LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 0D0l770ba^5 V i3 /'?/'! f^ ! SCHOOLS OF TO-MORROW BY JOHN DEWEY AND EVELYN DEWEY NEW YORK E. P. BUTTON & COMPANY 681 FIFTH AVENUE Copyright, 1915 BY E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY f lEbe Iftnfcfeerboclier press, "Wew lOorfe M/IY 28 1915 PCi,A4(!B04' PREFACE There has been no attempt in this book to develop a complete theory of education nor yet review any "systems" or discuss the views of prominent educators. This is not a text book of education, nor yet an exposition of a new method of school teaching, aimed to show the weary teacher or the discontented parent how education should be carried on. We have tried to show what actually happens when schools start out to put into practice, each in its own way, some of the theories that have been pointed to as the soundest and best ever since Plato, to be then laid politely away as precious portions of our "intellectual heritage." Certain views are well known to every teacher who has studied pedagogy, and portions of them form an ac- cepted part of every theory of education. Yet when they are applied in a classroom the public in general and other teachers in particular cry out against that classroom as a place of fads and caprices ; a place lacking in any far reach- ing aim or guiding principle. We have hoped PREFACE to suggest to the reader the practical meaning of some of the more widely recognized and ac- cepted views of educational reformers by show- ing what happens when a teacher applies these views. The schools we have used for purposes of illustration are all of them directed by sincere teachers trying earnestly to give their children the best they have by working out concretely what they consider the fundamental principles of education. More and more schools are grow- ing up all over the country that are trying to work out definite educational ideas. It is the function of this book to point out how the ap- plications arise from their theories and the direction that education in this country seems to be taking at the present time. We hope that through the description of classroom work we may help to make some theories living realities to the reader. On the other hand, we have dwelt on theoretical aspects in order to point out some of the needs of modern education and the way in which they are being met. The schools that are used for illustration were chosen more or less at random ; because we already knew of them or because they were conveniently located. They do not begin to represent all that is being done to-day to vitalize PREFACE the school life of children. Schools with like traits may be found in every part of the country. Space has forced us to omit a very important movement — the reorganization of the rural school and the utilization of agriculture in edu- cation. But this movement shows the tenden- cies that mark the schools we have described; tendencies towards greater freedom and an identification of the child's school life with his environment and outlook; and, even more im- portant, the recognition of the role education must play in a democracy. These tendencies seem truly symptoms of the times, and witli a single exception proved to be the most marked characteristics of all the schools visited. Without the very material help and interest of the teachers and principals of the schools visited this book would not have been possible. We thank them most sincerely for the unfailing courtesy they have shown in placing their time and the material of their classrooms at our dis- posal. Our thanks are especially due to Mrs. Johnson of Fairhopo and to Miss Georgia Alex- ander of Indianapolis for information and sug- gestions. The visiting of the schools with one exception was done by Miss Dewey, who is also responsible for the descriptive chapters of the book. J. D. CONTENTS chapter page 1 Education as Natural Development .... 1 / II An Experiment in Education as Natural De- velopment 17 III Four Factors in Natural Growth . . . .41 IV The Reorganization of the Curriculum ... GO V Play 103 VI Freedom and Individuality 132'^ VII The Relation of the School to the Community 164 VIII The School as a Social Settlement .... 205 IX Industry and Educational Readjustment . . 229 * X Education Through Industry ., 25 1>^ XI Democracy and Education 287 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS FACING PAGB A Test with Books Open. (Fairhope, Ala.) Frontispiece (1) Nature would Have Children Be Children before They Are Men. (2) Teach the Child What Is of Use to Him as a Child. (Teachers' College, N. Y. City) .... 8 To Learn to Think, We must Exercise Our Limbs. (Francis Parker School, Chicago) ... 15 (1) An Hour a Day Spent in the "Gym." (2) The Gully Is a Favorite Textbook. (Fairhope, Ala.) ..... Games often Require Muscular Skill, Reading, Writing, AND Arithmetic. (University School, Columbia, Mo.) (1) The Basis of the Year's Work. (Indianapolis) (2) Printing Teaches English. (Francis Parker School, Chicago) ....... Songs and Games Help Arithmetic. (Public School 45 Indianapolis) ...... 30 45 58 75 The Pupils Build the School-Houses. (Interlaken School, Ind.) ....... 87 Real Gardens for City Nature Study. (Public School 45, Indianapolis) ....... 97 (1) Making a Town, instead of Doing Gymnastic Exer- cises. (Teachers' College Playground, N. Y. City) (2) Gymnasium Dances in Sewing-Class Costumes. (How- land School, Chicago) ...... 108 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS FACINQ PAGE Constructing in Miniature the Things They See around Them. (Play School, New York City) . .118 Using the Child's Dramatic Instinct to Teach History. (Cottage School, Riverside, III.) . . . 129 Learning to Live through Situations That Are Typical of Social Life. (Teachers' College, N. Y. City) . 140 Solving Problems in School as They would Have to be Met OUT OF School. (Francis Parker School, Chicago) 159 The Pupil Stays in the Same Building from Day Nursery Through High School. (Gary, Ind.) . 177 Special Teachers for Special Subjects from the Very Beginning. (Gary, Ind.) ..... 193 (1) The Boys Like Cooking More than the Girls Do. (2) Mending Their Own Shoes, to Learn Cobbling. (Public School 26, Indianapolis) .... 218 Learning Moulding, and Manufacturing School Equip- ment. (Gary, Ind.) ...... 255 Real Work in a Real Shop Begins in the Fifth Grade. (Gary. Ind.) 269 (1) Children Are Interested in the Things They Need TO Know about. (Gary, Ind.) .... 284 (2) Making Their Own Clothes in Sewing Class. (Gary, Ind.) Training the Hand, Eye, and Brain by Doing Useful Work. (Gary, Ind.) 297 SCHOOLS OF TO-MORROW CHAPTER I EDUCATION AS NATURAL. DEiVELOPMENT *'We know nothing of cMldhood, and with our mistaken notions of it the further we go in education the more we go astray. The wisest writers devote themselves to what a man ought to know without asking what a child is capable of learning." These sentences are typical of the ' * Emile ' ' of Rousseau. He insists that existing education is bad because parents and teachers are always thinking of the accom- plishments of adults, and that all reform de- pends upon centering attention upon the pow- ers and weaknesses of children. Rousseau said, as well as did, many foolish things. But his insistence that education be based upon the na- tive capacities of those to be taught and upon the need of studying children in order to dis- cover what these native powers are, sounded the key-note of all modem efforts for educa- 2 SCHOOLS OF TO-MORROW tional progress. It meant that education is not something to be forced upon children and youth from without, but is the growth of capacities with which human beings are endowed at birtM From this conception flow the various con- siderations which educational reformers since his day have most emphasized. It calls attention, in the first place, to a fact which professional educators are always for- getting; What is learned in school is at the best only a small part of education, a rela- tively superficial part ; and yet what is learned in school makes artificial distinctions in so- ciety and marks persons off from one another. Consequently we exaggerate school learning compared with what is gained in the ordinary course of living. We are, however, to correct this exaggeration, not by despising school learn- ing, but by looking into that extensive and more efficient training given by the ordinary course of events for light upon the best ways of teach- ing within school walls. The first years of learning proceed rapidly and securely before children go to school, because that learning is so closely related with the motives that are furnished by their own powers and the needs that are dictated by their own conditions. Rousseau was almost the first to see that learn- EDUCATION AS DEVELOPMENT 3 ing is a matter of necessity ; it is a part of the process of self-preservation and of growth. ^ If « we want, then, to find out how education takes place most successfully, let us go to the experi- ences of children where learning is a necessity, and not to the practices of the schools where it is largely an adornment, a superfluity and even an unwelcome imposition. But schools are always proceeding in a direc- tion opposed to this principle. They take the accumulated learning of adults, material that is quite unrelated to the exigencies of growth, and try to force it upon children, instead of finding out what these children need as they go along. ''A man must indeed know many things which seem useless to a child. Must the child learn, can he learn, all that the man must know ? Try to teach a child what is of use to him as a child, and you will find that it takes all his time. Why urge him to the studies of an age he may never reach, to the neglect of those studies which meet his present needs? But, you ask, will it not be too late to learn what he ought to know when the time comes to use it? I cannot tell. But this I know; it is impossible to teach it sooner, for our real teachers are experience and emotion, and adult man will never learn what befits Mm except 4 SCHOOLS OF TO-MORROW under his own conditions. A child knows he must become a man ; all the ideas he may have as to man's estate are so many opportunities for his instruction, but he should remain in complete ignorance of those ideas that are be- yond his grasp. My whole book is one con- tinued argument in support of this fundamental principle of education." Probably the greatest and commonest mis- take that we all make is to forget that learn- ing is a necessary incident of dealing with real situations. We even go so far as to assume that the mind is naturally averse to learning — which is like assuming that the digestive organs are averse to food and have either to be coaxed or bullied into having anything to do with it. Existing methods of instruction give plenty of evidence in support of a belief that minds are opposed to learning — to their own exercise. We fail to see that such aversion is in reality a condemnation of our methods; a sign that we are presenting material for which the mind in its existing state of growth has no need, or else presenting it in such ways as to cover up the real need. Let us go further. We say only an adult can really learn the things needed by the adult. Surely the adult is much more likely to learn the things befitting him when his hunger EDUCATION AS DEVELOPMENT 5 for learning has been kept alive continuously than after a premature diet of adult nutriment has deadened desire to know. We are of little faith and slow to believe. We are continually uneasy about the things we adults know, and are afraid the child will never learn them unless they are drilled into him by instruction before he has any intellectual or practical use for them. If we could really believe that attending to the needs of present growth would keep the child and teacher alike busy, and would also provide the best possible guarantee of the learning needed in the future, transformation of educa- tional ideals might soon be accomplished, and other desirable changes would largely take care of themselves. It is no wonder, then, that Eousseau preaches the necessity of being willing to lose time. **The greatest, the most important, the most useful rule of education is : Do not save time, but lose it. If the infant sprang at one bound from its mother's breast to the age of reason, the present education would be quite suitable; but its natural growth calls for quite a different training." And he says, again, ''The whole of our present method is cruel, for it consists in sacrificing the present to the remote and uncer- tain future. I hear from afar the shouts of 6 SCHOOLS OF TO-MORROW the false wisdom that is ever dragging us on, counting the present as nothing, and breath- lessly pursuing a future that flies as we pursue ; a false wisdom that takes us away from the only place we ever have and never takes us any- where else." In short, if education is the proper growth of tendencies and powers, attention to the proc- ess of growing in the particular form in which it goes on from day to day is the only way of making secure the accomplishments of adult life. Maturity is the result of the slow growth of powers. Ripening takes time; it cannot be hurried without harm. The very meaning of childhood is that it is the time of growth, of developing. To despise the powers and needs of childhood, in behalf of the attainments of adult life, is therefore suicidal. Hence ''Hold childhood in reverence, and do not be in any hurry to judge it for good or ill. Give nature time to work before you take upon yourself her business, lest you interfere with her dealings. You assert that you know the value of time and are afraid to waste it. You fail to perceive that it is a greater waste of time to use it ill than to do nothing, and that a child ill taught is fur- ther from excellence than a child who has learned nothing at all. You are afraid to see EDUCATION AS DEVELOPMENT 7 him spending his early years doing nothing. What! Is it nothing to be happy, nothing to jump and run all day? He will never be so busy again all his life long. . . . What would you think of a man who refused to sleep lest he should waste part of his life?" Reverence for childhood is identical with reverence for the needs and opportunities of growth. Our tragic error is that we are so anxious for the results of growth that we neglect the process of grow-, ing. '* Nature would have children be children before they are men. If we try to invert this order we shall produce a forced fruit, imma- ture and flavorless, fruit that rots before it can ripen. . . . Childhood has its own ways of think- ing, seeing, and feeling." Physical growth is not identical with mental growth but the two coincide in time, and normally the latter is impossible without the former. If we have reverence for childhood, our first specific rule is to make sure of a healthy bodily development. Even apart from its in- trinsic value as a source of efficient action and of happiness, the proper development of the mind directly depends upon the proper use of the muscles and the senses. The organs of action and of reception are indispensable for getting into relation with the materials of 8 SCHOOLS OF TO-MORKOW knowledge. The child's first business is self- preservation. This does not mean barely keep- ing himself alive, but preservation of himself as a growing, developing being. Consequently, the activities of a child are not so aimless as they seem to adults, but are the means by which he becomes acquainted with his world and by which he also learns the use and limits of his own powers. The constant restless activities of children seem senseless to grown-up people, simply because grown-up people have got used to the world around them and hence do not feel the need of continual experimentation. But when they are irritated by the ceaseless move- ments of a child and try to reduce him to a state of quiescence, they both interfere with the child's happiness and health, and cut him off from his chief means of real knowledge. Many investigators have seen how a sound bodily state is a negative condition of normal mental development; but Rousseau anticipated our present psychology as to the extent in which the action of the organs of sense and movement is a positive cause of the unfolding of intelligence. ''If you follow rules that are the opposite of the established practice and instead of taking your pupil far afield, wandering to distant places, far-off lands, remote centuries, the ends of the (i) Nature would have children be children before they are men. (2) Teach the child what is of use to him as a child. (Teachers College, N. Y. City.) EDUCATION AS DEVELOPMENT 9 world and to heavens themselves, you keep him to himself, to his own concerns, he will be able to perceive, to remember, and to reason in na- ture's order of development. As the sentient infant grows into an active being, his discern- ment keeps pace with his increase in strength. Not till strength is developed beyond the needs of self-preservation is the faculty of specula- tion manifested, for this is the faculty of em- ploying superfluous strength for other than necessary purposes. Hence, if you would cul- tivate your pupil's intelligence, cultivate the strength it is meant to control. Give his body constant exercise, make it strong and healthy in order to make him good and wise; let him work, let him do things ; let him run and shout ; let him be on the go. . . . It is a lamentable mistake to imagine that bodily activity hinders the working of the mind, as if the two kinds of activity ought not to advance hand in hand, and as if the one were not intended to act as guide to the other/' In the following passage Eousseau is more specific as to the way in which the physical activities which conduce to health and the growth of mind reenforce each other. "Phys- ical exercise teaches us to use our strength, to perceive the relation between our own and 10 SCHOOLS OF TO-MORROW neighboring bodies, to use natural tools which are within our reach and adapted to our senses. ... At eighteen we are taught in our schools the use of the lever ; every village boy of twelve knows how to use a lever better than the clever- est mechanician in the academy. The lessons the scholars give one another on the play- ground are worth a hundredfold more than what they learn in the classroom. Watch a cat when she first comes into a room. She goes from place to place; she sniffs about and examines everything. She is not still for a moment. It is the same with a child when he begins to walk and enters, as it were, the room of the world about him. Both use sight, and the child uses his hands as the cat her nose." ' ''As man's first natural impulse is to meas- ure himself upon his environment, to find in every object he sees the qualities that may con- cern himself, so his first study is a kind of ex- perimental physics for his own preservation. He is turned away from this, and sent to specu- lative studies before he has found his own place in the world. While his delicate and flexible limbs and keen senses can adjust themselves to the bodies upon which they intended to act is the time to exercise senses and limbs in their proper business — the time to learn the relation EDUCATION AS DEVELOPMENT 11 between themselves and things. Our first teachers in natural philosophy are our feet, hands, and eyes. To substitute books for them does not teach us to reason ; it teaches us to use the reason of others rather than our own; it teaches us to believe much and to know little. ' ' ''Before you can get an art, you must first get your tools ; and if you are to make good use of your tools, they must be fashioned sufficiently strong to stand use. To learn to think, we must accordingly exercise our limbs, our senses, and our bodily organs, for these are the tools of intellect. To get the best use of these tools, the body that supplies us with these tools must be kept strong and healthy. Not only is it a mis- take that true reason is developed apart from the body, but it is a good bodily constitution that makes the workings of the mind easy and correct. ' ' The passage shows how far Eousseau was from considering bodily development as a com- plete end in itself. It also indicates how far ahead he was of the psychology of his own day in his conception of the relation of the senses to knowledge. The current idea (and one that prevails too much even in our own time) was that the senses were a sort of gateway and avenue through which impressions traveled and 12 SCHOOLS OF TO-MORROW tlien built up knowledge picture^ of tlie world. Rousseau saw that they are a part of the appa- ratus of action by which we adjust ourselves to our environment, and that instead of being pas- sive recieptacles they are directly connected with motor activities — with the use of hands and legs. In this respect he was more advanced than some of his successors who emphasized the importance of sense contact with objects, for the latter thought of the senses simply as pur- veyors of information about objects instead of instruments of the necessary adjustments of human beings to the world around them. Consequently, while he makes much of the senses and suggests many games for cultivating them, he never makes the mere training of the senses an object on its own account. **It is not enough," he says, ''to use the senses in order to train them; we must learn to judge by their means — we cannot really see, hear, or touch ex- cept as we have learned. A merely mechanical use of the senses may strengthen the body with- out improving the judgment. It is all very well to swim, run, jump, whip a top, throw stones. But we have eyes and ears as well as arms and legs, and these organs are necessary for learn- ing the use of the rest. Do not, then, merely exercise strength, but exercise the senses as the EDUCATION AS DEVELOPMENT 13 powers by which strength is guided. Make the best use of every one of them, and check the results of one by another. Measure, count, weigh, compare. Do not use force till you have estimated the resistance; let estimation of the effect always precede application of the means. Get the child interested in avoiding superfluous and insufficient efforts. If you train him to cal- culate the consequences of what he does and then to correct the errors of his prevision by experience, the more he does, the wiser he will become. ' ' One more contrast between teaching which guides natural growth and teaching which im- poses adult accomplishments should be noticed. The latter method puts a premium upon ac- cumulating information in the form of symbols. Quantity rather than quality of knowledge is emphasized ; results that may be exhibited when asked for rather than personal attitude and method are demanded. Development empha- sizes the need of intimate and extensive per- sonal acquaintance with a small number of typical situations with a view to mastering the way of dealing with the problems of experience, not the piling up of information. As Eousseau points out, the facility with which children lend themselves to our false methods is a constant 14 SCHOOLS OF TO-MORROW source of deception to us. We know — or fancy we know — what statements mean, and so when the child uses the proper form of words, we attribute the same understanding to him. ' ' The apparent ease with which children learn is their ruin. We fail to see that this very ease proves that they are not learning. Their shining, pol- ished brain merely reflects, as in a mirror, the things we show them." Rousseau describes in a phrase the defect of teaching about things in- stead of bringing to pass an acquaintance with the relations of the things themselves. "You think you are teaching him what the world is like ; he is only learning the map. ' ' Extend the illustration from geography to the whole wide realm of knowledge, and you have the gist of much of our teaching from the elementary school through the college. Rousseau has the opposite method in mind when he says, ''Among the many short cuts to science we badly need one to teach us the art of learning with difficulty." Of course his idea is not to make things difficult for the sake of having them difficult, but to avoid the simula- tion of learning found in repeating the formulae of learning, and to substitute for it the slow and sure process of personal discovery. Text- books and lectures give the results of other EDUCATION AS DEVELOPMENT 15 men's discoveries, and thus seem to provide a short cut to knowledge ; but the outcome is just a meaningless reflecting back of symbols with no understanding of the facts themselves. The further result is mental confusion; the pupil loses his original mental sure-f ootedness ; his sense of reality is undermined. ''The first meaningless phrase, the first thing taken for granted on the authority of another without the pupil's seeing its meaning for himself, is the beginning of the ruin of judgment." And again: ''What would you have him think about, when you do all the thinking for him!" (And we must not forget that the organized ma- terial of our texts and set lessons represents the thinking of others.) "You then complete the task of discrediting reason in his mind by making him use such reason as he has upon the things which seem of the least use to him." If it was true in Rousseau's day that informa- tion, knowledge, as an end in itself, is an "un- fathomable and shoreless ocean," it is much more certain that the increase of science since his day has made absurd the identification of education with the mere accumulation of knowl- edge. The frequent criticism of existing educa- tion on the ground that it gives a smattering and superficial impression of a large and mis- 16 SCHOOLS OF TO-MORROW cellaneous number of subjects, is just. But the desired remedy will not be found in a return to mechanical and meager teaching of the three R's, but rather in a surrender of our feverish desire to lay out the whole field of knowledge into various studies, in order to ''cover the ground." We must substitute for this futile and harmful aim the better ideal of dealing thoroughly with a small number of typical ex- periences in such a way as to master the tools of learning, and present situations that make pupils hungry to acquire additional knowledge. By the conventional method of teaching, the pupil learns maps instead of the world — the symbol instead of the fact. What the pupil really needs is not exact information about to- pography, but how to^,,find> out for himself. "See what a difference there is between the knowledge of your pupils and the ignorance of mine. They learn maps ; he makes them. ' ' To find out how to make knowledge when it is needed is the true end of the acquisition of in- formation in school, not the information itself. CHAPTER II AN EXPERIMENT IN EDUCATION AS NATURAL DEVELOPMENT Rousseau's teaching that education is a process of natural growth has influenced most theorizing upon education since his time. It has influenced the practical details of school work to a less degree. Occasionally, however, experimenters have based their plans upon his principles. Among these experiments is one conducted by Mrs. Johnson at Fairhope, Ala- bama. To this spot during the past few years students and expcits h^ve made pilgrimages, and the influence of Mrs. Johnson's model has led to the starting of similar schools in different parts of the United States. Mrs. Johnson car- ries on a summer course for training teachers by giving a working object lesson in her ideas at Greenwich, Connecticut, where a school for children has been conducted as a model. Her main underlying principle is Rousseau's central idea; namely: The child is best pre- pared for life as an adult by experiencing in 17 18 SCHOOLS OF TO-MOEROW childhood what has meaning to him as a child ; and, further, the child has a right to enjoy his childhood. Because he is a growing animal who must develop so as to live successfully in the grown-up world, nothing should be done to in- terfere with growth, and everything should be done to further the full and free development of his body and his mind. These two develop- ments go on together; they are inseparable processes and must both be constantly borne in mind as of equal importance. Mrs. Johnson criticizes the conventional school of to-day. She says it is arranged to make things easy for the teacher who wishes quick and tangible results; that it disregards the full development of the pupils. It is ar- ranged on the fatal plan of a hothouse, forcing to a sterile show, rather than fostering all- around growth. It does not foster an individ- uality capable of an enduring resistance and of creative activities. It disregards the present needs of the child; the fact that he is living a full life each year and hour, not waiting to live in some period defined by his elders, when school is a thing of the past. The distaste of children for school is a natural and necessary result of such mistakes as these. Nature has not adapted the young animal to the narrow desk, AN EXPERIMENT 19 the crowded curriculum, the silent absorption of complicated facts. His very life and growth de- pend upon motion, yet the school forces him into a cramped position for hours at a time, so that the teacher may be sure he is listening or study- ing books. Short periods of exercise are allowed as a bribe to keep him quiet the rest of the time, but these relaxations do not compen- sate for the efforts which he must make. The child is eager to move both mentally and phys- ically. Just as the physical growth must pro- gress together with the mental, so it is in the separate acts of a child. His bodily move- ments and his mental awakening are mutually dependent upon each other. It is not enough to state this principle with- out carrying its proof into practice, says Mrs. Johnson. The child with the well-nourished, active body is the child who is most anxious to do and to know things. The need of activity must be met in the exercise of the school, hour by hour; the child must be allowed to move about both in work and in play, to imitate and to discover for himself. The world of objects around him is an unexplored hemisphere to the child even at the age of six years, a world con- stantly enlarging to his small vision as his activities carry him further and further in his 20 SCHOOLS OF TO-MORROW investigations, a world by no means so com- monplace to him as to the adult. Therefore, let the child, while his mnscles are soft and his mind susceptible, look for himself at the world of things both natural and artificial, which is for him the source of knowledge. V Instead of providing this chance for growth and discovery, the ordinary school impresses the little one into a narrow area, into a melan- choly silence, into a forced attitude of mind and body, till his curiosity is dulled into surprise at the strange things happening to him. Very soon his body is tired of his task and he begins to find ways of evading his teacher, to look about him for an escape from his little prison. This means that he becomes restless and impatient, in the language of the school, that he loses in- terest in the small tasks set for him and con- sequently in that new world so alluring a little while ago. The disease of indifference has at- tacked his sensitive soul, before he is fairly started on the road to knowledge. The reason for having a school where children work together is that the child must learn to work with others. Granting this, Mrs. Johnson has tried to find a plan giving the utmost lib- erty of individual development. Because the young child is unfitted by reason of his soft AN EXPERIMENT 21 muscles and his immature senses to the hard task of settling down to fine work on the details of things, he should not begin school life by learning to read and write, nor by learning to handle small playthings or tools. He must continue the natural course he began at home of running from one interesting object to an- other, of inquiring into the meaning of these objects, and above all of tracing the relation between the different objects. All this must be done in a large way so that he gets the names and bearings of the obvious facts as they appear in their order. Thus the obscure and difficult facts come to light one after another without being forced upon the child's attention by the teacher. One discovery leads to another, and the interest of pursuit leads the child of his own accord into investigations that often amount to severe intellectual discipline. Following this path of natural growth, the child is led into reading, writing, arith- metic, geography, etc., by his own desire to know. "We must wait for the desire of the child, for the consciousness of need, says Mrs. Johnson; then we must promptly sup- ply the means to satisfy the child's de- sire. Therefore, the age of learning to read is put off until the child is well grounded in his 22 SCHOOLS OF TO-MORROW experience and knowledge of the larger rela- tions of things. Mrs. Johnson goes so far as to prevent children from learning to read at too early an age. At eight or nine years, she thinks they are keen to explore books just as they have previously explored things. By this time they recognize the need and use of the in- formation contained in books ; they have found out they can get this information in no other way. Hence, the actual learning to read is hardly a problem; children teach themselves. Under the stimulus of interest in arriving at the knowledge of some particular subject, they overcome the mechanical difficulty of reading with ease and rapidity. Reading i,s not to them an isolated exercise ; it is a means of acquiring a much-desired object. Like climbing the pantry shelves, its difficulties and dangers are lost sight of in the absorbing desire to satisfy the mental appetite. Each of the subjects of the curriculum should be given to the child to meet a demand on his part for a greater knowledge of relations than he can get from studying objects. Arithmetic and abstract notions represented by figures are meaningless to the child of six, but numbers as a part of the things he is playing with or using every day are so full of meaning that he soon AN EXPERIMENT 23 finds he cannot get along without a knowledge of them. Mrs. Johnson is trying an experiment under conditions which hold in public schools, and she believes that her methods are feasible for any public school system. She charges practically no tuition, and any child is welcome. She calls her methods of education ''organic" because they follow the natural growth of the pupil. The school aims to provide for the child the occupations and activities necessary at each stage of development for his unfolding at that stage. Therefore, she insists that general de- velopment instead of the amount of information acquired, shall control the classification of the pupils. Division into groups is made where it is found that the children naturally divide themselves. These groups are called ''Life Classes" instead of grades. The first life class ends between the eighth and ninth years; the second between the eleventh and twelfth, and since an even more marked change of interests and tastes occurs at the period of adolescence, there are distinct high-school classes. The work within the group is then arranged to give the pupils the experiences which are needed at that age for the development of their bodies, minds, and spirits. 24 SCHOOLS OF TO-MOREOW Doing forced tasks, assignment of lessons to study, and ordinary examinations have no share in the Fairhope curriculum. Hence, the chil- dren do not acquire that dislike of learning and mistrust of what a teacher or text-book says, which are unfortunately so common among scholars in the ordinary school. They exercise their instincts to learn naturally, without that self-consciousness which comes from having been forced to keep their minds on examina- tions and promotions. Bright and intelligent children often acquire a distaste for the schoolroom and what comes out of it, which they not only never wholly out- grow but which is a real handicap to them as they grow up, often preventing them from tak- ing their college work seriously, and making them suspicious of all ideas not actually deduced from their own experience outside the class- room. Perhaps they grow so docile they ac- quiesce in all authoritative statements whatso- ever, and lose their sense of reality. We tell our children that books are the storehouses of the world, and that they contain the heritage of the past without which we would be savages; then we teach them so that they hate books of information and discount what a teacher tells them. Incompetency is general not because AN EXPERIMENT 25 people are not instructed enough as children, but because they cannot and do not make any use of what they learn. The extent to which this is due to an early mistrust of school and the learning associated with it cannot be overstated. The students at Fairhope will never have this handicap to contend with. They are uniformly happy in school, and enthusiastically proclaim their ''love" for it. Not only is the work in- teresting to the group as a whole, but no in- dividual child is forced to a task that does not appeal ; each pupil may do as he pleases as long as he does not interfere with any one else. The children are not freed, however, from all dis- cipline. They must keep at work while they are in school, and learn not to bother their neigh- bors, as well as to help them when necessary. Caprice or laziness does not excuse a child from following a healthy or useful regime. Mrs. Johnson feels that children in their early years are neither moral nor immoral, but simply unmoral; their sense of right and wrong has not yet begun to develop. Therefore, they should be allowed as much freedom as possible ; prohibitions and commands, the result of which either upon themselves or their companions they cannot understand, are bound to be mean- ingless; their tendency is to make the child 26 SCHOOLS OF TO-MORROW secretive and deceitful. Give a child plenty of healthy activity. When he must be disciplined, do not appeal to a sense which he has not got, but show him by a little pain if necessary what his naughty act meant to his playmate. If he is to share in fun and good things with his fam- ily and friends, he must behave so that they will want his company. This is a motive which, a young child can understand, for he knows when his friends are agreeable or disagreeable to him. There is less in such a scheme of discipline that impels the child to shirk or conceal, to lie or to become too conscious of his acts, than in a dis- cipline based on moral grounds, which seems to the child to be a mere excuse for forcing him to do something simply because some grown per- son wants it done. Lack of self -consciousness is a positive gain on the side of happiness. Mrs. Johnson's scheme of discipline contributes toward that love of school and work which all teaching aims to establish. When work is interesting, it is not necessary to hamper children in their per- formance of it by meaningless restrictions and petty prohibitions. When children work will- ingly they come to associate learning with the doing of what is congenial. This is undoubtedly of positive moral value. It helps develop a con- AN EXPERIMENT 27 fident, cheerful attitude toward work ; an ability to face a task without dislike or repulsion, which is of more real value in character building than doing hard, distasteful tasks, or forcing atten- tion and obedience. The division into age groups or '4ife classes" takes away that emphasis upon the pupils' fail- ures and shortcomings which is bound to be more or less evident where pupils are graded according to their proficiency in books. The child who is slow mentally is not made to feel that he is disgraced. Attention is not called to him and he is not prodded, scolded, or "flunked." Unaware of his own weaknesses, he retains the moral support of confidence in himself; and his hand work and physical ac- complishments frequently give him prestige among his fellows. Mrs. Johnson believes that the recitations and examination of the ordinary schoolroom are merely devices to make the work easier for the teacher; while the consciousness of what he does or does not "know," resulting from marks and grades, is harmful to the child just as an emphasis of his failures is harmful. Especially marked is the contrast of the class- room exercises at Fairhope with recitations where, sitting still with their books closed, the children are subject to a fire of questions from 28 SCHOOLS OF TO-MORROW the teacher to find out how much they remember of a lesson they are supposed to have "studied'* alone. To quote again from Rousseau: "He (the teacher) makes a point of showing that no time has been wasted; he provides his pupils with goods that can be readily displayed in the shop windows^ accomplishments which can be shown off at will. ... If the- child is to be ex- amined, he is set to display his wares; he spreads them out; satisfies those who behold them, packs up his bundle, and goes his way. Too many questions are tedious and revolting to most of us and especially to children. After a few minutes their attention flags; they cease to. listen to your everlasting questions and they answer at random." At Fairhope the children do the work, and the teacher is there to help them to know, not to have them give back what they have memorized. Tests are often con- ducted with books open, since they are not to show the teacher what the child can remember, but rather to discover his progress in ability to use books. Lessons are not assigned, but the books are open in the hands of the pupils and with the teacher they discuss the text, get- ting out of it all the joy and information pos- sible. This stimulates a real love of books, so that these children who have never been as- AN EXPERIMENT 29 signed a lesson to study, voluntarily study the text after the class work. They are not tempted to cheat, for they are not put in the position of having to show off. The result of this system of discipline and study over and above satisfactory progress in the *4hree R's," is freedom from self-con- sciousness on the mental and moral side; the ability of a child to put all his native initiative and enthusiasm into his work ; the power to in- dulge his natural desire to learn ; thus preserv- ing joy in life and a confidence in himself which liberates all his energies for his work. He likes school and forgets that he is ''learning"; for learning comes unconsciously as a by-prod- uct of experiences which he recognizes as worth while on their own account. The following activities have been worked out at Fairhope as a substitute for the usual cur- riculum: physical exercise, nature study, mu- sic, hand work, field geography, story tell- ing, sense culture, fundamental conceptions of number, dramatizations, and games. In the second class map drawing and descriptive geog- raphy are added, for reading is acquired, and the number work is modified by the knowledge of figures. Each lesson is planned as a con- crete experience with a definite end in view, ap- 30 SCHOOLS OF TO-MORROW pealing to the child as desirable. As would be expected from the emphasis put upon fol- lowing the development of the child, physical exercise plays an important part in the day's work. It comes every day, during the regular school hours and usually in the first part of the morning while the children are fresh and ener- getic. For an hour the school is outdoors in a field the children call *Hhe gym." Bars, horses, etc., are scattered about, and there is some one there to help them try new things and see that the work is well balanced, but formal gymnastics in the accepted meaning of the term do not exist. Mrs. Johnson believes that the distaste of children is sufficient reason for doing away with them, and that, since the growing child is constantly seeking of his own accord opportunities to stretch and exercise his mus- cles, all the school needs to do is to supply the opportunity, seeing to it that this is not in- dulged to the point of harming the child. The children fall naturally into groups; those who want to swing on the bars and rings, those who want to climb, to jump, or run, or throw, etc. Running usually takes the form of races ; a tree is used as a target in the stone throwing con- tests. The children themselves have invented games to use on the apparatus, and the hour in mMit \T^ iS^^ I'MII ■ Ir^ -n*^' #..•*! ^f*' ' ; ':" '^ p*' 19HH n ^^V^^^ ^^^^^1 ^L . m ^^^*^,uA..\,^i[ii««*ttfl ilr^'l F*^^ (i) An hour a day spent in the " Gym." (2) The Gully is a favorite textbook. (Fairhope, Ala.) AN EXPERIMENT 31 the *'gym" is one of the busiest in the day. It leaves the children eager and stimulated for their mental work, since it has meant no over- working of one set of muscles, no dull repetition of meaningless movements at some one else's command. Besides this regular time for exer- cise, the children may study outdoors, and many of the classes are conducted in the open air. Indoors there are games, handwork, and drama- tizations, all of which contribute to the phys- ical well-being of the children. There are no cramping desks, the pupil may sit where or how he pleases, or even move from place to place if he does not disturb his fellows. The classes go on in a room in which two groups, each of fifteen or more children, are working, and the necessary quiet and order exist. K Nature study and field geography are con- ducted almost entirely out of doors. The chil- dren go into the fields and woods and look at the trees and flowers, ask questions about them, examine the differences in bark, leaves, and flowers, tell each other what they think, and /., use their books to answer questions that the trees and plants have suggested to them. They learn the meaning of the words pistils, stamens, and petals with flowers they have gathered, or watch a bee carrying pollen from plant to plant. 32 SCHOOLS OF TO-MORROW Individual pupils are encouraged to tell the class what they may have learned at home, to bring flowers from their gardens, or to tell of things they have seen. The class visit a neighboring truck farm, recognize as many vegetables as they can, and learn the names and character- istics of the new ones. When they are back in the schoolroom those that can write make a list of all the vegetables they can remember, thus combining with their nature lesson a lesson in writing. There is a garden in the school grounds where the pupils learn to plow, rake, and plant, watch their seeds come up and grow and flower. In a little plot of ground that is their own, they observe all the phases in the cycle of plant life, and besides get the benefits of the moral training that comes from carrying through a piece of work that lasts several months and demands constant thought and care. This sort of work plays a large part in the cur- riculum of the younger children, for it seems to belong particularly to their world; to the world of definite concrete objects which they see about them every day, which they can handle and play with, and which consequently arouse their curiosity. The field geography is conducted in much the same way. Even the very young children ac- AN EXPERIMENT 33 quire a good idea of the different sorts of rock formations, of the action of the wind and rain, of river currents, by direct observation ; if text- books are used they come afterwards, to explain or amplify something the pupils have seen. The soil about the school is clay and after a rain the smallest stream furnishes excellent ex- amples of the ways of rivers, erosions, water- sheds, floods, or changing currents, while an ex- planation of tides or the Gulf Stream is made vital by a little trip to the Bay. A gully near the school building not only furnishes a splen- did place for play but serves as a text-book in mountain ranges, valleys, and soil and rock formation. All this serves as an excellent foundation and illustration for the descriptive geography which comes later. The more ad- vanced geography is principally commercial geography; and with the scientific background that the pupils have already obtained, the real significance of the relations between climates and crops, industries, exports and imports, and social conditions is much more likely to be understood. The value of handwork is strongly empha- sized at Fairhope, consistently with the em- phasis put on physical growth. The little child must go on learning to coordinate with more and 34 SCHOOLS OF TO-MORROW more skill his muscular movements if his body is to be developed to the highest standards of health and efficiency, and nothing contributes to this better than the controlled and rather deli- cate motions necessary for making things with the hands. The fact that he is making things gives just the stimulus the child needs to enable him to keep on at the task, to repeat over and over the same efforts of mind, hand, and eye, to give him real control of himself in the proc- ess. The benefits of handwork on the utili- tarian side are just as great. The child learns how to use the ordinary tools of life, the scis- sors, knife, needle, plane, and saw, and gets an appreciation of the artists' tools, paint and clays, which lasts the rest of his life. If he is a child with initiative and inventiveness he finds a natural and pleasant outlet for his energies. If he is dreamy or unpractical, he learns a re- spect for manual work, and gains something to- ward becoming a well-rounded human being. Boys and girls alike do cooking and carpentry work, for the object of the work is not to train them for any trade or profession, but to train them to be capable, happy members of society. Painting or clay modeling play quite as large a role, even with the little ones, as carpentry or sewing, providing they serve a purpose or are AN EXPERIMENT 35 sufficiently connected with other work to hold the pupil's interest. A sense of the beautiful is not consciously present in small children and must be developed through their handling of every-day objects if it is to become a real force in their lives. Therefore ''art" is taught as part of the handwork, the story telling, the dramatization, or the nature study. The young- est children in clay modeling, painting, weaving paper mats, making paper or wooden toys, etc., are asked as much as possible to suggest things they want to make. With the acquisition of skill, they go on making more and more difficult objects ; pupils of nine or ten make raffia baskets, boats, and dolls ' furniture. The story telling and dramatization are very closely connected and (up to the age of about ten) take the place of the usual bookwork. Stories of literary value, suited in subject mat- ter to the age of the pupils, are told or read to them, and they in turn are asked to tell stories they have heard outside of school. After the ninth or tenth year, when the children have learned to read, they read stories from books, either to themselves or aloud, and then the whole class discuss them. The Greek myths, the Iliad, and the Odyssey are favorites at this age, and very frequently without directions 36 SCHOOLS OF TO-MOREOW from the teacher, a class will act out a whole story, such as the Fall of Troy, or any tale that has appealed especially to their dramatic imagination. The school believes that this is the true way for young people to approach literature, if they are to learn to love and ap- preciate it, not simply to study the text for strange words and figures of speech. The pupils are not allowed to use books until the eighth or ninth year, and by this time they have realized so keenly their need, they beg for help in learning. The long, tiresome drill necessary for six-year-old children is eliminated. Each child is anxious to read some particular book, so there is little or no need to trap his attention, or to insist on an endless repetition. Mrs. Johnson believes also that it is better for the natural physical and mental development of the child, if learning to write and figure is put off as late as possible. Then pupils approach it with a consciousness of their real need for it, of the help it will be to them in their daily life. Their background of knowledge of things and skill acquired through handwork renders the actual processes of learning comparatively simple. Mrs. Johnson is convinced that a child who does not learn to read and write in her school until he is ten years old, is as well read AN EXPERIMENT 37 at fourteen, and writes and spells as well as a child of fourteen in a school where the usual curriculum is followed. The fundamental conception of number is taught orally. The smallest children begin by counting one another or the things about them. Then perhaps at the blackboard they will divide a line in half, then into three parts, then quar- ters. By means of objects or lines on the blackboard they next begin to add, to subtract, to take three-fourths, even to divide. The oral drill in this kind of work is constant, and the children become thoroughly familiar with the fundamental processes of arithmetic, before they can write a number or know the meaning of the addition or multiplication sign. Then when the time comes, at about the age of nine, to learn to write numbers, the drill is repeated by using the conventional signs instead of lines or objects. The school has found that this method does away with the usual struggles, especially in learning fractions and their handling. Long division and the other com- plicated processes are taught after the pupils can write well and easily, and no emphasis is put on formal analysis until repeated drill has made the children fairly familiar with, and pro- ficient in, the process. Games and contests of 38 SCHOOLS OF TO-MORROW all sorts invented by the individual teacher are used to make this drill interesting to the pupils. Sense culture means the specific training of the child's body and muscles to respond ac- curately to the desire to perform definite mus- cular or other sense acts; or more technically it means motor-sensory coordination. Besides the general training coming from handwork and physical exercise, special games are arranged to exercise the different senses. The youngest class does relatively most of this sense gym- nastic. The whole class sits motionless and in absolute silence; some child tiptoes from his seat to another part of the room, and then with his eyes shut every other child tries to tell where he is; or one child says something and the others try to guess who it was, by the voice. To train the sense of touch, a blindfolded child is given some ordinary objects, and by touching them tries to recognize them. One of the favor- ite games of the whole school was invented to train muscular accuracy. Children of different ages, divided into groups, throw stones at a large tree in the yard. This game has all the zest of competition, while teaching the eye and hand to work together, and exercising the whole body. The unusual physical control of the Fairhope pupils is seen best in the carpenter shop, where AN EXPERIMENT 39 even the youngest children work and handle full-sized tools, hammers, saws, and planes and do not hurt themselves. There is a foot power jig-saw in the shop and it is an instructive sight to see a child of seven, too small to work the pedal, holding his piece of wood,^ turning and shaping it in the saw without hurting himself. The Fairhope pupils compare favorably with pupils in the ordinary public schools. "When for any reason they make a change, they have always been able to work with other children of their age without extra effort; they are apt to be stronger physically and are much more capable with their hands, while they have a real love of books and study that makes them equally strong on the purely cultural side of their work. The organic curriculum has been worked out in detail and in use longest for the younger chil- dren, but Mrs. Johnson is convinced the prin- ciple of her work will apply equally well to high school pupils and is beginning an experiment with high school children. Under her direction the school has proved a decided success. Time and larger opportunities will undoubtedly cor- rect the weak spots and discrepancies that are bound to appear while any school is in the ex- perimental stage. The school has provided conditions for wholesome, natural growth in 40 SCHOOLS OF TO-MOREOW small enough groups for the teacher (as a leader rather than an instructor) to become acquainted with the weaknesses of each child individually and then to adapt the work to the individual needs. It has demonstrated that it is possible for children to lead the same natural lives in school that they lead in good homes outside of school hours ; to progress bodily, mentally, and morally in school without factitious pressure, rewards, examinations, grades, or promotions, while they acquire sufficient control of the con- ventional tools of learning and of study of books — reading, writing, and figuring — to be able to use them independently. CHAPTER III ; FOUR FACTOES IN NATURAL GROWTH The Elementary School of the University of Missouri, at Columbia, under the direction of Prof. J. L. Meriam, has much in common with Mrs. Johnson's school at Fairhope. In its fundamental idea, that education shall follow the natural development of the child, it is identical, but its actual organization and opera- tion are sufficiently different to make a descrip- tion of it suggestive. In common with most educational reformers. Professor Meriam be- lieves the schools of the past have been too much concerned with teaching children adult facts. In attempting to systematize and stand- ardize, the curriculum has ignored the needs of the individual child. He believes that the work and play of the school should be children's work and play; that the children should enjoy school. The life there should be like, only better than, the life of the children outside the school ; better because they are helped to know how to play and work correctly and to do it with other children. 41 42 SCHOOLS OF TO-MORROW *'Do cMldren remember how they learned to talk? No, but their parents remember for them. Yet most of us, both children and adults, remember how we struggled in learning to read and write at school. We learned to talk simply by talking when we were in need or had some- thing to say. We learned to say, 'Please, Mamma, give me a drink,' when we wanted a drink. We did not practice on such words at nine o'clock each morning. The pupils in the University Elementary School learn to read, to write, to draw, and to do other things, just when they need to do so. The pupils do in this school about what they would do at home, but they learn to do it better. They work and play. At home they are very active most of the time doing many things; and so they are in this school. ' ' What would these children naturally be doing if there were no school? On the answer to this question Professor Meriam has based his cur- riculum, which contains but one subject that appears on the ordinary program; namely, handwork. They would, he says, be playing outdoors, exercising their bodies by running, jumping, or throwing; they would be talking together in groups, discussing what they had seen or heard; they would be making things to FOUR FACTORS 43 use in their play : boats, bean bags, dolls, ham- mocks, or dresses; if they live in the country they would be watching animals or plants, mak- ing a garden or trying to fish. Every one recog- nizes that the child develops quite as much through such activities as through what he learns in school, and that what he learns out of school is much more apt to become a part of his working knowledge, because it is entirely pleasurable and he recognizes the immediate use of it. Again, these occupations are all closely connected with the business of living; and we send our children to school to learn this. What, then, could be more natural than making the school's curriculum of such material? This is what Professor Meriam does. The day is divided into four periods, which are devoted to the following elements: play, stories, observation, and handwork. For the younger children the work is drawn almost entirely from the community in which they live ; they spend their time finding out more about the things they are already familiar with. As they grow older their interest naturally reaches out to remoter things and to the processes and rea- sons back of things; and they begin to study history, geography, and science. The time of the first three grades is divided 44 SCHOOLS OF TO-MOREOW in this way: From 9 to 10:30, observation; 10:30 to 11, physical exercises; from 11 to 12, play ; 1 :30 to 3, stories ; and 3 to 4, handwork. The observation period is devoted to the study of one topic, and this topic may take only a single morning or it may take several weeks. While there is a general plan for the year's work, if the children bring up anything which seems of importance to them and which fits in, the program is laid aside and the teacher helps the pupils in their study of their own problem. This might be true of any of the studies of the day; the program is flexible, the school aims to meet the individual needs of the child and the group. The observation periods of the first three grades are devoted to a study of flowers, trees, and fruits; birds and animals, of the weather and the changing seasons, of holidays, of the town grocery store, or the neighborhood dwellings, and the clothing that the children see for sale in the stores. The pupils learn to read and write and figure only as they feel the need of it to enlarge their work. The nature work is taught as much as possible out of doors ; the children take walks with the teacher and talk about the trees, plants, and animals they meet on their way ; they gather tadpoles and fish for the school aquarium and pick out a tree to watch m ■ •^'■:^5 |fc J| 1 1 IMF 1 >,: ...— =±;^^