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 CORRIGHT DEFOSIIi 
 
EDUCATION FOR 
 DEMOCRACY 
 
 BY 
 
 ALICE DAVIS 
 
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 XTbe Tkntcfterbocfter press 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 I9I9 
 

 Copyright, 1919 
 
 BY 
 
 ALICE DAVIS 
 
 JAN iO!G20 
 
 (Q)GI,A:3 5UaG8 
 
EDUCATION FOR DEMOCRACY 
 
 Education fundamentally and vitally affects 
 every individual member of the state. It is the 
 most important human problem, having a direct 
 bearing upon all the interrelated and complicated 
 activities incident to every phase of social inter- 
 course. In a general way, there is practically 
 universal agreement as to the necessity for what 
 is called the education of youth, although a wide 
 diversity of opinion exists concerning the method 
 or methods to be adopted, the length of time neces- 
 sary for the completion of a given course of in- 
 struction, what constitutes adequate educational 
 preparation, and various other related questions. 
 Almost everyone believes that children should at- 
 tend school a certain number of hours a day for 
 a period of years. The progress made in the acqui- 
 sition of knowledge through such school attend- 
 ance is supposed to be more or less accurately 
 registered by periodical examinations, and the 
 attainment of a recognized standard of proficiency 
 regularly attested by formal reports, certificates, 
 and diplomas. This routine attendance at school 
 
 3 
 
marked by measured results at regular intervals 
 is quite commonly accepted as a necessary pre- 
 liminary to the youth's entrance upon a career — 
 professional, business, or industrial. The length 
 of time spent at school and the subjects studied 
 are determined largely by the economic condition 
 of the parents, and the state of public sentiment 
 as crystallized into law governing these matters. 
 The tendency toward the general enactment of 
 compulsory education legislation indicates a health- 
 ful and steadily increasing interest in the subject, 
 and a recognition of its transcendent importance. 
 
 The work selected by the youth after leaving 
 school depends partly upon personal inclination, 
 mainly upon the kinds of positions to be filled, 
 the remuneration attached thereto, the possibility 
 of securing, and the ability to perform the work. 
 
 This rule of action is according to traditional 
 educational formula, and generally accepted con- 
 ventions. The plan is not wholly devoid of merit 
 since it recognizes, however vaguely and imper- 
 fectly, the necessity for training the young. It 
 is not impossible that some genuine teachers may 
 find their way into the system provided for the 
 execution of this program, and that some real 
 educational work may be done. But this scheme 
 has one fundamental defect, so glaring that it 
 should challenge the attention of the most casual, 
 the most superficial observer, and that is that 
 evQn in its most elementary provisions, this program 
 does not yet include all children. There are still 
 many who cannot read and write, who thus lack 
 
 4 
 
the rudiments of acquisition and expression, and 
 who also receive no systematic technical nor 
 industrial training. Just what is to be expected 
 of such children, what they are to do, what they 
 are to be, doesn't seem to be the concern of a^y 
 one. They are wholly without educational in- 
 heritance of the regular kind. The World War 
 has just revealed with startling clearness the 
 impossible situation along this line. 
 
 But apart from this not inconsiderable per- 
 centage of real illiterates, by far the larger number 
 of the children are given extremely meager school 
 facilities, obtain the very slightest educational 
 equipment. Their time spent in school is entirely 
 too short, and often it is not utilized most advan- 
 tageously. The small number that remain, have 
 unlimited advantages so far as money can supply 
 them for an indefinite period of time. From this 
 inequality in educational opportunity for children, 
 it is clear that from the standpoint of human 
 equality and preparation for Democratic citizen- 
 ship, the traditional educational system reaches 
 a very low standard. 
 
 Indeed, with its present organization, aim, and 
 equipment of teachers, the school system would 
 be extremely defective even though every indi- 
 vidual child enjoyed the advantages which the 
 smallest number now possess. In organization, 
 the public school system follows the military and 
 industrial plan with its various grades of super- 
 visory officials. In aim, there is lack of vision, 
 and an imperfect understanding of purpose. The 
 
 5 
 
haphazard equipment of teachers is too glaring 
 to need comment. Our educational system there- 
 fore must be characterized as unprogressive, 
 antiquated, fundamentally undemocratic, and 
 inadequate. 
 
 The most important human problem is educa- 
 tion. This cannot be made too emphatic. But 
 what is education? What are its functions? 
 What is its scope? In what manner and to what 
 extent is it to affect the child as an individual 
 social unit? What should be its methods? How 
 is it to influence the whole organized group, the 
 entire citizen body which we call the state? What 
 are its proper agencies ? 
 
 Education we may call the instruction and the 
 training which help to develop the latent possibili- 
 ties of the child for good, and to modify, suppress, 
 eliminate those qualities which are evil in their 
 nature. Of course education also connotes teach- 
 ing, explanation, imparting knowledge, on the 
 part of the teacher, and acquisition of knowledge 
 by the child. But this teaching and learning, 
 while important and necessary, are an extremely 
 small part of true education. One may possess 
 a vast knowledge of facts, covering a wide range 
 of subjects, and be very improperly, very super- 
 ficially and poorly educated. An essential factor 
 in education is the development of the power to 
 think, of the ability to solve all problems which 
 may arise out of one's intricate relations as a social 
 unit. Mental poise and a sane philosophy of life 
 must also come through educational processes. 
 
 6 
 
But while the acquisition of knowledge is by 
 no means the whole of education, it is a great 
 mistake to minimize the importance of knowledge. 
 The present tendency to provide the most meager 
 educational advantages for the apparently dull 
 or stupid child, and to substitute a superficial 
 hodgepodge called preparation for social service 
 is pernicious and most reprehensible. Knowl- 
 edge, profound and varied, is not only desirable, 
 but absolutely necessary in the proper equipment 
 of the child. The results of ignorant bungling 
 along various lines, including diplomacy and state- 
 craft are sufficiently obvious and numerous to 
 emphasize the necessity for the possession of vast 
 knowledge. Its importance cannot be overesti- 
 mated. Furthermore it seems reasonable to 
 suppose that the mental stimulus required in the 
 acquisition of knowledge is in itself a favorable 
 factor in educational development. 
 
 Nevertheless, the fact remains that education 
 includes much more than knowledge, even the 
 most comprehensive. It connotes a cultivated 
 mental attitude, discrimination, and stimulated 
 aesthetic sense. Failure to surround children 
 with influences which produce these results is 
 failure in educational essentials. 
 
 The function of education is to develop the 
 child to the fullest possible extent as an individual 
 and as a social unit in the broadest way. This 
 means ideal democratic citizenship, citizenship 
 for a democracy, and surely we need not even 
 consider any other form of government within the 
 
 7 
 
range of possibility, as genuine universal education 
 precludes the possibility of the existence of any 
 other form. No one truly educated wishes to 
 possess any kind of advantage at the expense of 
 another, and only a democratic form of govern- 
 ment makes possible both the highest form of 
 individualism and genuine altruism. 
 
 In educational work, naturally it is important 
 that the method adopted, be in harmony with the 
 aim and purpose of education. It is necessary, 
 therefore, to guard carefully against the adoption 
 of any plan which tends in the slightest degree to 
 nullify the primary purpose. This makes school 
 organization a vitally important problem. Our 
 present public school plan of organization is a 
 regular hierarchy and embodies the factory 
 supervisory feature. 
 
 It must be understood that the teacher is the 
 most important factor in any educational system. 
 This is readily admitted verbally, and glowing 
 encomiums are pronounced upon teachers in lieu 
 of adequate salary and professional recognition, 
 but the vicious plan of supervision militates seri- 
 ously against the influence of teachers, and impairs 
 irreparably their usefulness by robbing them of 
 self-confidence and independence of action. 
 
 The long overdue revolution in school organiza- 
 tion must apparently await the awakening of the 
 great mass of teachers, a slow movement, for teach- 
 ers as a class are extremely conservative. They ac- 
 cept what comes in the form of school regulations, 
 and aside from a certain amount of grumbling 
 
 8 
 
about details and sporadic ebullition of indignation 
 behind closed doors, they jog placidly along the 
 beaten educational pathway, quite oblivious to 
 abstacles in the road, and unconcerned about their 
 removal. Adherence to form, and daily routine 
 drudgery are calmly accepted as concomitants 
 of the educational process. 
 
 Teachers as a group are docile, even submissive, 
 to an alarming extent. This is probably due pri- 
 marily to the industrial plan of school organiza- 
 tion, to the factory-boss type of supervision. It 
 seems well-nigh impossible to believe that mem- 
 bers of the supervisory force have not discovered 
 the fatal defects of this system. Skepticism con- 
 cerning their inexplicable failure to do so is natural 
 and unavoidable, and we can only escape the 
 necessity for impugning their good faith by the 
 conviction that they are the victims professionally 
 of the system by which they profit pecuniarily. 
 If honestly they have never been impelled to 
 question the merits of the factory type of school 
 organization, this failure constitutes in itself the 
 most conclusive indictment of the traditional 
 pernicious mechanical system. 
 
 The first essential in educational reform is the 
 abolishment of the supervisory system, and from 
 this would naturally follow the equalization of 
 salaries and positions for the whole teaching corps. 
 The far-reaching importance of this reform can 
 be realized only when we observe the injustice 
 and unreasonableness involved in the operation 
 of the existing supervisory system. Very often 
 
 9 
 
some grade of supervisor inspects the work of 
 teachers in perhaps a dozen different departments, 
 the teachers in all departments having specialized 
 in their own subjects, and the supervisor having 
 had special training in not more than one subject, 
 possibly in none at all. Supposing him to have 
 had most excellent training in one subject only, 
 surely that does not qualify him to judge the 
 character of the work in eleven other different 
 departments, or in one other. Then it is obvi- 
 ously unjust to the teachers and to the public 
 who defray the expense to pay supervisory officials 
 a salary ranging from two to ten times as much 
 as that of the teachers equally qualified for their 
 particular line of work. The archaic and silly 
 methods generally employed by the supervisor 
 in inspecting a teacher's work, tend only to em- 
 phasize the ridiculousness of the judgment of the 
 work as indicated by the rating given the teacher. 
 Very often the supervisor reaches his conclusion 
 concerning the character of the teacher's work 
 by spending a few moments in the classroom 
 listening to questions, answers, and explanations. 
 Through ignorance of the subject, or lack of fa- 
 miliarity with the particular phase of the matter 
 under discussion, he may be wholly unqualified 
 to arrive at an intelligent conclusion respecting 
 the merits of the work done. Beside he is likely 
 to leave out of account factors which materially 
 affect the situation. Not infrequently the sub- 
 ject matter of a given lesson does not lend itself 
 to anything in the nature of spectacular eluci- 
 
 lO 
 
dation, or even impressively logical treatment. 
 Again there are days when meteorological condi- 
 tions affect pupils to such an extent that the 
 teacher can with the greatest effort only partly 
 counteract the adverse influence. Some days 
 the teacher is physically or mentally quite in- 
 capacitated temporarily for even approximately 
 her best work. It may be said that on such occa- 
 sions she should not be in the classroom, but the 
 reply to that objection is that the pupils are 
 much less likely to suffer from her presence than 
 they are by being taught by a substitute, and in 
 justice to the teacher it must be noted that she, 
 herself, may not be conscious of the handicap, 
 while the effect may be very apparent to an 
 observer. It requires a very judicially minded, 
 sane, and honest, clear-thinking person to properly 
 estimate the possible result of these various ele- 
 ments in combination or singly, and the experi- 
 ence of teachers does not indicate the possession 
 of such attributes by the most usual type of 
 supervisor. 
 
 Human inertia, conservatism, the tendency to 
 preserve existing institutions, to uphold the estab- 
 lished order is nowhere more in evidence than in 
 the retention of the supervisory system in the 
 public schools. Originally, when educational fa- 
 cilities were very meager, the theory underlying 
 supervision probably was that the supervising 
 teacher might help the young, inexperienced, and 
 poorly equipped teacher to do better work by 
 kindly suggestion and friendly counsel. As the 
 
 II 
 
public school system expanded, the supervisory 
 feature became fixed, partly for the reason just 
 given, and largely because some regular form of 
 organization being thought necessary, the familiar 
 industrial and military type was used as a model 
 somewhat unconsciously, perhaps, or at least 
 without recognition of the ultimately evil outcome. 
 If, however, a rational basis for supervision once 
 existed, it has been eliminated by changed con- 
 ditions. It is no longer necessary to employ 
 poorly prepared teachers. Now there are ade- 
 quate facilities for the proper education of teach- 
 ers, or if there are not, they may easily be enlarged. 
 There are now definite requirements which the 
 prospective teacher must meet before receiving 
 an appointment. If these requirements are not 
 sufficiently high, they may be increased, the teach- 
 ing standard may be indefinitely raised. It is 
 doubtless true, lamentably true, that the institu- 
 tions of learning where men and women are 
 trained for teaching do not provide the best 
 atmosphere for the purpose, do not supply ideal 
 surroundings for philosophical discipline, but in 
 these same institutions are trained the supervising 
 force, and the facilities are as good for one group 
 as for the other, the defects no more marked for 
 teachers than for supervisors. The educational 
 facilities are the same for both. 
 
 The evils of the supervisory system are numer- 
 ous and extreme. It tends to repress initiative 
 in both teachers and pupils, and develops in both 
 the habit of accepting suggestions and require- 
 
merits without thinking or reasoning about them, 
 thus preventing the highest development of the 
 individual which must come through useful social 
 expression. It tends to create a teaching level 
 of mediocre uniformity, and to cause school work 
 to degenerate into spiritless, routine drudgery. 
 By repressing socially directed self-expression of 
 the individual, this system withholds from the 
 state a potential dynamic force, vitally important, 
 and indispensable in the attainment of ideal 
 democracy. The system is cumbersome, expen- 
 sive, undemocratic, unethical, and unprofessional. 
 
 Thinking teachers must have long since be-, 
 come convinced that the scheme of organization 
 for industrial corporations forms a most unsatis- 
 factory model for educational institutions. They 
 know that it has been demonstrated to be a hope- 
 less failure, that it does not secure even approxi- 
 mately best educational results, that it makes 
 inevitable vast human waste through failure to 
 obtain the highest achievement on the part of 
 both teachers and pupils, that it does not and 
 cannot provide the environment for proper charac- 
 ter development, nor the requisite training for 
 alert, aggressive, able citizenship. 
 
 Under this system the best qualified teachers 
 are not likely to gain promotion in position, nor 
 advance in salary, for perfectly obvious reasons. 
 Such a system places a premium upon unquestion- 
 ing compliance with rules and regulations imposed 
 by the supervisory agencies, it encourages unrea- 
 soning acceptance of the supervisor's dictums. 
 
 13 
 
Teachers who find it possible to adapt themselves 
 to this routine, treadmill, devitalized school 
 mechanism are those who in time become members 
 of the supervising staff, and continue the dead- 
 ening school process. It is therefore inevitable 
 that the rules governing the various school activi- 
 ties of the teaching corps are made and enforced 
 by the most poorly equipped of all the teaching 
 force. 
 
 Such teachers have carefully avoided anything 
 remotely resembling independent thinking. They 
 have solicitously refrained from the slightest 
 move tending toward friction in the smoothly 
 running machinery. Cases of glaring injustice 
 and downright stupidity affecting both pupils 
 and teachers, they refer to as the business of 
 **our superiors." Needless to say there is no 
 esprit de corps, under such conditions. There 
 can be no animation in a machine. It is marvelous 
 that teachers who understand how seriously 
 educational work is handicapped by such a system 
 can maintain their self-respect without opposing 
 it. They do not seem to realize the plain truth 
 that failure to combat a recognized evil is to 
 tacitly approve it, nor do they apparently com- 
 prehend the equally simple fact that acquiescence 
 in whatever deviates from moral rectitude pre- 
 vents the development of moral fiber, and renders 
 impossible the growth of vigorous character 
 components. 
 
 Teachers who recognize and admit the failure 
 and viciousness of the supervisory system, and 
 
 14 
 
there are many such, and yet permit themselves 
 to drift with the current of tradition, either 
 because they have not been able to formulate 
 what seems to them a satisfactory working plan, 
 or because they are too indifferent to attempt 
 to do so, are living illustrations of the unethical 
 and unprofessional callousness which this vicious 
 system produces in its victims. 
 
 No great acumen is required to understand that 
 school supervision necessarily militates against 
 the recognition of teaching as a profession, that 
 it tends to keep down salaries below a proper 
 standard of living, for the great body of teachers. 
 There is no profession whose members are super- 
 vised by one another in the performance of their 
 duties. Such a condition is unthinkable. It is 
 astonishing that the expensive uselessness of 
 supervision has not impressed boards of education, 
 but unfortunately boards of education are in- 
 clined to leave academic questions to be settled 
 by their "educational experts," who are members 
 of the highest grade of the supervising hierarchy 
 and the chief supporters of the system. 
 
 The expensiveness does not consist simply or 
 wholly in the relatively high salaries paid the 
 supervising officials but equally in the extremely 
 low and inadequate salaries given to the large 
 body of teachers. Nothing is so costly as in- 
 justice, and the inequality in teachers' remunera- 
 tion is notoriously unjust. Those who really 
 teach, who do the hard work, receive the smallest 
 compensation, and this inevitably affects, ad- 
 
versely the morale of the teaching corps. That 
 supervision is useless one can readily understand 
 by observing its operation. Supervisors report 
 upon the work of teachers in the form of some 
 •sort of rating. This report simply registers the 
 supervisor's judgment of the character of the 
 teacher's work. It does not change the work. 
 If the teacher's service is of a high grade, what 
 benefit accrues to her or to her pupils by having 
 the fact recorded? If the service rendered is 
 poor how is the teacher helped by a statement to 
 that effect? The supervisor's dictum does not 
 improve the teaching, it serves only to indicate 
 his estimate of the teacher's ability in the per- 
 formance of her work. If her achievement is 
 good, it remains good, if inferior, it remains so. 
 This being true, of what possible value is the rating 
 given the teacher by the supervisor? It may be 
 objected that this statement of the case is not 
 correct, that the supervisor in his visits to the 
 teacher, makes helpful criticism which results in 
 improved work. That may be the theory ex- 
 pounded by the supervising force, but those who 
 doubt the accuracy of the above account are 
 referred to the testimony of teachers. A system 
 which is both expensive and useless cannot be 
 reasonably commended, but the worst features of 
 supervision are yet to be noticed. 
 
 It is understood, of course, that no one's judg- 
 ment is infallible, and this is true when he is 
 impelled by the best motive, when he honestly 
 desires to be absolutely just. Now, let us suppose 
 
 i6 
 
that in a given case the supervisor's opinion is 
 so clearly erroneous that the teacher concerned 
 appeals to the next higher grade of official. It is 
 probable, almost certain, in such a case that the 
 teacher will secure slight consideration, and no 
 redress, and that in the future she will have to 
 count upon the lasting enmity of both officials. 
 Supervising officials of all grades generally sup- 
 port one another upon the principle, presumably, 
 that if they do not ''hang together they will hang 
 separately." If the teacher decides to appeal to 
 the board of education, the probability is that 
 the supervisors will score heavily, for boards of 
 education unhappily have not yet fathomed the 
 reason for the cohesive tendency of educational 
 ''experts," nor have they yet learned to appre- 
 ciate the extremely unpleasant position of the 
 teacher who has the temerity to question the 
 wisdom and integrity of a supervising official. 
 The narrowness, pettiness, and vindictiveness, 
 the capacity for injustice which characterize men 
 and women holding supervisory positions are 
 well-nigh incredible to the uninitiated. Cham- 
 pions of the supervisory system may assert that 
 what has been stated here is simply an arraign- 
 ment of individuals, of people who secure positions 
 which they are totally unqualified to fill, that 
 such persons are unfortunate accidents which 
 human foresight cannot altogether prevent. Now 
 it may be readily conceded that this point of view 
 is entitled to consideration, and it must be frankly 
 admitted that some people holding supervisory 
 
positions are less reprehensible than others. But 
 the policy of school supervision is essentially erro- 
 neous, and inherently inadaptable to a system of 
 democratic education. It unavoidably suggests 
 and resembles political autocracy, and industrial 
 bossism. There is no place for official grade in 
 the work of teaching which should be a profession. 
 Supervision renders practically impossible inde- 
 pendent thought and action in the classroom. It 
 subordinates initiative to routine. It tends to 
 uniformity in method which means inequality 
 in achievement as no two people do the same 
 thing in the same way, naturally, and with equal 
 results. The system of supervision superinduces 
 in the teacher a state of nervousness which impairs 
 her physical and mental vitality. It often causes 
 a complete collapse in teachers at a period when, 
 taught by experience, they should have attained 
 the very acme of efficiency. It prevents the 
 liberation of educational oxygen and creates a 
 stiffing atmosphere in which neither teacher nor 
 pupil is capable of the greatest effort or the highest 
 achievement. The supervisory system predicates 
 inequality instead of lack of identity. Its effect 
 upon the pupils whose highest welfare is, of course, 
 the preliminary consideration, is distinctly bad. 
 It tends to create distrust of teachers, their ability 
 or integrity, and to lessen the respect and esteem 
 which pupils spontaneously entertain for their 
 instructors. The range of possible injury along 
 this line is great, culminating in the case of teach- 
 ers who are actually being persecuted by super- 
 
 i8 
 
visors, a condition which not infrequently obtains. 
 Supervision connotes interminable red tape, and 
 an exasperating waste of time and energy in the 
 compilation of meaningless statistics. It places 
 a premium upon unintelligent action, upon un- 
 thinking compliance with regulations imposed 
 by the supervising officials. It tends to divest 
 teachers of a sense of responsibility, and affects 
 pupils similarly. It places honest, sincere, able 
 teachers at the mercy of unscrupulous, vindictive, 
 petty tyrants. 
 
 The supervising system in educational work 
 has no mitigating features. It is wholly, abso- 
 lutely, unqualifiedly vicious. Teaching cannot be- 
 come a profession until this pernicious system is 
 relegated to the scrap heap of obsolete institutions. 
 
 Democratic ideals are not easily propagated nor 
 do they flourish in the vitiating environment of 
 school bossism, the logical concomitant of super- 
 vision. But the teaching of democracy inspiringly 
 is the legitimate and principal duty of the teacher. 
 Why then do we permit the existence of a system 
 which largely nullifies or prevents the real work 
 of the teacher ? Why is not the supervisory system 
 abolished instanter? It must be understood that 
 the system is bolstered up and preserved by its 
 actual beneficiaries who are at the same time its 
 victims, either consciously or unconsciously, and 
 also by a very considerable number of prospective 
 beneficiaries. This element, doubtless, constitutes 
 one of its chief supports. Its continual existence 
 is likewise due to the apathy of people generally, in 
 
 19 
 
regard to educational work. They fail miserably 
 to comprehend the scope and importance of school 
 activities as a whole. The education of the public 
 in school matters is the immediate task before 
 those who hope to give an impetus to democratic 
 education by the elimination of obstructing 
 factors. 
 
 But if the supervisory system is discarded, what 
 plan of procedure is to be adopted? There must 
 be some form of school organization, some method 
 of cooperation, some device of coordination. It 
 is hardly possible for an individual at a given 
 moment to construct or outline a perfectly satis- 
 factory form of educational procedure, or school 
 organization. This can only be approximated by 
 the combined efforts of many interested work- 
 ers through a relatively long period of time. But 
 it is quite feasible to initiate a working basis for 
 a new departure. 
 
 The first step is reasonably clear. There must 
 be a radical change in the training and selection 
 of teachers. This change necessitates a clarified 
 vision with reference to the real and proper aim 
 of education for all children alike. Naturally, 
 logically, necessarily, this aim is the development 
 of, the attainment of, ideal democratic citizenship. 
 From this fact it follows that those boys and girls, 
 men and women, who most thoroughly and com- 
 prehensively grasp the basic principles of democ- 
 racy, and who at the same time are imbued with 
 the desire to train, to instruct, to impart knowledge, 
 are the people who should become members of 
 
 20 
 
the teaching profession. By close observation 
 of mental processes of pupils by teachers — and this 
 is surely an important phase of teachers' work — 
 the teacher's judgment should become, if not a 
 determining factor in estimating the qualifications 
 for prospective teachers, at least a factor for careful 
 consideration. Teachers may also render valuable 
 assistance to students by helping them find them- 
 selves, and thus avoid mistakes, which not infre- 
 quently affect years of life, and often the whole 
 life. Whether or not any fairly intelligent boy 
 or girl, either with or without a penchant for 
 teaching, may furnish the raw material out of 
 which a teachers' training school is able to manu- 
 facture an estimable product is a problem not 
 easily solved. Whether teachers are born or 
 made, it is an undoubted fact that not a few people 
 enter the teaching ranks with slight endowment 
 or acquirement for the work, with, indeed, little 
 comprehension of the real nature of the duty. 
 Pedagogical misfits are tragic accidents, and con- 
 stitute a heavy community liability. Their op- 
 portunities for serious mischief are numerous. It 
 is essential, therefore, that the greatest care be 
 exercised in the choice of teachers. Every possible 
 effort must be made to keep out objectionable 
 types. People who believe school work to be a 
 business enterprise, who consider that the educa- 
 tion of children should be entirely utilitarian, are 
 dangerous. People who think the child should be 
 hurried in the choice of a vocation and influenced 
 in the matter primarily by commercial considera- 
 
 21 
 
tions are not safe associates for children. The 
 superficially educated person must be left out of 
 consideration. The eligibility of what is usually 
 called the self-made person is questionable. Close 
 observers will find that the self-made man is possi- 
 bly a poorly constructed product. The individual 
 who supposes the acquisition of wealth to be the 
 chief concern of one's existence is not a salutary 
 influence in the schoolroom. 
 
 But through what agency are teachers to be 
 employed? What method is to be adopted to 
 exclude the unfit, to insure the selection of the 
 best type of instructor? Public school teachers 
 are employees of the state, or a subdivision of the 
 state, and teachers must be chosen through or by 
 government regulations . 
 
 The method used must be essentially demo- 
 cratic. In any given school unit, city, town, village, 
 or country district, the whole adult population 
 should choose by regular election a number of 
 representatives whose duty it would be to choose 
 teachers, and having chosen them to cooperate 
 with them in the professional work of teaching 
 and in the business of school administration. But, 
 it may be asked, how is the special fitness of such 
 a council to be determined, and the answer is 
 included in the larger problem concerning the 
 relation which should exist between the schools 
 and the community of which they are an essential 
 element. This elected council or board would 
 necessarily reflect, in a degree at least, the char- 
 acter of the citizen body electing them. This is 
 
 22 
 
always true of elected officials, however crude and 
 unsatisfactory the method of election may be. 
 From this it follows that the electing community 
 should possess a high grade of intelligence and 
 probity. Of course this is another way of saying 
 that people exercising the functions of democracy 
 should be capable of self-government. But the 
 point to be emphasized here is the necessity for 
 great care in the selection of teachers, if children 
 are to be properly taught, and are to secure the 
 sort of education which alone makes real democ- 
 racy possible. At present, schools are practically 
 isolated from the rest of the community. They 
 sustain about the same relation to it that wards 
 for patients with contagious diseases bear to the 
 rest of the hospital. The reason for this isolation 
 is that, in the minds of most people, schools are 
 places to educate children, and their notions about 
 the educating process are too vague for descrip- 
 tion. From their point of view, the youngsters 
 go regularly to a building called a school. After 
 a number of years spent there, they end the pe- 
 riod of incarceration by a jubilation performance 
 bearing the name of graduation exercises, and 
 emerge into community life eager for the serious 
 business of making a living. This abnormal 
 conception of education must be combated by a 
 vigorous presentation of the correct view which 
 contemplates no termination of the educational 
 process. It should be continuous throughout life, 
 varying in the period after leaving school only in 
 form and method, from the school period. It is 
 
 23 
 
true that in a general sort of way it is now recog- 
 nized that people continue to gain knowledge and 
 training after school days are ended, and that long 
 experience results in the acquisition of great stores 
 of information, but it is equally true that much, 
 if not most, of the educational work done after 
 leaving school is largely haphazard and aimless. 
 Reading is desultory and done by many wholly or 
 primarily for recreation or amusement. While 
 it may be perfectly proper to do a certain amount 
 of such reading this in itself is certainly not suffi- 
 cient. This cannot be in any sense a substitute 
 for a systematic course of reading and study 
 which everyone should not only feel compelled 
 to do, but should keenly enjoy doing. The 
 numerous and varied departments of useful learn- 
 ing are inexhaustible so that one need not fear 
 of ever being without interesting and instructive 
 material for study, however long one's span of life. 
 Now it will readily be seen that this plan of con- 
 tinuous and systematic study, extending through 
 life, is vastly significant for many reasons. In 
 the first place, it necessarily keeps the learner, 
 of whatever age, in sympathy and in contact not 
 only with the teaching body proper, but also with 
 the students actually in school. Besides, with 
 one's faculties fully and energetically engaged in 
 the acquisition of knowledge, in the attainment 
 of discipline, in the development of power to 
 think intensively, one might hope in time to 
 achieve the possibility of correctly estimating 
 the true value of those things which now engross 
 
 24 
 
so much of our time and thought, and which are 
 relatively so unimportant. One might learn to 
 minimize the import of material objects, and to 
 magnify the consequence of spiritual concepts. 
 In short, one might acquire vision, and -attain the 
 strength of character which would enable one to 
 live instead of simply drifting aimlessly to the 
 close of one's earthly existence, as so many people 
 now do. Yes, yes, perhaps, you say impatiently, 
 but what tangible connection is there between 
 this approximately ideal state of living and the 
 proper method of employing teachers, the question 
 under consideration? The connection is plain 
 and simple, taking the form of association and 
 cooperation between the school and the commu- 
 nity. But a beginning in this direction must be 
 made by intelligent action directed toward that 
 end on the part of those who see the necessity of 
 such action. Great movements do not start 
 themselves nor do they usually loom very large 
 at first. Such sporadic efforts as have been made 
 heretofore to establish an alliance between the 
 schools and the whole citizen body, or even the 
 parents, have had slight results, if any at all. 
 What is needed is a continuous, systematic, intel- 
 ligently directed effort toward a perfectly definite 
 and clearly recognized goal. 
 
 This brings up the question of teachers' activi- 
 ties outside the classroom. A most regrettable 
 aloofness from community life exists on the part 
 of teachers, generally. This aloofness of teachers 
 is partly cause and partly effect of the isolation 
 
 25 
 
of the schools. It is both vokmtary and involun- 
 tary, and is due in no small degree to the false 
 and unreasoning basis of social distinctions, and 
 to a great extent to the lack of force and ability 
 in teachers. 
 
 Teachers as a group have no social prestige and 
 no professional standing. Their standing is all 
 in the classroom. Teachers, then, as a first step 
 in ending the isolation of schools, must force the 
 recognition of their work and of themselves by 
 active and meritorious participation in community 
 life. Having effected a change in the present 
 abnormal situation by the inclusion of school people 
 in the rest of the population, teachers must then 
 consider it incumbent upon themselves to compel 
 the community to accept a measure of responsi- 
 bility for educational work, must cause people to 
 recognize their obligation in the direction of general 
 social improvement, and the importance of schools 
 as a powerful factor for that purpose. Having 
 once established a salutary condition with refer- 
 ence to the relations between schools and the 
 public, the whole number of adults in any commun- 
 ity then furnish an eligible list from which their 
 fellows may elect representatives to form a board 
 of education prepared to render efficient service 
 in the selection of teachers and in cooperating 
 with them in school administration. 
 
 With properly qualified teachers, qualified not 
 only so far as the acquisition of knowledge is 
 concerned, but from the standpoint of educational 
 aims, and possessing the true democratic vision, 
 
 26 
 
school administration may be greatly simplified, 
 and the emphasis placed where it properly belongs, 
 upon the actual work of teaching. The volumi- 
 nous, cumbersome, and useless reports which 
 consume so much time and energy may be entirely 
 eliminated. Under the present supervisory sys- 
 tem, teachers are often quite incapacitated for 
 educational work because of the vast amount of 
 useless clerical and statistical work with which 
 they are burdened. 
 
 The supervisory officials adopt the most asinine 
 and exasperating of all possible methods in pre- 
 tending to ascertain the relative value of teachers' 
 work. Seemingly convinced, having contributed 
 so largely to that end, that the teaching morale is 
 at the lowest ebb, they proceed to choose the 
 coarsest and most humiliating means of trying 
 to prove their theory. Presumably they not 
 infrequently succeed. 
 
 In each school unit, building, the administra- 
 tive work deemed necessary, indispensable, by 
 the Board of Education, should be performed by 
 the whole teaching force of the school, being appor- 
 tioned by mutual agreement of the teaching staff. 
 Under such conditions the esprit de corps of the 
 teachers might be safely depended upon to secure 
 satisfactory results in the willing performance of 
 equally divided labor. The board of education 
 and the teachers cooperating intelligently and 
 sympathizingly would reduce to a minimum the 
 obstacles to legitimate educational work. The 
 two factors working together through elected 
 
 27 
 
committees would provide the course of study, 
 determine the required time for the completion 
 of a given amount of work, decide upon the length 
 of the school year, the salaries of teachers, and all 
 other relevant matters, including the requisite 
 kind and amount of machinery for executing 
 whatever is decided upon. 
 
 The basic reform in educational work is, through 
 the abolishment of supervision, the equalization 
 of position and salary for teachers, and this must 
 come from the intelligent demand of teachers, 
 seconded by the public sentiment of the commu- 
 nity. The initiation of this somewhat radical 
 departure, so necessary to the best interests of 
 all concerned, including the whole hierarchy of 
 supervisors, must come through the formulation 
 of a workable plan, and its submission to the 
 board of education. It is quite useless to rail 
 at the arrogance, arbitrariness, unreasonableness, 
 and injustice of school officials, whether of the 
 employing school boards or of the employed super- 
 vising staff. The remedy does not lie in joining 
 labor unions, members of which are employed by 
 private individuals or corporations for pecuniary 
 profit. As to snobbishness as a cause for keeping 
 away from labor unions, this is the result of igno- 
 rance and folly quite as reprehensible as that 
 which leads others into unions in order to shift 
 responsibility from their own shoulders to the 
 unions. It is not difficult to distinguish a funda- 
 mental difference between the problem of the 
 teacher with reference to the employing agency 
 
 28 
 
and that of the labor unionist. The teachers are 
 employees of the state and as citizens, members 
 of the state, they are really their own employers. 
 They are part of the body they are chosen to 
 minister to. They serve the community, and as 
 they are members of the community, they serve 
 themselves. The purpose of the teachers' labor 
 is not the production of a marketable material 
 product, which is true of the employee of the 
 private capitalist. The teacher is helping to 
 direct rational action in the creation of spiritual 
 values. Teachers in uniting with a labor union 
 to effect reform are rejecting both a privilege and 
 a duty to achieve the desired rectification through 
 a better method, namely an appeal to public 
 sentiment enlightened by the teachers as to the 
 necessity or desirability for the reform advocated 
 or demanded. 
 
 They are shirking a duty, and retarding progress 
 to the extent that the measure they advocate is a 
 genuine reform movement. 
 
 The evolution of democratic education requires 
 that all teachers, both men and women, should 
 be vitally interested in, and actively identified 
 with, all public questions, both political and social, 
 and the teachers themselves must accept respon- 
 sibility for needed educational reforms, chief 
 among which are steps leading to the abolishment 
 of the supervisory system. Intelligent, vigorous, 
 and continuous demand for its elimination will 
 secure it, but back of this demand, giving to 
 it force and direction, must be a clear recog- 
 
 29 
 
nition of the necessity for it, and a vision of its 
 meaning. 
 
 Educational reform is badly needed in another 
 direction, closely connected with and a part of 
 the acceptance of the principle of the continuity 
 of the educational process throughout life. This 
 is the assumption by parents of their own legiti- 
 mate part in the training of their children. At 
 present, the schools are seriously handicapped, 
 unable to perform distinctively school service 
 properly because they are attempting to take over 
 the work of the home. To such an extent is this 
 done that the schools really place a premium upon 
 the shiftlessness and lack of a sense of responsi- 
 bility on the part of the parent. It seems to be 
 an accepted principle of pedagogy that teachers 
 are to assume the entire responsibility for the 
 complete training and development of the child. 
 Children, wholly undisciplined at home, are per- 
 mitted to deport themselves at school in such a 
 way as to test most severely the patience and 
 disciplinary power of the teacher, and if the teach- 
 ers cannot at once transform the viciously inclined 
 little barbarians into the most attractive cherubs, 
 they are likely to incur the charge of being poor 
 disciplinarians. Doubtless many teachers become 
 physical wrecks before they have time to develop 
 poise, philosophy, and complete self-command, 
 simply because they are burdened with work which 
 legitimately belongs to the home, and for which 
 the parents should be forced to assume the re- 
 sponsibility. 
 
 30 
 
The supervisory system, so far from controlling 
 the situation, only aggravates it. If teachers 
 were free to act, their own common sense and 
 initiative would find a remedy in many cases. In 
 order to relieve the schools of the work of parents, 
 and leave them free to do their own, each school 
 unit should adopt certain requirements with which 
 the pupils are forced to comply, without annoy- 
 ing teachers. If they refuse to do so, they should 
 be sent home to their parents, who, confronted 
 with compulsory school attendance on one hand, 
 and school regulations on the other, would find 
 themselves obliged to conform to both, to the 
 great advantage of all concerned. 
 
 In the interests of pupils, parents, and teachers, 
 which from the proper point of view are the same, 
 it is necessary to force cooperation of the home 
 with the school, to a very much greater extent 
 than it now exists. Indeed it hardly exists at all. 
 There is absolutely no excuse for taxing the time 
 and energy of the teaching body with the ordinary 
 cleanliness and deportment of children. Where 
 the parents are too densely ignorant to comprehend 
 their responsibility, it would be much better in 
 every way to teach them, and then compel them 
 to act in accordance with their newly acquired 
 knowledge. If the schools are compelled to per- 
 form the task of the home in addition to their 
 own duties, they cannot discharge either properly, 
 and the state, the whole citizen body, suffers a 
 double loss. 
 
 The urgent need for a thoroughly revolutionized 
 31 
 
public school system must be apparent to anyone 
 sufficiently interested to give the subject the 
 slightest consideration. We have disgracefully 
 blundered on too long already. We must have 
 universal intensive education, and first it is neces- 
 sary to prepare public sentiment to demand it. 
 This preparation must be preceded by an awaken- 
 ing of the whole teaching body, and the awakening 
 is primarily the task of the few who are already 
 aroused. No failure in human history is so 
 glaring, so complete, so disastrous, so tragic, as 
 the failure of educators. They who from the 
 nature of their work should be pioneers of progress, 
 leaders in every advance movement, have, with 
 few exceptions, been content to play badly a very 
 minor part in the great drama of life. Teachers 
 generally are not forceful, alert, nor properly 
 aggressive. They apparently are not particu- 
 larly helpful in the community in which they live. 
 It may be claimed that through their influence 
 in the schoolroom, they become leaders of thought, 
 molding public sentiment. If this is true, there 
 is no escape from the conviction that they are 
 poor leaders. But commonly such impression 
 as they make upon pupils in the classroom is 
 not sufficiently forceful nor original to become a 
 permanent possession. It is counteracted by 
 influences outside of the school which if worse, 
 or not so good, are more vigorous, stronger, more 
 vital. Negative, timorous teachers, who rarely 
 make excursions beyond the textbooks, and who 
 endorse ready-made opinions, cannot be potent 
 
 32 
 
factors in the formation of character, or in the 
 shaping of opinion. That the defects and limita- 
 tions which characterize teachers as a class are 
 not due primarily to lack of innate ability, but 
 are attributable to the factory system of school 
 organization, there can be no doubt. This system 
 is responsible for a devitalized, humdrum class- 
 room routine which undermines the character of 
 teachers, and prevents or retards the development 
 of character in pupils. 
 
 That teachers should be a living power, a vital 
 force, not only in the classroom but in the com- 
 munity, is, of course, not even a debatable ques- 
 tion. It is incumbent upon every teacher to 
 execute his task as if it were a determining agency 
 in the welfare of the state, in the salvation of 
 humanity, as indeed it is. We remember at the 
 battle of Marathon, every Greek soldier fought as 
 if the winning of the combat rested upon him, 
 and it did. This is obviously true of every en- 
 counter, and of success in every movement. In- 
 dividual endeavor secures results. The group is 
 always a collection of units, the state an aggrega- 
 tion of individuals, and organized society cannot 
 approximate its attainable best until the individual 
 men and women who compose it are developed 
 to the limit of their natural capacity in the direction 
 of their greatest strength. 
 
 At this point comes the poignant, humiliating 
 thought that this great country, so rich in its foun- 
 dation, its inherited institutions, and limitless in 
 its possibilities, has fallen so immeasurably short 
 
 33 
 
in achievement. We rejoice in the ideahsm of 
 our compatriots to the extent that it exists, but 
 we know it is far from universal, that for a large 
 number of our inhabitants, even citizens, there are 
 no ideals. They merely subsist on the lowest 
 or very nearly the lowest plane of human life, 
 concerned about supplying the primitive needs 
 of food, raiment, and lodging, to which may be 
 added a desire for strong drink and the movies, 
 appetites superinduced by a pseudo-civilization. 
 
 It is no part of good citizenship or true patriot- 
 ism to refuse to recognize shortcomings, individual 
 or national, or to attempt to derive comfort from 
 the result of a comparison of our country with 
 others. The comparison may seem favorable 
 to us but this does not prove that we have used 
 our opportunities to the best advantage, that we 
 have accomplished our best. It may not, and 
 with reference to some nations does not, show 
 even relative superiority. This nation had a 
 great inheritance, a foundation of glorious tradi- 
 tions. Have we lived up to those traditions? 
 Have we added to our inheritance? No thinking 
 person familiar with the facts of history will 
 maintain that our progress has been creditable. 
 We have often overemphasized those things of 
 least importance and underestimated essentials 
 in democratic development. We have permitted 
 our government to cheapen and lower American 
 citizenship by extending the franchise to hordes 
 of foreigners who have no conception of democracy, 
 of Americanism, but who sought America for 
 
 34 
 
purely economic reasons. We have permitted 
 these aHen citizens to be exploited by selfish 
 interests in the production of wealth, unfairly 
 distributed. We have permitted overwork and 
 underpay. We have allowed the existence of 
 crass ignorance, poverty, and disease among the 
 toilers. We have endured the idleness and extrava- 
 gance of those who toil not. We have tolerated 
 the stupid insolence of wealth, the possessors of 
 which often arrogantly consider themselves a 
 select and superior class whose title to the owner- 
 ship of the earth none may dispute. 
 
 The unrest and bitterness which have been the 
 inevitable result of this most unsatisfactory and 
 unjust situation have furnished a wide and fertile 
 field for the operation of the demagogue and the 
 unscrupulous radical, bent only upon giving the 
 social wheel such a turn as will bring them on top 
 regardless of the general welfare of society. In 
 addition to these unprincipled agitators, there 
 are the well-meaning but fundamentally ignorant 
 and badly balanced social reformers who are la- 
 boriously, ardently, incessantly engaged in social 
 patchwork of a distinctly crazy-quilt character. 
 The excited attempts of these social marplots to 
 ameliorate conditions generally may do much 
 harm but they are an inevitable feature of the 
 present extremely imperfect social order. The 
 only way to eliminate them is to make them impos- 
 sible by initiating such fundamental changes as 
 will leave no room for their makeshift reforms. 
 
 Effects never fail to follow causes although the 
 35 
 
sequence is not always clear. An unwise or unjust 
 government policy is sure to bring in its train 
 innumerable evils difficult to eradicate, and we 
 now quite naturally find that the toleration of 
 ignorance, the permission of class legislation, 
 obliviousness to the various manifestations of 
 injustice -and wrong are decidedly not paying 
 investments. Bills are presented for collection, 
 and the liquidation of the debt introduces a prob- 
 lem not easily solved. For a career of wrong and 
 folly we have been indicted by the spirit of de- 
 mocracy, tried by her highest tribunal, found 
 guilty upon an overwhelming volume of unim- 
 peachable evidence, and sentenced to punishment, 
 which we are now all enduring. This punish- 
 ment is, of course, not the same for all members 
 of society, but differs in its nature and intensity 
 for each class of the varying elements which 
 combined constitute the whole composite social 
 organism, according to the degree of aesthetic, 
 ethical, and spiritual development attained by 
 each. The sentence imposed by the court of 
 democracy is indefinite, the duration depending 
 upon the progress attained in the realization of 
 not only political democracy, but industrial and 
 social, likewise. But first must come the vision 
 and the desire for its attainment. Hitherto, 
 we have not wanted it, we have had no conscious- 
 ness of its value, no perception of its significance, 
 no real sense of its need. We have been content 
 with words, words, meaningless words, without 
 form, without content. We have failed to com- 
 
 36 
 
prehend that acts of injustice cannot be committed 
 with impunity. We have not understood that 
 no unit in the collective mass may be neglected 
 without injury to the whole, that not a single 
 individual may be criminal, or ignorant, or sordid 
 without vitiating in a measure the life of the state. 
 It would be rash to assume that any considerable 
 portion of the whole population is even now con- 
 scious of our shortcomings, individual or national. 
 During the war there were some optimistic souls 
 who looked for the speedy advent of the millen- 
 nium, but people are not often shocked into sanc- 
 tity or decency for any appreciable length of time. 
 Those qualities are innate, or of slow growth. 
 We cannot attain results without effort. The 
 plans of anarchists, sociahsts, or members of any 
 other cult to change conditions overnight, to make 
 people happy, good, useful through the adop- 
 tion of their particular hobby, must be heavily 
 discounted. People cannot be legislated into the 
 Republic of Heaven, nor achieve perfection 
 vicariously. Heaven is attained through long 
 preparation in the form of honest and laborious 
 work. 
 
 r The establishment of democracy can come only 
 through education. Many people talk glibly 
 about democracy who have but an extremely 
 vague conception of its real meaning. This is 
 especially true of extreme radicals and ultra-con- 
 servatives. Both of these groups have in mind 
 class rule, more or less clearly defined. Rule 
 of the proletariat is certainly no more democratic 
 
 37 
 
than rule by a capitalistic, or wealthy, class. In 
 fact, the very existence of these classes consti- 
 tutes a negation of democracy. Clearly this is 
 true of industrial democracy, and political democ- 
 racy would almost surely be followed by indus- 
 trial. Both the radical and the conservative are 
 astray on fundamentals. Neither has the correct 
 viewpoint, and both are biased by class conscious- 
 ness. This is largely because both alike have 
 practically left out of consideration the subject 
 of education and its vital importance in the evolu- 
 tion of democracy. The ultra-conservative resents 
 what he considers an encroachment upon his 
 prerogatives and he knows intuitively that the 
 rumbling of discontent presages an upheaval 
 destined to be of far-reaching significance in its 
 effect upon the social order. The radical glares 
 with violent hatred at the possessor of leisure, 
 opulence, and social prestige. These are types 
 and each is superficially light because they are 
 both fundamentally wrong. They are right in 
 the sense that they are what they inevitably 
 must be. Their attitude is ludicrous and at the 
 same time tragic. Furthermore it is fraught 
 with danger. Whenever, through all historic 
 time, those two opposing forces have gone into 
 action, things have happened. It reminds one of 
 the story of the student who when asked what 
 would happen if an irresistible force met an im- 
 movable body replied that "he didn't just know, 
 but he thought it would knock hell out of things." 
 It is so sad to think that neither the upholder 
 
 38 
 
of the old system nor the exponent of the chang- 
 ing order has been able to discover the remedy for 
 his troubles. It is so simple. What is needed is 
 a modification of the two types of the social order 
 until they finally blend into one, and equality — not 
 identity — is established as far as human agency 
 can create it. The alchemy which must be de- 
 pended upon to effect this change is education, not 
 industrial, not vocational, not the scrappy, shal- 
 low, soporific time-killing performance we now 
 dignify by that name, but that training which 
 assists mental development in the direction of 
 truth and the attainment of spiritualness. It 
 must aid in establishing a correct standard for 
 measuring values through the application of com- 
 mon-sense principles. It must modify the glam- 
 our of social prominence and official position, and 
 teach the stupid emptiness of social distinctions 
 which have no basis of real merit. The delusive 
 effect of social and official prestige often forms an 
 actually disturbing factor which tends to divert 
 from the achievement of high purpose. 
 
 Progress in the direction of genuine democracy 
 must come through educational processes, through 
 the consciously directed effort of the individual 
 along the line of clear thinking, and lofty aims 
 crystallized in the solid achievement of correct, 
 honest living. People generally, in thinking of 
 reform, seem to think in terms of mass, society, 
 the State. It is essential that we learn to think 
 of the individual as the important element to 
 be considered, reached, made right. It is this 
 
 39 
 
 1. 
 
fact which makes the work of the teacher in the 
 classroom so vitally, fundamentally important. 
 The welfare of the State, the aggregation of indi- 
 viduals which make it, depends upon the character 
 of the individual, upon the thoroughness with 
 which the boys and girls grasp the essentials of 
 good citizenship and assimilate them. This is 
 accomplished, not through a superficial knowledge 
 of a few isolated facts of history or by memorizing 
 an outline of civics, but through the conscious 
 acceptance and the living realization of the duties 
 and obligations, no less than the rights and privi- 
 leges of citizenship. Teachers of youth frequently 
 err seriously in demanding so little in the tasks set 
 for pupils that the latter fail to realize their capac- 
 ity for work, and to experience the satisfaction 
 which is the reward of good work accomplished 
 through great effort. Satisfaction with, commenda- 
 tion of, slight exertion and small achievement on 
 the part of the child, the pupil, is the rule according 
 to long established and carefully observed tradi- 
 tions, and because of this, many valuable years of 
 time are wasted. The pupil consciously, often 
 maliciously, fails to accomplish anything that 
 even remotely approximates his best, because he 
 knows his work will be accepted, and, perhaps, 
 applauded. Where little is expected, and less de- 
 manded, slight indeed is the performance. This 
 is true, both in conduct and study. Whether or 
 not this is due to the total depravity of human 
 nature, the theologians may decide — to their own 
 satisfaction, if so inclined. It is a fact of human 
 
 40 
 
experience. The failure of the child to perform 
 a given task as well as he is able, whether an occa- 
 sional lapse, or, as it is likely to become, a fixed 
 practice, is both illogical and unethical. We have 
 become so accustomed to the observance of, and 
 veneration for, unreasonable traditions, that rep- 
 utable speakers sometimes preface their talks 
 to children with some story of their own youth- 
 ful folly, for the perpetration of which there 
 was no justification for them, and certainly 
 would be none for their hearers, in order to 
 establish a basis of friendly understanding be- 
 tween them. 
 
 A large part of the teacher's legitimate work lies 
 in making the pupil comprehend the necessity for 
 the willing performance of hard tasks, and the 
 satisfaction which accompanies solid achievement. 
 We seem afraid of accomplishing too much, and 
 often hear expressed the pernicious sentiment 
 that too much must not be expected, in connection 
 with some activity. Surely there is neither 
 reason nor sense in expecting, or willingly accept- 
 ing anything but the best attainable, in any Hne 
 of endeavor. Many wrecked lives and much poor 
 work are largely due to youth's failure to become 
 enured to hardship, to be trained to endure un- 
 pleasantness, to learn to practice exertion which 
 leads to success, to acquire self-command, self- 
 reliance, and a sense of responsibility, to gain self- 
 expression in its highest form, that is, to live. 
 Youth entering upon its career without home 
 discipline, or efficient school training, becomes 
 
 41 
 
driftwood upon life's stormy sea, tossed hither 
 and yon by every untoward circumstance. 
 
 Powerless to row against the current, it drifts 
 with it. Pathetic, indeed, is the lot of the help- 
 less one, and great the guilt of parents and teachers 
 who are primarily responsible. 
 
 The tendency to applaud and the constant 
 practice of acclaiming the good deeds of an ele- 
 ment of the population as representative of the 
 whole, are altogether reprehensible as they conceal 
 the remissness of many, and tend to relieve them 
 of a sense of responsibility. Neither the slacker, 
 the profiteer, nor the traitor in any other form 
 can possibly be represented by the patriot, the 
 worker. The two classes are on wholly different 
 planes of existence, separated seemingly by aeons 
 of time. But the "average citizen" must pre- 
 sumably possess some of the attributes of the two 
 extremes; therefore, the average citizen must in 
 terms of ideal democratic citizenship be rated 
 low. In a democracy there is no place for aver- 
 ages. The two things are so incompatible that 
 they cannot exist together. ** Eternal vigilance" 
 / is the price of liberty, but this vigilance, to be 
 fully effective, must be exercised in the education 
 of youth, and continued by the individual men 
 and women through life, for individual liberty is 
 secure only through democracy, which is ruled by 
 all the people, but all of the people do not rule, 
 cannot rule, unless they possess certain qualifica- 
 tions. We may have a government mixture of 
 . autocracy, oligarchy, timocracy, mobocracy, and 
 ' 42 ' 
 
 / 
 
democracy, and name the composition democracy, 
 but unless the individual citizens who compose 
 the State are trained, alert, capable, they will 
 have no real part in government. The functions 
 of government may be carried on in the name of 
 the people when a very small proportion of them 
 form the active principals or participants, meaning, 
 of course, such participation as a representative 
 democracy contemplates. A very essential part 
 of the training for citizenship is in the acquisition of 
 profound knowledge, familiarity with the history, 
 the literature, and philosophy of past civilizations. 
 Enlightenment must be included among the civic 
 virtues to ensure the establishment of a just govern- 
 ment, and much more is it required to perpetuate 
 it. The ignorant, however virtuous, are in con- 
 stant danger of becoming the dupes or victims of 
 vicious elements which, through organization 
 and the arts of trickery and deceit practiced by 
 the unscrupulous, may secure control of the govern- 
 ment. When this happens^ the result is corrup- 
 tion, inefficiency, and general disaster for the best 
 interests of the whole people, and a severe test of 
 the nominal democracy. We hear much about 
 trained leadership, the necessity for training lead- 
 ers, but a democracy requires such preparation 
 for all its citizens as will fit them for leadership. 
 Those essentially unfit for leadership, are poorly 
 prepared to choose leaders, and the government 
 is likely to degenerate into a close corporation. 
 Education which prepares for democracy carries 
 with it the idea of control of government by all 
 
 43 
 
the people, literally. It connotes not only a 
 claim to rights and privileges but a very vital 
 sense of duty and responsibility for each and all. 
 To most people, at present, the government is a 
 far-away, vague sort of institution which is to be 
 blamed when things go wrong. Otherwise, their 
 connection with it is extremely remote, and their 
 interest in it very slight. 
 
 The word government may be correctly used 
 in two senses. Written with a big G it means all 
 the people, the people whose duty it is to control 
 it, and to be responsible for it. Written with a 
 small g, it means the group of administrative 
 officials chosen by the voters to put into operation 
 their policies with reference to all domestic affairs 
 and foreign relations. It is the agent of the people, 
 responsible to them, and for which they are re- 
 sponsible to themselves, each to all, and all to 
 each. The aloofness of the people from their 
 government is comparable to their aloofness from 
 the schools, and in one case they are as culpable 
 as in the other. It is the immediate task of the 
 teachers to make them comprehend their proper 
 relation to both. 
 
 The basic difficulty in establishing genuine 
 democracy lies in the fact that comparatively few 
 have the democratic vision, and really believe 
 in democracy. Many persons are horribly afraid 
 of democracy. Some are sentimentally opposed 
 to it. From their point of view it lacks variety 
 and picturesqueness. Such people in thinking 
 of social and political questions invariably think 
 
 44 
 
in terms of classes, and with reference to change, 
 reform, they think of a more or less violent or 
 sudden social upheaval which will bring upper- 
 most, or, at least, on the same social plane as 
 themselves, the "lower classes." Needless to 
 say, such thinkers have no comprehension of the 
 thorough and universal training and education 
 which alone make democracy possible. *'The 
 cure for the ills of democracy is more democracy" 
 may be expanded into — ^The elimination of the 
 objectionable features of a nominal democracy 
 will come through the education which qualifies 
 for real democracy, and, therefore, education is 
 the vital and fundamental problem of a democratic 
 State. 
 
 ** Where there is no vision, the people perish," 
 but the vision must be individual. . He or she 
 who has no vision is a failure. The training con- 
 sidered indispensable for leaders must be all- 
 inclusive. It is requisite for all. No exclusion 
 is democratic. As to whether or not all people 
 have equal natural ability has nothing whatever 
 to do with the question of equal and intensive 
 training for all. If there are those who possess 
 less natural ability than others, logically they 
 demand greater consideration in educational pro- 
 cesses in order to overcome the handicap. We 
 cannot remember too thoroughly that equality 
 and identity are not the same. Victor Hugo long 
 ago found it necessary to emphasize the distinc- 
 tion in discussing the equality of men and women. 
 At the present time we have absolutely no satis- 
 
 45 
 
factory data to show that in a given environment, 
 with the same degree of training, people are not 
 equal, neither have we any data to prove they 
 are. The question of natural equality may safely 
 be left to nature as it has no bearing at all upon 
 the necessity for equal cultural advantages for 
 everyone. We apply the scientific principle of 
 intensive cultivation to the raising of wheat and 
 corn. Why withhold it from the training of 
 human beings? The objectors to "wasting" edu- 
 cational advantages for all alike are influenced 
 largely by the relatively unimportant fact that in- 
 tensive education may mean increased taxation, 
 and at the same time higher remuneration for 
 educated workers, but they forget that this pecu- 
 niary expenditure will be overbalanced by the 
 elimination of human waste. They fail to realize 
 that even from the most material point of view, 
 schoolhouses are cheaper than prisons, and teach- 
 ers less expensive than criminal lawyers. But 
 the opposition of most of the objectors to real 
 democracy, for which educational equality or 
 equal educational advantages must largely pave 
 the way, is based upon their dread of the pass- 
 ing of the old order, of the disappearance of the 
 castle and the thatched roof, of the squire and 
 the peasant, or the American equivalent, the 
 mansion and the hovel, the millionaire and the 
 wage slave. Now this mediseval type of mind 
 might force itself to become reconciled to the 
 absence of antiquated institutions were it possible 
 for it to visualize the significance of impending 
 
 46 
 
changes. There are new and important elements 
 in our industrial and political life which may in 
 a short time become the determining factors in 
 momentous changes in the national life. The 
 ''labor element" is already a possible dominant 
 factor, and the steadily increasing newly enfran- 
 chised women constitute an uncertain quantity, 
 both politically and industrially. It must be 
 remembered that both of these classes have been 
 unaccustomed to the exercise of great power, and 
 it is no reflection upon either to recognize the 
 possibility of their becoming impressionable — even 
 inflammable — material under the influence of the 
 demagogue and the irresponsible reformer. It 
 is true the laborer is not a new voter, but no care- 
 ful observer fails to understand that his status 
 is changed and that the laborer is becoming in- 
 creasingly and acutely conscious of the change. 
 These new factors in the political life of the country 
 constitute an additional reason for new educational 
 emphasis, for, if properly trained, they will add 
 greatly to the stability of the State; if neglected, 
 they may be a source of great danger. Intensive 
 universal education, therefore, is not only a pre- 
 requisite to democracy, and an ethical require- 
 ment, but is in line with the sanest possible 
 philosophy. 
 
 In view of the present world cataclysm, and 
 the lessons which it should teach, we must empha- 
 size anew the indispensableness of education, but 
 democratic education, that which prepares pri- 
 marily for citizenship. A certain amount of 
 
 47 
 
vocational, of industrial training may be necessary. 
 
 (Indeed, a very large amount may be desirable, 
 but care must be exercised in keeping it subor- 
 dinate to the intellectual and moral education 
 for which it, in no way, from no point of view, 
 can be made a substitute. Let children be trained 
 for industry by all means, but first, in time, and 
 first in importance, train their souls and their 
 , minds. Give them an opportunity, all the time 
 required, for broad, general culture, for acquaint- 
 ance with the literature, the history, and the 
 scientific achievements of the past. Help them 
 to evolve a sane philosophy of life, remembering 
 they are first of all sentient beings, citizens of the 
 State, social units, with infinite possibilities, that 
 they emphatically are not primarily factors in 
 the production of wealth nor cogs in the wheels 
 of an autocratic State machine. 
 
 The keynote of the future must be a recogni- 
 tion of the vital importance of the individual, an 
 enlarged conception of social responsibility and a 
 clarified vision of relative values. Materialism 
 and higher civilization are incongruous. "Ye 
 cannot serve God and Mammon," is a simple 
 and emphatic form of stating a vital truth. You 
 cannot worship material things and appreciate 
 spiritual values. Wealth is relatively unimpor- 
 tant. Very little of it suffices for the contentment 
 and happiness of the properly developed man or 
 woman. 
 
 In the correct education of youth it is necessary 
 to minimize the relative importance of wealth, 
 
 48 
 
to discourage eagerness to accumulate it, to treat 
 with disapprobation any such attempt which in 
 any way involves a sacrifice of higher values. In 
 the future the establishment of justice, with all 
 which that connotes, must be the slogan, and 
 surely providing equal opportunity for all is 
 included. To say that this means universal, 
 intensive education, is simply to state an elemental 
 fact. To set in operation forces necessary to 
 establish the principle of justice as the basis of all 
 poHtical, industrial, and social movements, does 
 not require a violent upheaval in the established 
 order, but it does necessitate a fundamental change 
 in educational processes and in industrial devel- 
 opment. It does require the vision to understand 
 that the mental, moral, and spiritual development ^ 
 of the individual, of all the individuals who together ) 
 make the State, is of paramount importance. It v 
 is necessary to realize that children may not be 
 deprived of educational advantages for economic 
 reasons, that they must not be exploited in the 
 accumulation of material gain for a few. To coin 
 the lifeblood of the weak into gold, and then 
 toss the wreck to the care of organized charity 
 is not to be longer endured. The extremes of 
 poverty and wealth, palaces and huts, continuous 
 leisure and endless toil are the negation of democ- 
 racy, of justice, of humanity. They are incom- 
 patible with a civilization worthy of the name. 
 To establish justice demands no demonstration 
 of force, no destruction of property, no great 
 sacrifice for any individual or group, but it does 
 
 49 
 
require a changed emphasis, the cessation of vul- 
 gar display, the evolution of a new order. 
 
 The fastidious to whom the proximity of the 
 uncouth toiler is odious must learn that the solu- 
 tion of their difficulty lies not in rejecting the 
 comradeship of the man or woman, but in refining 
 and humanizing the objectionable type. There 
 must be a coalescence of the various elements of 
 the State in a bond of equality, not identity. 
 
 This is no visonary scheme. Its inauguration 
 requires only the practical application of common- 
 sense principles to the affairs of life. It involves 
 not simply the intellectual perception of the very 
 elementary fact that ignorance, poverty, and physi- 
 cal deterioration, which inevitably follow igno- 
 rance and poverty, are not a national asset, but 
 such acute realization of the fact as will cause 
 acceptance of responsibility for the removal of 
 ignorance and poverty. 
 
 If we are to have real democracy, we must 
 provide the indispensable conditions for its exist- 
 ence, and these are the possession of thorough 
 knowledge and the practice of virtue by each and 
 every member of the State. This is the period of 
 world reconstruction which requires all the intel- 
 ligence, wisdom, philosophy, and virtue obtainable 
 everywhere. The process of reconstruction must 
 extend through an indefinite period, and this is 
 an opportune occasion for beginning to place 
 special emphasis upon civic training, and teachers 
 should be inspired by the consciousness that theirs 
 is the high privilege of rendering inestimable 
 
 50 
 
service in establishing democracy, and the rule 
 of justice throughout the world. The need of 
 this hour and of all future time is men and women 
 of broad vision, high ideals, strong convictions, 
 and dauntless courage. Doubtless when the 
 limits of our present vision have been reached, 
 new vistas of progress will afford the impelling 
 motive to greater endeavor and higher achievement. 
 
 51