that nature intended for him in society. As a final point in our estimate of this conception of edu- cation, we must note how impossible it would be to tell when an individual has been developed harmoniously. What is the standard of measurement ? If by nature we are not all equal, harmonious development for one is not harmonious develop- ment for another. In addition to its other limitations, this standard is vague and impractical; its scope is limited and inefficient; it surely will not enable us to achieve our guiding ideal. Let us turn to a second theory of education. IT. Education and Spiritual Inheritance. — President Butler breaks away from the Greek conception and offers an- other in its stead. He defines the function of education as the "acquisition of the spiritual inheritance of therace." The followers of this standard of education set up culture as their goal, "Knowledge for its own sake" as the summum bonum The Function of Education 9 for all educational endeavor. All that the race in its history has accumulated in the fields of science, art, and ethics should be handed down to the individual as his heritage. Will this conception bring us nearer to our initial ideal? This cultural conception of education lays too much stress on the acquisition of facts, the absorption of knowledge. Ed- ucation is not a "taking-in" process. Its very etymology con- tradicts this idea; "e," out, and "duco," to lead, suggest a process which unfolds the powers and capacities of the child. The individual gains strength and mental power only as the capabilities of his mind are evolved and used for necessary ends. This acquisitional aim of education overemphasizes filling the mind with data, storing it with facts. This con- ception does not realize that what is most important in edu- cation is not the imparting of facts or the giving of culture but the development in each individual of the power to find his own knowledge. It is hence a static conception of edu- cation. Then, too, these ' ' culturites " who would give the "spir- itual racial inheritance" rely too much upon the dead past. Living beings look to the future, which throbs with life and hope. Our goals lie before, not behind us. Education must prepare us for the life that is to be, not make us relive the life that was. We saw, a moment ago, that education should seek to develop each individual in harmony with his natural aptitude so that he may best perform the work which nature, through her gifts, has intended. Acquiring what the race has experienced in the past is no adequate preparation for one's individual work in the living present and future. There is no doubt that the past is necessary for present and future life. But do we need all the past? Evidently not. We. want only that in the past which serves to explain our present social organization and which foreshadows the probable line of future development. The followers of But- ler in education do not give enough attention to the actual living present, to preparation for life in the actual social environment. Their conception of education will not bring us 2 10 The Meaning and Function of Education to our goal, will not help us realize our ideal. Let us try still another. III. Education and Habit Inculcation. — James conceives education as the process which inculcates in an individual such habits of thought and of action as will fit him for his physical and social environment. The superiority of this conception of education over the two that we have just presented is unquestionable. It looks to the future, it seeks action rather than mere knowledge, it strives to prepare the individual for his proper place in so- ciety. Life's necessary future adjustments are set up as the goals to be attained; educational endeavor seeks to subordi- nate the whole personality to them. This conception of edu- cation makes for the greatest economy in mental and physical life. All necessary actions, all essential adjustments are made automatic, and the individual thus becomes self-acting in all vital situations. Proper conduct is guaranteed through force of habit. But may we not question its desirability as the final stage of human development ? The supreme force in human life is reason, not habit; the most desirable individual is the ra- tional, not the automatic one. The highest form of charac- ter development is found in the individual who is self-control- ling and self-directing. Would not this conception of educa- tion in terms of habit make all life routine, every individual a duplicating machine? To habituate life to the extent that James advocates would make us all slaves of our yesterday's selves. Our ideal sought to give the freest possible expres- sion of the individual consistent with social welfare. To re- duce life to the plane of habit means curbing and repressing the freest expression of the individual. IV. Education and Complete Socialization. — In recent years sociological and pragmatic thinkers have tried to make their impress upon education. Prof. John Dewey, a repre- sentative leader in these schools, has furnished us with his contribution to educational thought. His conception we can safely submit as the means of attaining the ideal we set be- The Function of Education 11 fore ourselves at the beginning of the inquiry. The strength of the position of the sociological educators lies in the fact that their education seeks the harmonious adjustment between individual and society. Education for social efficiency is their shibboleth. Every action we perform, every choice we make, is dic- tated by the needs and the organization of society. We are pursuing this work, striving in this field of activity, because society has either made it the most attractive for us, or has forced us into it. It is society that establishes for us our final ends, and sets up our ultimate standards of conduct. Mentally, too, our judgments and decisions are fixed for us by society. We judge, we reason, we select, in accord- ance with social standards. Our moral and ethical views re- flect the moral and ethical standards of our society. Mind, then, is nothing more than a social function. The sole aim of the school must be to fit man for a most efficient social life. But we must not erroneously make social life and citizenship synonymous. Citizenship is only a small part of the social training which the school should give. As a member of so- ciety, the individual has more duties than the mere political ones. We must insist that the individual's membership in his family, in his club, in his trade, and in his church is just as important. The school must reflect all these phases of life. It must teach the industrial arts, the vocations in society, so that he may find his place in our present industrial organiza- tion. It must seek to develop leadership, for our democracy depends upon the people for its leaders. Training for mere citizenship is not enough ; the school must train for complete social life. To quote, "Apart from the thought of participa- tion in actual social life the school has no other end or aim." The School as a Training for Social Life. — How can the school train for complete social life? First, through its discipline and control, and, second, through the curriculum. School Discipline and Social Life. — In our class-rooms we have rules of conduct, attendance, industry, neatness, all striv- ing to attain the whole galaxy of school virtues. Strict ad- 12 The Meaning and Function of Education herence to these rules is demanded of the children, because we hope that, through constant repetition, these will become habits. The child obeys, not because he realizes the necessity of the regulations, but because he is driven to obedience through fear. The reason for these rules we seldom, if ever, give. We demand that the children walk up one stairway and down another. Ask them why. The children have not the faintest idea that these regulations are made for emergencies of fire and panic. They do not see that these rules are in- herent and absolutely essential in the social organization of the school. They obey blindly, for these rules are arbitrary to them. But blind obedience to a set of arbitrary rules will not develop character, the power of self-direction and guidance so necessary in real social life. Every regulation in society has its origin in social needs. Every law that has been added came to safeguard some one's interests, to prohibit some one from trespassing on the rights of others. Just as society's needs have prompted our laws for society, so the social and communal life of the school has given rise to the regulations made and enforced by teachers and principals. Few children realize the need of the regulations. Hence, they disobey when- ever an opportunity presents itself. In their eyes the rule is made to deny them privileges and make more burdensome the lot already too heavy for them. Many children, therefore, find the joy of revenge in disobeying school regulations. The school, then, too often falls short of its possibilities in train- ing for rational social conduct. School Curriculum and Social Life. — Let us apply the same thought, social efficiency, to the school subjects. Just as the child does not see that the school regulations are socially necessary, so, too, he fails to realize that what we teach him has social value. When the child can glibly repeat that a mountain is a high elevation of land, or that a cape is land projecting into the water, we feel that our work is completed and we rest, content, But who cares whether a mountain is only an elevation of land, or a cape ;i projection of land? We do not, and surely the child who repeats these definitions The Function of Education 13 is even less concerned. Of what importance is it to teach such a fact? What answer would we give our children if they asked such a question? These geographical definitions must be taken out of the realm of mere facts and given social sig- nificance, interpreted in terms of social need and social life. From the social point of view a cape is very important ; it is the greatest danger point in commerce ; the mariner and the foreign trader are highly interested in these projections of land. Capes break the coastline, make harbors, produce ship- ping facilities, and thus give opportunity for intercourse be- tween nations. The continent with the least number of capes — Africa, the Dark Continent — is the least civilized; the one with the greatest number — Europe — is the center of intellec- tual life. We are interested in capes because they have sig- nificance for human life. When aerial navigation is devel- oped to the same point that we have reached in water trans- portation we shall emphasize, in our geographical teaching, not capes, but promontories, mountainous capes, and pla- teaus, for these may be the great harbors for the future winged ships. But, in all cases, social needs determine what is to be taught. For similar social reasons we are interested in mountains, rivers, all of the important geographical forms of land and water. Their real significance is not physical but social. The same thought applies to the teaching of history. If the topic is ' ' Plymouth Colony, ' ' great stress is too often laid upon the fact that one hundred five souls came, that a child was born during the voyage, that the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock, et al. Upon closer examination, what differ- ence does it make whether one hundred five or one hundred twenty-five souls came, whether they landed at the rock or on a sandbar? Our national history would have been the same. The real vital point to remember in teaching "Plym- outh Colony" is that, before landing, the colonists drew up a compact which provided for a democratic rule and election of officers. Here we see the seeds of modern democracy planted in the new world. Those facts which reflect present 14 The Meaning and Function of Education social conditions and organization must be considered of prime importance; the others are of secondary consideration, whose loss need be of no concern. The importance of the past lies in the social organization of the present. The same point of view may be applied to arithmetic and to grammar. We burden the child with carpeting examples, partial payments, alligation, compound proportion, and a dozen other unreal topics concocted by text-book writers and school superintendents, their only excuse for the introduction of these unnecessary subjects being that they train the mind. Why cannot the mind be trained through examples that show actual business practices and business needs of social life? Teachers too often present numerous technicalities in grammar without emphasizing their application. A class may know the abstract and the concrete nouns, their definitions and examples. But unless a child can see the use of these and their need in social life he is engaged in a process of mechanical acquisition, without vital motive and interest. Show him how useful these facts are in his composition and in his speech, how they enable him to introduce variety into his sentences, how he can change "I like my friend" into "I like his friendship," "his friendship pleases me," etc., and the two kinds of nouns have a new meaning for the pupil. To learn these terms becomes a rational process. Unless the com- position can reflect the use of grammar, the latter becomes a dead subject, whose mastery is prompted by fear and not by a live motive which results only from a consciousness of social use. Our problem was to find how we can realize the ideal that we set before us, viz., "the freest possible development of the individual consistent with society's welfare." The answer we formulate after our study so far is: By preparing the in- dividual for complete life in society, by making the school and the curriculum reflect the social life and organization, by making them both part of life itself. V. Education as Adjustment. — The last conception of the educative process indicates the tendency and the direction The Function of Education 15 which our endeavors must take. The immediate problem is, therefore, to formulate a more definite conception of education which will be in harmony with those sciences which deal with life and living. Our study thus far has viewed the problem from the individual's point of view, from his motives, his needs, his adjustments. Attention was centered on the sub- jective side of the process of education. The educational problem presents two factors: (1) the person to be prepared for life, and (2) the environment in which he must live. We must now elaborate our statement of the functions of education to include the second element, the objective as- pect. Despite all that has been said in emphasis and reempha- sis of the social aspect of life, it must not be concluded that it is the only phase of existence which governs education. If we were to scrutinize each activity to be accomplished, each relationship that the individual must establish between him- self and his surroundings, we would find that they can all be grouped under three heads: activities and relationships that are (a) physical, (b) mental, and (c) moral. The Phases of the Environment. — The individual's en- vironment presents certain primary demands upon him which necessitate the simplest form of physical activity. Walking, running, lifting, pulling, breaking, are a few of a host of ac- tions which the individual must perform in order to secure his food and satisfy those wants whose gratification preserves and sustains life. These physical activities, simple though they may appear because of usage and repetition, present numerous problems upon closer application. In all of them the individual is continually called upon to make a choice, to judge, to compare, to reason, to discover the best mode of ■adjustment, the course which will realize the desired result at the smallest expenditure of effort and energy. The expla- nation of this close interdependence of physical and mental activities is almost apparent. Man always seeks the short course to his goal, the path of least resistance and effort, not primarily for the reason assigned by many sociologists, viz., 16 The Meaning and Function of Education man is naturally a lazy animal, but because man's energy and vitality are definite and limited in quantity. His wants, how- ever, are infinite. If he is economical in the use of his powers, and seeks that route which enables him to attain his end with the least dissipation of energy, he can satisfy a greater num- ber of wants; he has a larger surplus of vitality; after the mere physical needs are answered he can minister to mental and spiritual wants, he can achieve new and higher endeav- ors. The whole scope and horizon of life are broadened. But, if human wants are not satisfied at the expense of least effort, man is in danger of finding himself poverty-stricken in en- ergy, bankrupt in vitality, with ever-pressing needs of real life constantly craving satisfaction. For this reason nature has wrapped with every physical act a host of intellectual con- comitants, so that every movement of the individual is as much mental as it is physical. But man does not live his life and satisfy his wants by himself. By nature, as well as by personal choice, he is gre- garious, social. His ultimate welfare, his best mental de- velopment, as well as his personal safety, lie in association with his fellow-men. This social aspect puts a new phase upon existence. It is a primary law of social ethics that every privi- lege entails a corresponding obligation. There are rights and privileges of others, therefore, which must not be infringed upon. There are personalities of others which must be re- spected even as each man respects his own. Standards of right and wrong, just and unjust, rules of conduct and morality are thus established, so that not only is personal liberty safe- guarded but each individual may take unto himself the great- est latitude of personal freedom compatible with the welfare of the rest of the community. Education as Adjustment to the Environment. — Educa- tion, then, is that process which seeks to adjust the individual to his physical, mental, and moral environment. Unless the individual can properly adapt himself to all his surroundings he will find that maladjustment means a life of friction and displeasure, if life at all. True happiness and real efficiency The Function of Education 17 in life depend on the degree of adjustment to the complete environment. Education a Changing Ideal. — Education has been severely criticized because it is ever changing. In this brief study we have met thus far with four distinct conceptions. These are relatively modern ones. How many they have supplanted no one can tell. But, if education is conceived as a process of adjustment to the physical, mental, and moral environment, it must be ever changing to conform to the new tendencies in the world about us. The environment has been progressing, moving upward and onward in its growth ; it was never static, it is becoming more dynamic every day. If education is to be efficient, if it is to adjust man to this ever-changing and ever-growing environment, it must change and grow accord- ingly. "J As life becomes more complex, adds new wants, turns former luxuries into present necessities, education must keep changing its scope and function. Education which is not constantly undergoing this change is static, it fits for life that was, not for the actual living present. The instability of edu- cation, its very lack of permanence of form, is, therefore, a wholesome tendency and reflects its endeavor to keep abreast with progressive movements in all phases of life. True Meaning of Adjustment. — But we must be sure that we understand the word adjustment as used in education. Adjustment means a change to fit ; it presupposes, therefore, active bodies. Static bodies do not change. The previous dis- cussion may lead one to think that the individual changes himself to conform to his environment. Such a view is erro- neous, for it conceives the world as fixed and unalterable. This notion is diametrically opposed to a progressive and true meaning of the term adjustment as used in education. Man comes into the world with definite wants and desires. He draws upon the environment for their satisfaction. If he finds conditions which do not suit himself he changes them, not himself. The old cave was unsatisfactory ; man built a house ; all the knowledge that he can gain by observing nature's workings is too limited for his intellectual sphere; he there- 18 The Meaning and Function of Education fore utilizes the laws of nature, experiments, evolves science and machinery, and harnesses nature; the food that he finds in its natural state he feels is not conducive to best health ; he therefore changes its form and composition, through fire, so that it satisfies his needs to the fullest extent. "Adjust- ment means, not that the individual fits himself to the world, but that he makes the world fit him. Man is not the passive victim of his environment, but has such power of modification and control as to either transcend or virtually recreate his environment." SUGGESTED BEADING Bagley. Educative Process, pp. 40-65. Bolton. Principles of Education, Chap. 1. Horne. Psychological Principles of Education, Chap. 3. James. Talks to Teachers, Chap. 4. Monroe. Text-Book in the History of Education, Chap. 14. O'Shea. Education as Adjustment, pp. 76-117. Kuediger. Principles of Education, Chaps. 3, 4 and 5. Search. An Ideal School. Spencer. Education, Chap. 1. PART II EDUCATION AS PHYSIOLOGICAL ADJUSTMENT CHAPTER II THE PHYSIOLOGICAL BASIS OF EDUCATION The discussion of the function of education is rather gen- eral, as interest is centered in the point of view, in the atti- tude that is to be taken toward the subject. We began with a general inquiry into the function of education by consid- ering the subjective side of the question, the individual. His inherent tendencies, his motives, and the various educational theories that sought to carry out the educational ideal were studied. Throughout the initial discussion emphasis was laid on what education must do for the individual. This was followed by a study of the objective aspect of the problem, in which the environment and its component elements were made focal. The sole aim was to find the means of harmoniz- ing the individual with his environment rather than with himself. The old systems of education, by trying to develop all human power, sought to develop man as a harmony in himself. Modern educational tendency seeks to develop the individual along those lines which will enable him to live in concord with his complete surroundings; it strives, therefore, to achieve, as its dynamic ideal, man as a harmony in society. The analysis of environment will determine the entire fu- ture development for this study. Since education is an ad- justment process, and since the relationships which must be established between the individual and the environment, are physical, social, and mental, our subject will be treated from three aspects: (a) the Physiological Aspect, seeking to fit the individual for the physical life and environment; (b) the Sociological Aspect, seeking the social life, the social and moral adjustments; and (c) the Psychological Aspect, aiming 21 22 Education as Physiological Adjustment at that mental development which will enable man to attain the best mental adjustment. Education viewed from these three aspects ought to give a fairly complete outlook upon the educational problem, upon the field and scope of the en- deavors of the teacher, the parent, and the directors of the child's destinies. Our immediate topic, then, is: "Education and the Physical Environment." The Brain as an Organ of the Body. — The simplest forms of animal life are little more than mere reacting machines. They move only when disturbed, eat only when food comes to them. Their environment is their complete master. But, as we ascend the scale of life, we notice a continued increase in the control of the environment. This is due to a differen- tiation of function that comes with an increase in the number of organs. One part of the body seeks food, another defends, still another watches for danger, while a separate organ con- trols locomotion. Each organ becomes specialized just as each worker in a modern factory is forced to become specialized in his particular specific function or process. An intensive study of evolutionary history from the simple biological forms to the higher animals, finally reaching man, shows that prog- ress is always from a mass of unrelated cells to groups of in- terdependent cells which are developed into organs, each func- tioning to enable the owner to better control the forces of his environment. If we conceive this specialization of function to be char- acteristic of animal development, we may be better able to an- swer the question which must be the initial problem in our study of the physiological aspect of education, viz.: "Why was the brain added to the sum total of our organs?" Surely for no other purpose than the one which has prompted the addition of all other organs — special function for better adap- tation. This answer is consistent with the theory of evolution, and explains the continuous development of our separate or- gans by the same principle. James, in his "Talks to Teachers," says, "Consciousness would thus seem in the first instance to be nothing but a The Physiological Basis of Education 23 sort of superadded biological perfection, useless unless it prompted to useful conduct and inexplicable apart from that consideration." From the physiological point of view the brain is an organ of the body, with functions whose aim is primarily the aim of all other organs, viz., better adjustment. Brain and Mind. — Nevertheless, the teacher is always in- terested in the development of the mind, not the brain. Often in his mental haste he confuses brain and mind, at other times he thinks of mental development aside from brain develop- ment. This basic error must be noted before further prog- ress is made in this study. Their Differences. — It is highly important that we keep brain and mind apart. The brain is a physical organ, some- thing real, concrete ; the mind is ideal, it is a function of the brain. The relation between muscle and action presents a close analogy; the muscle is a physical organ, the action is its function. One does not see motive force, yet he knows of its existence through its results. So, too, with mind; it is judged by its accomplishments. The mind is the total reali- zation of all the possibilities and powers of the brain. The mind is the function, the brain the organ, of consciousness. The development of the one means the development of the other, since the development of function follows only as we develop the organ; hence, not only does brain development precede mental development, but brain development becomes a problem for education as well as for physiology. This be- comes evident in the consideration of the complete interrela- tions which exist between the two. Their Interrelation. — In early youth the brain substance is plastic and very impressionable. This is why the period of youth is the period of educability. Every impression, every stimulus, every new experience molds the claylike organ, the brain, in the early stages of growth. The nerve cells are ul- tra-sensitive to the slightest impingements. The entire nerv- ous system is very quick in its reactions upon the environ- ment. This receptivity lasts until the age of about eighteen or twenty. After twenty-five the nerve cells become less plas- 2-4 Education as Physiological Adjust mint tic and the nerve connections become fixed. Home tells us that, after twenty-six or thirty, "a new science is rarely ac- quired, a new language rarely spoken without accent." As the brain substance loses its plasticity, its action and its paths become fixed and habitual; a change is difficult. This explains, physiologically, the radicalism of youth and the conservatism of old age. Anything new, revolutionary, at- tractive, fires the impressionistic mind of the young man ; but the older person regards the same experience phlegmatically and with no small degree of skepticism. His mind assumes a fixity of attitude and interpretation because the brain, the receiving station, is no longer so intensely alive to new im- pressions and varied stimulations. Conclusions for Education. — Youth, physiologically con- sidered, is the period, therefore, when the individual can be influenced most easily for good or for bad. The seeds of a moral and ethical life must be planted at this stage. If the brain cells are not subjected to the proper training and disci- pline in this period of infancy, when they are plastic, it is doubtful whether the most patient influences of later life can counteract or affect the perverted or neglected development of the early years. We all know that we are too often the slaves of early practices which have become fixed in us as the brain has lost its impressionability. We reason and de- cide upon a change, but the matter ends there. Our lives in this respect are not without their parallels in the physical world. The sculptor applies his magic touch and impresses his genius on the clay while it is soft. He can bring out the finest line and the gentlest suggestion without difficulty. But once the clay has hardened and has lost its plasticity, imper- fections cannot be remedied; they are held fast in the newly acquired rigidity. The late Josiah Flint, after years of tramp life and study of the criminal classes, concluded that the germs of criminal life can be traced to this early period. From actual associa- tion with the criminal classes he found that a large per- centage of the inmates of prisons and reformatories can trace The Physiological Basis of Education 25 their downfall to criminalities acquired in early life. "We must, therefore, agree with Professor Home when he says: "A man is little more than the sum total of all the nerve reac- tions acquired in youth." — "Mental habits are primarily brain habits. Mental inefficiency is primarily brain ineffi- ciency. ' ' The great function of education is to develop the possibili- ties latent in the brain. "Develop" must be spelled with capitals, for education is not a creative force ; it can originate nothing new. The brain has infinite possibilities which lie dormant, waiting for the magic touch to become actualized. Education is the force which causes the human brain to bud, to blossom, and to fructify. The fruit is a well-developed mind approximating self-realization. Observations Which Are Indices of Brain Conditions. — Since the brain, its condition, its formation, its characteristics, and its inherent powers form the real basis of mind, and hence the foundations upon which we are to build in our education, it becomes necessary to stop and ask what symptoms and manifestations of children's work and activity will indicate their brain condition. The following is an attempt to formu- late a systematic scheme of observing children for the physi- ological condition of the brain, the organ we are to attempt to impress and influence. Its items are gathered not only from observation and from studies of medical inspections, but also from suggestions of authorities on the nervous organ- ization of children, from the works of educators like Rowe and Warner, who have specialized in this phase of develop- ment. I. Face. A. Forehead. — This part of the face expresses our mental con- ditions and attitudes, but not the slighter impressions. It is the deeper feelings and effects following the excitations of the brain caused by joy, sorrow, concentration, surprise, that ex- press themselves in no unmistakable signs here. The fore- head is an index of the intenser mental states because it is 3 26 Education as Physiological Adjustment formed by two sets of muscles, (a) a vertical set and (b) a horizontal set. In the brain excitement . accompanying sur- prise the vertical muscles contract and produce horizontal wrinkles that are seen in this emotional state. In concentra- tion the excitement in the brain cells stimulates the nerves con- trolling the horizontal muscles and vertical wrinkles result. When the forehead expresses the deeper excitations of the brain it is a fair index of a normally active brain, respond- ing to joy, grief, effort for deep thought. But when the fore- head is continually in motion, expressing every change in the brain activity, responding to every varying mental feeling, it is generally a common sign of weak brain control. Thus, of a whole school examined, Warner reports that forty-one per cent, of the hoys and forty-six per cent, of the girls with overacting frontalis, ovei'-responsive foreheads, were rated by their teacher as C and D in lessons. While it is not safe to condemn a child whose forehead shows poor control and over-responsiveness, such a condition is a fair warning sign. B. Eyes. — Both the eye and its surrounding muscles are excellent indices of brain condition, temporary and permanent. 1. The muscles beneath the eye are very responsive to the nervous energy in the brain at a given time. In the normal condition the muscles are rounded out and give a healthy tone to the surroundings of the eye. But in hours of fatigue and brain debility due to (a) weakness, (b) overwork, (c) poor nutrition, they become baggy and lose their healthy tone and fullness. 2. Color, brightness, and movement are the essentials to look for in the eye itself. But movement is the most impor- tant factor. The eye governed by the healthy brain is active, alive, seeking here and there. The reason is found in the fact that a healthy child's brain is overstocked with energy which is constantly striving to work itself out in action of one kind or another. This pent-up energy drains itself most easily along the nerve routes connected with this sense organ, hence the restlessness of the bright eye. But too much movement is bad. It may show, not surplus The Physiological Basis of Education 27 brain energy working itself free from its cage, but poor brain control, a brain not strong enough to master the muscular movement. This ultra-activity is bad, for the eye does not stop long enough on any presentation to take careful observa- tions. Such children are poor in judging colors, sizes, shapes; in later classes they read words that are not on the page, omit many that are there. They become the poor spellers, for they cannot look long enough at a word to carry away a good, complete visual image. How many teachers ever stop to ask themselves why a particular child is poor in spelling, good in arithmetic, grammar, and the other thinking subjects'? They simply decide that the child does not study, and apply the usual form of punishment. How many stop to find out why children misshape the letters after repeated explanation that the "b" crosses here "tf not there ~B* . "Carelessness" is the prompt verdict and the "D" is placed in the effort column in the roll book. A reliable test for good eye movement is direction. The teacher should explain the changing directions of the coast line of a continent, all the time pointing to the outline of the map, If the eye keeps following the pointer, brain control is good. The child who has poor eye movement shows a lateral, sideward motion with no attempt, or no apparent attempt, to focus on any one point or series of objects in the regular order demonstrated by the teacher. Facial Movements. — Like the movements of the eye, facial movements show the amount of brain activity and brain energy seeking freedom. An active, healthy brain gives a changing expression, a play of movement about the mouth, an enlarg- ing or closing of the eye space, with each changing idea or emotion. If, on the contrary, the expression is steady, chang- ing only when the teacher introduces a humorous idea, a pleas- ant thought, or a pathetic interest, it is a sign of a limited stock of energy in the brain. It is needless to point out that undue or unusual expression in the facial muscles is usually a fair sign of weak brain control. Children who are continually making grimaces, chang- ing facial expressions without cause are nervous. But the ex- ceptions are important and numerous even here. Many chil- 28 Education as Physiological Adjustment dren, especially hoys, are quick-tempered. In their mental wanderings t heir imaginations carry them afar. They picture themselves in battle against the enemy, in duel with the robber, a pirate struggling against attempted capture, and the like. The child often feels these imaginary struggles intensely and gives expression to them through distended nostril, glare of the eye, and other facial movements, characteristic of this state. These signs must not be construed amiss. No child must be judged silly or weak-minded for an occasional grimace or gesture, which the tired and busy teacher cannot explain at the moment. D. Minor Points. — We must not go too far in our interpretations. Many consider the formation of the mouth, size and shape of the chin, shape of the head, size of the head, ears, etc., and seek to draw guiding principles. Nothing is so dangerous and so unjust, for it prejudices the teacher for or against the child. All these signs are misleading, the exceptions to the rule are , seen oftener than the rules. These are not reliable indices at all and should not be used by the teacher. They must be left in the province of the specialist of child study. Even the theories dealing with the size and weight of the brain have been completely shattered and are regarded with well-merited scepticism. We know, to-day, that the brains of many savages are larger than those of civilized men of equal stature. The brain of the savage Indian has been found to be larger than that of his civilized brother. The Eskimo brain in most cases is larger than our own. We know that the number of brain cells in the brain is complete four weeks prior to birth. We must therefore exercise the greatest care in judging the child. II. Hands — The hands are as good an index of brain activity and control as the face, l hough tew laymen and even teachers suspect the fact. An excellent test is the "weak hand bal- ance." The child is asked to extend his hands and arms for- ward until they are parallel with the floor. In the "weak hand balance" one notes the hand taking the same position as in sleep. The wrists droop, the fingers point downward, the left hand is lower than the right. Unless the child happens The Physiological Basis of Education 29 to be very tired and indisposed this is a fair sign of weak brain control. "Finger twitches" are another important index. The ob- server must make sure that the child's fingers are spread apart, otherwise they will give mutual support and the true condition is concealed. "Finger twitches," dropping of pencil, paper, books are very often signs that the brain is not strong enough to send out the control that is needed. In many nervous dis- orders of children, like tics, chorea, migraine, these two tests are considered of prime importance by the physician. In a test conducted in the schools of our large cities it was found that forty per cent, of the boys and thirty-five per cent, of the girls with "weak hand balance" or "finger twitches" were reported "D" in lessons. While the conclusion is not inevitable and the signs are far from infallible, the results are, nevertheless, significant if borne out by additional evidence. III. Trunk. — The healthy brain controls the trunk so that it can be held erect in standing. But a tilt or bending sideways, forward or backward may be the result of years of bad posture in sitting, working, and standing. These incorrect forms are not signs of brain condition. Weak brain control is often indicated by lordosis. Chil- dren so afflicted will, when trying to reach for something a little ahead of them, bend at the loins rather than at the shoulders. This shows weak brain control of the muscles of the back. The proper place to bend is at the shoulders and a trifle below. When children are watched in profile this can be seen very readily. Although not of very immediate impor- tance, it is nevertheless a symptom of poor brain control when seen in connection with other signs. An interesting experiment may be tried with such children. As a rule, when they are asked to hop a short distance they fail miserably. Shifting the weight to one foot gives a "wobbly" trunk; this entails an extra strain to keep one's bal- ance. The weak brain cannot send out enough energy to keep the trunk rigid in this state of doubtful equilibrium and shift- ing center of gravity. In one class of twenty-three defectives not one boy succeeded in hopping across a class-room of aver- 30 Education as Physiological Adjustment age width; in another the children made a very poor record compared to that of a normal group. IV. Characteristic Actions.— A healthy brain shows actions with the following characteristics very prominent : A. Much Spontaneity. Signs of: Smiling of infant, cooing, hand and foot move- ments, eye movements, changing facial expression. Cause of: brain overcharged with energy, which flows out to the muscles, thus giving action without apparent cause or stimulation. Forms of Expression : (1) In unstimulated action as described. (2) In imagination. The energy in the brain may stir the various brain centers; old impressions of things seen, heard, and felt are thus called up and combined into a new experi- ence that has no real counterpart. This accounts in part for the impossible stories children tell, for conversations with dolls, promises to them, and the whole array that an ultra-active imagination can conjure up. Abnormal Expressions of Spontaneous Activity we find in — (1) Illness where the brain control is weak and under little control by the child. Every slight feeling of discom- fiture brings action which is apparently spontaneous, but in reality provoked. (2) Dull children who are usually quiet because they have no extra energy or initiative that is craving for expression. (3) Action with undue regularity of movement. Thus a regular twitching of the face and winking of the eye, a blink- ing, a shoulder movement, a finger movement, and a rolling of head are illustrations. This is usually a sign of tics and approaching nervous derangement of considerable severity. Treatment. — The important problem for parents and teachers is how to treat such cases. It is absolutely imperative that such children be removed from school, for other children imitate their actions. The teacher or parent must talk gently to the afilicted child. A scolding often works untold harm because these children are irritable. They should then be placed be- fore a mirror to see how disagreeable is their habit. A desire to control these habits must be aroused in these children. Sin- The Physiological Basis of Education 31 cere active cooperation on the part of the child is absolutely essential. But, in addition, expert medical aid must be sought. Lesson for the School. — Some of these symptoms lead to many serious nervous troubles, but the early signs are so hard to detect that only the skilled observer can interpret the signs of approaching nervous chaos. A medical inspection, on a large scale, systematic, careful, and well organized, is needed to supplant the present fiasco in most of the city schools. We do not appreciate the gravity of such cases, for the ulti- mate results are not seen. These children drop Out of our lives; their later histories are lost to us, but they come up again in the future, in hospitals, asylums, and reformatories to an amazing extent. B. Impressionability. — This characteristic is determined by the ease with which the brain is impressed by what is presented to it through the senses. The kindergartner shows the child the elementary colors; how often must this presentation be repeated before the child recognizes and differentiates them 1 ? The teacher shows the child two geometric shapes; how many times must this be done before reliable recognition occurs? Two weights are placed upon the child's palms, and it is told which is the heavier and which the lighter; how often must this practice be given before the child's brain responds cor- rectly as the weights are changed? • These recognitions do not refer to the child's brilliancy, or intellectual ability, but to its impressionability, to the ability of its brain to receive and retain an impression as the standard of judgment for future use. C. Inhibition of Movement. — This quality of action is illustrated in the child who can obey the common negative orders faith- fully. Such children show that their brain action and control have inhibitory power. Thus the teacher orders, "Stop ! Do not speak out or raise your hand when you have the answer." "Cover these two points on your paper, with your ruler; take pencils, do not draw until the order is given." "Take pens, do not begin until I count three." Our spontaneous impulses prompt action. Ability to combat or inhibit this natural yearning is a sign of strong bi*ain control of body. I). Compound Brain Action. — This characteristic of action is mani- 32 Education as Physiological Adjustment fested in the ability to perform a series of actions or move- ments. Thus in physical training the child is taught one simple movement, arms forward; then another, arms upward; then another, trunk bending forward, and finally a fourth, trunk bending backward. The four movements are combined, arms forward and trunk forward, arms upward and trunk backward, and then repeated in alternate sequence. Some children combine these and go through the exer- cise with accuracy and precision. There are order and sequence in their successive movements. Others, on the contrary, can- not perform this series of actions, but simply imitate those about them. Compound brain action shows better brain con- trol, for it includes good impressionability and retentiveness. E. Well Coordinated Action. — In simplest terms, this means such brain control of body and muscles that mind and muscle act in unison. An example of well coordinated action can be seen in teaching folk dances. The girl is shown the step and she has a mental picture of it. Can she execute it; can her brain direct her feet and body faithfully? A child may have a fine picture of the outline of a continent in its mind's eye. Can the brain so direct the fingers that the child executes on paper what it has in its mind? Coordination can be tested only when the teacher is positive that the child has a clear idea or mental picture of what is desired. Summary — Since the brain is the organ whose efficiency deter- mines the possibilities of mental development, we endeavored to organize a table for better, more purposeful and systematic observation of the condition and intensity of brain activity and of the extent of brain control. The scheme, though far from complete, may serve as a helpful guide for this purpose. The Increased Period of Infancy in Man In the litrht of this discussion of brain efficiency as a de- terminant of menial efficiency, brain development as a neces- sary antecedent of mental development, what can be the mean- ing of the long period of infancy in man? What, is its edu- cational importance .' The Physiological Basis of Education 33 Infancy in Man and Animal. — A few weeks after birth the little cub can run about and find its own food if necessary. The young stag, barely a month old, skips about, begins to feel life's responsibilities as he proudly surveys the land- scape about him. If misfortune overtakes the parent, the off- spring can care for itself. But when we come to man we find that the period of infancy is increased considerably. Great care is necessary in the days of helplessness. With all the attention that is bestowed upon us, almost one-third of the human race dies before the age of five. To understand why man's period of infancy is so protracted we must contrast the life of animals with that of man. 1. The animal is born a 1. Man, on the contrary, bundle of instincts. It can is born with fewer immediate react upon the environment instinctive acts, but he has in- almost immediately, for it finitely more possibilities to needs no organization of its develop. He cannot react upon faculties and nerve centers. his environment at once, because he must wait for the development of nerve connec- tion for the establishment of a proper coordination be- tween mind and muscle. "When an act in the life of man or an animal is always to be performed in the same way, the action is organized before birth. Breathing, digestion, heart action are examples of such prenatal organization. An animal's daily existence is nothing more than an everlasting duplication of the same routine; its life's activities are organized at birth. But man leads a life that is full of change, variety, adjustment to needs, and, consequently, most of the human activities are organized after birth. 2. The animal relives the 2. Man lives a life pecul- life of its parent. If one iarly his own. Each individ- 34 Education as Physiological Adjustment studies the life history of any ual makes a special effort to common animal he has stud- cut away from the bonds of ied the life history of its an- his forefathers. It is a con- tecedents and of its progeny, fession of weakness to admit Animal life is a perpetual that one is merely reliving the repetition of the same needs, life of his ancestors. Man's the same reactions, the same individuating nature rebels trials and dangers. and demands change, a life that is distinctly his own. 3. The animal leads a 3. Man lives a complex simple life. It has a few life. His wants are many, es- physical wants which are pecially in the realm of the the sum total of life's call. intellect and the spirit. This final differentiation needs no comment. We may well doubt the homely phrase of Goldsmith that has become a household expression, "Man wants but little here below." Our desires are practically infinite, for no sooner is one want fulfilled than a new one of more or less importance is already clamoring for satisfaction. Our whole development consists in widening life's horizon, in prompting our individualities to continue demanding an infinite series of ever-increasing wants. Educational Implications. — As the human race is physio- logically and psychically constituted, man needs a longer pe- riod of infancy, for he must prepare for a more complex life. Education must do for man in his period of infancy whal nature does for the animal in the prenatal stage — i. e., train for adjustment to surroundings. The more complex the destiny, the longer is the period of infancy. How consistently' does the chain of animal life show this! The butterfly has a simple life and a simple mis- sion to fulfill. The cocoon bursts open, the butterfly unfurls its wings and begins to flit about at once. The little chick spends a few hours after its release from its prison shell try- ing to actualize its powers. It shows almost all the necessary reactions soon after its birth. The little kitten is helpless for The Physiological Basis of Education 35 a few days, but its essential powers soon show themselves, and it is ready to start out on its life's journey. As we ascend the animal scale the period of infancy is constantly prolonged. The new-born ape is the most helpless of all animals below man. For an entire month the young ape cannot stand alone. It begins to move about by seeking support in much the same way as the human child. Fiske describes the manlike tailless apes of Africa and the Indian Archipelago. These are the most developed of all apes, but "they begin life as helpless babies, and are unable to walk, to feed themselves, or to grasp objects with precision until they are two or three months old." The period of infancy in man's life is far longer than in many of the lower mammals ; in civilized man more protracted than in the savage. Swift, in his "Mind in the Making," sums up our posi- tion admirably. He says: "Animals that are born fully de- veloped are incapable of sudden adaptive changes. Their nervous systems are built to explode in certain ways and the appropriate stimulus is the igniting spark. A ready-made nervous system ceases to be efficient the moment the environ- ment becomes changeable. Nervous structure must keep pace with the growing complexity of surrounding conditions ; and, as man was born amid the throes of climatic convulsions, a nervous system with fixed reaction could not meet his needs. ' ' Hence, unlike the brutes, man must pass through a period of helplessness, a period of infancy, when the whole nervous and mental apparatus attune themselves to the complex des- tiny they are to serve. Social Significance. — John Fiske was first to show not only the educational importance of this period of infancy, but also its social significance. President Butler then elaborated this conception. They both make it responsible for our present family and for the morality of the home. In man, as in the animal, this period of infancy is a period of parental love and affection. But in man this stage lasts long enough to make its effects permanent. In this period of dependence the child is the common bond between father and mother, it centers 36 Education as Physiological Adjustment both their individual interests upon its well-being. Their love and hopes and aspirations are wrapped up in the child. Even after it is physically capable of caring for itself, the parents feel that there are intellectual and spiritual aspects of life to develop. This period is then continued beyond the age of mere physical helplessness. The higher the civiliza- tion the longer will this period of infancy last, for it means a period of education. To-day the educational period of in- fancy lasts through the kindergarten, elementary school, high school, and college, a period "almost double the psychic point of adolescence," a period which John Fiske places at a quar- ter of a century. SUGGESTED READING Boas. Growth of Children. Bolton. Principles of Education, Chaps. 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6. Donaldson. Growth of the Bruin, Chap. 18. Fiske. Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy, II, Part II, Chap. 22. Halleck. Education of the Ce7itral Nervous System. Sully. The Teacher's Handbook of Psychology, Chap. 3. Swift. Mind in the Making, Chap. 5. Warner. The Nervous System of the Child. CHAPTER III MANUAL TEAINING AND VOCATIONAL EDUCATION The first function of education in this period of infancy is to train man for his physical adjustment. The question is, therefore, "What means has education for discharging this function?" The modern school organization has two: (a) Manual Training and the Vocationalization of the Individ- ual, and (b> Physical Education through (1) Play, (2) Gym- nastics, and (3) Athletics. The initial topic that must introduce this first means of bodily training is obviously the reasons that make this an essential means of physiological development. There is a fivefold consideration that governs our study, viz.: (1) Psy- chological Development, (2) Sociological Adjustment, (3) Economic Betterment, (4) Educational Efficiency, (5) Ethi- cal Gains. I. Psychological Justification The Two Brain Centers. The Sensory Center. — Judging from the functions of the mind, we distinguish two separate brain centers : The first is the sensory intellectual center, which runs from the sense or- gan, the retina of the eye, the inner ear, the cuticle, along afferent nerves to the cortex or the surface of the brain. The sense organs thus become the gates to consciousness. At any one moment there are countless stimuli, sounds, lights and shades, colors, odors, vibrations affecting the skin, all knock- ing at these portals, seeking admission ; but only those that are strongest succeed in gaining recognition. This sensory 37 38 Education as Physiological Adjustment intellect gives the individual his knowledge of the world with- out, of the environment in which he lives. The vibrations and stimulations thai impinge themselves upon us have mean- ing for us only as they are interpreted by this sensory in- tellectual center. It is, therefore, that mental function which makes mankind conscious, thinking beings. The Motor Center. — But merely possessing the power of thinking is not enough. Mere perception of good and just, or bad and unjust, is far from sufficient. Action must follow. This is accomplished by a second center, the motor center of the brain. Through its direction stimuli which are brought into the brain are changed into impulses and are sent from the cortex or surface of the brain along efferent nerves to their respective muscles. Desired ends are thus achieved. This second center makes man an acting as well as a thinking being, and thus his active adjustment to the environment be- comes possible. The Functions of the Two Centers Constitute the Func- tion of Mind. — It is seen that one center receives all the sen- sations from without and interprets them, so that the world in which we are placed has meaning for us ; the second directs the movements that follow our ideas. A complete education is not content with training the sensory center, the interpret- ing faculties, but seeks to develop the will as well, for only then can the individual become self-directing. A mere thought is useless. If all our thinking ended in the mind, and did not become action, mental life would be sterile. A thought that remains in the mind is absolutely without social importance. When the thought leads to action, then it be- comes social and has social significance. Thoughts which do not result in some form of action, of physical expression, of social communication, represent mentality socially wasted. A hrillianl thought uncommunicated has never yet enriched society, a good impulse unexpressed has never yet cheered the despondent, an inventive idea unapplied has never har- nessed nature's forces, an ideal in the realm of day dreams unrealized has never lifted human life and destiny upward, Manual Training and Vocational Education 39 au inspiration unsung has never liberated mankind from the shackles of the commonplace and the ordinary. Danger in the Traditional One-sided Sensory Education. — Thought for thought's sake is a vanity as empty as it is pom- pous and useless to mankind. Thought must pass over from the sensory intellectual center to the motor intellectual cen- ter, for our psychology teaches that, unless thought and deed are thoroughly interrelated, the individual cannot fulfill his destiny or be thoroughly responsible. The person who thinks good thoughts, but never acts a good act, is a well-intentioned Hamlet. An idea without a motor side is useless. On the other hand, those whose actions precede their ideas are the "fools who rush in where angels fear to tread." The well- balanced, safe person is he who has the best equilibrium es- tablished between thought and deed, whose motor and sen- sory centers act in unison and perfect harmony. Dean Balliet complains that the elementary school over- emphasizes the intellect and neglects the active side of life. He says: "Much of our present school work divorces know- ing from doing, and often exaggerates the relative value of the former when compared with the latter. Examinations test knowing more than doing, and often degrees are con- ferred for attainment in knowing rather than doing. This is unfortunate. The legitimate end of knowing is doing." The two centers, sensory and motor, thought and action, must be so adjusted that the former flows into the latter. We must remember that, when the action has no direct nor intimate connection with thought, irresponsibility is developed to such an extent that we class the individual as defective in moral adjustment. The training for such children must be man- ual ; we must appeal to them through action, through the hand. Those who have had experience in teaching and train- ing the so-called incorrigible child can testify to the effi- cient results obtained by teaching them "doing" rather than "knowing." The keynote in this whole training is that we are attempting to establish such a coordination between thought and action that control is developed. In a sense, 40 Education as Physiological Adjustment then, education is a training which seeks to transform sensory stimuli into motor impulses. If this transfer is made easy and habitual, the body becomes the perfect tool of the mind, and action becomes the safe sequence of maturely deliberated thought. Manual Training a Motor Education. — The modern edu- cator and the psychologist go a step further and insist that these two centers are so completely interrelated that every idea has two elements, a thought element and an action ele- ment. No idea is complete without either. This may be granted now, for this question will recur in a later connec- tion. Of these two elements, thought and action, the latter is evidently the stronger in the child of six or seven. The savage, who is the child in society, also shows that, in the im- mature mind, the tendency to action is the predominating impulse. We were all acting beings long before thinking be- ings. All experimental investigation bears out the conten- tion that the first part of the brain to begin functioning is the motor area ; that, unless we exercise it and develop it, the higher centers that control thought will be partially impaired and show stunted growth; that, upon the development of the motor area depends the development of the intellectual cen- ters. Motor Education Must Initiate the Child Into School Work. — It necessarily follows that early education should be physi- cal, that the first year of the school should be all manual, all activity. One would, therefore, a priori, prescribe clay-model- ing, pottery, woodwork, paper cutting and folding, sewing, drawing, recitations and their dramatization, singing, and the like. But, in their stead, our educational systems place the child in a stationary seat and begin number work, reading, spelling, recognition of written words, letters or figures — work which is primarily mental rather than motor. The child is not interested in the spelling of tent, ox, arrow, their uses fascinate him. To meet this natural instinctive love for activ- ity, modern educators have organized an early curriculum which seeks to take the child through his ancestral life and Manual Training and Vocational Education 41 teach him the development of the race. The first year deals with the hunting and fishing stage of primitive life. The In- dian 's social life is taken up and reconstructed in all its details from the story of Hiawatha. The tent, the fire made by fric- tion, the cave, the pond, the crude pottery, the dress, the weapon, all these are learned and studied, not in spelling or reading, but through actual creation. The sandhill affords an excellent opportunity to lay out a community of tents, a pond, a spring, a forest, a mountain, or a valley. The boys build the stakes of the tent with twigs, the girls cut the cloth to make a covering. In the clay-modeling class the children make the pots and vessels used by the Indian ; in their sewing class the girls imitate the costumes. Training in color perception and design is afforded by having children select proper colored ribbons and imitate the original form of design. Weaving is taught as the children make crude rugs, baskets, and Indian carriages. Drawing, too, is taught in a most natural way. The children draw, in the same spirit, those things that they have created. They give the freest expressions to their thoughts. All the work of the first year is designed to utilize this natural instinct for activity, to strengthen the motor area that is weak and needs development. Since we work along lines indicated by the children's instincts and mentality, the work is interesting to them, attractive to the point of fasci- nation. Early Manual Work Must Not Exalt Technique. — How in- telligent does this kind of manual training appear when com- pared with the prevailing stupid, formal lessons of making little articles of folded paper, which are too simple and which the child does not want. Children fold paper into chairs, tables, boats, etc., but they no more look like boats, chairs, and tables than houses or birds. They call them chairs and tables because the teacher announces the title. How stupid to find children in a first-year class in cord and raffia work engaged in exercises which illustrate one principle or another. The manual training syllabus of one of our large city systems pre- sents the work in 1A as "exercises in knotting, single, dou- 4 42 Education as Physicflogical Adjustment ble, and triple knots, and the chain stitch." Xo child cares about the kind of knots or stitches; he is interested in making an article that he needs. When the child is interested in the creation, in the result, we show him the principle. Thus the 1A drawing tells the teacher to be sure to pay attention to "mass, proportion, placing, and direction of line." The first- year pupil takes keen delight in drawing a picture that is free and easy, with no rules of "mass, proportion, and placing." Drawing should allow the child to give his freest expression. Let him draw pictures of objects, of people ; the result, how- ever crude and ludicrous, is an expression of his ideas. How absurd to find children in low classes drawing a sheet full of lines, in their endeavor to get proper shade and direction. What do they care for these? A sewing syllabus should not introduce the subject with exercises in elementary stitches. When the child is most anxious to achieve a result it should not be required to sew together bits of cloth in order to learn the kinds of stitches and the elementary technique. All these exercises are dead. The child does not want the technique, for he is interested in the actual creation, the re- sult, the accomplishment of something socially necessary. The curriculum must teach, first, the creation of objects, then the principles underlying them. Let the child draw something that he wishes to express, then show him that his proportions and his line arc bad. Let the little girl begin sewing by mak- ing something she needs, then teach the necessary stitches in the course of actual creation. Let the child begin his cord and raffia work by making a napkin ring, or a picture frame ; then, in the course of the construction of the article, teach the principles of knotting, weaving, etc. It is the outcome thai the child wants; the process, at best, is a necessary evil. Every shop-work teacher knows that the children care far less for the early exercises and far more for the later work in constructing articles whose use is apparent to them. Manual training often fails in the elementary school be- cause it begins by emphasizing technique, the abstract princi- ple rather than the concrete result. It fails to embody the Manual Training and Vocational Education 43 principle laid down in our first chapter, viz., the elementary school must reflect social use, social need; otherwise its work is meaningless and futile. Summary. — Manual education, then, seeks to give motor training, to make all thoughts work themselves out in proper action, to emphasize "doing" and accomplishment as well as knowing. It seeks to give finely responsive muscles and to develop a better control over them, not only through exercise, as in gymnastics, but also through intelligent purposeful use, the creation of something that the individual wants. It seeks to establish a perfect coordination between brain and body, mind and muscle, so that any idea that we have can be ap- propriately executed. The child conceives a pencil box, its size, shape, partitions, and little conveniences within. His sensory center is well developed. But when he tries to exe- cute he fails. The reason is obvious : his motor center is poor ; the muscles do not obey his commands; there is no coordi- nation between conceiving and creating. To quote President Butler, "Manual training is mental training through the hand." The words of Tyler's "Growth and Education" seem very appropriate in our summary of the psychological aspect of the manual arts in education. "Manual training is mental training. In the skill of the artisan's hand, in the methodical, accurate movement of the mechanic's arm, in the accurate observation of the eye and ear, you train the mind. Never admit that manual training is anything distinguished from or in opposition to mental training." II. Sociological Justification Education Changes with Society. — Our introductory study showed us that education must constantly adjust itself to new conditions. An education which neglects the needs of a new age is static and worthless. It seeks to adjust the individual to a life that was, to make him retrace the steps of his prede- cessors. Civilization has just begun a new epoch in its prog- ress, an age of industrialism. What does that mean for edu- 44 Education as Physiological Adjustment cation? A retrospective view of the history of mankind shows that the seat of manufacture was in the home. Spin- ning, weaving, nail-hammering, candle-making were domestic industries in which everybody in the household shared. The implements were simple and the processes all hand processes. But soon there came a great influx of machinery in one short decade, and with it the application of water, and later steam power. Machinery had to be collected under one roof, the place of manufacture had to be located where water power was convenient, or where there were facilities for transpor- tation, for the bringing of coal, and the carting away of finished products. Hence, those localities which were natu- rally favored with water power and which were readily ac- cessible were made the centers for these new factories with their machinery. Industry had now left the home and had come to the industrial centers, the towns. Those who wanted work had to leave their old homes and come to establish new ones in the industrial towns. The Great Social Changes in Modern Industrial Society. — One of the most important results for education which fol- lowed the inauguration of this period of industrialism is the world-wide city movement. It is calculated that, within a very short period, about seventy-five per cent, of our popula- tion will be found in the cities. Education must move with population. It must change its character, just as the char- acter of our lives has changed in shifting from the natural center, the country, to the artificial center, the city. If the individual has suffered any losses in the shift, education must make up this deficit. What can these losses be? A brief survey shows us that they are three : 1. The city child has lost an opportunity for natural work and play in a healthy environment. Contrast the coun- try and the city child in this respect. The country boy can ride a horse, harness a team ; he can use a hammer and a saw, and is familiar with the use of various kinds of woods; he has seen the various vegetables grow from seed to ripening, has aided in plowing, harrowing, planting, hoeing; he can Manual Training and Vocational Education 45 scale a fence, climb a tree, aim a rifle; he knows the names of a dozen or more trees, birds, flowers ; he knows the common animals, their habits, and their haunts. His whole life seems to be motor and outdoor. The city child loses all the benefits of these natural forms of motor training. Education must hence seek to make up this deficiency, to give back to the city child what industrialism has taken from him. It is for this reason that all forms of manual training, woodwork, iron- work, and nature study, with its elementary botany and ele- mentary zoology, have been introduced into our present edu- cational system. The girls are given such work as is suitable for them — cooking, housekeeping, sewing, weaving, the do- mestic arts. Manual training, in all its forms, was therefore added to our present course of study because the environ- ment has changed ; education, in its endeavor to be a dynamic and progressive force, has changed to meet life's new needs. 2. The second loss which the city child has sustained by the modern trend of social development is the lack of knowl- edge of the use of materials. Because of the opportunities for motor work, the country boy knew the use and qualities of wool, of cotton, of hemp, or flax ; he knew the different kinds of earths and sands, the common kinds of rocks, the various kinds of wood ; he knew which wood to select for a floor, which for a ceiling, what is durable, what perishable; he knew the secrets of nature's gifts. The city child is thoroughly ignorant of the uses and quali- ties of the material about him. For this reason recent cur- ricula introduced the "Object Lessons." They were fortu- nately short-lived in America. The teacher taught all about coal in one lesson, about wood in the next, glass in another, and some other isolated and unrelated topic in the following period. Children were to observe and tell us what they saw; then the teacher told them what they did not see. Each grade usually repeated the work of the last with a killing regularity. There was no system, no order. The curriculum sought to give the child a knowledge of materials in this arti- ficial way. These lessons proved dead and useless. To know 46 Education as Physiological Adjustment the uses of an object we must use it; mere observation gives ;i superficial knowledge of sense qualities. The observer sees not only the useful but also the useless ones. The object lessons died a hasty and well-deserved death. In "School and Society" Dewey shows how the manual training lesson can give a knowledge of materials used, of their advantages and disadvantages. A class of girls of about twelve years of age was engaged in weaving some useful ar- ticle with threads of wool. Before the work was begun the teacher called attention to the fact that heretofore the threads were of cotton. The two materials, cotton and wool, were com- pared. The observations were directed by a few questions, and the children noted that (i) cotton is grown in small threads, while wool comes in long ones; (ii) cotton is smooth and therefore does not adhere, while wool is rough and its threads cling easily; (iii) cotton is difficult to extract from the pod by hand, while wool is combed easily without mechan- ical contrivances. The pupils concluded that our ancestors wore wool rather than cotton, but the inventions of the cotton gin and machinery for the manufacture of cotton goods over- came these natural difficulties. Here we have a manual train- ing lesson giving food for thought. The children had an intelligent idea of the relative merits of the two materials because they were using them. No object lesson can bring out these qualities so naturally and so vividly. 3. The third great loss which the city child must bear is lack of a variety of work after the elementary school period. The country boy who must leave study at the end of the elementary school finds some form of employment that offers variety, — farming, store-tending, lumbering, teaming. The organization of rural industry is not intricate and involved, and its division of labor is not minute. The work offers plenty of change. The average city child, on the other hand, who leaves school must go either into an office or a factory. The Significance of These Changes for Education. — In the regular routine of office work the child finds himself engaged either in general messenger sen ice or in some form of special- Manual Training and Vocational Education 47 ized clerical labors at a low wage for a number of years. As he becomes older his salary becomes insufficient, and, unless he has learned a special line of industry, he goes out looking for something. What is he especially suited for? He looks for everything and finds nothing. He has no trade and shifts from job to job. Manual labor he regards beneath the false dignity which comes so often with clerical labors. What is he? What is he fit for? Has education adjusted him to his environment ? Too often the lad finds the factory waiting for him. Our whole modern factory organization is based on minute divi- sion of labor. The greater the number of processes in the manufacture of an article the more mechanical does it become. A shoe passes through seventy or even one hundred thirty separate processes, seventy or one hundred thirty pairs of hands are necessary, but in each case the individual merely brings the shoe to the machine. The individual does not rea- son, nor judge, nor use skill, nor impress his personality on the article. He feeds the machine and removes the product. His actions are constant duplications; they become lifeless and mechanical. This automatic machine-tending stultifies the body and stupefies the mind. This machine worker soon becomes as stupid as the machine which he is tending. Day in, day out, the same dead, dull, grinding monotony drags the individual down to the level of the iron monster. Our untrained boys and girls who are annually belched out by the school into society enter industrial life at "its most painful point, where the trades are already so overcrowded and subdivided that there remains in them very little educa- tion for the worker." Each craft is no longer a "mysterie"; learning its processes and secrets is no longer a means to an acquisition of skill and dexterity, the artisan's greatest assets, which foster the dignity and the independence of the true worker. What is the bearing of all this on education? The reader may have already anticipated. The school must save the child from the predicament of the office and from the soul- 48 Education as Physiological Adjustment crushing grasp of the modern highly specialized factory. Ninety-five per cent, of the school children of our great coun- try never reach the high school. An elementary education is all they receive. It is evident that manual education must go one step further and give each child of this ninety-five per cent, a specific vocation by means of which he can earn his living. If ninety-five per cent, of our children must lead business or manual lives, is it not fair to demand that thirty per cent, of the time of their education be devoted to voca- tional training? In the middle of the school course the child should be in- troduced to the work of the carpenter, the smith, the book- binder, the leather worker, or the wood carver, one of a host of useful occupations. This information can be given to the children through talks by the teacher, a systematic series of discourses on occupations, illustrated by stereopticon views, through visits to neighboring shops, reports of personal ob- servations by the children. Aside from its value as a neces- sary preliminary vocational training, this work has its edu- cative worth in presenting a series of pictures of human life in the various vocational pursuits. In the latter part of his education the child should be allowed to specialize and be- come proficient in the elements of one of these. These crafts are higher than mere machine-tending. They demand skill, mastery of muscle, judgment, new adjustments. They are the just and the necessary heritage of our boys and girls. Teachers in even our large city schools who have under their charge girls beginning the seventh year of elementary education know definitely that many of their pupils must en- ter the industrial world as soon as they graduate. The chil- dren can give the teacher this information, their parents will bear them out. What do we give these girls to prepare them for the inevitable struggle? In arithmetic we treat them to the doubtful mental delights of mensuration, including areas of parallelograms, circles, surfaces of cylinders and cones, of square root, of stocks and bonds, of elementary algebra and inventional geometry. In grammar we cover a course of Manual Training and Vocational Education 49 study which presents a scientific organization of the subject, half of which we cannot apply for them. Thus we go on, led by the educational will-o'-the-wisp, "culture," comfort- ably oblivious of its true intent and content. What a bless- ing education would be, if only fifty per cent, of these two years were devoted to this illusive "culture" and the rest of the time to acquiring a mastery of the elements of millinery, dressmaking, household economy, stenography and typewrit- ing, bookkeeping, or any one of a host of occupations that would enable the child to find its niche in the industrial world in which it must live. SUGGESTED READING (List Given at the End of the Topic, Chapter IV.) CHAPTER IV MANUAL TKAINING AND VOCATIONAL EDUCATION (Concluded) III. Economic Justification The business man has never shown so much interest in any educational problem as in the movement for advanced man- ual training and systematic industrial education. Labor unions, as well as employers' associations, are championing the cause of industry in education. An inquiry into the cause leads us to consider the economic aspect of the problem. What Economic Changes Necessitate Vocational Training To-day. — Our modern economic organization has brought with it conditions that make vocational training a necessity not only for our further economic development but also for a greater usefulness and a decreased precariousness in the life of the individual. What are these new conditions.' 1. The home has lost the industrial characteristics that were prominent under the domestic system of industry. Whether this means an ultimate gain in the moral and so- cial influence of the home remains to be proven by time. So- ciologists and educators feel that the home is thus freed from extraneous work that should not be part of its inherent or- ganization. Theoretically this separation of home from in- dustry should work to the inestimable advantage of the for- mer in giving it a finer and purer morale. But another agenl is necessary in our society to supply that industrial training which the home gave in our simpler social and industrial or ganization. 2. The old guild system, with its apprenticeship, has long 50 Manual Training and Vocational Education 51 passed out of our social life. Under its organization the youth- ful aspirant to a trade was compelled to pass a long period as an apprentice in the household of the master workman. He received his industrial equipment during these years. This was followed by a period of journeyman life, of travel from one industrial center to another, during which time the worker plied his craft as an itinerant artisan. This meant varied and useful experience. After the production of a masterful piece of work which successfully passed the scrutiny of the master workmen, came the reward, election into the craft guild. Despite the caste system and other objectionable phases inherent in such an organization, industrial training was nevertheless gained, and industrial efficiency of the worker was usually guaranteed. We have no such educational agency to-day. This training is as essential to-day as it was then. True, it may not be a requisite in the same industries as heretofore, owing to their mechanization through the intro- duction of machinery, but the training is essential in other industries that have sprung up since. 3. Our modern factory system, with its machine products and minute subdivision of labor, has brought such specializa- tion that the young worker who enters it becomes proficient in only one minor process, is acquainted with only one tech- nical requirement, develops skill in only one part of the craft, and remains ignorant of the trade as a whole. He becomes an appendage of a machine rather than an "all-round" worker. The craft is usually so complex that only those that have received training for it can understand it, can assume the responsibilities of the larger work of supervision and guidance. Where shall this training be obtained? Who other than the community shall give it ? This technical education can be obtained' from a number of private concerns to-day which make it a practice to train their own artisans. But there is no reason why the state should wait until personal need moves private individuals to initiate and develop this branch of education. Our cultural education was conducted for ages by private philanthropy or 52 Education as Physiological Adjustment by the bounty of the church. Throughout the centuries of this private initiative, education never made the strides that it has made during these few decades under state and public guidance. Socialism and its tendencies have proven them- selves eminently successful in education and far superior to private effort and control. 4. Revolutionary changes in process and result have not been limited to industrial pursuits. Agriculture is trying hard to keep pace with the progressive movement. The old system of farming is hardly farming when compared with the modern farming, which applies the scientific aids, taking advantage of our knowledge of chemistry of soil, of physics, of our new machinery, and of experiments in the exter- mination of insects that bring death and devastation to plant life. Where shall the farmers' lads procure this knowledge? How shall they learn the new ways and progressive methods that science and the inventive genius of man are producing? This is one more additional duty that the community must assume in its endeavors to supply industrial needs. 5. Our modern urban life, with its large communities, rich in varied abilities that are concentrated in the city, is responsible for an inevitable keen social competition. City life and city organization demand specialization, expert knowledge of one craft, mastery of one industry. With the numbers of people so large and expert ability so prevalent, only the industrially fittest can survive in our struggle for social existence. Education must become more socialized, more vocationalized, for only then can it hope to give to each individual what he needs most. Our point is brought home by Professor Gillett, who tells us, "To socialize education com- pletely would be to vocationalize it. To vocationalize it would be to reconstruct it to harmonize with the exact consti- tution of society. But society is an organization of voca- tional structures. It is highly specialized. Education must then be as specialized as society. It must be vocational be- cause society demands specialized members to serve it faith- fully. Manual Training and Vocational Education 53 Progress in Vocational Education in Foreign Countries. — It may be an argument lacking in merit to urge vocational training in our democracy because great strides have been made elsewhere. But the position is not so flagrant a HPT^ sequi tur if we reflect upon the inestimable advantages that have accrued to those communities that have entered an active campaign based upon a progressive program of vocational training. Let us see what other countries have achieved. In the days of general praise of American industries and pride in our industrial development, during the St. Louis Exposition, Germany sent a commission of eminent scientists, educators, economists, sociologists and business men to study the American industrial status. While we were lost in the general enthusiasm and wrapped up in our own glory these men scrutinized our whole business organization. Germany wanted to know our true power industrially, how much she was to fear us economically. The commission did its work quietly, but so effectively that it has given us much food for thought, and its reports are responsible, to a great extent, for our national interest in, and clamor for, industrial train- ing. The story of what the commission learned and its con- clusions are well told by Person in his "Industrial Educa- tion." The German students found that, while we Americans are progressive and have vast physical resources, Germany need not worry about the United States as a permanent effective competitor. The reason is a "complacent feeling of satisfac- tion with everything American." The United States is thor- oughly content with the national assets that she has. There is no attempt to improve her industrial skill or give system- atic industrial education. The United States is relying on her vast resources to keep her in the first rank among the nations. Will our hope be realized? Germany is constantly striving to turn out most efficient workers. Her trained chemists become the leaders in the chemical world of dyes, mixture of steel, explosives and the like. Her schooled textile workers are the rivals of the time- 54 Education as Physiological Adjustment honored English weavers. Her clerks and accountants are called to the largest concerns in the United States. Her well- trained mechanics are called to the United States to take responsible supervising positions in American foundries. Her salesmen, schooled in the world's needs and outputs, in modern practices of business, give her a place in every impor- tant market in the world. The United States Educational Report for 1903 tells us, "It would be difficult to estimate how many young Germans are managing the correspond- ence in our large houses" (United States Educational Report, 1903, p. 654). So much do we need industrially trained men that not only are we importing these in great numbers, but private concerns, feeling the need, have themselves under- taken to give a thorough industrial training to apprentices. The Baldwin Locomotive Works, the Lawrence Textile School, the R. H. Hoe Company, of New York City, are examples. These are some of the few oases to which we can point to relieve the monotony of our educational desert in vocational training. How puny do we appear when compared with the nation-wide movement in Germany ! The city of Munich began its system of vocational educa- tion in 1900 when it transformed its continuation schools. To-day it boasts of fifty-two separate vocational schools, 1 ' Fachschulen. " It is a city of only five hundred and eighty thousand people, with a school population of seventy thou- sand. There are nine thousand boys and seventy-five hundred girls who are taking compulsory vocational work. To these must be added thirty-six hundred girls who are taking volun- tary studies in these schools, thus giving a total of twenty thousand pupils. Boys are required to attend the public schools when they are from six to fourteen years of age. If they do not enter the high schools, but plan a business or industrial career, the law compels three years' attendance at the vocational school while practicing the trade in a shop. With girls the compulsory period for elementary school is from six to twelve years of age. Those who are not to con- tinue studying must select their vocation and begin a com- Manual Training and Vocational Education 55 pulsory educational period in the vocational school. The hours are so arranged that these children can earn a little working at their crafts while studying. This education is absolutely free. The variety of trades offered can be seen from the following partial list: Butcher, baker, shoemaker, barber, woodturner, glazier, gardener, confectioner, wagon- maker, blacksmith, chauffeur, tailor, photographer, decorator, waiter, painter, paper-hanger, bookbinder, potter, jeweler, silversmith, watchmaker, leather-worker, milliner, dressmaker, cook, waitress, nurse, etc., etc., etc. Saxony, a diminutive state, has one hundred fifteen technical institutes ; Baden, with a population of one million six hundred thousand, spends two hundred and eighty thou- sand dollars annually for technical education ; Hesse, with its one million inhabitants, has eighty-three schools for indus- trial designs, forty-three schools for the manufacturing indus- tries, and some minor provisions. The state of Prussia has in active organization over three thousand industrial, trade, commercial and agricultural schools, which care for two hun- dred thousand students. The city of Berlin has forty thou- sand students in "supplementary trade, industrial and com- mercial schools." These are some of the striking features which the American student of education regards with envious eyes. England has awakened to the educational need of the century. Professor Gillett, in his "Vocational Education," gives us a resume of the effective means put into operation in the hope of reclaiming lost industrial prestige and position. Civic Universities have been established in the cities of Bir- mingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Sheffield and Leeds. These are large technical schools and aim to teach men the applica- tion of science to industry. Leeds, the textile center of England, has its Civic University, with a "School of Tex- tile Industries" and a "School of Dyeing and Coloring Chem- istry." Only after Germany succeeded in wresting from England the supremacy in the dyeing of fabrics were these two "schools" organized. Sheffield, being the cutlery center 56 Education as Physiological Adjustment of the Empire, has a "School of Metallurgy" in its Civic University. Each city is therefore trying to give the best possible technical training in its specialty in its endeavor to withstand the telling competition caused by the efficiently trained foreign worker. In Japan, France, Denmark, Switzerland, Norway, and Sweden the same movement has already begun, and is being pushed with vigor and intelligence. The only part of our country that can be put into the same category is the South. Whatever this section has achieved redounds to the everlasting glor y of the foegro race ? which is meeting the problem under the leadership of Booker T. Washington, who sees in voca- tional training the only practical salvation of his race. Schools like Tuskegee and Hampton have become the models of their kind. There are now seventeen schools in the South super- vised by Tuskegee graduates, each having not less than sixty students. Of the total number of graduates from these tech- nical institutes, less than ten per cent, are failures in their trades. Farming among the negroes is never so remunera- tive as when the technical school graduate returns to the farm or goes about giving his fellow-men the benefits he has acquired. What these schools have meant for the social amelioration of the negro will be shown later. The negro is beginning to realize that in our age of industrialism, social salvation may be attained only through economic progress and independence. Industrial vs. Vocational Training. — Before proceeding with the discussion, it would be well to stop a moment to dif- ferentiate industrial from vocational training and consider the true province and endeavor of each. It must be noted that these two forms of education are not synonymous. In- dustrial training socks to prepare for the industrial and mechanical pursuits and vocations in life. Vocational train- ing is far more inclusive, seeking to incorporate every necessary phase of social activity. Only a small fraction of our population is industrial. Hence education must not only be industrialized, it must be vocationalized as well. Manual Training and Vocational Education 57 Forms of Vocational Training. — What forms shall voca- tional training take in order to fulfill the characteristics em- phasized in this distinction? In the main, it includes five lines of endeavor, viz. : ( 1 ) Professional activities, which need no further discussion. (2) Commercial pursuits, which in- clude the trained salesmen, advertisers, buyers, business man- agers, import and export clerks, accountants, bookkeepers, stenographers and typewriters, and general office assistants. (3) Agricultural industries, under which we incorporate all forms of farming, fruit growing, lumbering, cattle raising and kindred activities. (4) Industrial crafts, which cover the host of manufacturing and mechanical industries. (5) The household arts, which count among their occupations sewing, cooking, housekeeping, nursing, and the allied domes- tic processes. A complete vocational program like the one that is in operation in Germany covers them all, for only then can it meet all vocational needs and afford a safe and attrac- tive variety. Economic Advantages of Vocational Education. — We can do no more than indicate our deficiencies and suggest remedies that should be inaugurated without further delay, for there are economic gains which we can ill afford to lose. Indus- trial and vocational training on a national scale make for efficient economic organization. Germany and Japan hold leading industrial places among the nations because they are both industrialized and vocationalized. They are fast climb- ing to the top of the industrial ladder despite the recency of their organization, and the limitations of their physical resources. Vocational training means industrial efficiency for both employer and employee. Old business organization was sim- ple, the means of communication were limited, transporta- tion was poor, the very processes of industry were exceedingly elementary. The modern business world is a happy contrast with its complexity of organization, its competition, its elabo- rate means of communication and transportation, all of which have produced world markets to supply world needs. 5 58 Education as Physiological Adjustment This developmenl needs trained workers, specialized toilers, thinkers highly efficient in their respective fields. This added industrial efficiency brings its reward not only to the em- ployer, but also to the worker, for in its wake comes a higher scale of remuneration. Person in his "Industrial Education" gives a statistical table showing an increase of three hun- dred per cent, in the wages of the skilled mechanic over his unskilled fellow-worker. The Massachusetts Commission on Industrial and Technical Education reports that boys who enter a shop at fourteen receive a maximum wage of twelve to thirteen dollars per week. But those lads who spend a partial apprenticeship up to eighteen years of age receive an average wage of thirty dollars per week and have prospects of promotion to supervising positions. This increase in wage rate is characteristic not only of mechanical crafts but of financial, commercial, and managerial positions. In our own country we can show excellent results of agricultural education given in the western colleges and uni- versities. Scientific farming, cattle raising, agricultural chem- istry, scientific dairy methods, are studied in special agricul- tural schools. The farms are producing more, the people are more prosperous, the income from cattle-raising is much higher, the temptation to go to the city and intensify the strife and competition is lessened considerably. The whole community is happier in every respect because industries and the bread and butter activities have found a place in the school. The sad sight of abandoned farms throughout New England and upper New York would occur far less frequently if country boys and those living in small towns had learned how to apply the lessons of modern chemistry, agriculture, and physics to the cultivation of the land. If our scientific knowledge will not make easier and happier our lives, what is its use? Aside from social service knowledge has no reason for existence. Is There an Economic Danger in Vocational Training? — Economists and theorists of every school have expressed their doubts of the ultimate efficiency of vocational train- Manual Training and Vocational Education 59 ing. Their great fear seems to be that skilled industries will be overcrowded. What the final result of a long period of vocational training will be is difficult to decide with any de- gree of certainty. It is an undisputed fact that the greatest problem of unemployment to-day is the disposition of the vocationless. While there may be an over-supply of general labor to-day, there is a continued and persistent demand for the skilled worker. Vocational training would lessen the ranks of the unskilled worker, and thus equalize labor demand and labor supply. The greatest difficulty which labor agencies and government labor exchanges must face is the problem of the unskilled laborer, not that of the skilled worker. One may ask: "Is not the tendency of labor toward mechanized and unskilled labor?" This is true in the main. But with conditions as they are to-day, there is plenty of room in the skilled trades. It must not be forgotten that there is a counter movement which has set in as a reaction toward hand crafts. This counter movement will gain in force and in popularity with the advent of a liberal voca- tional education. Eespect for machine products, machine pottery, machine glassware, machine furniture, is continu- ously growing less. There is an ever-increasing and unmis- takable demand for the hand-made commodity which shows artistic design and personal skill, and which reflects the indi- viduality of the worker in his product. IV. Effect of Vocational Education on the Efficiency of Our Educational System We measure the efficiency of the school and its educational system by their ultimate and permanent effects upon their charges, by the extent to which they ultimately and perma- nently influence their pupils, and determine their future wel- fare. The standard that we use in forming our estimate of the efficiency of an educational institution is its ability to produce responsible individuals who can become independent of the teacher. This is the highest ideal that the teacher can 60 Education as Physiological Adjustment attain in his work. Measured by this educational yard- stick, the limitations of our school system become apparent. That it can be rendered far more influential and efficient by the addition of vocational training to its legitimate activ- ities is our thesis. We must now turn to the proof. The School and the Problem of Social Pathology. — Pathol- ogy is that branch of medicine which studies the physical indi- vidual whose physiological condition is such as to interfere with the normal, healthy functioning of the organs. It is the study of the diseased individual. The social body is by no means free from social diseases; it, too, is heir to ills and aches, to cankerous growths which gnaw at its vitals and sap its vitality and life. We have problems of social as well as individual pathology. What are the causes of social pathology, of anti-social indi- viduals who cannot adjust themselves to their social environ- ment, who cannot become desirable, integral parts of the com- munity, who fill the ranks of the paupers and criminals, who are leeches upon the social body? In a brief survey we may trace their social disease to: (1) Reasons of Vicious Heredity, (2) Reasons of Physical and Physiological Defects, and (3) Reasons of Adverse Environment and Limited Edu- cation. The first two reasons explain the destiny of one out of ten anti-social individuals; the third is the cause of the unfortunate predicament of the other nine. Although these figures present an ugly truth, it is nevertheless one not devoid of hope, for the environment can be improved and educa- tion may be elaborated and liberalized. The incorporation of vocational training into our educational curriculum will do much to alleviate both these conditions, viz., adverse environment and limited education, by (1) reducing elimina- tion from the school, and (2) reducing a prominent cause of crime. Elimination in the School. — Recent statistical reports are replete with interesting information concerning the large numbers of children who curtail their education long before graduation if they have attained the limit of the compulsory Manual Training and Vocational Education 61 school attendance age. Commissioner Draper estimates that only two-fifths to one-third of the children who enter the ele- mentary school graduate, and only one-half stay through the fifth or sixth year. Thorndike in his recent investigations puts the number of graduates at one-fifth. Ayres, whose statistical study in "Laggards in Our Schools" insists on greater accuracy, tells us that one-half of the children who enter our city schools usually graduate. Figures vary, there- fore, from twenty to almost fifty per cent. ; the highest figures, however, are sad enough. Reproducing graphically the facts that Ayres found, we have the following diagram: Grades Elem. School High School 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 / C\ II III IV> Here we note that only fifty per cent, complete the eighth grade, thirty per cent, drop out in the sixth and the seventh years, only ten per cent, graduate from high schools, despite the fact that almost fifty per cent, begin secondary studies. It is interesting to see that more children drop out in grades six and seven than in the transfer from elementary to high 62 Education as Physiological Adjustment school. A continued study of the graph brings new and varied facts depending upon the practical school experience of the reader. Woodward sums up his studies of elimination in the schools in the following diagram. In it we find represented the schools of the whole country, rural as well as city systems, for the year 1901 (U. S. Ed. Report, p. 1367). Kg. 1 Gr. 2 Gr. 3 Gr. 4 Gr. 5 Gr. 6 Gr. 7 Gr. 8 Gr. 1 H.S.2P.S.3 H.S.4 H.S. 13000 12000 11000 10O00 9000 8000 7000 6000 5000 4000 3000 2000 1000 U297C 1 1123? ,1008? 9134 5677 3012 £143 ,1468 ,733 353 255 ,214 How much more disheartening are these figures, showing a continuous elimination of pupils even before the end of the fifth grade! In the cities there is a fair degree of attendance through the five years because of the greater- ease in enforc- ing the compulsory education law. What a persistent decline Manual Training and Vocational Education 63 do we see here ! With only seven hundred thirty-three out of every twelve thousand nine hundred seventy chil- dren entering high school, only five per cent, of the school population of this country are receiving a secondary educa- tion ! The figures of educational mortality are impressive, indeed, if not thoroughly alarming. Causes of Elimination. — What are the causes of this elim- ination in the grades? We may ascribe them, among others, to (1) Retardation. Children are held over in grades; they become too old to feel that there is any possibility of grad- uating, and leave therefore at the age of fourteen. There are six million children in the United States who are annually retarded or held over. Thirty-three per cent, of our children belong to this grade. New York City spends twelve per cent, of its school appropriation on its repeaters. The additional causes are (2) Incapacity for intellectual work; (3) Poverty; (4) Parents' lack of culture and their low standard of edu- cation and living; (5) Lack of interest in school work. Of these five, two interest us most in this connection, viz., "In- capacity for intellectual work" and "Lack of interest in school work"; these must receive our closer attention for remedial measures are possible. Through vocationalized edu- cation we can give these children that work which they are capable of performing, and in which they are manifestly in- terested because they realize its value for their future wel- fare. How can Education Counteract these Causes? — Wood- ward, in speaking of the children eliminated in the grades, tells us: "Their controlling interests are not in committing to memory the printed page ; not even the arithmetic serves to reconcile them to school hours and school duties. They long to grasp things with their own hands; they burn to test the strength of materials and the magnitude of forces, to match their cunning and the cunning of nature." The "Outlook" (May 19, 190G), in commenting upon the Massachusetts Report on Technical Education, says: "The salient features of the commission's report are that the first years of employment 64 Education as Physiological Adjust unlit of those children who commence work at fourteen or fifteen are often wasted years ; that the children leave school because neither they nor their parents see any practical value in remaining there, but that a larger majority of the parents could afford to keep their children in school a year or two longer, and would do so if they had an opportunity of secur- ing a training which would make for industrial efficiency." These are the conclusions of the commission, reached after a personal examination of fifty-five hundred children who left school and were one year at work. The evidence given by the children was verified in a further examination of three thousand parents. We must not conclude that vocational training would be an immediate cure for the great problem of elimination in the grades. It is fair to conclude that it would greatly minimize the problem and reduce the number when we find high school attendances increased by fifty per cent, after its introduction, when we see the improvements that followed immediately after the opening of the indus- trial and vocational schools in Chicago and Milwaukee and other centers in the Middle West. Vocational Training and Criminality. — To those who have thought little along sociological lines or who take the old theological conception of innate wickedness, there can be no connection between vocational training and criminality. Nev- ertheless a moment's examination will show an intimate connection between the two. The individual who has his life work mapped out, who has an asset in life in the form of skill and knowledge of a craft or vocation, who has felt the dignity and the seriousness of life, is on the road to become a desir- able and productive member of his community. Sociologists, trained students of criminology and of social relief will read- ily indorse such a contention. We know that of forty-three hundred forty convicts in the State of Massachusetts at the time of investigation, twenty-nine hundred ninety-one, or sixty-eighl per cent., were without any vocation or occupa- tion; of two hundred twenty adult convicts sentenced to hard labor for that year one hundred forty-seven had no Manual Training and Vocational Education 65 trade. During a recent year, eighty-eight per cent, of the penitentiary convicts of Pennsylvania were never appren- ticed to any trade. Gillett, in summarizing Morrison's re- port on England, tells us that seventy-seven per cent, of the juvenile offenders and seventy-five per cent, of the adult pris- oners were without definite vocation. We have the authority of Booker T. "Washington for the fact that "ninety per cent, of the colored people in southern prisons are without knowl- edge of any trade." In the Elmira Reformatory there were sixty-six hundred forty-one indeterminate sentences up to 1895; of these forty-three hundred sixty-nine were paroled. Before parole was granted each prisoner acquired a vocation and was given a definite means of finding himself in the industrial and commercial world. What are the results? Eighty-three per cent, are reported as reformed, leading honest, useful lives, and fifteen and seven-tenths per cent returned to their previous criminal practices. Vocational training is no patent-medicine remedy to cure all social ills, but it has reclaimed eighty-three per cent, of the wayward young men ; it is giving each unfortunate an effective weapon with which he can fight the anti-social forces in his environ- ment that tend to drag him down to ruin and desolation. In the light of these figures we may give hearty accord to Carroll D. Wright's words: "Labor properly remunerated is an ef- fective guarantee against the commission of crime. . . The kind of labor that requires most skill on the part of the workman to perform insures him most perfectly against want and crime, as a rule. . . . It is statistically true that enough knowledge to be of value in increasing the amount and quality of work done, to give character, to some extent at least, to a person's tastes and aspirations, is a better safe- guard against the inroads of crime than any code of crim- inal laws." (Ency. of Social Reform.) Henderson, in his "Dependents, Defectives and Delinquents," is even more em- phatic in his conclusion. "One thing shines out clearly from the record thus far studied ; that the lack of instruction in manual and trade processes and of personal, moral and 66 Education as Physiological Adjustment spiritual influences, must be charged with much of the ten- dency to crime." Democracy and Vocational Training. — The ultimate hope of democracy lies in education. A consideration of the small numbers whose education extends beyond the elementary stages places this hope and salvation in the public school sys- tem. We are constantly confronted with the absolute inequal- ity among mankind ; it is necessary that we recognize our helplessness in the face of the inequalities of nature's bounty. Because there is absolutely no equality of abilities, a true democracy seeks to afford an equality of opportunities for each individual to reach out and attain the highest plane within his scope. An ideal democracy strives constantly to give to each the tools of self-help, the means of realizing the highest of human goals, personal independence and self-direc- tion, for only then will each individual stand out in the full glory of his bigness. V. Ethical Gains Through Manual and Vocational Training Character Influence of Manual and Vocational Work. — Aside from their psychological, socological, economic, and educational needs, manual and vocational training have a character influence upon the child. All manual work tends to develop habits of accuracy, neatness, and care. When one is "nearly right" in most intellectual work, a fair result is obtained. The child who is "almost right" in a composition, a history or geography recitation, has done commendable work. No such loose standard can be tolerated in manual work. The parts must fit absolutely, the measurements must be accurate to a fine degree, otherwise the results show imper- fections standing out in no mistakable terms. But it must be remembered that accuracy, neatness, and care will usually be exercised by children only when they are working on some- thing they like and whose need they feel. These qualities are cultivated and called forth only when there is a motive for them. The child who is driving nails into a piece of wood Manual Training and Vocational Education 67 merely to practice the proper method of driving nails, the child who is sewing on a bit of cloth making nothing, merely illustrating technical stitches, usually does not do neat, ac- curate careful work. What need is there for these qualities? The same child shows infinitely more pains when constructing a dog-house for his pet, or a dress for her doll. A drill lessoa in penmanship is usually not an exercise of unusual care. Blots, erasures, unsymmetrical strokes, and other evidences bespeak the carelessness in the drill. The dictation or the ink copy of the composition is usually free from this kind of inaccuracy because it is a real task, not a meaningless drill. "We adults are not always neat for the sake of being neat. We show care, accuracy, neatness when we must submit work to others, or when we are making something for ourselves that is to be used by us. Children show this same attitude and are actuated by the same motive in their own work. Concentration and close application are additional results which manual training will give. Children spend long periods at their manual work, and apply themselves to no small degree when they become absorbed in their tasks. Since this is the work which appeals to them, and which their ultra-active motor centers prompt, they give themselves up willingly, and learn to concentrate until all obstacles are overcome and they triumph in actual execution. Self-confidence is another inestimable character result of this work. This feeling of self-reliance which is thus fostered is constantly seen in the desire children show to work things out for themselves; they resent any interference or offer of help. It is a wholesome desire which is responsible for bigger endeavors and greater accomplishments in the future. Mutual help is an absolute essential in manual work. In no lesson is mutual help so needed, so readily given, so often sought and so possible in the school. A child is constantly seeking its neighbor's opinion on various points connected with the work and its accompanying difficulties. ' ' Is the line straight?" "Is the fit good?" "Will he help hold the wood as he fastens it?" "Will his neighbor allow him to use his or her 68 Erf neat 'ion as Physiological Adjustment knife, scissors, tools?" — these are a few of a host of necessary requests. No good manual-training lesson can be given without permission to talk; no school shop should have such discipline as will make the giving of mutual help and sug- gestions impossible. A lofty character result of manual training and vocational education is the inculcation of respect for labor. We may talk, explain, and praise manual labor, tell how Moses was a shepherd, the Prophets each worked at a trade, Jesus was the son of a carpenter, and St. Paul a tent maker, but there is only one effective means of bringing home to a child that hand labor is as worthy and dignified as mental work, — let teacher and child spend a period or two a day in the shop working together with sleeves rolled up and arms bared. Nothing convinces the child so quickly and so positively as action. Manual training can be made a true bond of feeling between children of various classes, of different sympathies and outlooks. It can be made the most efficient force for inculcating in children a spirit of democracy, which in the final analysis of ultimate results is one of the basic justifica- tions of our school system. It is the means which makes the son of the rich man work side by side with the son of the poor man, which teaches simply, honestly, convincingly the respect due labor, the true dignity which must crown manual toil. But the hope of Felix Adler, "The two classes of so- ciety, united at the root, will never therefore grow asunder" — though noble indeed, seems far too ambitious a result to be achieved by manual education. Another very notable ethical gain that can be achieved through a vigorous prosecution of the manual training cur- riculum is the inculcation of a property sense. The pro- prietary feeling, the right to property, the security of owner- ship of what is truly and honestly one's own, — these are at the basis of our social organization; they have called into existence our laws, government, and machinery of social con- trol. The child who has produced something by giving to it his skill, his personality, his patience, and his time taken Manual Training and Vocational Education 69 from play, feels that the object created is in every sense his own. Only those who experience an honest sense of owner- ship can really feel the necessary respect for the property of others. The child is too often a one-sided communist, "what is yours is mine, what is mine is mine," is his philosophy of property. This property sense is therefore an essential and a vital element in the moral equipment that we must give our children. Caution in Character Value of Manual Training. — But we must not go too far. Manual training has its advantages and is an educational need to-day. With all due deference to its influence, manual training has its limitations. Many modern enthusiasts hold that manual training is an effective means of inculcating virtue and social morality. It teaches the child concretely the need of truth and precision, for the child sees that unless the wood is cut to an exact measure, unless the cloth or other working materials are faithfully matched and sized, the result will not be right; the fit will be wrong, the various parts will be out of gear. The child learns definitely the demand for exactness in the physical world. This con- ception the child carries over to his relations in the social world, realizing the need for truth and the utter danger in falsehood and deception, which are forms of inaccuracy, inten- tional or otherwise. Let us quote from Felix Adler: "It is true, there are influences in manual training favorable to a virtuous disposition. Squareness in things is not without its relation to squareness in action and in thinking. A child that has learned to be exact, that is, truthful, in his work, will be predisposed to be scrupulous and truthful in his speech, in his thought, in his action." Our only answer is: "What does experience say?" We know full well that truth and exact- ness vary with the content, hence truth in manual work is not truth in social action. Accuracy in manual work is no guar- antee of accuracy in social relations. It is the exaggeration of the importance of any one idea that has made the educator an unconscious source of humor and has tended to discredit his position in practical matters. Manual training is iinpor* 70 Education as Physiological Adjustment taut and potent in its educational influences, but it is not the center of the educational firmament, nor will it usher in a new moral era. SUGGESTED READING Dewey. Solwol and Society, Chaps. 1 and 2. Dopp. Place of Industries in Education. Thorndike. Principles of Teaching, Chap. 4. Carlton. Education and Industrial Evolution. Dean. The Worker and the State. Gillett. Vocational Education. Hanus. Beginnings in Industrial Education, Chaps. 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. Kerschensteiner. Eeport on Schools of Munich. Person. Industrial Education. CHAPTER V PHYSICAL EDUCATION THROUGH PLAY, GYMNASTICS, AND ATHLETICS The general topic under consideration is the means of physiological development that will aid in the adjustment to the physical environment. Thus far we have concentrated on manual training and vocational education. We come now to more direct physical education through (1) Play, (2) Gym- nastics, and (3) Athletics. Let us see how we make the tran- sition. Our muscles can be grouped under two heads. The first group contains the peripheral muscles, which are found about the sense organs, and in the fingers; they are the smaller muscles that guide in all skilful activities. These peripheral muscles are controlled by. the cerebrum, the brain proper. Manual training seeks to develop these. The second group of muscles is the fundamentals. They are the large muscles that are used in free movements like walking, running, pulling, and lifting. Their control is usually placed in the lower brain centers, especially the spinal cord. Play, Gymnastics, and Athletics are designed to develop them. Manual training cannot, therefore, be given without fatiguing the brain as well as the body and the muscles. Play, Gymnastics, and Athletics relieve the brain of most of its intense activity and control ; they attempt a more definite form of physical devel- opment. Our next topic is hence the first of the three means of physiological development, Play. General Facts Concerning Growth of Children. — All bodily growth is an increase in size due to either of two causes, to an increase in the number of cells or to an increase in the 71 72 Education as Physiological Adjustment size of the cells. After birth an increase in the number of cells is rare, hence the growth of children is due to the increase in the size of the cells. An adult has the same number of cells as an infant; the difference lies in their size and energy. To make a cell grow three conditions are essential, viz., (1) rational exercise, use, purposeful function; (2) nutrition, proper food; (3) air. Education in devoting itself to the physical welfare of the individual seeks to give two of these conditions — exercise and proper air. But each body and each organ have definitely fixed limits to which they can attain in their growth. Great care must be taken to recognize that the limit of growth has been reached, for further exercise which seeks a development that transcends this natural limit may prove injurious. At no time must we over-emphasize the physical training of the growing child, for its temporary limit may be reached. To forge ahead of nature works irreparable injury to the individual. Too rapid growth is almost as sure a sign of poor health as slow and retarded development. Premature development is a sign of weakness, "whereas slow maturing is usually a sign of superior mentality," and power, gradually gaining the force and the momentum of a strong mind. The general law which we must posit for physical devel- opment is that as powers and organs begin to make manifest their growth and activity, proper exercises must be assigned to utilize them. Just as soon as the child shows that he has a new faculty, proper provision must be made to exercise it ; otherwise it will not develop, but will become stunted and dwarfed through neglect. Nature, then, determines the order of exercise. Since the child is first merely concentrated activ- ity, anxiously craving to express itself, to do something, the earliest physical training takes the form of free play. As the nerve centers and muscles become stronger, and give the indi- vidual better control of his body, gymnastics is added. When a fair degree of strength has been developed, athletics sup- plements mere gymnastic movement and serves to add new interest and zeal to bodily training. Hence we begin with Play, Gymnastics, and Athletics play, the first member in this trio of means for physiological development. Play Nature of Play. — Play is denned as a spontaneous physical expression of the individuality. Its true nature and purpose we can understand best if we see first what play is not. Since its direct opposite is work, let us place work and play in contrast to see the true nature of each : Play 1. An activity whose di- rect result is of little conse- quence. What the child creates in his game is as valueless to him as to others. 2. The activity itself gives us pleasure. Work 1. An activity in which the result is useful either to the individual or to society. Work is therefore serious. 2. Pleasure is found in the end, the result of work, but seldom, if ever, in the process. 3. Work is always care- fully chosen, for the specific end in view must be achieved. It is therefore deliberative rather than spontaneous. 4. It exercises a few defi- nite parts of the body. It usually entails repetition of an activity and lacks the va- riety and life of play. 5. It demands all available energy, because we usually cannot stop at signs of ex- haustion, but must continue beyond the point where there can no longer be any possible pleasure in the activity. Conclusion. — Play is therefore a natural spontaneous activ- ity, while work is forced. Play means pleasure, although it 6 3. It is freely chosen for its own sake. It is therefore spontaneous. 4. It exercises no definite part or parts of the body. It seeks change and variety in activity. 5. It uses only that energy which is given off freely; it stops when the body shows signs of fatigue or the mind experiences diminished pleas- ure. 74 Education as Physiological Adjustment may demand a greater amount of physical exertion and strenuousness. The problem for the elementary school is therefore to inculcate the spirit of play in the regular course of work. In their play children carry heavy stones, pile up snow walls until their hands freeze, dig and shovel sand until their palms are calloused. Yet they do not consider these activities arduous work, but play. This attitude is de- termined by the fact that they see reason and purpose in their activity. School work cannot and should not become play, but some of the spontaneity and pleasure of play can be infused into the serious class work by making it as natural and necessary as play. A good illustration of this suggestion is embodied in the following class-room observation. A teacher of a special "working paper" class could not arouse an interest in local geography. The children found the task of learning streets, ferries, railroad terminals, arduous and dull. The teacher then made several of the children come into the room and apply for the position of errand boy. The teacher impersonated the employer, the child the appli- cant. Said the employer to the boy, after he had asked pre- liminary questions of name, age, etc. : "If I sent you to Duane Street, and then to Cortlandt Street, how many carfares would you need?" The applicant said three, and when asked why, showed that he did not know the location of the streets. "Won't do," was the verdict, and a second applicant, who knew these streets, was accepted. The children then realized that knowing streets and locations is essential. The teacher had no difficulty in getting these children to spend Saturday and Sunday in filling in on an outline map the names of the streets they visited. The lesson was now a source of "fun," because they saw the need of this knowledge, and set at the work with unusual avidity. Local geography taught from blackboard outlines and note-book summaries, Lacks the life and the spirit of such a lesson. These children were learning their home geography in the right way. and therefore enjoyed the process. It is an illustration of what we an by intro- ducing the play element into work, without turning the school Play, Gymnastics, and Athletics 75 studies into play. Having seen the negative aspect of play, we must now turn to its positive nature. Play as an Intellectual Influence. — The older educators saw in play only what we have seen in it thus far, a free, spon- taneous activity which is, par excellence, a means of giving mental rest and recreation. Aside from this function, the old idea held that play had no intellectual use. To-day we see play in a wider sphere of educational influence. Froebel was the first educator to successfully refute the old conception of play, and show that the activity drained off in play can be directed so that the results are educationally useful. To util- ize the activity of the child he organized the kindergarten, with its work in elementary sense training. By playing with various blocks, paper, ribbons, beads, and the other kinder- garten "gifts," the child acquires the elementary color, form, and size perceptions. Through play the child mind receives its first training in elementary mental activities and learns to know the essentials of the concrete world about him. All play, furthermore, necessitates the use of imagination, "the make-believe" activity; all play relies upon memory of the sequence of events in the game. Play, therefore, becomes a means of training in perception, of exercising the imagina- tion and retentive powers. Play, then, is an intellectual as well as a physical force in education. Play as a Socializing Influence. — Play has an added educa- tional value because it tends to develop the social nature of the egotistic child. Play loses its zest and pleasure when the child must play alone. Its real spirit comes from competition and intercourse with others. But unless the child is willing to curb his own personality, to subordinate his own selfish desires, he cannot play with others. The child of four or five is ex- tremely individualistic; he must be the moving spirit, he therefore resents interference of any kind in his game; hence the very young child usually plays alone with his toys. The early games of children are therefore "unorganized, non-com- petitive and non-cooperative." The child of eight or ten is more often found in games with others, he submits to simple 76 Education as Physiological Adjustment rules, and lives up to them as well as he can, in order that he may enjoy the society of his playmates. The child of thirteen or fourteen has learned the meaning and function of laws in games, and willingly yields to them. Games of boys and girls of this age are positively complex with varied regulations. Such children are usually intolerant of one who deviates from the prescribed path. This is the period of team-playing, in which children sacrifice themselves and their glory for the benefit of the group. The individuat- ing nature is now under control. The play of pre-adolescents does more than merely develop their social nature; it teaches obedience to sanctioned author- ity; it gives rise to the social life of the gang. Once a child has established his leadership obedience is easily secured from the others. Children will often do gladly for their leader what they would consider irksome if demanded by teacher or parent. They strive to ingratiate themselves in his esteem. Gang life and game groups abound with illustrations of sac- rifices that children make in their endeavor to show obe- dience and even submission to the leader. This is therefore a period when we have the best oppor- tunity of bringing home the meaning and importance of law, of living up to the social standard, if we mean to safe- guard our own rights and not trespass on those of others. In the class-room we talk of these things in ethics lessons, in history, in literature, in discipline ; but in the end the im- pression is vague, for this verbal appeal, however vivid, is in the final analysis an abstraction. In play the need of obe- dience to law is very concrete; disobedience and disregard of law show their effects in a way that the child not only under- stands, but also remembers, for the lessons are brought home to him in unmistakable terms. Play is therefore a means of giving mental rest and recreation, a force which has a distinct educational bear- ing both in its effects upon the intellect and upon the will ; it is an activity which develops the social nature of the child. Play, Gymnastics, and Athletics 77 Origin of Play Instinct. — Since this play instinct is so uni- versal and lias so significant a bearing on our educational problem, it may be well to inquire into its origin. No two educators agree in their conceptions, yet each urges his as the only true explanation of the cause. The first serious explana- tion was given by Spencer. His explanation is called the Surplus Energy Theory. He held that the child is a mass of activity and impulse which needs constant draining. The body in its normal condition produces more energy than it needs. AH the organs creating vitality, heart, lung, digestive apparatus, have a large margin for safety, a surplus of energy to expend. It is estimated that at times the energy is ten times the amount necessary to be expended. "The blood must be oxygenated in order to reduce man below the peril of excessive, explosive, ecstatic, hysterical vigor." To use up this surplus energy we play. "We play lest we rack to pieces, burn up with too much energy. We play in order to get tired." This theory explains why children play more than older folks, and why the games of the former are more phys- ical than those of the latter. But at best it regards play as a negative or secondary force. A second explanation of the origin of the play impulse is called the Preparatory Theory of Groos. This German thinker believes that every form of play is suggestive of the instincts of the race, and seeks to prepare the individual for the life that he is to lead. The animal in its playfulness goes through activities which form part of its later serious life. The kit- ten crouching before the rolling spool, the pup jumping at a stranger in its eagerness to receive some attention, the lion cub playfully pretending ferocity toward its little brother cub, all these are merely practicing in play, activities and reactions in which they must become proficient during later life. Thus the boy in his games plays such things as require hunting, attacking, defending; he drives a team, plays at soldier, fireman or policeman. The girl with her doll plays at being mother, school teacher or nurse. Play thus becomes a preparation for the life we are to lead in mature years. 78 Education as Physiological Adjustment To quote Kirkpatrick: "Each instinct before it appears is thus developed and perfected by playful activity before it is to be used seriously." The theory is fanciful and pretty ; it is accepted by very many leading educators. But it is nevertheless far-fetched and gives one the feeling of being unreal. If we were to accept this view, and direct the games of our children accord- ingly, we would rob them of their free spontaneous character and introduce a seriousness which would be fatal. When a boy plays at fireman, at policeman, at soldier, he is merely imi- tating those about him. Numerous experiments with animals and a detailed study of instincts in the lower forms have recently shown that those activities which we believe to be inborn are acquired through imitation of the parent animal. A third explanation which is often given is known as the Recreation Theory. This view maintains that play is only the natural reaction to the seriousness and intensity of life. Its sole aim is to give relief, because, Home explains: "The tightened strings of the instrument must be loosed up." As an offset to this seriousness, and nerve-strung existence, play comes as the alleviator and reliever. But life is not a very serious problem to children, yet they play most. . It is exceedingly grave to the adult, but he plays least. Society idlers are hardly leading a life of serious, nervous strain, nevertheless they are constantly seeking diversion. This theory has many grave exceptions which forbid its universal acceptance as an explanation of all forms of play. Another theory is often advanced to explain play. Its author is Lazarus, the German educator. We must not con- fuse this explanation with the Recreation Theory, as has been done. Lazarus believes that the mind has a natural aversion for idleness. It hates to be disengaged. When, therefore, man is unoccupied his mind seeks a sham occupa- tion, a make-believe vocation, in order to keep busy. This is play. According to this view play is not explained in terms of recreation, for instead of being a reaction against hard work, it is caused by a lack of it. The child, free from seri- Play, Gymnastics, and Athletics 79 ous mental occupation, naturally seeks employment through various forms of play. The same circumstance holds true with the social idler. This view of Lazarus emphasizes a pri- mary principle of discipline that all teachers know, but some- times forget, viz., at all times all children must have definite work assigned, for if we do not keep them busy, they will, in their attempt to keep themselves occupied, often keep us busy. General Criticism and Conclusion. — All these theories try to explain play in toto. Much of what each says is true, yet no one contains the whole truth. They serve, nevertheless, an important function, for they all point to the need of em- phasizing play in the school curriculum and giving it its place in our scheme of physical education. They show us that play is part of childhood itself, the most sacred right of youth. One of the tragedies of modern city life is therefore the lack of facilities for play. The child in its attempt to give vent to this most urgent and instinctive craving is constantly coming into conflict with authority, and is regarded as an enemy of adult law and order. City life is organized repres- sion of childhood. In this light the playground movement, which is spreading throughout the country, is most necessary and promising for the childhood of our land. The committee on Small Parks in New York, in its report, says: "With a common accord precinct captains attribute the existence of the juvenile rowdyism to the lack of better playgrounds than the streets." The London report reads: "Crime in our large cities is to a great extent simply a question of athletics." A high police official in Philadelphia bears testimony to this fact. He observes : ' ' The great enemy of the police is the boy in his endeavor to satisfy the burning desire for play." Gymnastics Its Nature. — The second means of physical education — gymnastics — may be defined as consciously directed physi- cal exercise. From this very formal definition we see that as a means of bodily training it is totally different from play. "We can perhaps understand its essential characteristics more 80 Education as Physiological Adjustment clearly by outlining in greater detail the difference between play and gymnastics. Play 1. It is a free and spon- taneous form of expressing the physical nature. 2. It exercises some parts of the body, but which or- gans and muscles receive the benefit of this training is wholly a matter of accident. 3. Its aim is relief and recreation. 4. It gives pleasure and therefore requires little or no will power. Gymnastics 1. As a rule gymnastics is far from spontaneous; it is ci msciously directed in its whole development. 2. It seeks regular, sys- tematic exercise of the mus- cles and organs wdiich make for a developed body. 3. It aims to achieve har- monious physical develop- ment. 4. It gives little or no pleasure, and, at times, may cause discomfort; it necessi- tates will power to no incon- siderable degree. Conclusion for Bodily Development. — From these points of divergence we readily conclude that these two means are dia- metrically opposite in aim and in spirit. But each of them has its special important endeavor and function, each its sepa- rate scope. The conclusion is, therefore, obvious that gym- nastics should never supplant play but should be introduced and kept supplementary to it throughout the school course. The need of continuing play far longer in the physical cur- ricula than is done in most courses becomes apparent when we see the limitations of gymnastics in the elementary school. Misconception of the Function of Gymnastics. — That act which we like to do gives us greater bodily and mental bene- fit than that which we perform from a sense of duty or co- ercion. A pleasurable activity may require far more energy and nevertheless be less exhaustive. All agreeable tasks work Play, Gymnastics, and Athletics 81 along the line of least resistance, the line of greatest attrac- tion and easiest natural activity. Disagreeable acts -take the line of greatest resistance, and hence bring fatigue in a com- paratively short time. For the elementary class-room purpose, play is better than gymnastics because it gives pleasure and recreation. It brings complete relief from work. In the gymnastic drill the strain of class-room work is not only continued but often intensified. We demand that all children act in unison, the attention must be keen, the work thoroughly systematic. After an hour and a half or two of class studies, in which the child is suppressed, the natural tendency is to break out, to be free and unfettered. When that time comes we offer the regular set of movements, breath- ing to counts, stretching upward and sideways, bending trunk, knees, etc., exercises which, in theory, counteract all the in- jurious defects of posture resulting from the protracted reci- tation periods. But the spirit of the drill is decidedly op- posed to what the child wants and needs. He has been sub- dued and suppressed; he wants free, spontaneous movements without regard to time, order, sequence. He wants disci- pline and control removed. He wants freedom and liberty in the fullest sense. Why Gymnastics Often Fails in Class Room. — The child goes through the drill from a sense of duty. Each action is meaningless. If he does not think, he loses count, he is out of time, and is reprimanded or punished. At the end of a physi- cal training lesson under a strict disciplinarian the child is just as tired mentally, just as strained emotionally, as before it. On resuming work the teacher finds that the ten minutes have not given the relief, the rest, and the recreation that were expected. With a weak disciplinarian this limitation of the gymnastic lesson is not so apparent. The attention and the responses are not accompanied by the same strain, the child has a little liberty and ease, a liberty and ease, however, which are not granted, but taken. Such a period gives the child some relief. The moral is not "Be a weak disciplina- rian." It points clearly to the fact that the gymnastic drill 82 Education as Physiological Adjustment is systematic, regular, and seeks to exercise and develop each part of the body ; but it does not give that needed mental rest and relaxation that the child craves. The daily physical exercises must make ample provision for play, and must give to it as much time each day as is given to gymnastics, if not more. Play, by completely relieving the mind, will intensify its activity when class work is resumed. The teacher who has absolute control of her class will find it an interesting com- parison to study her class after a regular fifteen-minute calis- thenic drill on one day, and after a three or five-minute whis- pering period on the next, when the children are allowed to walk about the room, talk to friends, stand about, gossip and jest, even as we do. Although the time may be one-third or one-fifth of the calisthenics period, the complete relief will make children more alive as we begin our next study lesson. What sad and solemn faces we see before us as a class is laboriously going through the gymnastic drills to the teach- er's count, under the teacher's surveillance! The various grades have time allotted for these drills, but what provision is made for play? Above the fourth year, when the recess is usually discontinued, a game period is a rarity. We must remember that the few minutes of calisthenics per day will not result in harmonious bodily development. These periods are given in the hope of affording mental relief and rest. But play, in its very nature, rather than gymnastics is designed to do this. The conclusion for the school is obvious: less calis- thenics and more play would give better and happier work. Athletics Conditions of Modern Athletics. — Our study brings us now to the final means of bodily training, athletics. In the im- mediate past it has received little scientific attention and study; it was allowed to develop in its own way without con- trol or guidance until it has become the leasl effective of these three means of physical training, and hardly merits a co- Play, Gymnastics, and Athletics 83 ordinate place with gymnastics and play. Gymnastics has been studied and systematized. Its development shows order and rationality, beginning with movements and exercises that are simple and elementary, gradually advancing until it in- cludes, in the course of its increasing complexity, the train- ing and strengthening of each of the necessary muscles. But athletics is more or less chaotic. It lacks beginning and end; it has no scientific development. The limitations of athletics are not due to its recency, for it is by no means a modern medium of bodily development. It reached a high state of efficiency in Greece and in Rome. It has attained consider- able efficiency, to-day, in many of the older countries. Nor must we assume that it has outlived its usefulness; it has merely degenerated and needs regeneration. Nature of Athletics. — What is athletics and how does it differ from gymnastics? Athletics has been defined as exer- cises which show a combination of gymnastic and play ele- ments, indulged in for the purpose of winning, usually for a particular group. Athletics realizes that gymnastic move- ments are dull and tedious. Because the child sees no object in the various systematized movements in which he is drilled, the spirit of contest, competition, and emulation is intro- duced. Interest and life are thus infused, for now every movement seems to have a goal — to win for the team or insti- tution. The difference between gymnastics and athletics is one of spirit. Gymnastics is severe, disciplinary, formal; it seeks only a harmonious development of the body. Athletics, on the contrary, is the fullest expression of the play instinct; it is freer than gymnastics; it invariably gives pleasure and arouses keen delight or bitter disappointment. Athletics re- vives childish interests with their love of playful competition and rivalry. It makes adults of children ; it also makes chil- dren of adults by introducing a serious interest in activity that is inconsequential. Educators rarely discuss athletics with any marked degree of calmness and equilibrium ; their views are extreme and 84 Education as Physiological Adjustment biased; they are the results of bitter prejudice. In recent years a storm of protest has been raised against athletics, its inefficiency and abuses. Athletics is becoming a serious factor in the present school curriculum in physical training. It bids fair to gain in importance in the immediate future. What are the counts in the indictment against athlet- ics? Does it merit the sacrifice of time and energy that teachers are making for it? Certain definite advantages are urged for athletics by its devotees. To these we must now turn. The Case for Athletics. — The first advantage claimed for athletics is that it develops an institutional spirit. In the athletic contest the standing of the school is threatened. Whatever interest and loyalty the children have for their school are brought out on the athletic field. When our coun- try is in danger, patriotism runs high. In peace, our enthu- siasm often subsides, and our loyalty may become dormant. So, too, in the hour of trial, all the love and spirit that the pupils feel for their school will be aroused. Its success or defeat looms up in tremendous proportions to them. They are all united by one common bond; all their interests and desires are merged into one. Athletics helps make a school spirit, helps build up the traditions peculiar to each institu- tion. That athletics has a wholesome moral influence is urged as a second point in its favor. In no other activity must the individual forget himself so completely as in athletics. Only the athlete knows what self-denial and sacrifice are needed "to make a team." It must also be remembered that athletics is successful only when emphasis is laid on team work rather than individual freedom and personal tactics. The player must feel that the glory of the victory belongs to the team, not to him. He merges his skill and dexterity with those of the other players, for his victory is the school's victory. He suppresses his ego for the common good. En- thusiasts for athletics tell us that this lesson is impressed so deeply that the athlete carries this same spirit of "the com- Play, Gymnastics, and Athletics 85 mon good" into society. Athletics, like play, socializes the individual. The plea that athletics gives grace, ease of movement, better control of body and muscle by the mind is too obvious to need elucidation or further comment. A final important result of athletics is the power of quick decisive action which it cultivates. The various forms of athletic games present numberless situations which are criti- cal in their nature, for they may turn victory into defeat, or vice versa. There is no time for hesitation and deliberation. The problem must be solved instantaneously or not at all. In practical life there are countless similar situations, far more critical and intense in their nature, with greater consequences at stake. Quick decisive action is essential; athletics can be- stow this gift. These are the educational advantages urged with great insistence for athletics. Theoretically they are irrefutable. But when we look closer into athletics and seek practical re- sults we find that not only are these much desired influences absent but that entirely unforeseen evils and demoralizing tendencies have sprung up. Let u>s turn to the other side of the problem and note the disadvantages. The Case against Athletics. — It is the common experience of every conscientious teacher that very few of the total num- ber in a school are benefited by athletics. It is likewise true that almost invariably the children who are fairly well grown and have attained sufficient development for their age and size receive the advantages which athletics has to offer. How often are we confronted with the ludicrous sight of the anaemic, pale-faced, hollow-chested student lustily cheering the great, big, overdeveloped, ungainly athlete? Would it not be more sensible to make them change places and give physical train- ing where physical training is necessary? We go to ex- tremes, we produce overdevelopment on the one hand and underdevelopment on the other. Athletics usually overemphasizes the winning element and thus has a demoralizing influence upon the student-body and 86 Education as Physiological Adjustment the character of the results in the studies. We saw that "playing to win" was added as an extra element, as a sec- ondary motive, to give life, spirit, and enthusiasm. "Play- ing to win" becomes the final goal, the ultimate aim of ath- letics. Conscience and honesty are compromised for every pett} r advantage. The gambling spirit too often enters into academic athletics. The gambler plays solely for the purpose of winning. The athletic manager forgets all but victory; it is the star to which he hitches his wagon. A superficial study of the methods employed in practical athletics is most discouraging. In our city school systems, where athletics is a much emphasized activity, we find constant charges which impute teachers' honesty, and reflect chicanery and char- latanism of a most astounding nature. Instances of falsi- fying of records, of sending children to Turkish baths to reduce in w r eight, of teaching children to take every mean and petty advantage of their opponents are not uncommon. Col- lege students whose interests in athletics have brought them into close contact with all the intercollegiate sports can cite examples of dishonesty and knavery which overshadow the indictment against public school athletics. Settlements and institutions for social service are too often as sullied in their athletic records as the colleges and the schools. The survival of the slickest, might makes right, are demoralizing lessons deeply impressed on our children and young men when "play- ing to win" is the all-pervading aim of athletics. Another great deficiency in our athletics is the fact that, with victory as the ultimate goal, a wrong physiological basis obtains. Many enthusiasts fail to see that the object of all physical development lies not in the creation of large muscles but in the harmonious development of all parts of the bod} r . The great endeavor in physical training is to profitably util- ize our nervous energy, to build up a proper coordination be- tween body and mind, to develop symmetry and regularity, to give to each organ and muscle its proper strength. The Greeks, with their limited knowledge of scientific physiology, had the proper conception, — to develop not brute force, — but Play, Gymnastics, and Athletics 87 a pleasing harmony of the entire body. Overtraining and overspecialization, so characteristic of our own athletics, are dangerous, for they not only make harmonious development impossible but often work a permanent injury by overstrain- ing the muscles and the heart. The Remedy. — With such an indictment against athletics, it would perhaps seem logical to conclude that it ought to be eliminated from all educational institutions. But are the ad- vantages which may be reaped from athletics to be lost? Did they not seem real and possible of attainment? Educators and directors of athletics must strive earnestly and persist- ently to realize and maintain them. At present there seems to be only one radical remedy, viz., the substitution of inter- class athletics for interschool athletics. Every school should have athletic work, but all games should be confined to the classes in the school. Since each class would need a team for each form of athletic contest in which it took part, many more children would be active participants. The temptation for all methods of dubious ethics would come to an end. A school and a class spirit could be aroused as surely as in inter- institutional contests. The moral value and character influ- ence of athletics would be retained. Only then would our fondest hope be realized, and athletics would become a worthy means of bodily development, giving mental training through the muscle. SUGGESTED BEADING Baldwin. Mental Development (Social and Ethical Interpretation), pp. 136-146. Drummond. Introduction to Child Study, Chap. 12. Hall. Adolescence, Chaps. 1 and 3. Horne. Philosophy of Education, Chap. 3. Groos. Die Spiele der Menschen. Johnson. Education by Plays and Games, Part I, Chaps. 1 and 2. Kirkpatrick. Fundamentals of Child Study, Chap. 9. Tyler. Growth and Education, Chap. 14. Walker. Discussions in Education, pp. 259-289. PART III EDUCATION AS SOCIOLOGICAL ADJUSTMENT x 7 CHAPTER VI THE CHILD AND THE CURRICULUM The message which life and evolution have for education has been interpreted by biology to mean "adjustment to the complete environment." Physiology has reenforced this con- ception by making it mandatory upon education to provide for the physical needs of the individual because the adjust- ment process is not possible without a struggle with the physi- cal forces of nature. Society and social organization have a message for education, and a legitimate claim upon it. To these we must now turn. The Meaning of Environment. — The conclusions of the previous study have led us to accept the statement, "Educa- tion is an adjustment to the complete environment." The earlier discussion explained the term "adjustment" more fully, to make sure that adjustment is interpreted to mean, changing the world to fit the individual rather than a re- molding of the individual to harmonize with the impersonal world. We must now turn to the second important term in this definition, viz., environment. Thus far "environment" has been regarded as synony- mous with mere surroundings. This rather narrow concep- tion sufficed in the discussion of the physiological aspect of education. The social view of education demands a deeper and broader interpretation than "mere surroundings"; it must reflect the past as well as look to the immediate physical present. In the course of social evolution man made himself master of varied experiences. This knowledge he gained at great cost, through the sufferings of ages. Surely the new-born 91 92 Education as Sociological Adjustment member in society need not go through all the trials and trib- ulations of his progenitors in order to acquire this informa- tion. The newcomer finds the facts and experiences so gained awaiting him. All the wisdom which the pioneers of civilization gained in their social progress is systematized and made ready for his use. \The complete environment for an in- dividual is hence the sum total of all necessary racial expe- riences. It is this conception of environment that places every child on a relatively higher starting plane than his fore- fathers. Butler had this social aspect of education in view when he gave the definition referred to in an earlier relation, "Adjustment to the spiritual possessions of the race." Home goes a step further and declares that education is "the sharing of the race's life." The old generation is hence the teacher of the new. The sum total of the experience of the race is handed down from generation to generation, but each succeeding heritage is richer than the preceding one. Each generation, then, is the heir of its predecessors' experiences, adds its own to it, and then bequeaths the sum total as a legacy to its successors. Education, therefore, is that social force which preserves the necessary past, conserves and enriches the present, and pre- pares the way for future progress. Education, by adjusting the pupil to the history and experiences of the race repro- duces in his own mind the mind of the race, and thus makes him a rational part of the social body. What Has the Individual to Offer for This Adjustment? — Thus far the problem has been studied from the social point of view, for the question was, "What has society to offer in this process of adjustment?" The answer is, "The sum total of racial experience." It is now necessary to see what pow- ers and resources the individual possesses by means of which this adjustment can take place and through whose agency he hopes to make himself master of what the race has to offer. All the spiritual resources and capabilities of the indi- vidual are summed up by the term "mind." In reviewing The Child and the Curriculum 93 the evolution of the psychic gifts it was seen that mind func- tions in three ways, — as a sensibility, striving to make us con- scious of the outside world; as an intellect, reading meaning into what is perceived, telling us which goals in the environ- ment to attempt to achieve and which to avoid; as a will, which controls activity and is responsible for the attainment of these chosen ends. The conclusion is therefore that the individual brings to society, or to the school — society's formal adjusting agent — a mind capable of these three modes of functioning: (1) as mere consciousness, (2) as the selective agent, (3) as the directive force in life. These three phases of the mind are not parts of it, as many of the old psycholo- gists seem to indicate ; they are functions of the whole mind. How Can the Individual Share in the Life and Experiences of the Race? — The next logical question that presents itself to the student is, "What means will enable the individual to share in the life of the race?" Obviously through the cur- riculum. The three essential factors in the process of present edu- cation are: the child, the curriculum or course of study, and the teacher. The curriculum is the medium that brings the teacher and the child into direct communication, and creates a common meeting ground for the mature intellect of the former and the undeveloped mind of the latter. A curricu- lum is a body of racial experiences, selected out of the life of the race and used as a basis for individual development, for the continuance of social standards and institutions, and for the preservation of knowledge already acquired. From this definition it is evident that the curriculum reflects both the individual and the social phases of life. The social function of education is emphasized by the fact that the curriculum is a part of the mass of the experience through which the race has passed, and aims to continue social standards and ideals. It emphasizes the development of the individual because it seeks to give only such experiences as will minister to his best development. The sound curriculum thus incorporates the in- dividual into society, it brings the one into the many, it seeks 5)4 Education as Sociological Adjustment to establish an education in which individual training reflects social progress. The Child and the Curriculum. — An effective course of study must be so arranged that the stages of the child's devel- opment and the intellectual standards of the curriculum will be identical. In other words, fa program of education must be so nrranged that it always corresponds to characteristics of the various phases of the mental development of the child. Does the average course of study recognize this standard? Dewey, in his "The Child and the Curriculum," points out that there is a wide breach between the child and the curricu- lum, for, instead of harmony between the two, there is discord. He arranges the divergencies between them under three heads. A summary of this indictment is helpful. (a) The child lives in a world of actions and things, not of thought, laws, and principles; in a world that is full of con- crete objects, not abstractions. His is a life in a narrow en- vironment, bounded only by his past experience and his lim- ited mental faculties. But the curriculum thrusts him into studies that transport him into time and space, into a world of ideas and abstractions. He studies of a solar system, of new continents, of relation of geographic conditions to politi- cal and industrial development, of policies of past ages. Surely a slow transition is necessary. Is this transition made correctly? Is it natural and gradual enough? Is reading taught properly by a method that begins by teaching sounds, isolated letters, or words, rather than sentences and ideas? Is it in harmony with the principle elucidated to begin United States history with nine-year-old children by a study of the discovery of America in 1492 and the new route to India, as all school histories do? How can the child find his bearings in these distant topics? How, launching him into the past so suddenly, will he be able to find his cardinal points? We must always begin with our immediate environment. Before the teacher begins the lesson she must always ask herself, "Where does this topic touch the child.'" Having determined that, she must start the lesson at that point, for The Child and the Curriculum 95 this is the "point of contact," the bond of sympathy between the child's interest and the subject-matter. How shall ele- mentary reading, therefore, be introduced? The child knows sentences, for he employs them in the expression of his ideas. The child is hardly ever conscious of words, never of sounds of letters and their names. He always subordinates these to the idea. Hence the child should begin to learn to read by reading sentences and stories. History must have its begin- nings in the stories connected with his environment, the places he sees and knows. Whatever excursions are taken with children into the realms of distant time and space must start in the concrete, narrow world which actually touches them. So, too, geography must have its beginnings in local topography, in a study of the physical environment, in the immediate social and industrial conditions. (b) A second divergence between the child and the curricu- lum is equally vital. The child's life is thoroughly intercon- nected. It is a unit. It must be so to him, since his knowl- edge of the world is dependent upon all that he actually sees. Things are connected and unified in nature. "The things that occupy him are held together by the unity of personal and social interest . . . whatever is uppermost in his mind constitutes for him, for the time being, the whole uni- verse. " Does the curriculum unify the universe which the child studies? Too often it operates in a decidedly opposite direction. Geography, history, arithmetic, and the whole series of school subjects, are taught to the child as separate, inde- pendent subjects. He finds little or no relation among them. The subject of English is, in turn, broken up into a number of distinct sub-subjects, each taught in its own way, in its separate period, and too often with little or no reference to the others. There is no pedagogical reason for not selecting spelling words from all the expressional exercises, or the sen- tences for grammatical analysis from difficulties encountered in composition and reading. The memory selections and the topics for many compositions should find their source in related class-room studies. This would give all the English 96 Education as Sociological Adjustment work its necessary unity. The child is being made to suffer from the lack of unity in experiences that are integral, while education is busying itself explaining and extolling the prin- ciple of correlation in class teaching. We insist on clearness of enunciation in the phonetic drills, but we allow slovenly expression in the language of our geography and history lessons. Clearness of articulation is sacred in the phonic drill only. We insist on accuracy and precision of speech in the composition periods, but we tolerate looseness of expression in arithmetic, permitting our children to explain that, if three-fifths equals $9.00, one-fifth equals one-third of $9.00, or $3.00. Accuracy and precision of speech are no desiderata outside of the composition period. The whole curriculum is presented to the ehild as a mass of facts, a sum total of straggling bits of information. We fail to bring out the unity of knowledge, its singleness of purpose and aim. (c) A third discrepancy between the child and the curricu- lum is found in the fact that, in teaching, subjects are pre- sented in which the facts are carefully classified and arranged in a logical order, according to a scientific principle. But scientific systematization is itself based on a study of under- lying similarity or deeper meaning of these data. The child does not see the universe so classified. He sees experiences in their natural order, in their accidental places. Dewey says: "Facts are torn away from their original places in experience and rearranged with reference to some general principle. Classification is not a matter of child experience; things do not come to the individual pigeon-holed." It is in the cur- riculum that these natural associations are broken and a new- grouping, which is scientific or logical, is established. But this the child can accomplish only after tedious work and great effort. To quote again, "The studies as classified are the result of the science of ages, not of the experience of the child." What provisions docs I he average course of study make to introduce system and classification gradually? Does it The Child and the Curriculum 97 present experiences in the order in which we find them in the environment? How often do we find fine systems of minute classification, new centers for grouping introduced in early- lessons? Every school book in geography begins with the following topics: (1) The earth — shape, size, circumference, etc. (2) Divisions into (a) land and (b) water. (3) Sub- divisions of land — continents, peninsulas, capes, islands. (4) Subdivisions of water — ocean, bay, strait, etc., etc. The text- book approaches the subject scientifically, hence the book is really not written for exclusive use by the children but writ- ten for the teacher. Our school grammars begin with — Lan- guage: (1) Kinds, (a) oral and (b) written; (2) Elements, (a) words, (b) sentences; (3) Classification of words, Parts of Speech; (4) Kind of sentences, etc., etc. The grammar, too, is not written from the point of view of the child but from the point of view of the subject or of the specialist, whose scientific knowledge of it gives him this scientific sys- tem ; hence, we cannot follow this order ; we must begin with a study of the sentence and develop the subject and its topics in a way that is determined by the child's outlook upon life. Application to the Average School Course in Physics. — Criticism is easy, especially destructive criticism. But when an arrangement seems to violate every sound precaution nec- essary in introducing a new and difficult subject objections are justifiable and perhaps helpful. Let us outline the aver- age course in physics as given in many elementary schools: First Grade : Mechanics of Solids ; Mechanical Powers — gravity, levers, wheel and axle, simple machines, etc. Second grade : Mechanics of Liquids and Gases. Third Grade: Sound — its phenomena. Heat — phenom- ena and uses. Fourth Grade: Light; Electricity and Magnetism. Let us review, for a moment, the three divergencies be- tween the child and the curriculum : the narrow, but per- sonal and concrete world of the child versus the breadth and abstractions of the curriculum ; the unity of the life of the 98 Education as Sociological Adjustment child versus the subdivision of studies; the principle of ab- stract classification versus the natural order of the child's experience. The common elementary school course of study begins with a consideration of the forces of matter and their logical classifications and subdivisions into levers, pulley, inclined plane, etc. It proceeds to the less solid matter, liq- uids, and then to what is even less concrete — gases. Sound and heat, whose more intangible medium is air, come next in this logical sequence. This is followed by "light" travel- ing through ether. Magnetism and electricity bring up the rear guard of this most logical and scientific array. This is precisely the arrangement one would follow who sets out to write an elementary text-book on the subject. It is order and sequence which only the later student of the subject can appreciate. The development in the average elementary school course begins with things unknown and unrelated to the child. Will this arrangement of the topics of physics enlist the child's interest? Will it be full of meaning and suggestion in the light of his past narrow experience? Is not this the reason why our children, who are confronted by this thorough pres- entation of the subject-matter, talk words, empty sounds? "Specific gravity, ebullition, liquefaction, propagation, con- duction, intensity of light and sound, center of gravity," are words which call up their corresponding memorized formula 1 and the drilled experiment which few, in most of our ele- mentary schools, can explain. Where is the "point of con- tact ' ' ? Why do we not begin there ? How much more rational and psychological it would be to begin with simple phenomena of electricity and magnetism such as the child sees in his daily life. The attraction of a magnet, the magnet affected or produced by a current can be studied by analyzing a house bell. The principles of phys- ics will not be exhaustive or deep, but just enough to explain the workings of the bell, the telegraph ticker, and similar ap- plications. The subjeel would thus begin with the concrete, with the "point of contact." Is there any sound principle The Child and the Curriculum 99 which explains why boys and girls of the age of twelve should be given a course in physics which compares favorably with that given in the fourth year of the average high school of the country? Actual examination of such classes proves con- clusively that such procedure makes for shallowness, super- ficiality, a "masquerading in words," a game of verbal hide and seek between teacher and child. How Can We Harmonize the Child and the Curriculum? — Since our modern curriculum presents divergencies between itself and the child which are almost inherent, the urgent question which presents itself is naturally, "What can be done to bring about harmony where naught but discord seems to reign ? ' ' This question was never asked before the great Herbart wrote. Educators knew too little of psychology to discover any such divergencies as those which have been con- sidered. Herbart placed psychology on a definite footing and then tried to square educational theory, teaching, and the curriculum with the lessons of psychology. It was Ziller, Herbart 's great disciple, who elaborated and made famous the work of his master. He interpreted the doctrine which Herbart advocated for the harmonization of the child and the subject-matter. To-day it is known as the "Culture Epoch Theory." Culture Epoch Theory. — This view holds that the individ- ual in his development passes through the same stages as the race did in its own evolution. Philosophically, we can summarize the theory with "Ontology recapitulates phytog- eny." Hence, in order to fit man for our present society, we must take him through the stages through which society passed in its natural social progress. Thus we are told that society, in its changes from primitive to modern form, began organized life in a hunting and fishing stage. Man then learned to tame animals and thus entered upon the second step, the herding stage of social life. The wandering tribe accidentally discovered the secrets of the soil and then took up an agricultural life. The series in the social evolution ended with the manufacturing and industrial stages. Edu- 100 Education as Sociological Adjustment cation must take the child through these culture epochs in its attempt to fit him for our life. It seems as if the individual in his development passes through stages whose characteristics, impulses, and interests are identical with those of the race. In his development the individual first leads a life as a child which is physical, ac- tive, full of play and fight; a life that shows only physical wants and needs ; a life which is as free as the wind and throws off all restraint and control. This corresponds to the hunting and fishing stage, the savage life, equally full of fight, play, activity, and just as reckless and uncontrolled. The individual, like society, soon outgrows this initial stage. A tribe in the course of its history leaves the wild, barbarous life behind, and takes to herding cattle, Avandering where they wander, following where they lead. In the child, too, we find that the desire for mere activity, play, fight, freedom from restraint are only temporary. He, too, becomes no- madic; the "wanderlust" seems to possess him as it did the race. This is the age when the boy dreams of running away, of becoming a pirate or an Indian chief. "Ask the child of eight or nine to build a house and it usually takes the form of a cave," is the assertion of the "Epoch Culturites." This shows social atavistic tendencies, the constant reversion to older and lower social stages. But the race, in its development, soon passes through this nomadic life and settles down to a definite industry, some form of farming or handicraft. With the end of this wander- ing career of the race we find the beginnings of fixed com munities, customs, and regulations which guarantee personal and property rights, each individual now voluntarily submit- ting to restraint. The child too soon grows out of the pirate and wandering stage; he selects a particular activity as his vocational ideal, the highest consummation of his ambition is to become a fireman, a general, a policeman, a physician, or a teacher. The Culture Epochs as the Basis of a Course of Study. — According to Ziller, one must argue that, if each individual The Child and the Curricidum 101 is to realize the experiences of his race, then let him retrace the stages in the development of the race. Teach, during the first year, all about society's first stage, the life of the savage; the second year, the second stage, etc., until the modern social status is attained. This argument has been a favorite among philosophers of all time, but only a few practical teachers ever sought seriously to make it the basis of an entire curriculum. In discussing manual training it was shown how each of these stages can be made the center around which all the work revolves, the child constructing the home, the utensils, the tools, the weapons of that particular stage. Others have sought to develop early reading lessons according to a table which reproduces the successive epochs of the civilization of the race. "Hiawatha" is read for its study of savage society with hunting and fishing as the center and circumference of barbaric life. The old Persian stories form the content of the next grade because they portray the social stage that is characteristic of nomadic existence. "Kablu, the Little Aryan Boy, ' ' represents the agricultural stage of civilization ; his life is therefore next upon the scene. The stories of the Greeks, the Romans, the ancient Hebrews, the Christian Fa- thers, Columbus, the Puritan Fathers, Franklin, Wash- ington, Fulton, Morse, are each taken up in turn as a great stepping stone in the course of social evolution leading to our present complex national and industrial life. But, aside from these few attempts in manual training work, in reading, and in history, it is very doubtful whether we can or, if we could, whether it would be desirable to reproduce in detail each of the preceding stages of social evolution. Advantages in Following the Culture Epoch Stages. — Those who would follow this order of teaching absolutely tell us that the present age is difficult of comprehension, because its complexity is the result of ages of development. It is use- less to attempt to teach the child our modern social and in- dustrial organization. To appreciate the wonders that we have to-day we must see modern society from a contrast, in 10_! Education as Sociological Adjustment historical perspective. Schools following a Culture Epoch curriculum spend the early years showing the child how the primitive workers used to spin; when he comes to the modern weaving and spinning machines he can readily understand the marvelous progress. To appreciate the wonders of modern transportation with the express train and the giant steam- ships, the child must see in review the old ox-team, the horse and wagon on wooden rails, the pack mule, the carriers of the Sedan chair. The child cannot appreciate the extent of our progress in means of communication, how nearly omni- present we are through telephone, telegraph, and "wireless," unless he has seen in contrast the old messenger on foot, the old-time post, the archaic methods of the past. The child who was born and brought up on a high mountain does not un- derstand what is meant by altitude. Only when he descends into the valley does he realize how near to the clouds he has been living. To make the child realize our present status in government, in knowledge, in industry, in morality and ethics, let him study primitive government, knowledge, industry, and morality. The present is understood only when it is seen in a proper perspective; present complexity becomes more in- telligible because the child sees the steps, stages, and forces in the forward movement of progress. Going from epoch to epoch the child receives ideas in the one which prepare it for the next, for "that which has become explains that which is becoming." Another argument advanced for making each culture epoch the center of the curriculum each succeeding year is the fact that all studies ean readily be centered around each stage. Thus in the first year the children study the "Story of Ab" or "Hiawatha." That theme becomes, as was shown, the topic around which early reading develops. The con- versation lessons are on the same theme. In the number work the children compute examples dealing with problems taken from the hunting and fishing activities. The songs, the danc- ing, the games, as well as the manual training, revolve about the same interests. Correlation is embodied to a maximum; The Child and the Curriculum 103 but, as so often happens in education, an idea is carried be- yond its rational limits. Limitations of Culture Epoch Curriculum. — Most of the analogy traced between individual and racial development is accidental, far-fetched, and fanciful. Whatever initial in- stincts we have, whatever innate primitive impulses we may show are modified by present life and environment. Be- cause Paganism preceded Christianity, should we teach the former before the latter to the child? According to the Culture Epoch Theory, this should be the sequence. How can one tell that a child has passed out of the second stage and is now in the third? Very often a child seems to show by his actions that he is on a far higher plane intellec- tually and morally than was supposed. But how often are we disappointed to find him betraying evidences that he is still a slave to impulses of the lower stages of life ! Another difficulty in making the Culture Epoch Theory the basis of our modern curriculum lies in the fact that sub- jects could not be introduced into the course of study until the child arrived at the proper stage in his development. Those subjects which belong to later culture epochs and charac- terize modern life would be postponed until the end of the course. The school would be turning out a vast majority of the children ready to take up life in a past stage but hardly fit to join present society. Whether the individual relives the life of the race, whether ontology recapitulates phylogeny, is still a question of theory rather than fact. Granting the hypothesis as pedagogical gospel, it nevertheless remains a truth that we do not recapitulate all the life of the race, nor do we go through more than the vague and broad tendencies of the ancestral life. The theory of racial recapitulation must be held within bounds. When we reconsider the divergencies between the child and the curriculum, and recall the conclusions about the need of establishing a point of contact between the child and the subject-matter, it is readily seen that the child is not inter- ested in what developed first in the race. What is first in the •104 Education as Sociological Adjustment course of development is usually interesting material for philosophic speculation. The child wants the concrete, he feels a special need for what is of the present, for what is part of his world. The telegraph, the telephone, the electric car, the aeroplane, not the ox-team nor the foot messenger, concern him. Present history and current politics can be made absorbing. Ancient history and past statecraft are tedi- ous. Football, basketball, baseball, rather than the games of the young savages, thrill him. Whittling a cord winder, and making a boat or an article of furniture are serious tasks; manual training that creates a tomahawk, an antiquated bow and arrow, suitable for first and second-year children, lacks educational seriousness in the eyes of the older child. Given a set of building blocks the average child builds a bridge or a modern structure. The observation that children left alone will build a cave and reproduce forms of ancestral life is true only of the child whose mind has been filled with stories of savage life, and whose manual training has busied itself with the creation of the appurtenances of such society. Thoreau tells us that the child relives the life of our ancestors by playing in those activities which meant, not play, but activities of life. "The pursuits of earlier generations become sports of later and more highly developed civiliza- tions." Rosmini, a contemporary of Herbert, tells us, "His- tory has the same epochs in the individual as in the whole human race." Baldwin is a believer in the theory, for he says, "The infant is an embryo person, a social unit in the process of forming, and is, in these early stages, plainly reca- pitulating the items in the soul history of the race." Goethe tells us, "Although the world in general advances, the youth must always start again from the beginning, and, as an in- dividual, traverse the world's culture." These are beautiful conceits such as only the poet and the philosopher may in- dulge in without restraint or stint. The Culture Epoch Theory tries to prove a similarity be- tween the social stages of the historical development of the race and the mental stages of the psychic development of the The Child and the Curriculum 105 individual. It usually seeks, therefore, to make identical sociology and individual psychology. Failure is inevitable. But its motive and desire are big and broad. It tries to re- produce in each individual's life and mind the life and mind of the race. This theory, therefore, well merits its place in a study of the sociological aspect of education. General Conclusions: The Theory Harmonized. — A single point of view, an analogy between the psychological stages of individual and racial development, may meet with greater suc- cess in trying to establish a harmony between the child and the curriculum. In a general way the child, in its develop- ment, passes through three more or less distinct successive psychic stages, (a) the Presentative, (b) the Representative, and (c) the Thought stage. From the very name it can readily be inferred that the child in the Presentative Stage learns only by having things presented to him. It is the period when the child relies solely on its senses for its knowledge of the outside world. Sense perceptions supply the mental bricks and mortar which build mental content. Therefore, only that which is concrete appeals to the mind in this stage. Whatever is taught in this period must, therefore, be presented objectively. The child must actually see, handle, break apart the things taught. The teachers of the kindergarten and of the first two years of the school, realizing that the pupils are in the presentative stage, plan their work in the actual, the real world. The arithmetic, the reading lessons, the games reflect the things of their immediate environment, of their home, their street life, or the vocations of the parents. The Representative Period is characterized by reliable re- tention and active imagination which can be used for serious ends. What is taught now need not be objective. The child has the ability to recall and repicture what he saw before; he can "re-present" what was presented before. History, geography, imaginative compositions, and the like are intro- duced to take advantage of the new representative powers in this second stage of individual psychic evolution. 10G Education as Sociological Adjustment At the age of about ten or eleven the mind in maturing gains enough power to compare, to judge, to reason about the elements presented and represented. Subjects taught in this stage require thought. In history cause and effect are em- phasized; in geography physical phenomena, antecedent and consequent, are taught; in arithmetic two or three processes are combined ; in language work topics are more or less orig- inal, and technical grammar receives attention. This develop- ment of the child must determine the development of the curriculum. Does the race in its development show three psychological stages analogous to these? We must trace the progress of social psychic evolution before we answer this question. The savage represents the social presentative stage. All he knows of the world is what he sees and meets. His life never transcends his actual experiences. He is an improvi- dent creature, he never foresees to-morrow with its inevitable emergencies. If he has food he eats; if he has too much he gorges himself and destroys or loses the rest. The gathering clouds do not suggest the impending storm. He lives only in the present. His religion reflects the same concrete gods, the flood, the thunder, the waves, the wind, forces real and concrete, constantly appealing to the senses. The next psychic step in civilization finds the race in an imaginative stage. It is an age of mythology, of wild and lurid fancy. There are special gods who look after the wind, the sea, the flood, the thunder, special spirits which pursue the wicked and reward the good. This is, therefore, a stage of dread and superstition. Any early literature shows that the stage above barbarism is a stage of imagination, for it abounds in myths, fairy tales, impossible heroes, and super- human people. It is the period when the race is in the rep- resentative stage, the period of social childhood. The third stage, the Thought Stage, comes in the course of cultural evolution. The race begins to question these pow- ers and gods and evolves a religion of love. Government that was established bv force is maintained for logical reasons. The Child and the Curriculum 107