Clns^ - L C, yp A\ Book aZ Copyright N"_ COPYRIGHT DEPOSrr CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS BY JEREMIAH W. JENKS, Ph.D., LL.D. Professor of Political Economy and Politics Cornell University NEW YORK HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 1900 LIBRARY of CONGRESS Two Oooles Received MAY 26 1906 COPY B. t4^^ -1 Copyright, 1906, By JEREMIAH W. JENKS. To MY DAUGHTER AND MY SONS mth the hope that they may in due time render to the State the high service of good citizenship. PKEFACE. The addresses and essays contained in this volume have been prepared at various times and for various purposes during the last fifteen or sixteen years. I am well aware that they show clearly in manner and thought the variety of uses to which they have been put, even in some instances the pressure of the circumstances under which they were written; but this possibly will not diminish their usefulness, and it has been thought best not to attempt to rewrite them. All of them have a direct bearing upon education, either from the point of view of educational doctrine or from that of school ad- ministration. All of them deal more or less, most of them primarily, with the relation of educational work to social and political life. The essay on School-Book Legislation was the out- come of a careful observation of the process of law- making in the state of Indiana and is perhaps as much a political as an educational study. From the educational point of view, however, the subject has much interest, and it has therefore been thought wise VI PREFACE. to add to this essay a supplementary note containing a list of laws along similar lines which have been passed in the various states since that time. As a student of politics for many years, I have been much impressed by the apathy of most voters, even on questions of great public interest. It has seemed to me that this very great evil must be re- moved, if at all, mainly through the influence of our public schools. In consequence, both before general audiences and before gatherings of teachers I have often taken the opportunity to discuss the question of training for citizenship. Every one interested in good government must have been gratified by noticing how prominent this sub- ject has lately become in discussions among teachers; but the schools doubtless still lack much, and they may be of far greater service in the future than they are at present, provided the teachers work intelligently together toward this end, the promotion of good citizenship. Every subject taught in the common schools will con- tribute to this purpose, if the teachers only keep it in mind and so organize their work as to carry it out. Moreover, in no other way can the burden of our over- crowded curriculum be so much lightened and the in- terest of pupils and parents be so easily aroused and re- tained as by careful work toward the unification of the curriculum around the central idea of social service, PREFACE. Vii It would be extremely useful if the teachers of any school system, through reading circles or otherwise, could arrange their subjects harmoniously with this end in view, each making his own subject teach citizenship from its own view-point, so that the work of each teacher would supplement that of every other. In the higher grades where special teachers of separate subjects are employed, those teaching arithmetic, for example, would do well to work out a series of lessons adapted to local economic and social conditions, so that, while suited to the teaching of arithmetical principles, the lessons would also contribute to the work in history, geography, literature and science. The teachers in geography, in the same way, should prepare a series of lessons that would be of service to the classes in history, literature, and mathematics, while the teachers of history, liter- ature, and science should so plan their work as not only to bring out the full value of those subjects from the social point of view, but also, by so doing, make each subject supplement the others. Adaptability to human service is the element in each case which will unify them. In the lower grades where all classes are taught by one teacher, such harmonious working of the different subjects can readily enough be planned, provided due care is taken and each subject is considered from the point of view of its relations to social life. VIU PREFACE. If this book can contribute in even a slight degree towards giving our teachers the view-point of social and political betterment as their chief aim in teaching, I shall be content. I wish to thank the publishers of the various period- icals in which several of these addresses and essays have appeared for permission to republish them here, and particularly to express my obligations to Dr. Charles McMurry who has read several of the essays and has made upon them most valuable criticisms and sugges- tions. J. W. J. Cornell TJniveksity^ Ithaca, Kew York. February, 1906. CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE I, Training for Citizenship 3 First supplement of the Second Year-book of the National Herbart Society. Paper discussed at the Herbart Section of the Department of Super- intendence of the National Educational Asso- ciation, 1897. II. The Social Basis of Education 39 Address before the Department of Education, Cornell University. Published in the Educational Review, December, 1905. III. The Making of Citizens 75 Address at several places in Illinois, Indiana, and New York, especially in 1889-1890. IV. Relation of the Public Schools to Business 97 Address before the Merchants Club, Chicago, Feb- ruary 9, 1901 ; before the Liberal Club, Buffalo, March 1, 1901. V. Education for Commerce : the Far East 181 Address at the University Convocation, June 29, 1905. North American Review, October, 1905. VI. Free Speech in American Universities 153 Written 1897 at the time of the resignation of Presi- dent E. B. Andrews from Brown University, but not published. VII. Critique of Educational Values 171 Educational Review, January, 1892. VIII. Policy of the State toward Education 199 Impromptu discussion at University Convocation, Albany, July 5, 1894. IX. School-Book Legislation 207 Political Science Quarterly, March, 1891. ix CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS I. TRAINING FOR CITIZENSHIP* " The true measure of a nation's success is the amount that it has contributed to the knowledge, the moral energy, the intel- lectual happiness and the spiritual hope and consolation of man- kind." — Lowell, The veteran pedagogue is inclined to smile — rather pathetically to be sure, when he thinks of the need for better citizens — at the expression, " campaign of educa- tion/' which has become so popular now-a-days. The efforts of some 16,000,000 voters to " cram " on the money question, the tariff, expansion, or the open door in the Far East in the short space of three or four months with the aid of " coaches," each of whom is bent on giving a warped view of the subject, are praise- worthy and worth far more than the millions of dollars spent in the process; but it is a misnomer to call the process education. The more thoughtful voters will get much trustworthy and valuable information as a result of the special interest of the time ; the rousing of the at- * First Supplement of the second Year-Book of the National Herbart Society. Paper discussed at the Hei-bart Section of the Department of Superintendence of the National Educational Association, 1897. 3 4 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. tention of so many to the importance of public ques- tions, and the stimulation to think of the citizen's duties are of inestimable value in kind, though wofullj inade- quate in degree. But back of the whole process is the tacit assumption that what our citizens chiefly need is specific information on the issue of the day, while such information is in fact of minor importance. The whole matter of the education of adult voters is made doubly difficult, because, in the first place, teach- ers who are both willing and fit are hard to find — the willingness, judging from our campaign speakers, usu- ally existing in inverse ratio to the fitness — and, in the second place, the voters rarely feel sufficiently the need of training. That most difficult and complex of trades, statecraft, most voters, except the true statesmen, think they know by intuition. With lack of knowledge, too, on the subject, is often united the blindest prejudice and even pride in this prejudice. How often, for example, we hear an aged voter boasting that he has voted his party ticket straight for forty or fifty years, priding himself on the fact, though unconscious that it is a fact, that he has so long nursed his prejudices. Men, other- wise sensible, see only wisdom and patriotism in their own party, in their ojDponents only folly and corruption ; only good in the institutions of their own country, only evil in those of a foreign nation, though such short- sightedness checks progress. It is encouraging, however, to reflect that there is no more hopeful sign of social progress than the in- creasing sensitiveness of all classes of people regarding social evils, whether these evils be the physical suffering TRAINING FOR CITIZENSHIP. 5 of the poor, or moral corruption, as shown in political frauds or impure lives of individuals. Even fifty years ago, one might take too much strong drink on festive occasions and expect to be easily excused for the folly; one hundred years ago a man might be as im- moral in his private life with little danger of public con- demnation. Only within late years have men been shocked and disgusted at the thought of a lottery or a prize fight or rat pit, or opposed to the employment of corporal punishment for misdemeanors. Our New Eng- land ancestors who were so horrified by the sin of Sab- bath-breaking or blasphemy, or disobedience to parents as to punish these crimes with death, were still ready to look calmly at a wretched neighbor groaning in the pillory while his tongue was pierced with a red hot iron or his nostrils slit with a keen-edged knife. The generation that cares for over-worked horses and stray dogs and cats is put by this sensitiveness on the highway to social improvement of one kind. The generation that has produced the great temperance reform movements ; that has brought woman into the foreground in social reforms, as is shown in the powerful influence over legis- lation exerted by the W. C. T. U. and kindred organiza- tions, has in another way made a great stride toward the millennial civilization of which all good men have dreamed since the days of Plato, though no one realizes better than these dreamers how far off is still that mil- lennial age. In the fight against either pauperism or vice, all thinking people who realize how slowly social changes must come, know that all reforms, if they are to be wide-reaching and permanent, must come through Q CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. the education of the people into an appreciation of what is highest and best in life, and into the firmness of character required of every good man. As the dwellers in our tenement houses, many of them, do not know without instruction — as experience shows — that bath-tubs have other purposes than to be used as coal-bins, so many of our citizens who have been best trained intellectually, need still to be educated in the art of wise giving and perhaps still wiser withhold- ing; to be not merely told about, but to be trained into the proper ways of controlling city councils and legis- latures — in short to be schooled into the higher citizen- ship. ""' The purpose of training our citizens, whether by campaign speeches or in schools, is to secure better serv- ice for the state, greater willingness and intelligence in curing social evils, greater zeal in promoting social good. But before one can speak intelligently of the kind of training that our citizens need, one must consider some- what carefully the nature of social evils and of social reforms. Such reforms must all be effected either (1) by improving the opinions and habits and characters of the individual members of society, or (2) by changing for the better the relations existing between different persons and classes and institutions in society. Hitherto, most efforts of social reformers have been directed toward the reform of the individual by im- proving his moral character or habits, and only here and there, in an unsystematic way, have efforts been directed toward improving his relations with others. Yet pos- sibly the greater number of our social evils come from TRAINING FOR CITIZENSHIP. 7 mal-adjustments in social relations. This undue em- phasis that has been often laid upon the faults of in- dividuals may be my excuse for emphasizing first the social evils that arise from social misfits. I do not ignore the others by any means. There is, of course, a constant tendency for social in- stitutions of all kinds to adjust themselves to social needs. The environment will in the long run modify the individual, unless the individual has pov^^er to change the environment; but, always, as society moves on into new habits, old institutions will be found unfit for use and much suffering must be endured in making the needed transition from old to new. When, for exam- ple, late in the last century and early in this the spin- ning-jenny and the power-loom were coming into gen- eral use in England, the hand-looms in the cottages lost their value, and the hands of the cottage weavers were forced to rest in idleness. The despair of the hungry whom the spirit of progress was starving to death led in many instances to riot; but their despair and passion availed nothing. The abler were forced to adopt the new methods ; the feebler, the more ignorant, died : but industrial society moved on through this suffering and evil into a better condition than it had ever before en- joyed. It was not the characters of the individual riot- ers and murderers that especially needed reforming ; the need was rather for some device to adjust quickly the economic machine thrown by the new inventions for the time being out of gear. "We must realize that like evils are always with us; must always be with us if economic society is to im- 8 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. prove, unless we can devise a way of rapid adjustment to changing circumstances. The last twenty years has seen a revolution no less complete than that of the weav- ing industry. The rise of our great combinations in industry — the Standard Oil Trust, the Sugar Combine, the Telegraph Monopoly, and the hundreds of sister savers of expense — has brought its evils. We no longer, it is true, except in rare cases through ignorance of the suffering, permit our fellow men to starve; but many a manufacturer or dealer in these monopolized products has had his competitive business forced out of his hands ; thousands of the non-employed, thrown out of work by the monopolies, have been driven into pauperism. Monopolies at times prevent bankruptcy of the monopo- lists, but multiply bankruptcies of their competitors. Legal institutions suffer from like evils, and bring like evils upon society. Within thirty years a whole body of law dealing with inter-state commerce has been created. Under the old law cities were built up or ruined to suit the needs or wishes of railroad directors. Sometimes they bought up a tract of land, located towns on it, gave it special rates to help it, and reaped the harvest they had sown. A business man here was lifted into affluence, his rival swept from the industrial field by the favor of a good-natured, or corrupt, freight agent — and all because our commercial laws were be- hind the times. Many a college or charitable institu- tion finds itself hampered by the terms of an old-time legacy, framed to suit the needs of a bygone day ; many a city groans under the baleful influence of the Dart- mouth College case, which recognized an outworn con- TRAINING FOR CITIZENSHIP. 9 tract as good as new. Our courts still permit at times street railways, or other corporations, under old con- tracts to plunder cities, while brand new laws, also, and new decisions made to remedy old evils, like new machinery, bring their hardships. Again, the slow action of courts — made slow by tech- nical rules, fitted in most cases to do exact justice — are not suited to the needs of many new communities in cases of extreme hardship. So vigilance committees and Judge Lynch swing to the nearest tree the horse- thief or riddle with bullets the violator of woman's honor. Such means seem in these exceptional cases at times the only remedies. So it is, also, in political institutions the world over. Our former methods of voting were well enough adapted to local government in most rural communities where they were first employed. They were not then abused ; but before they were changed they had resulted in so vast a system of corruption that money given by reputable citizens in New York bought village votes in Indiana and Connecticut by the thousands, and in many cases had so completely demoralized the voters that the traffic in votes was looked upon by many of the more ignorant and thoughtless as a proper means of income. " Is not my vote mine ? May I not dispose of it as I please ? " Even many thoughtful people do not realize that the ballot is a public trust. Most of us believe, I suppose, in popular suffrage; but we cannot blink the fact that the ballot in the hands of the negro in reconstruction days drove into bank- ruptcy some of our southern states, furnished a trav- 10 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. esty on legislatures and legislators perhaps never else- where equalled in a civilized country, and finally drove the whites into the armed revolution of the Ku Klux — an act perhaps not so discreditable to their manhood and sense of justice as would have been peaceful submis- sion to the forms of law forced upon them. When the representatives of the people supply themselves with costly viands and elegantly furnished rooms for them- selves and disreputable friends at the public expense, free men will revolt. Few in that contest on either side could be much blamed. Social evils often do not impute conscious guilt to individuals ; otherwise the injunction to love one's neighbor would be more difficult to heed. Doubt- less in reconstruction days Congress acted with good in- tentions, though probably with some natural and par- donable partisan feeling; and surely no one can blame the negroes for their failure or for their personal unfit- ness to fulfill their task. There was a misfit — that was all. Institutions and people were not in harmony. Corruption, then anarchy, then an aristocracy — better said an oligarchy — were the natural outcome of the con- ditions. On one side the whites had outgrown their old institution of slavery ; on the other, the new institution of free government was fit for a more advanced people than the negroes, or for a more homogeneous people than those trying to live together in peace. To both sides serious evil was the result. In our legislatures, examples of the same kind are numerous. Most of the members in private life are honest, well-meaning men, who would like to give our TRAINING FOR CITIZENSHIP. \\ state excellent government. Unfortunately, the cir- cumstances of their elections, the nature of the tasks that they find themselves called upon to do, the close- ness with which they are held to the work desired by the party chiefs, the pressure upon them to get through local bills to please their constituents, prevent them from doing much that is of general interest, and soon lead them to consider an independent member with earnest opinions on measures of general interest as un- practical and visionary. At election times a wealthy corporation makes a large contribution to a campaign fund. After election the party leaders feel under obligations. If a bill comes up that affects the interest of that corporation, a hint to the campaign chief, the boss, will bring word to every legislator, if need be, who has been nominated and elected under the influence of the party organization. He is told that the interests of the party demand his vote. He may feel that the bill is on the face of it det- rimental to the state. He may not see how it is for the interest of his party ; but his chief says that it is of vital interest. He believes in his party; he is under obligations to the chief; in nine cases out of ten he will yield. Most of us would. Again, some worthy insti- tution in his district, say a state school for the feeble- minded, needs state aid and ought to have it. He in- troduces his bill. Other members know little about it, but other members also have bills calling for appropria- tions, many of them not worthy, but popular in their dis- tricts. They ask him for his vote, plead the personal necessity to themselves of passing their bills. He 12 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. needs their vote for his bill. He votes for theirs, care- ful perhaps not to inquire too closely into their merits lest his conscience should prick him too hard. Thus, too many bad measures pass. We blame our represen- tatives ; but many of us would do no better. The truth is that our political machine needs rebuilding in many parts. Even in religious institutions changes come that bring often untold suffering. I need only refer to the perse- cutions of the Middle Ages and the Reformation. Even to-day men burn, though not at the stake, because they think in advance of their time. Many a person joining a church in his younger days finds that, as his sympa- thies broaden, as his range of spiritual vision extends, he no longer places the same emphasis on certain dog- mas as before. His fellow church members may con- sider him unfaithful to his duty ; he may even be made to feel that he has wounded grievously the hearts of those most dear to him — but he cannot go back. He may, in his suffering, impatiently blame his critics for their narrowness ; but this is equally unjust. They can- not come with him. No one is to blame. The religious institution is not adjusted to his needs. When he reaches the height from which he can overlook the whole field, he will see that, as there must be different political or social groups to suit the various political or social beliefs, so must there be various religious groups to fit the changing religious needs. The period of tran- sition from one group to another, if one cannot be tolerant enough to feel at home in either, is a time of suffering. The time of a general shifting in belief, as TRAINING FOR CITIZENSHIP. 13 in the 16th century, is a time of revolution. Can this in any way be avoided ? Conditions are not materially different in what we call society in the narrower sense of that word. Most of us are born into a certain place in the social life of our town or city. So long as we stay there and are like our companions, we are comfortable ; but if, through added wealth, or higher intellectual training, or changed political positions, we attempt to change our places, dis- comfort ensues. Still greater discomfort comes, per- haps, if through misfortune or disgrace or poverty or love for evil, we take what is considered a downward step in the social scale. Whenever we are unsuited to our social surroundings, we suffer. But social and personal discomforts, evils, may also arise and often do arise likewise from what may be called personal disharmonies. We sometimes meet per- sons, who from birth, training, social experiences, man- ner, etc., would seem to be suited to us and whom we wish to know well, but with whom we are always at odds. Even dear friends of our childhood days some- times as years go by grow away from us or we from them as changes creep into our lives. All these evils, personal and institutional, when we look closely for their causes, throw much light on the nature of society and point out the necessary nature of social reforms. Aside from lack of conscience in the individual, the evils are all alike in essence ; all demand individual or institutional adaptation. Wliether the evil be economic, as in the case of the hand weavers, when power looms were bought ; or political, or legal, or 14 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. religious — in all cases there has been on one side a hu- man mind or spirit out of harmony with its surround- ings. Either the individual has changed, or his sur- roundings have changed, and the man, under the dom- ination of mental and spiritual inertia, is unable to will a change in himself to meet the new conditions ; or if he makes the change, he suffers because others do not change with him. As one looks into the faces of men suffering from lack of work and finds each of them looking for the special work that he has been trained to do, and unwilling or unable to turn his hand to other things, one begins to realize the social significance of what may well be called psychical or mental inertia. Still more pitiable, if possible, does this mental inertia appear when one sees men year after year — generation after generation sometimes — clinging to the cherished name of a political party, and worshiping it for what it has done, as if, when the issues of the day had changed and even the personnel of the membership, the party re- mained the same. Most men are too weak, too care- less, or too lazy mentally to readjust their political be- liefs to the changing needs of the day. Even in spiritual or religious or educational matters, conditions are much the same. The great mass of peo- ple rest in the places into which in early days their parents, the circumstances of their lives, their early training have placed them, or they follow blindly the leader whom they have chosen. If great preachers and teachers could use their influence over their followers' opinions for personal gain, we should soon have religious and educational " bosses," as we have political bosses. TRAINING FOR CITIZENSHIP. 15 How many teachers gulp educational doctrine ; how few make good doctrine, or even assimilate it and use it wisely and independently ! One feels tempted to con- clude that the most powerful social influence is mental inertia, spiritual laziness. It tends toward stability; but it is the stability of stagnation, of death. Social reform demands a force that will quicken the minds of men ; will render them more adaptable to their sur- roundings, more ready to fit themselves to the needs of the day. But, let us note for a moment, too, besides the mental inertia of the multitude the mental force of the inventor or the thinker, an activity that often causes suffering, though it is an inevitable preliminary to social improve- ment. Mental slowness, as we have seen, may cause the starvation of men and families who cannot readily learn to tend a power loom ; but the inventor of the ma- chine, also, till his machine is established in popular favor, may well have made himself miserable, because he realized the imperfections of the old loom on which he was compelled to waste his time. Nay, he may even starve before he can convince his fellows of the value of his invention. His mental keenness may bring him discomfort at first, and will cause his fellows suffer- ing later, though ultimately it will bless the world. Not only did Galileo and Luther suffer for their advanced ideas, but they caused suffering to thousands of others by setting the pace of life faster than common men could follow; and yet by their originality they became two of the world's greatest benefactors. It is a painful reflection that, while we can advance 16 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. only by the aid of advanced thinkers, yet they and we must suffer in our efforts to harmonize our views. Pop- ular government, of course, demands these changes ; and we can never avoid, we can only minimize the dishar- mony. A large part of the work of the conscientious legislator is the adaptation of good bills to suit the whims of stupid people. The remedy for these evils lies in two directions: (1) The leader himself may have so clear a vision of the future of his work and of its ultimate success that he overlooks the present suffering to himself and to others for the sake of the future benefit of the world; (2) He may see into the nature of society and its tend- encies so clearly that he may bring about more readily than is common a readjustment of the institution itself. If now the evils in our society are to be removed, in good part, only by increasing the power of our workers in the industrial field to adapt themselves readily to their conditions, no matter what new circumstances may arise; or, in the political, or legal, or religious field, either to adapt themselves to circumstances, or to modify conditions by changing institutions, political, legal, social, one can see how completely social reforms rest upon education of the citizen. If our schools and col- leges cannot now give the kinds of education needed, we certainly must have wide-spread educational reform within and outside the schools. For the hand-worker, perhaps the best training that can be given to secure adaptability in his industrial activity is that of a good manual training school. But the question of educational reforms even for the Indus- TRAINING FOR CITIZENSHIP. 17 trial life involves far more than manual training, good as that may be in plan and practice. Not merely skill in turning one's hand to any kind of mechanical work is needed; but of vastly more consequence is the spirit of adaptability, readiness to do as best one can whatever offers — the spirit of independence and self-respect that implies a willingness to stand, by one's self, if need be, for one's own opinions, and to do one's duty under all circumstances. Laboring men often refuse to adapt themselves to new conditions from fear of the opinion of their trade-unions, or from foolish pride which hinders them from stooping to tasks requiring less skill than does their own. They may be justified at times. I do not overlook their argument that one may become permanently classified with the less skilled laborers. Politicians hesitate to act freely for fear that they may alienate their party votes, or — worse yet — the party boss. Voters do not vote against the party for fear of being called irregular. Preachers hesitate to speak the whole truth for fear of their congregations. Congrega- tions hesitate to think freely from fear of the preacher and elders. But there must be this personal fearlessness and independence, if men are to adapt themselves to social institutions or to adapt social institutions to their needs. They must see clearly, decide independently and impartially or society must suffer. This involves, as I understand it, in many cases, the setting up of new and higher ideals of life, and habituating our citizens to strive for these ideals instead of for their present ones. Again, as men need to have personal adaptability and independence, they must also have tolerance for inde- 2 18 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. pendence in others, if social evils are to be overcome. If I ask that in religious matters I be allowed to think freely and to live in peace without a creed, I shall only bring lack of harmony into society, unless I am equally ready to let my Christian brother who wishes to do so, keep his creed, without calling him narrow or despis- ing him. If in politics I demand the right to stand as a democrat or republican or mugwump, I may do so with advantage to our political institutions if I let my neighbor take another position with no feeling that he is not doing what is right. Until I am thus tolerant, I am rendering political changes difficult, and am forcing disharmony into society in a way that will have evil consequences. The free use of the epithets, " anarchist, revolutionist," on the one hand, and " robber, conspira- tor," on the other, in political campaigns do not tend toward either harmony or remolding of institutions. It is irrational and of evil influence. Still further, if I am to work out reforms of our social evils, I must have a thoro knowledge of our social institutions, so that I may not merely fit myself to them so far as I can, and let my fellow citizen shape his course without hindrance ; but, also, that I may shape the institutions themselves to meet the needs of the times. When, for example, public opinion is chang- ing (let us say on the temperance question), a conflict is sure to arise between the present laws and the new habits. The student of social institutions should be quick to see the coming change, to know the new form of law that will be in harmony with the new opinion, and to make his influence felt in bringing about the pas- TRAINING FOR CITIZENSHIP. 19 sage of the law. Legislators usually seek to follow pub- lic opinion, and practically they must not go too far in advance of it ; but we shall not only hasten progress, but also more nearly secure social harmony, if our laws somewhat precede and thus help to mold public opinion into definite form. The legislator ought to lead as well as to follow. Political corruption in many of our states had reached so low a depth that outraged public sentiment demanded its cessation ; but the temptation was still so great for political leaders and corrupt voters that unless the election laws were changed the evil would continue and society suffer. Men with a knowledge of compara- tive legislation were soon able to see the remedy, and the present ballot laws in most of our states, which greatly lessen the evil, have been the result; but they will be continually improved, and will become more and more successful for the next decade as the public learns to know them better and to appreciate better their value. !N'eeded reforms will always come in time. But mucH suffering, much time can be saved by an understanding of the needed changes obtained through a careful study of social institutions. For this special knowledge we must rely largely on our educational institutions. Few of them can now furnish it. But besides and above these special bits of political and social knowledge, there needs to be an ideal of the value and purpose of the state. That should be taught specifically to all our voters, in all our schools; and while the schools should teach politics, government, 20 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. patriotism, the nature of society far more than they now do, these subjects should be taught as living realities, not as dead forms. Much time is now given to the subject in many of our schools, but little that is of much value is generally taught. Of course one will find exceptions. Usually the skeleton of our constitutional law is given. Our young people learn the names of the ofiices, the length of the terms of officers, the kinds of duties performed ; but often they do not learn the motive forces in our poli- tics, how the work of politics is really done, nor what the purpose in government is and ought to be, altho one may note improvement in late years. Sometimes the effort is made to teach patriotism by singing patriotic hymns, by displaying on the schoolhouse on anniversary days our nation's flag, by reciting the victorious deeds of our fathers, by conveying to the children the thought that this country has wider stretches of territory, more fertile fields, more millions of population, a better gov- ernment than have other countries. Some of these things are good, some of them are true, but few of them will tend strongly to cure our political ills. We have enough pride in country. Devotion to our country's good, true patriotism, demands that with impartial eye we see also our country's weaknesses. We may, we will, still love our country best, even if we do not think that the English or German or French people should envy us for our advantages. They will not do so even if we think they should. They, too, have been blinded by fool- ish teaching, and they, too, see only their superior excel- lencies ; for each nation has some points of superiority. TRAINING FOR CITIZENSHIP. 21 True patriotism demands sacrifice, if need be, and its spirit is not that of a braggart. What is the true pur- ' pose of a country that should be taught in the schools, and that once breathed into the hearts of our citizens would remove the factional troubles that threaten our country, by making men of different parties none the less earnest, but more tolerant, and more unselfish l What is the citizen's ideal ? How shall we measure the value of a country ? Ko modern writer has expressed it better or with more apt illustration than James Rus- sell Lowell in his classic essay on Democracy : " The true value of a country must be weighed in scales more delicate than the balance of trade. The garners of Sicily are empty now, but the bees from all climes still fetch honey from the tiny garden plot of Theocritus. On a map of the world you may cover Judea with your thumb and Athens with a finger-tip and neither of them figures in the prices current ; but they still lord it in the thought and action of every civilized man. Did not Dante cover with his hood all that was Europe six hundred years ago, and, if we go back one hundred years, where was Germany, outside of Weimar? Material success is good, but only as the necessary preliminary to better things. The true meas- ure of a nation's success is the amount that it has con- tributed to the knowledge, the moral energy, the intel- lectual happiness, the spiritual hope and consolation of mankind. There is no other, let our candidates flatter us as they may." If we can have an educational reform that will lift the political ideal of our young people to this height, 22 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. we shall find them easily adaptable to any change in mere form that our institutions may demand. This is of chief consequence. The methods of teaching this can be found applicable in history or literature — wherever the thought of the higher purpose of the state appears. The methods of fixing such ideals regarding man and the state are not formal. No teacher who is not himself aglow with enthusiasm for refinement, beauty, sincerity, truth, righteousness, can kindle in those under his charge this flame of the higher patriotism. Formal statements of ethical principles count for little toward righteousness when coming from the lips of a hypocrite. A cheer for " Old Glory " from a teacher willing to buy his place by political service, or party favoritism, will not go far toward civic culture. All teaching of the highest type is personal, is the benign influence of a stronger, or purer, or riper nature, over one less mature. The oc- casions for the exercise of this influence in fixing a child's standard of honor, may readily be found. In fairy tales, may it not easily be seen that the author's and the teacher's sympathy and admiration are for the worthy ? In history, a fair analysis of the characters of the great will show that in the long run when the touch- stone of the historic judgment is applied only worthy qualities ring true. In these days of the N^apoleonic revival, we may still admire the wonderful intellectual power, the superb self-control in moments of supreme importance, the matchless capacity for achievement along almost all lines of activity that won for the first ISTapoleon the name of the " Man of Destiny ; " but no less inevitable is the judgment of contempt for his TRAINING FOR CITIZENSHIP. 23 vanity, treachery, lying. Even a little child of right im- pulses reading his life with a discriminating teacher would pity and despise his weaknesses; for the normal instincts of children — of adults too for that matter — are right. The same child would as readily see that the chief cause of Washington's greatness was a moral one, which gave him the confidence of his people. The great- ness of Socrates, Alexander, Newton, Darwin is based on service to humanity. The true success of character as compared with the empty gain of pelf is not lost sight of in literature or the drama. In a down-town theater with an audience of roughs and criminals, the applause is always hearty and genuine for noble sentiments, and the villain earns his meed of hisses. When we read King Lear, no one doubts that it is the dead Cordelia, faithful, honest, though misunderstood, who has really succeeded, and not her scheming sisters. Only in matters of real life when self is concerned does our selfishness lead us into false judgments and our ambitions aid us to condone evil in others. Children may be led to set up false standards ; and there is among us a too frequent custom into which they easily fall of confounding smartness with ability, and the attainment of money or office with true success. The example of the wise teacher, and the habit of mak- ing frank judgments on the right side in literature and history, will aid greatly in making sound judgments in life — especially if the skillful teacher, without too obvious effort, takes occasion to raise problems for the child to settle which will serve as precedents when real tests come later in life. 24 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. Aside from personal questions, the ideals for the state may in the same way be touched. Lowell has given in a pregnant sentence the cause of the greatness of Athens and Judea ; but in our common school work the material is abundant for like judgments. What were the elements of strength in the various colonies ? \^Tiat led to success ? What to misfortune ? What was the influence of the slave trade and of slavery upon the South ? W^hy was it good policy to pay off the Revolu- tionary debt? What have been the influences of the schools as compared with the saloons upon our civiliza- tion? The working out of the answers to questions like these will fix the right ideals. In higher schools, in colleges and universities, more specific methods of political reform, comparative legis- lation that teaches how to fit the experiences of other times and countries to our own needs, can be well taught, if the teacher is ready and willing to look into the real evils in our government, to point them out with im- partial hand, to hold up the higher ideal, and to call on his classes to find the remedies. It is essential, espe- cially with older pupils, to see the facts of our political life as they are — evil as well as good. So economic truth, facts regarding treatment of criminals, of pau- pers, all principles of social development, can be taught. In the public schools even might incidentally be taught many specific facts regarding our legal rights and duties, elementary principles regarding contracts, torts, election laws, business forms, etc. To a great extent, too, all these subjects can be taught in a practical way, i. e., so that pupils may get interest TRAINING FOR CITIZENSHIP. 25 enough in the ideal to begin to form the habit of action which looks toward its realization. Even social ethics can be drilled into people. In one of the most promi- nent suburbs of Chicago some few years since, I knew well a large-hearted superintendent who made it a prac- tice from time to time as occasion arose, to tell of cases of need in the neighborhood, and to ask if the children would contribute a little, preferably from their own earnings. He was careful to teach them to distinguish between worthy and unworthy cases, and to give from sympathy, not from pity. I recall one accident that killed the father of a family and left the widow and six small children in a mere shanty in the dead of winter with little clothing, little food, and little coal. The winds from Lake Michigan sweeping up through the cracks in the single floor in zero weather made existence difficult, comfort impossible. A brief story to the school one morning brought enough to buy coal and food and needed clothing. The next morning the superintendent told what had been done, and asked if a little more money could be raised to bank the house to keep out the freezing winds. The true spirit of Charity rang out in the excited tones of one of the boys as he shouted, " Why, Mr. B., can't we kids do that? We want to do something." The boys that banked the widow's hut in Chicago winter weather had learned well the spirit of the lesson. A charity society in that school with an investigating committee guided by the principal might well serve as a model for other schools eager for educational reform. Of far more consequence in the training of citizens, 26 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. however, because of more general application, and be- cause character and habits that run through all our work are of more consequence than mere knowledge, or prac- tice in philanthropy or in business or social life, or even than the highest ideal of the state, is the culti- vation in our schools of the spirit of impartiality, which gives sound judgment, and a feeling of personal respon- sibility. This strikes at the root of all educational method, for from it comes a habit of work that will greatly aid in the mastery of any subject. While this characteristic is often a personal gift, it can still to a great extent be cultivated — both in school and life. The natural at- titude for most of us to take on any question is that of the advocate. We are right. Those on the other side are wrong. We often go so far as to condemn unheard people who are as sincere as we are. This mental at- titude engenders strife, prevents compromise, stifles truth in the embryo. The true attitude of a man and citizen is that of a judge, who expects in cases of dispute to find some truth on both sides ; who is willing to see the good and the evil alike, so far as they exist; who is prepared to find both parties sincere, but with different points of view. The mere effort to take this mental attitude, the mere saying to one's self that the person on the other side is, in the minds of others, as likely to be right as are we, will be enough to render our opinion worth more than usual. To be impartial we must first do some thinking. Much has been said of late years about methods of learning by rote in school aud about the necessity of TRAINING FOR CITIZENSHIP. 27 teaching children to think. Only lately I found another of the standard examples of the failure of our schools in this regard. A professorial father, disappointed at his son's backwardness in school, asks him : " How many cents will fifteen apples cost at twenty cents a dozen ? " " Fifteen times twenty," is the reply, and when the father remonstrates, the son replies : " Teacher says, ' how many ' means to multiply." I heard my own small boy trying to find out the difference between the words " times " and " and," as used in his number work, say- ing that " times " meant multiply, while " and " meant add. Evidently the number work was only words to him. In our higher schools and colleges, there is often a tending toward extremes, toward favoring the position of the advocate that for the students is injurious ever after in social life. In one of our great western uni- versities debating societies are popular, and a prize de- bate the great intellectual exhibition of the year. An instructor in political economy has told me that it is exceedingly difiicult to get the students in that university to consider impartially any controverted question which may come up for consideration in the class-room. All are ready to advocate one side and close their minds to reason on the other. This would seem trivial were it not that our politics, our schools, our religion, our social life throughout is permeated with this intolerant spirit. We are all proud to be partisans in politics or religion : we ought to weep over it ; for it is chiefly this intolerance that keeps us from adjusting ourselves read- ily to the changing conditions of social life, as well as 28 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. from easily changing our institutions to suit the needs of our people. This spirit of fairness to both sides can be cultivated in our schools and colleges. In all true teaching of science in which the pupil is led to observe independently and to draw his ovtra con- clusions, we find some of the best methods for inducing this habit of mind. But, possibly, because in our lives as citizens most of our judgments must be moral judg- ments, based on premises as variable in kind as is human nature and social customs, we shall probably find more aid in history and literature. We must teach impar- tiality by giving practice in forming judgments. Most children in the public schools are taught to look upon England as a tyrannous country. Would it not be bet- ter to ask the children to find out why England felt justified in trying to subdue her rebellious colonies; and to let them see that the question was not entirely one-sided ? Again, why was slavery so much more prev- alent in the South than in the ^orth ? Were the South- erners all bad ? Was Washington, keeper of slaves, a worse man than Wendell Phillips, the abolitionist ? England has taught us much that is helpful and useful regarding the civil service and ballot laws. Can our pupils find out other things in which she and other countries are to be considered more advanced than is the United States ? We need not fear to weaken the sentiment of patriotism. The true patriot is eager to improve his country ; only the demagogue tries to flatter his followers into senseless content. Our history is so full of glorious success that our citizens need no special TRAINING FOR CITIZENSHIP. 29 Incentive to pride of country. They need, rather, a keener sense of responsibility. It has been urged at times that work which deals with politics and the nature of the state is too advanced for the public schools, at any rate for the lower grades ; that our children have not the proper apperceptive material ; cannot connect such work with anything that they have previously learned. Such an opinion, however, comes from a mistaken conception of the nature of the state and of government, and of the purposes for which they exist. We are all too accustomed to think of the state as something remote from us. If we speak of state aid for education or state ownership of railways, our minds turn at once to the capital city of our state, or to Wash- ington, the seats of active government. We need not merely to know, but to feel, to make real and habitual to our thinking the fact that we, as individuals, are part of the state ; that it can not exist without us, and that no one of us, strong or weak, young or old, voter or non- voter, fails to exert influence on the government or can put off responsibility for what is done by the state. Our influence may be weakened by a boss ; we may try to avoid responsibility by remaining away from the polls ; but, not only our congressmen and legislators, but every voter who aids in an election ; every woman who strengthens a husband's or father's arm, not merely in voting, but in business or social life ; even the new- born babe, whose needs stimulate its father to more activ- ity in labor, love for which makes its mother kinder, more charitable, more considerate of others, are powers in the state : and everyone who has reached years of 30 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. discretion ought to be made to realize his responsibility, for the state. Our human natures force us into governmental rela- tions, in order that our lives may be richer and nobler than they could be were we to live in isolation. Com- plete life is possible only in the associated state. As parts of that state, with that purpose of striving for the " complete life " before us, our duties not merely as Christians or as men and women, but also as citizens, re- quire us to care for the welfare of our fellows. Even in governmental affairs, the personal interests of citizens are largely local. Woodrow Wilson has called attention to the fact that of the twelve greatest reform measures of all kinds passed in England within the last century, only one before our civil war and only two since the war amendments to our constitution would have been in this country matters for the central government. The others would have been dealt with by the separate states. Even matters more strictly local still are of great importance to the individual. During our last presidential cam- paign (1896) farmers were greatly concerned about the monetary standard, and millions of dollars were ex- pended in attempting to change their opinions on the question. Yet any thoughtful student will concede that the prosperity of the average well-to-do farmer would be affected more, and more permanently, by a change in the quality of the road between his farm and the nearest good market town from that of the average dirt road to that of a good macadam than he would be by any proposed change in the monetary standard. TRAINING FOR CITIZENSHIP. 31 Beneficial to him as a tariff on wool might be, the chances are that in the great majority of cases the ten dollars in cash and two days in time spent in attending political rallies, if expended in battening the cracks in his sheds wonld have saved him more money in lambs than he will gain in the increased price of wool from the new tariff. Even the average carpenter and mason has much more real personal concern in the election of the next school teacher than in that of the next Presi- dent. As a student of political science keenly interested in all matters of political controversy, I am gratified to be consulted by my next door neighbor regarding the attitude of the United States Supreme Court on the in- come tax ; but as a practical business man with a small kitchen garden, my real financial interest and my per- sonal comfort and peace of mind are far more concerned in his views regarding hen coops and the moral duties of poultry keepers. I do not wish at all to minimize the duties of citizens toward our central government — most of us are too careless in that regard — but I do wish to make it clear that we do not draw these things ordinarily with the right perspective ; and that when we consider the duties of citizens from the right standpoint, we shall observe that even small children are able to find tasks suitable for citizens and to understand the most funda- mental of all political duties — honesty and fair dealing toward one's fellows. As in our later methods of teach- ing geography, we begin with the school and go out thence to the town, the state, the nation, so in teaching political duties, take first those to our schoolmates and neighbors. 32 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. The essence of all good teaching, however, is the put- ting into practice in life of the principles laid down in the books or in lectures, or, better than either, brought out by the children themselves through skillful ques- tions. It may well be worth our while to point out some at least of the civic duties that children can perform. Many of them are often performed now without any con- sciousness of their public nature. When a pupil in a district school I trudged off with a comrade a quarter of a mile to bring a pail of drinking water, I believe that an added value would have been given to the delight of the outdoor freedom, if I had been made to realize that I was doing a citizen's duty, working for the public ! If our children knew that the desks which they so care- lessly carve and the buildings which they so wantonly deface at times belong not to an indefinite, abstract en- tity, " the town," but to themselves, their parents, their fellows, and that an injury done to that building is rob- bery of their friends, they would be more careful. If they were made to see that by care of school buildings and furniture they could aid in lowering the tax rate; that by order in school and a spirit of helpfulness toward their teacher, a public official, they were perform- ing patriotic duties, their school would take on an added interest and appear of more importance. Is it hard for a child twelve years of age to understand that the man who swears down his assessment unduly is practically putting his hand into his neighbors' pockets by increas- ing their taxes unjustly ? Children trained to see what the state is and the real and close relation existing be- tween public and private property would not be so reck- TRAINING FOR CITIZENSHIP. 33 less in later years in squandering public funds in foolish appropriations as are many of our legislators who look upon the public treasury as a bottomless well from which to draw good gifts for their constituents and especially for their near friends and relatives. In some of our cities, Boston, Philadelphia, l^ew York, " the youngsters have been formed into a Juvenile Street Cleaning Brigade." The members are pledged to pick up stray pieces of paper and deposit them in re- ceptacles provided by the city. In one of the Chicago schools, some years ago, there was a charitable organiza- tion formed among the pupils under the direction of the principal that did much practical, intelligent work, quite after the type of that done by the best societies of adults. Such practical work can be found in many fields, and in no other way can the children be so directly trained as through practice. The most direct practical work in politics by children that I have seen is that done in the George Junior Re- public at Freeville, New York, where the young people twelve to eighteen years of age make their own laws; have their own courts and police ; punish their own criminals with fines and imprisonment that are not play but real locking up in real cells, real hard labor and poor food ; and use a boy and girl public opinion that is even more powerful than that in adult society because it is franker and more positive. This is a real share in government that can rarely be given in schools. But where in the school and university curriculum shall this training be given? It is evident from what has already been said that the most fundamental things, 34 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. the prime essentials in training for citizenship — lofty ideals, independence and impartiality of judgment, re- gard for the rights of others — are to be taught always, in every class, in all grades, and the methods are sub- stantially the same from kindergarten to university. As ^ children ought to live in an atmosphere of good English, good temper, good morals, so ought they to live in an atmosphere of tolerance, independence, impartiality of judgment, regard for the rights of others, thoughtfulness regarding one's own duties — and the teacher must create this atmosphere. The turning of the attention to public duties can be begun and carried on informally in all classes, as has been suggested, from the beginning; but especially in studies in literature, and history, and geog- raphy will the relations of men in society and of nations, one with another, be brought out. In those subjects specific information can be given — and especially in them can pupils be led by skillful questioning to reason out for themselves the nature of the fundamental econo- mic and political relations of trade, transportation, money, labor, of taxes, of forms of government, of the ruler and the ruled. 'No special formal training, with separate text-books, need be given, perhaps, in economics, or even in civil government, until the college is reached, if the teachers are thoroughly alive to the opportunities for such training in kindred subjects; but probably in most high schools such subjects should be formally in- troduced. In the colleges and universities, of course, should come the formal studies of constitutional and admin- istrative law and politics, native, historical and com- TRAINING FOR CITIZENSHIP. 35 parative, with history, and ethics, and philosophy. But, I pass these with simply the mention, because that is understood by all ; and primarily because even in the universities, Avhere one keeps in mind the purpose of ' training for citizenship,' of molding men to influence society for good or evil, information in administrative law and comparative politics, even for most graduate students, is of less importance than the practice of forming impartial judgments on present political methods, and of thus learning how righteousness must rule if the state is to live. The awakening of a living interest in public affairs, the arousing of a determina- tion to see and judge political life fairly and impartially as it is, the kindling of a resolve in the student's mind to stand for the best and noblest measures in the state, and never to lose sight of the fundamental purpose of • civilized society, to enrich and ennoble the lives of the citizens, nor of the essential condition of success, bring- ing the life of the state into accord with the principles of justice and righteousness — these are still in the university as in the primary school, the most important tasks of the teacher, and those requiring the highest gifts. It must not be forgotten, too, that these purposes should be in the mind of the mathematician and the biologist, as well as in that of the historian and politician (I use the word in its proper sense) ; for while the latter may have opportunity to inculcate the lesson more fre- quently, the occasion comes not rarely to all, and the method is, after all, mainly a matter of a living example, so far as the spirit is concerned. So far as one deals with the study of formal prin- 36 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. ciples, of course, one can to best advantage employ the inductive methods for which, in every community, an abundance of material is found. A word should be said about educational means out- side the schools and colleges, and the influence of such activity upon society. While we must expect that great social reforms which involve changes in the dispositions or habits of the people will be completed only with com- ing generations, still one ought everywhere to keep good influences at work. Much can be accomplished; and some of those improvements that involve only changes in the forms of institutions, or in the relations of indi- viduals can often be carried through by earnest people in a short time, especially if the plans have no political par- tisan aspect. I once saw an important law put through the New York legislature, merely as the result of a few sentences dropped in a public lecture. The idea was fruitful, was non-partisan. The result was a commission which made some of the best suggestions regarding legis- lative methods ever made in America, suggestions that there is reason to hope will bear fruit yet in the state of their origin. Often a university extension course, or a course of study in a local club, or school, will lead to action which brings great good to the whole community. The churches ought always to be, and often are, power- ful influences toward political improvement, especially when they keep out of politics and devote themselves to cultivating and practicing high ideals. And it must not be forgotten that a social reform in even one small com- munity is often wide-reaching in its effects. Think of Pestalozzi's story of the influence of the wise Gertrude, TRAINING FOR CITIZENSHIP. 37 the typical model citizen. The experiment with the liquor traffic in Gothenburg, Sweden, has revolutionized the system in Norway and Sweden, has set reformers talking the world over, and is likely to result in untold benefit to many peoples. The methods of work outside the school are the same as those within : Give knowledge, give ideals, give impartiality, and independence, and righteousness. To sum up our conclusions, then, good citizenship not only can be promoted by educational means, but a chief essential for ultimate success in social reforms is that we train up citizens ; that the people be taught to under- stand better the nature of social institutions ; that they realize that not all, but a large part of our social evils come not from wickedness or hard-heartedness or in- justice — though all these, too, bring evils in their train — but merely from a mal-adjustment of social relations. They should realize also that these evils can be overcome at times by merely slight changes in methods of social work if only students of society can be found to suggest wise changes in methods. But most important of all, is the education of the people to that flexibility of temperament and culture that will enable them readily to adapt themselves to new conditions, to that impartiality of spirit, that judicial habit of thought, that feeling of personal responsibility which will aid them to see truth even v;hen unwelcome, and to that zeal for truth and righteousness which will lead them to be willing to do their duty, and will thus fit them to adjust themselves best to the places in which they can render to society the greatest service. II. THE SOCIAL BASIS OF EDUCATIOK* " On well-doing for the common good I bestow my pains." — Pindar, Pythian Ode xi. In the discussion of public school education of what- ever grade, from the primary school to the university and professional schools, it is especially fitting to con- sider it somewhat carefully from the social and political standpoints. If private individuals are to receive their education at the hands of the state, at the expense of the public, the public should receive an equivalent service in return. It is also very desirable, although I fear at the present time not very common, that the individual recipient of this education should recognize his obliga- tions to the state therefor. It has been customary for our teachers to say that the primary purpose in education is the development of the individual, self-realization, the training of one's natural powers to their fullest extent; and there is no particular objection to considering this as the purpose of education, provided that in the development of the individual we are to secure also the development of the citizen. We are to fit the pupils through their indi- vidual development for the best service in business and social life and in politics. * Address before the Department of Education, Cornell Uni- versity. Published in the Educational Review, December, 1905. 39 40 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. From the social and political points of view, as well as from the highest ethical point of view, we may say that a man's value is measured in terms of service to his fellow men. Our problem as educators, then, is to fit our pupils so that each one will, on the whole and in the long run, in his own place in society and in his own way, by and through this self-development, render to his fellow men the best service of which he is capable. It must not be overlooked, however, that the services of individuals and of the state are reciprocal. Not merely is the individual bound to use his powers for the good of his fellow men, but society has its organization as a state in order that its individual members may re- ceive their highest development. It is only through the best equipped individuals that we can have the greatest advance in society and the most perfect state ; but it is likewise true, on the other hand, that only in the best equipped and best organized state are we likely to se- cure the influences which will produce individuals of the highest type. The problem of the social side of education must be treated from two points of view — that of society in the broad sense of the word, and that of the state, society organized for purposes of government. SOCIETY. We shall need to consider somewhat in detail the real meaning, the fundamental nature of society, in order to see its relations to our public schools. The conception itself is a very complex one, or perhaps it would be bet- ter to say that the word " society " embodies a number THE SOCIAL BASIS OF EDUCATION. 41 of different conceptions more or less closely allied one to the other. By a society we do not mean merely people together, but people so grouped together that there are certain relations existing between them which are more or less permanent. The various kinds of societies may then be classified in many different ways. For our use in this discussion, they are perhaps most easily grouped by the purposes for which they are organized. The church, for ex- ample, means a group of people united for the gratifi- cation of their religious desires. Not a number of people bowing together in unison would constitute a church, unless this act of bowing together gives mutual religious aid. There must, too, be some form of organ- ization and this organization must contribute toward the satisfaction of religious desire. Generally speak- ing, churches are completely organized with rules of admission, rules for dismissal, obligations of mutual aid which members take upon themselves, confessions of belief by which people of harmonious desires are brought together, and other methods to secure the pur- pose of the organization. The school, is an excellent example of a society with its definite organization and government contributing directly to the purpose of training its pupils. The school system of a city is another society of a wider range for the same purpose, as is also a university or a polytechnic school. There are, of course, debating and literary so- cieties of all kinds in schools and colleges and in the community that have a more or less definite organization which determines the membership, and which aids in 4:2 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. contributing to the purpose of the society itself. In the same way, so-called clubs have their organizations, their officers, their rules for admission and dismissal, all con- tributing toward the common end. In a much more general sense we speak of " society " in the fashionable world, or the community of general social intercourse in any locality where there is, to be sure, a fashion, but where fashion is local and the people are not ordinarily considered " fashionable." Even in this society, altho there is no formal organi- zation, there is an informal organization which is well understood, so much so that certain individuals are regularly spoken of as " leaders " in each society, and their will largely determines what that society shall do. So also, largely as a matter of custom, certain rules of good society \_i. e. practically, laws] come to be quite generally recognized. Persons are admitted into each social group ; and, if a person sins too flagrantly against the generally accepted customs of " society," he, or more likely she, will find herself excluded as effectively as one dismissed from a church organization, although no formal vote will be taken and no formal procedure has been followed. We see, nevertheless, that even in this meaning of the word "society," complex as it is and vague as it is, there exist the elements of organ- ization and purpose — that of common activity or com- mon amusement in ordinary affairs of life. One is a member of this society ordinarily without any will of his own, without any formal action, even being un- conscious often of the fact that there is any organiza- tion; but the reality of such a society and its influence THE SOCIAL BASIS OF EDUCATION. 43 in our political life and in the progress of the world can- not be questioned. ECONOMIC SOCIETY. Somewhat more definite, altho perhaps no less com- plex, and possibly quite as wide in its influence upon civilization, is economic society. By economic society we mean, of course, that grouping of individuals and organizations of all types by which we carry on busi- ness so as to satisfy our desires for goods of all kinds, tangible and intangible. Ordinarily we do not recog- nize how extremely complex is this economic society, and how interrelated in this society are most of the actions of all its individual members. At your breakfast table this morning perhaps you had a cup of coffee. To give you that cup of coffee were required the services of your cook and the grocer ; but the coffee was perhaps grown in Brazil or in far-off Java, and in order that you might have coffee suited to your taste, skilled experts along that line had probably blended different kinds from different quarters of the globe. To bring it to your table had required the complex organi- zation of the railways and the services of sailors on probably more than one steamship line, the planters and their servants, the importing and exporting merchants with the bankers who negotiated the money exchanges, and the law makers of different states that formulated the rules under which all these lines of business have been carried on. And even this omits the other group, or complex of various groups, that must be added to bring you sugar, provided you take sugar in your coffee, 44 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. to say nothing of the farmers and farmers' organizations that probably contribute their share also if cream is added. It is probably no exaggeration whatever to say that, in order to give you one cup of coffee suited to your taste, thousands of people and hundreds of thousands of dollars had to work together in harmony performing this service for you. Generally speaking, also, each one of those employed in this great complexity of services has received his pay in proportion to the value of service that he has rendered, altho, to be sure, there may have been cases of unjust oppression which have prevented due compensation being rendered for some service ; and if you in turn have done your share in paying your bills for your coffee and sugar and cream, you have rendered full compensation in due pro- portion to each one of these thousands that have worked for you. You have worked for each of them. Every- where in our home lives we meet with like examples, illustrating the great complexity of our economic organi- zation and the interrelation which exists and must ex- ist among all individuals if society of anything but the lowest type is to be developed. SOCIAL EESPONSIBILITT. The subject, too, may well be considered from the moral point of view. When John Wesley once saw staggering along the road a drunken vagrant on his way from the ditch to the jail, he exclaimed : " But for the grace of God, there goes John Wesley ! " In these days, in our common terminology, we are more likely to say " environment," or to intimate some special personal THE SOCIAL BASIS OF EDUCATION. 45 influence than to say " grace of God ; " but in either case, we recognize that some power outside of the in- dividual has great influence in molding his character and determining his course in life. If in a fit of drunken rage a father kills his child, who is responsible ? Himself primarily, of course ; he ought to have known better than to get drunk. But, perhaps, was not his father responsible also in part for not having properly trained him in his youth ? Did not possibly his teacher at school fail in his duty to give him proper discipline and higher ideals ? Were not, perchance, his fellow pupils responsible in part for their mistreatment of him for minor faults, or possibly merely for minor personal qualities for which he was in no way to blame, but which drove him out of the uplifting influence of their com- panionship ? Possibly many of the better citizens should, also in part, be held responsible from the fact that they have neglected to make right laws regulating the sale and use of intoxicating liquors. Possibly some of us, in our anxiety to look after our own welfare by securing laws that would help our business, have put into our Legislatures short-sighted men whose time has been devoted to " playing politics " instead of caring for the good of society, and we are all of us more or less responsible. It is hard to escape the conclusion that for almost every crime or every ill of whatever nature under which society suffers, Ave are all of us, we and our ancestors, responsible, each to a greater or less degree in proportion to the conscientiousness and thoughtfulness with which we have tried to discharge our duties toward our fellows. 46 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. It must be kept in mind, too, in any such discussion as this, that probably the only practical criterion of right in each society in the long run, so far as any de- termination of social action is concerned, is public opinion as to what constitutes the welfare of society. That public opinion has probably been greatly shaped through years or centuries of more or less conscious ob- servation of the effects of the various actions that are considered good or bad upon the social group, either as a whole, or as made up of its individuals. In some of the most highly civilized and religious societies of the ancient days, polygamy was recognized as right, and doubtless in certain stages of society the marriage cus- tom of monogamy would have resulted in the extinction of the society. In the primitive days slavery was a good as compared with the end that otherwise would have befallen a captive in war. Some people might go even farther and agree with Aristotle that slavery in the mild form in which it was practiced among the ancient Greeks of his day was a good for society, when the slaves were the " natural " slaves, that is, the people who did not have the intelligence and directing power which would make them capable of such service to the state as they might render when held under the tutelage of their superiors. Society, and the best society, is not merely the end toward which the attention of our children should be directed ; but we must recognize also that our present society must be the determining force in directing what means shall be employed to improve our conditions of life. It thus behooves educational thinkers to place THE SOCIAL BASIS OF EDUCATION. 47 before the public, so as to shape public opinion in the right way, the means by which our higher social ideals may best be carried out through our public schools. THE STATE. Of far greater significance for progress than any other form of society is the political society which we call the state. By the state we mean society organized for purposes of governing, with the understanding that this organized society will employ force upon its individ- ual members, if need be, in order to carry out its wishes. By government we mean the group of men who, acting together, constitute the organ by which the will of the state is formulated into definite rules or laws and carried out in practice. There are many ways in which the state differs from other societies, such as the church, or universities, or literary societies, or even economic society. In the first place, it is supreme in power within its own recog- nized territory. Other societies are subordinate. While they have their rules and enforce them, the authority by which they enforce them must come from the state. Second, its power is inclusive, extending over all persons within the territory, and determining to a very great extent the lives of all. The social status to a con- siderable degree and even the legal rights of the unborn babe are determined by the state. The state makes provisions for the proper care and nurture and training of children until they become able to direct their own affairs. The conditions under which people may make marriage contracts and enter into the marital relations, 48 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. as well as the obligations resting upon husband and wife, are fixed by the state. It also determines the rules and regulations by which men must earn their living in civilized society; it often controls to a considerable extent their food and dwellings, even their clothing, and their amusements; it imposes upon them many duties toward their fellow men, and rigidly prescribes their duties in support of the state itself even to the extent of calling upon them to sacrifice their lives, if need be, in its interest. In many cases it makes special provision for the care and relief from duties of the aged and infirm, while leaving to them as far as pos- sible, the rights and privileges accorded to all persons of normal intellect. Even the conditions of death are largely controlled by the state. Questions of sanitation, questions of the treatment of epidemics, the regulation of modes of burial or cremation are rigidly controlled, so that it is scarcely too much to say that no person liv- ing within the state is ever free from its domination, or ever lacks its protecting care. In what ways the state shall exercise this control, in what ways it shall administer this care, how great its activity shall be, or how small, is a matter which only the state itself can determine. The individual members of the state, as such, have no power of direction. The judgment of the community organized for government, the state, is the one controlling power. THE STATE REFLECTS THE CITIZENS. But while we speak of the state in these general terms, it is not an abstraction. The state is made up of the THE SOCIAL BASIS OF EDUCATION. 49 persons in the community, — the weak and the strong, the indolent and the active. We ourselves compose the state; and in our organized capacity, acting together, we select our own agents of government and determine under whatever form our government may take, what they shall do. The state also, far from being a mere abstract entity without feeling, is distinctly human in its activity, and in many cases is subject even to the whims and passions of individual humanity ; for the government, altho the agent of the combined wills of the individual mem- bers of the state, is nevertheless itself composed of a few men who act, naturally, subject to a considerable extent to their own passions and weaknesses, inasmuch as they are given usually a large amount of discretion. The state, in consequence, if under a despotic form of gov- ernment, may be great, powerful, decisive in its actions, if its ruling monarch is a man of will and decision ; or it may be timid and vacillating, if its monarch is a weakling. Even in a republic where the rulers are di- rectly chosen by the people and where the government is made up of numerous individuals, it frequently happens that a man in an important position is of so positive a nature that the state at once assumes a new attitude to- ward all important que'^tions; or, again, the counsels of a number of weak officials may be so halting and vacillating that the state itself takes on that tone. What we as individuals think of the state as a rule depends upon our own circumstances in the state and upon how we feel that we are treated by the officials. If we are poor, unfortunate, and lacking in self-reliance, 4 50 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. particularly if we feel that the under officials with whom we perhaps may come most often in contact, and who therefore represent for us the state, are arbitrary and cruel, we shall look upon the state with aversion and fear. If, on the other hand, those officials with whom our relations are most intimate are wise and temperate, and if we feel that the state thru its schools or post- office or other dej^artment nearest our activities is aiding us in every way possible, we shall look upon the state as a beneficent institution to which we owe our all. So, also, the activities of the state, in the long run, and the effects which it produces upon the population are really determined by what we ourselves as citizens, acting in our corporate capacity, desire. We may make the state control many activities, or we may limit its powers most rigidly. We may give to ourselves rulers wise and benevolent, provided we ourselves have the wisdom to select such rulers, or we may permit the state to drift into the hands of the active corrupt who will control us and our means for their own selfish interests and against the welfare of the public. It is of vital importance that we ourselves realize ex- actly what our relations to the state are, and that we see to it that the pupils in our schools realize the nature of society and of the state (that organization of society which positively directs and controls the actions of so- ciety in governmental matters), provided we wish to have our schools train not merely self-centered indi- viduals, but citizens whose action will be wise, practical, unselfish, and directed toward the common good. In our school organization, and in our teaching, there- THE SOCIAL BASIS OF EDUCATION. 51 fore, we must keep continually in mind the interrela- tions of different individuals each to the other. We must impress upon our pupils the thought that the test of value for the individual is the service which he can render to his fellow men.-<>4We must see that direct action in society is largely dependent upon the state and com- pulsory force, and that as educators we are to fit our pupils for service to the public by making them individ- uals of the highest type, and by showing them how they can use their power of control thro the state in the wisest and most beneficent way. INDIVIDUAL TRAITS AFFECTING SOCIETY. Before taking up specifically the subjects of the school curriculum with reference to their service in producing the best results in the direction of social betterment, it is important to consider briefly one or two of the most striking mental traits usually found among our citizens which are, on the whole, antisocial in their nature, in order that we may see best the diflSculties to overcome. It will not be possible, of course, to analyze all such traits; we must rather call attention to only two or three of the more important ones. I am rather inclined to the opinion that the two most important mental and moral characteristics which are responsible for our social evils are laziness (perhaps one should rather say mental and moral inertia), and selfish- ness. MENTAL AND MORAL INERTIA. Practically all progress in society comes from the fact that a certain individual has been able to overcome 52 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. his mental inertia, and instead of drifting with the multitude or moving in the lines of least resistance among the customs and habits of his ancestors and neighbors, has thought out some new and better mode of action, and has pushed forward in that way. Unless we stop to consider carefully our habits of life, we do not realize how absolutely in most cases we are domi- nated by custom. The fashions of the clothes we wear;, the nature of the food that we eat, the ways in which we entertain others and are ourselves entertained, the ways in which our work is done, what we shall think on questions of politics, or, in other words, the choice of the political parties to which we belong, what we shall think on religious matters, or the churches which we shall join — everything, practically, for nine out of ten of us is determined by the way in which our parents have thought and lived, by the way in which our associates live and act. Careful students of politics are of the opinion that only a very small number, probably not ten per cent, of the voters in any election, think out, — or even think of trying to think out — the issues of the day and vote conscientiously upon them. It is so much easier to let their thinking be done by those who are framing the party platforms and giving the names to the parties' creeds. It is easy to be a Methodist if your parents and friends are Methodists; it is easy to be a Roman Catholic if, as a child, you have been brought up in that church ; but it is hard, very hard, to think thru the question of one's religious and moral obligations and to make up one's mind independently, especially if such action would be likely to bring one into conflict with his relatives and friends. THE SOCIAL BASIS OF EDUCATION. 53 Likewise in the industrial world. As has been often suggested, a large part of the suffering in the community comes simply from the maladjustment of economic re- lations. New inventions bring about new processes of manufacture and throw out of employment large num- bers of men who, on account of their mental inerta and their lack of suitable knowledge, find it difficult, often impossible, to change into a new field of work. It is probably no exaggeration to say that boss rule in politics, the power of the fanatic in religion, the control at times of great organizations of laboring men by a hot-headed leader, as well as the failure of our courts to adapt their decisions to meet new conditions and the slowness with which our legislators remove old abuses are all due to this mental and moral inertia which makes it easier, on the one hand, to follow a positive leader upon whom we have been accustomed to rely than to oppose him or to think out new ways of action for ourselves, and, on the other hand, to drift along in our old ways of thinking and doing rather than to work out new rules for action which new conditions may demand. Besides being thus a negative force, if the expression be permitted, that may be used by unscrupulous leaders of positive character to the detriment of society, it will be seen also, nevertheless, that this mental inertia (and it is not too much to say that it is moral inertia also) in many cases is a conservative element in society which often prevents action that, considering the ignorance and prejudice of the multitude, would be too hasty, and in consequence, unwise. If our population had a higher level of intelligence and greater willingness to meet 54 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. new conditions bj changes in habits and more ready adaptability in all the relations of life, social reforms could be produced much more readily and with much Jess danger of failure. Perhaps our schools can render no greater service than to give to our children, as far as possible, habits of thinking for themselves independ- ently, of working out new plans which still shall be reasonable, and the willingness to change from one habit to another when the advisability of such change seems clear. In too many cases now people are unwilling to consider even the advisability of a change. Our legis- lators are always anxious to take only very short steps in advance, because they say the people will not stand for anything radical and they must have the people's support and co-operation if a law is to succeed. It must also not be forgotten that one reason why so little has been done to encourage independent habits and personal initiative in our schools is because our teachers and school officials have themselves been dominated by custom until they have become old-fogyish and unpro- gressive. They, as well as others, need to realize that it takes public spirit, care for the welfare of others, as well as private good sense, to secure the energy to move in a new direction. And above all there is needed the impartial judgment which will enable one to see whether the change proposed is wise or foolish. SELFISHNESS A SOCIAL EVIL. The second great social evil referred to, selfishness, has the effect of building up in the community classes hostile each to the other, and of limiting very greatly THE SOCIAL BASIS OF EDUCATION. 55 one's own usefulness. This dominating trait is, of course, the fundamental force back of all vices and crimes of self-indulgence- — greed, vanity, envy and pas- sion of all kinds. In all these the sinner seeks to gratify personal desires, even at the expense of others and of the public. Licentiousness, theft, forgery, political corrup- tion, fighting, arson, murder — all spring from this com- mon source. The only remedy — except personal affec- tion or religion — if a person is strongly inclined toward wrong in this way, is a self-control brought about by a clear-headed perception of the ultimate effects of such indulgence. It is easy to point out in our schools that the really great are those that, conquering their own selfish inclina- tions, render the great services to society. In the study of the lives of great men, in the consideration of public questions and of the forces lying back of great historical movements that have uplifted humanity we see that service to others is a power that pays the doer of the service. In this way we may eventually teach our chil- dren to see themselves somewhat with others' eyes, objectively, impartially, as others see them, and to real- ize that in the long run and in the higher sense, our real interests are at one with those of society. Selfish- ness is usually a very short-sighted self-interest ; altru- ism, a wise, far-seeing self-interest. There was never a truer piece of social philosophy than " He that find- eth his life shall lose it, and he that loseth his life for My sake shall find it." The teacher who devotes him- self most unselfishly to the welfare of his pupils and bis school is the one who makes the greatest success 56 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. of his work and wins for himself in the long run the highest standing. It is, of course, often true that, if the question is considered from the purely money point of view, the selfish man, even the criminal one may succeed; but from the broader social point of view, if one is really ambitious to gain the highest success, the truest self-interest is found in the widest and most use- ful service. Our pupils should be made to realize that their interests are really at one with those of society. Except that it changes the point of view and the method of thought, this doctrine in no way differs from that which, with emphasis still upon moral train- ing, urges teachers to develop to the fullest extent the individuality of their pupils. In the one case the pupil is taught to think from himself and his own capacities out ; in the other case, he thinks of the welfare of society without reference to himself. THE CURRICULUM AND METHODS OF TEACHING. We have next to note how the social point of view in the discussion of educational questions will affect the choice of our curriculum and our methods of teaching. We wish to arouse in our pupils social consciousness, the feeling that they are a part of one great whole, and that they have the responsibility resting upon them to play well their role in this great life drama. What sub- jects in our common school curriculum will best serve these purposes, and how can they best be taught in order to attain these ends? It is probable that the social point of view as here presented and the individual- istic point of view, which lays emphasis upon the de- THE SOCIAL BASIS OF EDUCATION. 57 velopment of the individual pupil, will not reach results materially different as regards subject matter. The main differences will be in methods of work and in the degrees of emphasis laid upon different studies. CLASSIFICATION OF STUDIES AND THEIR SIGNIFICANCE. In our school curriculum certain subjects are to be looked upon as tools placed in the pupil's hands to en- able him to do any kind of work effectively; whereas others are especially well adapted to arouse social con- sciousness and direct attention toward public service. Pupils must learn to read and write, whatever the end may be toward which they bend their energies. Cer- tainly some knowledge of mathematics is required in almost every walk in life, and language or languages and mathematics and logic are to be looked upon primar- ily as tools necessary to any activity. But even in these studies something can be done in the way of choice of subject and method of treatment, to emphasize the social point of view. Many of the illustrative examples in our arithmetics, for example, have little or no bear- ing upon our everyday life. What use do most of us make of the apothecary's table or of the binomial theorem, or of the extraction of the cube root, or of the problems of the differential calculus ? And yet in a study of history the pupil will get a much more vivid notion of the social conditions of the American colonies and will be much more likely to have his patriotic spirit aroused by the tales of the sacrifices of our forefathers, if he compares mathematically the numbers of the Revolutionary population and of the soldiers with the 58 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. peoples and armies of to-day in some of the late great world struggles; if he calculates with some degree of accuracy the cost of supplying an army's needs in the days of Washington with the costs to-day ; if he figures out the distances required for the transportation of supplies with the time required for covering the needed distances; if he compares accurately the efficiency of the fire-arms used as regards range and accuracy then and now. Similar uses of mathematics in industrial life will prove no less significant. Dr. Charles McMurry, in one of his classes in geography, lately secured a vivid realization of the significance of the great water power at ISTiagara Falls by having the class visit a local mill whose machinery was driven by an engine of, say, fifty- horse power, having the students note the amount of work done, the number of people employed with the number of persons dependent upon them, the amount paid out in wages and similar matters, and then having them by means of a careful mathematical comparison estimate how many establishments, how many workmen, how much in wages, and so on, would be required in order to utilize in a similar manner the hundred thou- sand horse power developed in the works at Niagara ? We may readily see how each teacher could, in similar ways, in classes in history and geography and literature, make exercises in mathematics contribute to a much more vivid realization of the social significance of events and phenomena than they now do, and how much of the drudgery of the subject might thus be taken away, while all the benefits required for our social life might THE SOCIAL BASIS OF EDUCATION. 59 be far better secured. I do not wish to ignore, of course, the further advantages of accuracy and promptness, that come from the study of mathematics, nor the ad- vantages in the vs^ay of mental drill from the care- ful reasoning required in geometry, nor the special benefits secured by such a study in the way of requir- ing students to state things logically and accurately, and of giving them a clear conception of the nature of proof — all these things are of great social importance ; but a careful adaptation of the subject to others in the curri- culum and its shaping to a social use, will give it also a much richer content. In the study of hygiene and physical training the pupil, by thoughtful suggestion and study of illustrative cases, may be made to realize that a long and healthy life has a significance to society as well as to the com- fort of the individual concerned. Perhaps most of us fail to realize that the chief period of productive activ- ity for society is found after one has advanced well along into the adult years, and that it is usually the case, provided a person's health remains unbroken and his mental powers stay tuned up to their full activity, that the best ten years of any man's life, from the point of view of service to society, are his last ten years. And this should always be the case. Note the lives of Lin- coln, Washington, Gladstone, Caesar ; study more closely those of the most influential men in the community, and see how rapidly influence gains with the passing years, provided only that health and activity remain. Had Gladstone died at fifty, Lincoln ten years earlier than he did, how great would have been the difference ! 60 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. With this thought in mind the care of one's health and a knowledge of the principles of hygiene acquire a new significance. This thought, too, may well lead our children to remain longer in school and college. If their last ten years are to be much more serviceable than, say, those from twenty to thirty, or thirty to forty, it will be because they have especially fitted themselves for service. It is well to recall the fact that Aristotle — possibly the greatest thinker and greatest scientist of all time — went to college (in Plato's Academy) for twenty years ; that he did not begin writing till he had studied nearly ten years ; that he hardly worked independently till past forty, and that his most important productive work was done after he was past fifty. The very beneficial results that have been obtained in late years from the social point of view in the control of epidemics, the fact that in military campaigns the losses from disease are usually much greater than those from bullet wounds, all show how important is the study and how great its social significance. In speaking of mathematics, an intimation has been given of the social side of history. The subject, of course, is valuable from the point of view of mere infor- mation which it would be pleasant for the individual to have in his social intercourse. A good knowledge of historical facts enables one to understand many allusions in a way that may be useful. Primarily, however, his- tory should be studied with reference to social causes and results, in order that from the experience of the past we may learn to form social judgments to serve us in the present. The powerful influence of trustworthiness THE SOCIAL BASIS OF EDUCATION. 61 in character and soundness of judgment is seen clearly in the success of Washington. Brilliancy of intellect would not have made his greatness. The Boston Tea- party was in itself a small incident. A careful study of the motives of the men engaged in it and of their personality is full of suggestion for a student of politics or even a political leader of to-day. The give and take of the debating factions in the Constitutional Con- vention of 1787 with the influences back of the leaders from the various states are reflected to-day in every Congress and ITational Convention. Owing to the un- certain nature of the premises in any social question where our reasoning must depend to a considerable ex- tent upon our knowledge of human motives — motives which are, of course, as variable and changing as are different people and different nations — we need much experience in studying such premises and in making social judgments. The study of history gives many op- portunities for gaining such experience. Of vital importance also is the judicial temperament, which endeavors to see both sides of every controverted question. This habit of impartiality is in part a matter of natural disposition, still more perhaps a matter of training. In possibly no other study of the school curri- culum is there a better opportunity of compelling stu- dents to see that there may be reason on both sides of a question and that it is never safe to impute bad motives. Children in our country will naturally be opposed to slavery; but they should consider why Washington and others of our Revolutionary heroes were slaveholders. It is, of course, natural and right for them to feel that 62 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. our forefathers were oppressed and that the American Revolution was justifiable ; but they should be led to see that the English statesmen in attempting to conquer the colonies were likewise conscientious, and to see the rea- sons which led to their actions. So also, in the case of the Southern Confederacy, they should realize how natural was the contention of the southerners, how al- most unavoidable their line of argument from their economic conditions and their social training ; and at the same time they should see how clearly the events have shown the probable benefit of the war, even to the south- erners themselves. From a careful teaching of history the habit of forming impartial social judgments should be cultivated, and in this way perhaps the pupils can be led to feel their social responsibility as well as in any ^ other way. The study of geography may be a tool, of course, for the use of the individual in enabling him to plan his railway journeys, to find the locations of markets, and so on. From the physiographical point of view, too, it may have interest and gratify curiosity ; but if the earth's surface is studied with continual reference to its adaptability to meet man's needs, the study becomes not merely a tool or a developer of mental habits, but it is of prime significance in tracing social and economic rucauses and results. Perhaps no study has a more di- \ rect effect in arousing social consciousness and in en- abling the pupils to see and feel the interdependence of the peoples of one clime upon those of another and the necessary interrelations of the different nations of the world. THE SOCIAL BASIS OF EDUCATION. 63 I have already spoken of the number of people who serve us in bringing our morning cup of coffee ; but the study of any industrial process or social activity, as exemplified in good geography teaching or in carefully planned manual training, has always a logical drift in the same direction. The study of the various pro- cesses by which from mine and forest the raw materials become a desk; the analysis of the use of the water power at Niagara Falls to drive street railways and fac- tories and canal boats ; the reasons why the relative localities of Port Arthur, Vladivostock, and the Straits which give entrance to the Sea of Japan both gave rise to and ended the Russo-Japanese War — all tell the same story, that no man and no nation can live alone. Literature in the same way is a useful tool for the" individual in enabling him to secure social pleasure and profit for himself and others. Perhaps no other study of the school curriculum may be used more effectively to increase the powers of enjoyment of the individual by giving him literary taste and the means of gratify- ing it; but of still greater significance is the fact that from literature we may learn perhaps better than from any other study how best to understand human mo- tives and the way in which they work in society, what is the nature of our social duties and how best to per- form them in order to accomplish the best results. For literature is a picture in some form of society itself; and in many cases this picture is more vivid and more accurate as an analysis of society than the accounts which we can get from history, as history must be pre- pared for use in our common schools. 64 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. One might in this way go through all of the studies of the school curriculum, showing how each has its use as a tool and how it can be made to contribute, through its economic and aesthetic qualities, to the study of so- ciety; and how every subject has these two sides, so that it lies within the power of the teacher to make it con- tribute toward the purpose which we have kept in view. The same results can in many cases be secured by special exercises. In some of our best schools the chil- dren have been formed into street cleaning brigades whose work in picking up papers scattered about the streets and in doing similar tasks has led them to ap- preciate the nature of the problems of a great city ; also from time to time in some instances cases of suffering in the community have been called to their attention, and they have been led to learn wise methods of char- itable relief for the unfortunate. The school organiza- tion has been used as a means of teaching local govern- ment. The study of the support of the school has served to begin the study of taxation, its methods, its defects, its benefits. In the higher schools, of course, the studies of civil government and political economy may be especially used for these purposes, provided they are skilfully taught. Much more than is often thought, the study of the business life about us, whether in connection with manual training or geography or history or literature, or whether made a special exercise, is one of the best fields for moral training and the inculcation of high THE SOCIAL BASIS OF EDUCATION. 65 ideals of life. The ablest and most successful mer- chant in one of the best of the small cities of 'New York lately told a friend of mine how well it paid to practice honest and open dealing. " A reputation for fair buy- ing and selling is worth more to the business man than a stock of goods. The merchant who by sharp practice gets the name of trickster cannot have lasting success," he said; and his own life habit in business, with his success, proved him sincere and sound in judgment. It is well for people to see that honesty pays, even if that motive is not the highest. An excellent brand of any goods always sustained in quality brings properly a higher price than goods equally valuable intrinsically, but not known. Certainty in quality is worth paying for. This effort to sustain quality, too, gives the work- man a pride in his work ; and care and determination for excellence, the best possible, make the workman an artist. The difference between the stone-cutter and the sculptor is that the latter has his ideal figure to hew out ; the former cuts patterns. The ditch-digger whose work is absolutely accurate and fitted to its purpose, and who can plan his ditch to fit its purpose is an engineer. No better moral lesson can be given children than to let them study the work of the men in any trade whose ideal of excellence gives them a pride in their work, however humble it may be, which lifts that work from drudgery to art. This counts in the elevation of society. ADAPTATION OF CURRICULUM TO NEEDS. Something has been said of the educational value of the different studies, but the question of the most useful 6 66 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. social studies is in many cases one of an elective versus a fixed curriculum. Often now we drive our pupils out of our schools at an early age because we are not ready so to adapt our curriculum to local needs that the parents and pupils will feel that they are getting direct practical benefit from their studies. I have little question that in the not far distant future we shall go much further than we do now to find out what local needs are, and then we shall adapt our studies both as regards subject matter and methods of teaching so as to meet those local needs. This will, of course, involve not merely a greater flex- ibility in our curriculum in the lower schools, but it will involve also the establishment of more commercial and industrial high schools side by side with the schools especially adapted for instruction in languages, litera- ture and sciences. The needs of each pupil will be provided for in the way best fitted for his social duties in any station however low or however high which he may find it best to fill. It is worth careful notice also that, if the studies of the school curriculum are cor- related about this central purpose, each study will so aid in teaching the others that much time will be saved for more detailed work on the themes of most impor- tance. Beyond any question also the same principle of social benefit will be used in order to select our pupils in such a way as to produce the best social results. We hear very much regarding a general education for all our citizens, especially in a republic. One of the most ex- cellent characteristics of our American government has THE SOCIAL BASIS OF EDUCATION, 6Y been our readiness to devote money and time to the schooling of our future citizens. There can be no doubt, too, that in practically all cases where children are of sound mind, it is wise to give to them the rudiments of an education and thus to put into their hands the tools of language and elementary mathematics and some knowledge of the sciences. But shall we go further in this same direction without considering the special ap- titudes of individual students? Is it not best to let each student under careful advice see where he can probably be ultimately of best use to society, and then fit his education to his needs ? Society needs preach- ers, lawyers, teachers, managers of great business estab- lishments, etc. ; but society needs also horseshoers, mule drivers, ditch diggers, common sailors ; and very many people are by nature and by circumstances outside of the schools fitted rather for some of the latter occupa- tions than for the former. It is much better for society, as well as for the individual, that a man who has the gifts for that calling should be a good mule driver or an expert sailor before the mast rather than a poor doctor ; and there is no reason why the common factory hand with a taste for mechanics should not be so trained in our public schools that he may not merely do his work in the shop much better than he does it now, but may also perhaps be given a spirit of individual initiative which will lead him to improve the mechanical pro- cesses of his work as well as the general intellectual and social stimulus which- will encourage him to take a far more intelligent part in local government than most such men do now, and to become a much more useful citizen. 68 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. I recall that some years ago I heard William H. Bald- win, Jr., in a most inspiring talk to college students, advise them : " See what you want to do for your own enjoyment in life; see where you can be of most use to society; then take up that line of work and develop yourself best in that direction." We shall guide our pupils ultimately to fit themselves for the greatest usefulness, and we shall make our curriculum so flexible that it can be adapted to individual needs. Besides that, the teaching of citizenship must permeate all the courses in all subjects. The only thing of real conse- quence in any study is the human relationships in that study. Are we studying geography, botany, history, literature ? What is a valley good for ? For the satis- faction of human needs, nothing else. Why has the violet perfume ? For what are the stars shining ? We do not know what purpose Divine Providence may have with reference to them ; but by the standard of our needs and those of society, the significance of violet and moun- tain and stars, and poet's song and the tale of heroes' deeds is their benefit to humanity, their joy -giving and uplifting power. SELECTION OF TEACHEES. This same point of view also in our school training will encourage us so to select our teachers as to produce the desired result. We shall have the teachers who will best fit pupils for their work in society. Primarily, our teachers need to be chosen on account of the force of their personality. It matters little how much teachers know unless their personality is such THE SOCIAL BASIS OF EDUCATION. 69 that their pupils have respect for their judgment and are glad to carry out their wishes. And, again, if the teacher has the personality which gives him influence with his pupils, he will be able to make very much better use of the knowledge which he possesses, and to acquire more knowledge as his work progresses. Even the strongest teacher, however, if he is to do work along the lines just considered, must be familiar enough with business and with the social life of the com- munity in which he is teaching so that he, and others, will know that his work takes hold on life as it is. It is his purpose to connect his teaching with the daily life of his pupils and of the community. He must, therefore, show good sense and good judgment in con- nection with the business affairs of the community and with the social movements, of whatever nature, in which his pupils and their parents are interested. In many of our rural communities, the blacksmith is the center of the industrial life. It is he who repairs the machines of the farmer, and the tools of the car- penter, who shoes the horses of the producers of all kinds and, in various ways, makes life more comfortable and business more profitable. How can a teacher who has never been inside a blacksmith shop and who knows nothing of the work done there meet many of her pupils on common ground, until she sees enough of this work to know it as an important factor in the business life of the community? It is perhaps an unfortunate fact, but it is a fact, that to a considerable extent the comfort and harmony of a community is dependent upon the punctuality and 70 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. faithfulness of a dressmaker or of a tailor. The signi- ficance of the work of these artisans (or possibly artists) is perhaps appreciated enough by most people; but the conditions under which they work, the difficulties which confront them, are known only to those who have taken some pains to investigate carefully. Some teachers who have grown up in communities similar to those in which they are teaching have ac- quired through their own experience much of this knowl- edge of industrial processes; but probably, in a great majority of cases, the teachers would decidedly strengthen their hold upon their pupils by looking some- what carefully into the business life of the community in which they teach. This common lack of business knowledge is empha- sized very strongly by the growing demand for a larger proportion of men as teachers in our schools. Speak- ing generally, it has been my experience that women are more faithful and better teachers than men; but I have no doubt that the proportion of women among our teachers is too large for the best interest of the schools, largely because they are, relatively speaking, deficient in certain important kinds of industrial ex- perience. In order to come most closely into touch with life, our children need contact with the business world as well as with the home. Beyond doubt they need the instruction and influence of women fully as much, probably more, than they need the influence of men; but they need both. In most communities the sexes are substantially equal in number; it is probably not far from the truth to say that they are equal in in- THE SOCIAL BASIS OF EDUCATION. 71 fluence. Let their personal influence in the schools, then, be made substantially equal, in order that the training of the schools may conform more closely to the needs of social life. In the second place, in the selection of our teachers we should require ability to teach, skill in presenting the subject matter of instruction, so as to accomplish best the desired results. Some few teachers, thru their temperament, their sympathy with their pupils, and their habit of influencing those about them, seem^ to acquire almost instinctively the best methods of giving to their pupils knowledge and of leading them also to acquire good habits of thought and action. In the great majority of cases, however, skill in teaching must be a matter of careful and somewhat extensive training. The teachers must possess not merely knowl- edge of the special subjects they are to teach in the schools — arithmetic, geography, history, and the rest — but they must also see each of these subjects in its due relations to others and to the practical life of the com- munity for the service of which their pupils are being prepared. To give this special knowledge is one of the chief tasks imposed upon the normal schools and other institutions for the training of teachers. In addition, they must learn the best ways of controlling and direct- ing the thoughts and activities of the pupils in their charge, so as to enable them most readily and most thor- oughly to master the subjects presented and also to make those subjects of practical assistance in perform- ing the duties of life. In the lower grades of our public schools the proper 72 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. co-ordination of the subjects taught and their connec- tions with social life are largely a matter of the em- phasis to be placed upon the different topics in each study, and this requires a most careful planning of the work from week to week, as well as the skill to adapt it to the needs of the community and to individual pupils. In the case of higher institutions, beginning with the high school this correlation is brought about largely by the selection of studies, and in the college and university .by the use of a properly regulated elective system. Each student, as he approaches the time when he is to take up independently his life work, brings himself thru his special studies into immediate contact with that work, and this fact the teacher needs to keep always in view. The methods of fitting pupils for social service differ naturally in schools of different grades and in different communities. The aim of the schools of all grades, however, is substantially the same. If this aim is kept prominently in mind it will be seen that not merely is the state justified in supporting schools, but that it has imposed upon it the duty of providing institutions of all classes and grades which can fit students of all tastes and degrees of advancement for the best service to its citizens. If a teacher is himself imbued with this social con- sciousness then there can be no question that the study of history, the study of literature, the study of any and of all the subjects of the schools will be taught from this standard. Whenever we are speaking of a valley in geography, we shall ask what is the special THE SOCIAL BASIS OF EDUCATION. 73 significance of that valley ? Is it that the soil in that valley is productive, that more people can live there, that human needs can be better satisfied from the soil in the valleys than from that in the mountains ? And why has the mountain value ? Because the beauty of a mountain with the sunlight on its snow-crowned top and the mines with their treasures in its heart is something that will gratify human needs; — and the valley, the mountain and the sunlight have no value, no benefit for our purposes as teachers, except as they are related to the satisfaction of some human need. If our teachers will but keep always in mind the thought of social hap- piness and welfare and the needs of humanity, there will after all be very little trouble about finding means and methods by which we can teach good citizenship in the public schools. III. THE MAKING OF CITIZENS.* " The true test of civilization is, not the census, nor the size of cities, nor the crops, — no, but the kind of man the country turns out." — Emerson. There is, perhaps, no other subject that is of more constant, universal interest to men than politics; none that is more perennially fresh and interesting. And yet, singular as it may seem, there is probably no class of duties resting upon our citizens that is on the whole so thoughtlessly performed. People commonly assume that they know everything on that subject. They talk upon it, not to learn, but with the hope, vain hope, of convincing others; or, if they are of the same political party, of indulging in scornful remarks concerning their opponents. Even in the great educational campaigns, the political speakers who are to instruct the people, ap- peal rather to prejudice than to reason. It makes and holds votes better, and it is votes they are after. But these facts (and no thoughtful person will deny that they are facts) show that there is need in the intervals be- tween campaigns of coolly considering some of the fun- damental principles of government — this for ourselves ; and the threatening aspect of socialistic, or rather of * Address given in 1889, heretofore not published. 75 % CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. anarchistic movements, on the one hand, with the equally threatening aspect, in certain senses, of party strife on the other, make it imperative that our children also be carefully trained in a knowledge of the princi- ples of citizenship. It is evident that, in the discussion of such a subject as the one before us, in so far as it concerns our public schools at least, the question should not be limited to the training of voters, but should include men, women, children — all who owe allegiance to their country and who claim protection from the State. It would surely seem unnatural, when speaking with reference to our public schools, a large majority of whose pupils are girls, to leave them out; it is equally clear that they, no less than the boys, have a deep and abiding interest in the subject. If good society is the foundation of all good government — and no one questions this — woman surely has her full share in it, and she should receive special training as much as men. It might even be urged successfully that it is still more necessary for wo- men to receive this training ; for all grant that woman's influence in society is the greater. She is the queen in this realm, at least. Indeed, the strongest argument that I remember to have heard urged against woman suffrage is that thereby a woman would have but one vote, whereas now, through her influence, she often has several. I^ow men feel it their duty to care for the rights of women, to defend them ; then they would be expected to defend themselves. But granting that the need is the same in both sexes, training for citizenship means training to be patriots, lovers of our country. We THE MAKING OF CITIZENS. 77 strive to stir this feeling in our school children by pro- viding flags for display on the anniversaries of import- ant events, by celebrating in appropriate ways im- portant days in history and in the lives of our nation's heroes ; and these provisions, if properly carried out, are excellent so far as they go: but after all, this spirit of pride in our country and love for its institutions is largely instinctive. This alone, especially for American children, is of lesser consequence. We need more than this. Patriotism means real, genuine devotion to our country's good. It may be well to feel that our country is the greatest in the world, that it soon will be the most populous, that it is the home of free and liberal institu- tions ; but if we stop here, we have done nothing, or al- most nothing, to prevent the decay and ruin of these in- stitutions. True patriots wish their country to be per- manent, wish that coming centuries may look back on a prosperous, continuous history; but neither wide reaches of territory, millions of population, nor a re- publican form of government, can make a nation per- manent, and its name illustrious. Nor, again, is mere permanency of governmental form the highest end to be attained. Men's lives are measured by deeds, not years. H'amilton, Lincoln, Keats, ISTapoleon, were, in years, not long-lived. How shall we judge a nation's life ? If we look back into the gray dawn of history, and seek for the nations whose in- fluence has been permanent, we do not look to China. Every man's thought turns promptly to the beautiful city by the Aegean, where an old bare-footed man walked the street and stopped the idle talkers to inquire, " What 78 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. is justice ? "Wtat is beauty ? What is truth ? " We think of the groves of the Academy where Plato taught. We see virtuous wisdom personified in the Pallas Athene of Phidias, standing with outstretched hand be- fore the world's most wonderful temple, declaring to her own, and to all succeeding ages, that Wisdom and Virtue must be crowned heads of the State. \ China made a constitution and a religion that with unchanging form have outlasted centuries ; Greece made men whose thoughts will kindle the intellect, touch the sensibili- ties, and ennoble the souls of generations yet unborn, so long as goodness, beauty, and truth live here on earth. Which nation had the higher destiny ? Toward which should we strive ? True love of country means then, not mere pride in country, but determination to lift our country to its noblest height ; and this need of elevating our present institutions makes still clearer the need of training for citizenship ; for the growth of states, must be through a bettering citizenship, and such an improvement, though it may be steady, is but slow. Patriotic lovers of the race have alternated between hope and despair since civilization beg.an. When Greece appeared in history, and under Pericles seemed almost to reach the ideal of refinement and beauty, it seemed that the dawn had come ; but the world soon sank again into barbarism. When, early in the fourth century, Constantine, after his conversion, removed from the early Christians the danger of persecution, and made Christianity no longer a crime and a disgrace but an honor, men thought that Christ was soon to bring the whole world to his blessed peace; but the Dark Ages THE MAKING OF CITIZENS. 79 followed. In the time of the Reformation, too, church and state were soon to be purified ; but the cruelty of the Thirty Years War, the oppression of Protestants, proved that hope was still to look forward for ages before the wished for transformation. And later, Rousseau's thought of the " natural man " from which grew the doctrine of liberty, equality, fraternity, the thought that the common man was King, and that the people should rule, which kindled the Erench Revolution, seemed to some to have solved the problem of political excellence ; and from that day to this many have believed that the rule of the people means prosperity and happi- ness. But now, in our day, the tide again is rolling back; the pessimists are mourning over the ignorance, the corruption, the vices of the people, and while some long for anarchy, others, and those the majority, wish for the strong hand of the law, if not justice, to quell the danger of anarchy. Nevertheless, hope is the proper state of mind; the progress throughout the ages has been marked, and the progress will continue. But our progress must be slow; there is no royal road to the highest civilization, to the best state. This must come through the careful, patient training of the individual. In training for citizenship, then, our first, and if this is well learned it need be our only lesson, is the teaching of proper ideals. The ideals of our people must be changed, if our State is to realize its highest destiny. "What are our ideals now ? Look at the men about us. Let us look at ourselves. What do we con- sider success ? So long as there is no flagrant immor- ality, do we not measure men's success in the main by 80 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. their wealth ? Is not our constant aim ^^ getting on in the world ? " The advantages of wealth are, of course, not to be underestimated. Wealth is a necessary pre- liminary to many of the highest advantages of culture. But what proportion of our money-makers have a clearly defined end beyond the money getting! Even teachers and preachers estimate the excellence of their positions by their salaries. Salaries are good, are a necessary ac- companiment; but this should not be the sole test. In every country we need producers of wealth, but we must have scholars, thinkers, philosophers, as well. Socrates, the most nearly ideal man of antiquity, was poor. He walked the streets of Athens bare-headed and clothed in plain garments. Socrates never " got on in the world," but he lives to-day more triily than any other man of his age. So, too, even Christ's life from this standpoint seemed a failure. He did not make money ; he never " got on ; " but to-day his power is increasing in the world as never before. The ideals of Athens were well set forth by Pericles in his oration in the Iveramicus over the dead who had fallen at Marathon: " We aim at a life beautiful without extravagance, con- templative without unmanliness. Wealth is in our eyes a thing not for ostentation but for reasonable use ; and it is not the acknowledgment of poverty that we think disgraceful, but the want of endeavor to avoid it." Some American orator might set up this ideal ; none would be bold enough to claim, as did Pericles for his people, that we have attained it. If we are to have our ideal state, the principles of Socrates and of Christ must be taught and must be lived. It must be taught, not THE MAKING OF CITIZENS. 81 as a mere sentiment, but as a practical fact, that he that loseth his life for high and worthy ends shall surely find it ; (that no investment is so sure as an in- vestment in brains, in character. / We can have no state that will live; no state that will really benefit ages to come, until we have one that will make men. I do not mean to imply that our country has not made any good men and great men ; but it is surely true that the tendency is strongly against their production, and that the great mass of our citizens to-day have not their eyes turned toward the highest. Our first lesson, then, needs to be given not merely to our children, but to our- selves as well. As the mainspring of action is senti- ment, feeling, we must in every way kindle in minds about us and in our own minds the ideals of excellence for individuals and for the State that will help us lift ourselves and society with us into the clearer light of culture, refinement and truth. When this is done the training for citizenship is complete. When any fair proportion of our citizens have the higher ideals of the State, and of its function as the promoter of the noble and the true, fixed in their hearts, the knowledge of means will come. But it may still be well to consider somewhat specifi- cally how these ideals can be made practical, how these things can be taught. The love of the practical in our American character is not a sign of degeneracy ; but we need first to consider what it is that we think practical. Are the ideal and the practical at odds ? Many of our so-called practical men sneer at mere sentiment, mere ideals, and very properly; but they 6 82 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. mistake when they assume, as they often do, that the love of the ideal, of the perfect, is not practical, or that scientists and thinkers, even artists, are not practical men, and that, too, if we include painters, sculptors, teachers, and preachers in the list. Most of us when boys talked with our boyish friends a block away by means of a telephone made of string and tin cans cov- ered with a membrane. This same principle, carried toward the ideal, nearly to perfection, has in our modern telephone revolutionized the world of trade. The pipe organ is the willow whistle idealized, and the men who have worked out these ideals, whether they have gained wealth or not, are practical men. These inventions are all based on principles learned by scientists, the obscure thinkers, in the laboratory. Surely the painter of the Sistine Madonna, whose idealized mother with the Christ Child, has won grateful words from thousands and hundreds of thousands who, almost with tears trembling on their eye-lashes, have drunk in its spirit of purity, sweetness, and love, — surely Raphael was a practical man, as much so as the baker who feeds us; and is it not shortsightedness to say of these practical men, who minister to our soul's needs, that they are not as valuable citizens, that they are not even more valu- able citizens, than those who minister to the body alone ? Both are needed, but the baker will come everywhere; no danger that we shall not call for him. The artist, the poet, men whose influence is yet more far reaching, men whose lives will give permanence and glory to the state, these men too are needed ; but they will not come unless called. THE MAKING OF CITIZENS, 83 If, then, we enter our schoolrooms and our families and ask how we shall train our children for citizenship, with this idea of true citizenship before us, with this idea of the practical, the task becomes an easy one ; we find material everywhere. If, for example, in reading and studying literature, in the reading of Shakespeare, we ask the cause of Macbeth's downfall, he himself an- swers : " 'Tis vaulting ambition which o'erleaps itself, and falls on the other side." Then the question at once comes to mind, is there a similar tendency in public life to-day ? Will similar results follow ? If so, why ? Daniel Webster had a like experience in his dallying with the slavery question. Why not study politics in Shakespeare ? Csesar, Richard III, Othello, Hamlet, Henry IV, all, and more, have lessons of politics, of citizenship, that the teacher thinking upon that subject can not fail to see ; but, after all, the lessons here^ as in all history where long periods of time are taken into account, are all the same, told with tireless reiteration. All comes back to the one fundamental principle. The right shall triumph in the end; the wrong shall fail. Geography and statistics are sometimes called the eyes of history. This is the soul of history. Some call it the Providence of God in history, and say that states- men cannot leave God out as a factor in public affairs. It is another way of stating the principle of human prog- ress. I^ot that the good escape death or poverty, not that the bad fail to secure wealth and position ; but when history and poets tell the story, when the few short decades of men's life melt into the centuries of history, poverty, wealth,^ position-— even death itself are but little^ 84 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. things. What woman who has felt the sacredness of a daughter's love would not rather be Cordelia, dead in her father's arms, faithful to the end, than to have se- cured life by any shift of conscience ? Desdemona, Othello, Hamlet, were fortunate in their deaths; for they were true and consistent in their lives. So too, in our history, Lincoln fell by the assassin's hand; but what was death to Lincoln ? His truth, his faith, his wisdom, have immortalized him. Death but opened the portal for his fame. H So everywhere in history, if we but read with the ideal of the truest patriotism, the highest citizenship, ever before our eyes, the pages of facts light up with meaning and with lessons for our everyday life as citi- zens. We cannot train citizens to any noticeable extent by telling mere facts. For example, is it important to know exactly the date of the battle of Quebec ? Is it even of much consequence in the long run to know the stories of the valiant generals who so nobly died on the plains of Abraham? It is inspiring to feel the spirit of the dying Montcalm for whom death had no terrors in defeat ; still more elevating if possible, with the glad dying words of Wolfe to join his eulogy of the poet Gray, showing how the noblest thought and purest melody had reached the heart of the warrior. But what lessons of citizenship have we here ? One great one — 'Tis sweet to die for one's country. But when, also, to these facts we add the far sighted views of Pitt, England's great prime minister, who had foreseen that England's victory in America meant English civiliza- tion throughout the western world, and when we ask THE MAKING OF CITIZENS. 85 ourselves and our pupils why it was better that Wolfe should have conquered, and that English civilization, with its germ of self-government should succeed instead of French rule, with its hierarchy of Church and State, we reach principles of citizenship and statesmanship. Was it merely Wolfe that conquered Montcalm ? Had Montcalm conquered Wolfe the result might have been delayed, but ultimately it would have been the same. The words of Burke and Fox but a few years later show that the spirit of liberty was stirring in England as well as in her colonies ; and when freedom, love of home and native land, fight against personal rule, love of adven- ture, and thirst for wealth ; when general intelligence and liberty fight against ignorance and bigotry and tyranny the result is not doubtful, no matter what the odds may be. The knowledge of this historic principle, enforced by the example of the battle of Quebec, is worth more as training for citizenship than all the mere fact history of the schools. But one word more on this point. For most of us, older as well as younger, the charm of history and the value of history, too, as a means of train- ing, lies in men. We need to recognize, our children need to know that the great men of history have been great only as they have been right. Some great men doubtless have been bad ; some bad men, possibly, have been great, but their greatness lies not in their evil deeds, but in their good ones. Csesar was not great be- cause he was the boldest speculator of his day, willing to run a million dollars in debt with the only hope of payment success in securing office ; nor because he could order the cold-blooded murder of hundreds of thousands 36 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. of innocent women and children, although these facts show his qualities of character. Our histories wisely gloss these facts. He is great in history because, with wise forethought, he opened whole territories, all west- ern Europe, to the influence of the most highly civilized nation on earth; because he showed the wisest, most far-reaching desire for the good of the people under him of any man of his age. He was successful ultimately only in plans that were far-reaching for good, and he failed and fell ignominiously in his over-reaching for personal power. So Alexander, Cromwell, Richelieu, Charles V., l^apoleon, Bismarck, Gladstone live in his- tory as great men only for the good they have accom- plished. Some of them were bad, and did evil deeds, and for these, too, they received their reward. Witness Alexander's pitiable death, and Napoleon's lonely exile. The good they did lives after them ; the evil is blotted from the pages of history, or when retained lives only to their shame, like the ill-used talents of Themistocles, not to add to their greatness. How strongly the life of Washington enforces this truth. The more closely we look into his life, the better we know him, the more surely we see that the key to his success was his sterling uprightness of character. Men trusted him ; they knew that he would not deceive. Others were in many respects his superiors; in this respect his only equal in our his- tory has been Lincoln, the only man whose name men will consent to have written beside his, the man whom Lowell so happily and truly calls " wise, steadfast in the strength of God and true ; a kindly, earnest, brave, far- seeing man; sagacious, patient; new birth of our new THE MAKING OF CITIZENS. 87 soil, the first American." If we and our children will dwell upon these upright, God-fearing characters until we imbibe some of their spirit, as we shall do if we see that upon their personal characters depended their suc- cess, we shall not be poorly trained for citizenship. So might we go through the school curriculum and through the experiences of our lives. Everywhere something will be found that leads onward in this right direction. Some studies point the lessons directly; others, as mathematics, the natural sciences, manufac- turing, and trade, only indirectly, as they teach keen- ness of insight, precision of thought, independence of judgment, love of truth and right, honesty and in- dividuality, and as they elevate the ideals of students, leading them to a position of independent judgment and high aim from which they can and are willing to take the trouble to decide fairly, according to their knowl- edge, the complex questions of politics. And this, let us insist, is the main thing. Our citi- zens do not fail so much in knowledge, as in their will- ingness to do their political duties. So many of our voters never even attempt to learn their duty. They vote as their fathers did, as their employer does, as their best friend does, as the best people in the community do, very many as it is, in their opinion, for their OAvn private pecuniary interest to vote, and far too many as tliey are paid to vote. This corruption, and perhaps even more this indifference, is what constitutes our real danger. How can our school training directly meet this ? We teach civil government, to be sure, — we call it civics in some places — but so far, in spite of the great improve- 88 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. ment in the last few years, the time has been largely spent in learning the forms of government, the number and classes of officers, and the names of the leading office holders. This is well, but it does not make good citi- zens. There is little danger that one will be permitted to forget election day, or that on election day one will be allowed to forget the offices, or that later in life one will not know the duties of officers ; but the main things to-day that most nearly affect the voter he must learn in the schools, or he will have little chance to learn them later. The politicians will do all in their power to prevent his learning them. He should learn the prin- ciples on which party government is based, the circum- stances under which it becomes one's duty to desert his party, how far the right of instructions to representa- tives should be exercised and followed — all those mat- ters that in political life call upon a man at times to assert his manhood, to stand alone against a multitude of sneering partisans. He should know that no devo- tion to selfish interests, to his party, or to his party lead- ers, much as he may admire them and justly as he may praise them, can excuse him from thinking for himself and from doing his duty as he sees it. Emerson well says : " The one thing in the world of value is the active soul Is it not the chief disgrace in the world not to be an unit, not to be reckoned one char- acter, not to yield that peculiar fruit which each man was created to bear, but to be reckoned in the gross, in the hundred or the thousand, of the party, the section to which one belongs, and our opinion predicted geo- graphically, as the north or the south ! " THE MAKING OF CITIZENS. 89 I am saying nothing against parties. I believe in party and devotion to party, but a man must retain his manhood, he must help do his party's thinking, and not let his party think for him. When Lincoln, contrary to the advice of his party leaders, thrust upon Douglas the question of the right of a territory to exclude slav- ery, he was none the less a partisan, but he was the more of a man and a better patriot. It is these mat- ters of a citizen's rights, and of a citizen's duties that we must teach our people, far more than the mere forms, the skeleton of government. We must teach them the spirit of our institutions, the spirit of liberty. Neither must we forget that the spirit of independence, by which we demand the right and assume the duty of thinking for ourselves, of determining without the con- sent of party leaders what our opinions and votes will be, grants to all other men the same right. The spirit of intolerance regarding political opponents that is so common in the minds of many of our untrained voters, and on the lips of our campaign orators — though they, unless personal opponents, let it go little farther — is sub- versive of the fundamental principles of popular govern- ment. A government by the people means that each voter should think for himself ; and why should any one be blamed for exercising this right ? As well blame and denounce lawyers for taking opposite sides of a case. What would popular government be without parties ? So, too, in the lesser affairs of political life we need to teach the necessity of personal honor. It is become a common saying that in no state in the Union can per- sonal taxes be collected, because so large a portion of 90 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. our citizens are willing to conceal their property, and cheat their neighbors, for the saving of a few dollars4 It may be that our tax laws are unjust. In many states they are ; but we surely ought to show our stu- dents, and as citizens we ought to realize, that for a man to conceal his taxable property is to take money from his more honest neighbor. A fixed amount of money must be raised by taxation. If one man pays less than his share, his neighbor must pay more. Our duty is not to protect ourselves directly against unjust laws at the expense of our neighbors, but to suffer with our neighbors until we can secure the repeal of the unjust laws. We are too little sensitive regarding these matters that really, if carefully considered, concern our per- sonal honor. We argue that the law is unjust and op- pressive, but shut our eyes to the fact that, if we violate it, we become unjust, and practically plunder our more honest neighbor. And we forget, as has been implied, that it takes energy and personal interest and sacrifice of time and often of temper so to influence legislation that bad laws will be repealed. Several states have tried to revise their unjust tax laws at various times ; com- missions have been appointed that have made wise re- ports ; but the apathy of most of the legislators has been outdone by the prejudice of a few, and the laws still remain. If but for one year, the whole body of our citizens would honestly pay their personal taxes, be sure the wealthy men who suffered from the literal ex- ecution of the bad laws would secure their immediate THE MAKING OF CITIZENS. gjg repeal. As it is, many of them prefer to pay mucB- less than their just share. In the common affairs of local politics our children should be taught to think of the imperfections of our laws, and of the need for revision, and the way to revise and improve them. When children in the country see the men who are presumably working for the town in making roads, idling their time away in the fence corners telling stories and neglecting their duty, it is well to ask them why such cheating of the government is permitted. Is the fault in the men or in the laws; and if in the laws, how can they be amended ? No better practice can be given our children in the way of training them for good citizens, than by asking them to find out the defects in existing customs and laws, and to suggest a remedy. They may not get a good one; it is well for them to think about it. A still better practice in the majority of cases is to have them see if the fault does not lie in the non-enforcement of good laws, and if so, to enquire among themselves where the blame lies. Is it in the citizens, or in the officers ? If in the citizens, why do they not do their duties ? If the officers are to blame, who is responsible ? What brought these men into power ? Any practice and every practice that will make our students alive to the im- portance of seeing the practice of politics, the reasons for our shortcomings in political affairs, is the best of training for citizenship. We think too often of good citizens as connected with voting and making laws, and not enough of the relations existing between the different citizens. To be a good 92 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. citizen in the full sense of the word, a man must be a good neighbor. A man whom, for his meanness, his neighbors hate, is not a good citizen. A man who in a country town, from laziness or stinginess, allows in winter his sidewalks to remain blocked with snow, is not a good citizen. A man who does not fairly and freely meet the calls upon his pocket-book for purposes of common benefit in the community, is not a good citi- zen. How often come the calls upon us for public pur- poses: celebrations, parks, libraries. A good citizen should be ready to give in proportion to his ability for all such things that will be of real benefit to the community. Americans are known the world over for their lavish expenditures, for the carelessness with which they run into debt, and for the readiness with which they take the risk of pauperism. Our countrymen do not lack energy ; many of them do lack thrift. We need to culti- vate the spirit of saving and we can do much in our schools to encourage this spirit in our citizens. In many countries in Europe, for twenty years in Belgium and a shorter time in Italy, Great Britain, Austria, and France, school savings banks have been started, to encourage this habit in children. Some slight move- ment in that direction has been made in our own country, a movement which it is to be hoped will be con- tinued. The plan of organization is simple. Each child is allowed to deposit with his teacher sums from one cent upward, receives a receipt for having de- posited the amount, and the school, as a school, opens an account at a savings bank. As soon as any pupil has deposited a fixed sum, say $5.00 or $1.00 he is given THE MAKING OF CITIZENS. 93 a personal account at the bank, and encouraged to in- crease his savings there, his pennies being received at the school. The child receives no interest till he be- comes an independent depositor at the bank ; the interest drawn by the scholars as a whole being used to pay for the stationery, and if a surplus remains it is given in rewards. The savings of a few children of thrifty parents encourage in others the desire for an account in the savings bank ; the parents become interested, and add to the spare pennies of the children their own small savings ; until the little bank started in the school-room leavens the whole community, and thousands of dollars are often deposited as the result of the small school savings bank. It would be difE'cult, of course, to estab- lish such an institution in many country places ; but in any city where a savings bank is near at hand, and in many country places, if the parents would agree to deposit with a trustworthy person, institutions of this kind might be safely and very profitably started. The elements of the best citizenship consist in having a proper spirit toward our fellow citizens, and nothing can so foster this spirit as a willingness to sympathize with him in joys, and to help him in times of misfortune and sorrow. Comparatively little has been done in the schools of our country to encourage in children the thought that they are their brothers' keepers ; that they are responsible for the sufferings of others in the com- munity ; and that it is not merely their duty, but also one of their highest privileges, to minister to those in need. It has been with the greatest interest and with a realizing sense of the helpfulness of the movement in our 94 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. social problems, that I have learned of the work in this direction that has been done in some few places. When eager boys, with axes and shovels, go to bank up a poor woman's house, and protect her and her children from the cold, the benefit received by them is far greater than any they can give. When in case of accident that brings destitution to some family, the school children are en- couraged to feel that it is their business to help relieve it, much has been done. When this spirit of care for their fellow citizens runs throughout the whole school, and throughout the whole community, the benefit derived therefrom is incalculable. ISTothing can take the place of such work. It is well to consider finally how we can carry these measures and others on to success. Many of us find that we cannot do so well as we know ; that our children are not responsive to suggestions made by us ; that we can teach the facts and principles, but that we cannot arouse the feelings, the desires to improve. This is too true, but the fault lies most often with ourselves. We forget the fact that the teacher and pupil must meet on common ground, that there is no education, no training, except that which comes from personal influence, from the touch of soul with soul. I have been more and more, of late, led to judge of the spirit, of the desire for learning, of the love of higher culture on the part of the teacher by the number of his pupils who, after leaving his school, enter higher institutions of learning. The test, I believe, is a fair one. If a man has in himself the true hunger for learning, the desire to find out more and more of the secrets of nature, of the mind and of the THE MAKING OF CITIZENS. 95 heart, this spirit cannot be kept within himself. It will be communicated to his pupils, and the result will be seen in their after life. We, as teachers, need the true interest in scholarship that is not a transient curiosity, but an abiding longing for truth, an appetite that grows by wdiat it feeds upon. So in this matter of training for citizenship. We cannot make good citizens of our pupils until we are ourselves good citizens. We cannot be subservient to party dictation and expect our pupils to think independently. I know how at times our teachers' places seem to depend upon subservience to party politicians ; but we need manhood more than place. We cannot expect our pupils to be saving or to be chari- table unless we take the lead, and show them the way to become saving and charitable ; and we cannot give them the highest ideals of the state, we cannot expect them to go ahead and do all that citizens should to lift our State to its proper level, unless we ourselves have these highest ideals, and strive earnestly to reach them ; but we shall succeed whenever we ourselves are filled with the spirit of the older patriots, whose desire was to build a state for the good of man and for the spread of cul- ture, wisdom, and righteousness in the world. IV. THE RELATION OF THE SCHOOLS TO BUSINESS.* " These arts open great gates of a future, promising to make the world plastic and to lift human life out of its beggary to a godlike ease and power." — Emerson. It is perhaps natural that we Americans who spend so much money on our public schools, and who have so much pride in them, should feel that they, if rightly managed, are in themselves sufficient to cure our social ills. Beyond question our schools have done much to put our country into the first rank politically and in- dustrially. Beyond question, too, our schools may be greatly improved, and can in due time be made to render still greater services to the public. But it seems equally true that some of our social evils are of a nature that our schools cannot effect. All thoughtful persons will recognize that, inasmuch as many of the ills of society come from the continual shifting of conditions under which our people live, our public schools can never hope to meet at the instant even the demands that may properly be made upon them. They cannot change their methods to meet new demands until after the social ♦Address before the Merchants' Club, Chicago, Feb. 9, 1901; before the Liberal Club, Buffalo, March 1, 1901. T 97 98 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. changes, whicli make these demands, have first become understood. Before undertaking, therefore, to suggest what more our present schools can do to meet present needs, it will be best to analyze briefly the social ills which afflict us, in order to see whether they are of a nature which can be affected by our school training, and how far we must look to other agencies for their cure. It is a wise plan not to attack all social evils at once, but through analysis and division to attack them one by one in order thus more easily to reach practical results. The special evils which we are to consider are indus- trial, those particularly which are connected with the " laboring class," although of course we all recognize that in this country, while the condition of manual laborers may be less fortunate, their labors are no more severe than those of practically every other class in the community. The labors differ in kind, but the break- downs from overwork are as frequent among those that are ordinarily classed elsewhere. CAUSES OF THE WORKMEN's FAILURES. The failures of our working men to fit themselves at all times into the most useful positions in our industrial society are due partly to ignorance or faults or weak- nesses of theirs, partly to industrial conditions for which none of them are in any way responsible. The schools can perhaps do some few things to aid directly in over- coming the first class of difficulties. Their aid in the second class, which has to do with panics, new inven- tions, new forms of industrial organization, wars and the rumors of wars, can be only indirect and remote. THE RELATION OF THE SCHOOLS TO BUSINESS. 99 The lack of efficiency of the workman may be spoken of most conveniently perhaps under four heads: first, his lack of knowledge; second, the unfitness of his knowledge for his special task ; third, his lack of what I may perhaps venture to call industrial character ; fourth, his failure to recognize his social obligations. In this last point especially all classes of society alike come short. IGNOKANCE. Unpleasant as the thought may be, we must all recog- nize the unquestioned fact that throughout all stages of the world's civilization, the vast majority of men have been merely the hewers of wood and the drawers of water, engaged mainly in the simplest forms of unskilled labor, and a very large proportion of them, as it has seemed, unfit for anything else. Many of the world's great thinkers from Plato and Aristotle to present day writers on industrial questions have been ready to as- sume that this state of affairs, which has always existed, must continue. The Greeks justified slavery on this ground, that the unfit were natural slaves and that they must work to secure for the thinkers, the philosophers, the leisure needed to work out plans for the advancement of society. Beyond question for a long time to come a very large proportion of our working people will be en- gaged in unskilled manual labor, but no one who is awake to the vast industrial changes of the last century can fail to see that even this unskilled labor has largely changed its character ; that very many things which were formerly done by the brute power of the naked hand 100 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. are to-day done by the power of steam or electricity, and we may well look forward to the further emancipation of the unskilled laborer by the enslavement of the forces of nature. Again, no employer of labor fails to recog- nize the fact that among untrained laborers, when com- pared man with man, one is often doubly as efficient as another. Lord Brassey, the great English contractor, who built railways in practically every quarter of the globe, has asserted that three English navvies, whose sole work was shovelling and wheeling dirt, were equal to five Frenchmen or to seven East Indians. Was the difference muscular, or a difference in skill requiring greater knowledge on the part of some, or a difference in character showing greater willingness and zeal on the part of the efficient ? Every employer of unskilled labor notes similar differences among his workmen. What can our public schools do to remove the inefficient from this class ? MISPLACED KNOWLEDGE. A very large proportion of our industrial ills as well as other social evils come from maladjustment of our social relations. Most of our social reformers have, in my judgment, laid undue emphasis upon the faults of individuals. While these faults cannot be ignored, it must still be recognized that a very large proportion, possibly even the largest proportion of our social ills, are not to be ascribed to the faults or weaknesses of indi- viduals, but rather to misfits for which no one is to blame. Allusion is often made to the ill fortune that befell THE RELATION OF THE SCHOOLS TO BUSINESS. IQl the English weavers when the power loom drove the hand worker from his cottage to the factory or deprived him entirely of employment. In our own coimtry in the great crisis of 1837, many a farmer and w^orkman, through no fault of his own, lost his all in the failure of some trusted banker and had his wages taken away by payment in bank-notes soon to become worthless, while even in the time of our Civil War the depreciation of our currency caused wide-spread panic which ruined many, to be followed later by a rise in the value of money which doubled debts and stripped farmers of their lands through mortgage foreclosures. Such suf- ferers are not themselves at fault ; what is needed is some device to adjust quickly and economically the in- dustrial machinery that has been thrown for the time being out of gear by new inventions or business changes from whatever cause. Such evils are always with us and must always be with us so long as economic society is to improve. The travelling salesmen, the printers of advertisements, all classes of workmen in poorly situated mills who have been thrown out of employment during the last five years by the new industrial combinations, have suffered not so much from lack of skill as from the fact that they were victims, through no fault of their own, of the progressive spirit, united, to be sure, at times in individual instances, with the ruthless spirit of the present industrial age. Our interstate commerce law is a comparatively new thing. It was demanded by modem conditions and was not adaptable to the conditions that preceded it. Many of the decisions of our courts that reach back to Queen 102 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. Elizabeth's time for some of their precedents, can be fitted to present cases only by the abounding imagina- tion of our gifted judges ; and that, alas, too often fails. So it is that the law will always be somewhat behind the times, and will never be quite suited to industrial condi- tions. The same thing is true regarding our religion. How many persons are there who believe as their fathers and mothers did ? How many in middle life stay by the old beliefs ? The man has gone forward, or the church has gone beyond him while he has stayed behind. His be- liefs are a misfit and he is made unhappy, his parents and friends are made unhappy, because he cannot be- lieve as he did before, or because they have abandoned their childhood's faith. So in social life everywhere. Many a person who has come an eager, popular young man from the country into the city, goes back after ten years to find himself out of place. He is uncomfortable in his old surround- ings, and makes everybody else uncomfortable that he comes in contact with. He is not to blame, but the conditions are changing; his principles and habits and ways of thinking are misfits and are out of date ; — per- haps I had better say, to tickle the feelings of the city men, ahead of date. Legal institutions, political institutions, religious in- stitutions, all are subject to the same implacable law of progress under which not only workmen but employers, legislators, every individual with a conscience, unless he can rapidly adjust his step to the swift march of progress, must suffer. Can our schools do anything be- THE RELATION OF THE SCHOOLS TO BUSINESS. 103 sides giving mere special knowledge, to give also this swift adaptability to new conditions which will enable all of our industrial classes to avoid in part the evils inevitably associated with progress, and to give to all a tolerance that will remove much of the social curse? It is perhaps worth while to note that some of these evils, grave as they are to-day, are still, relatively speak- ing, far less than they were at the beginning of the 19th century. A skilled workman of fifty years ago was a man who understood the entire process of making a boot or shoe, or he was an iron and steel worker of such train- ing that he could do everything from shoeing a horse or ironing a wagon, to tempering a carving knife or mend- ing a lady's bracelet. The skilled workman of to-day, in many cases, can run one machine which makes a twen- tieth part of a boot or which hammers out the calks of a horseshoe, or which polishes a needle. His training has made him less adaptable than was the skilled work- man of fifty years ago to be sure, but on the other hand, the skill of the early workman was the result of a train- ing of years. A new trade of the modern type can often be learned in a week. CHAKACTER. Bad as is this industrial inertia this difficulty in changing our calling at will, that puts us at odds with our environment, a more important evil is one of char- acter. Possibly the gravest weakness among workmen, certainly the fault that is most annoying to the em- ployer, is one which seems to be merely a lack of fore- sight or thoughtfulness or faithfulness, as one is pleased 104 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. to consider it. Many workmen are careless of their tools or are wasteful of their material, or apparently have a fear that they may earn rather more than the wages agreed upon. One often remarks the eager promptness with which work stops at the noon whistle, — the pick left hanging in the air, as the wit puts it — as compared with the slower motion with which work be- gins after the luncheon hour. One notes at times the scrupulous care with which a workman stops short of exceeding the task assigned, and the pressure even that is brought to bear by many workmen upon their fellows, whose normal gait or motion is quick enough to increase materially the amount of their product. I recall very well a friend of mine telling me about a cousin that came into the business as a boy to take the lowest place. He called him into the office and said : " John, to-day you are my cousin ; to-morrow you will be a workman. I am only one of the partners here. I cannot show you any favors. I cannot recommend you for promotion. I shall do nothing for you, but be- fore you go to work I want to give you some advice. Don't be afraid to earn more than your wages. Do all you can to benefit the firm and trust to the future to give you your reward." The result of that advice was that the boy was in a very few years in a prominent position in the business, by all odds the most successful boy of all. He had caught the right spirit. But, on the other side, there is perhaps no less to criticise. Not merely the workingmen are afraid they will do too much, the employers frequently are afraid that they will be overreached by the workingmen and THE RELATION OF THE SCHOOLS TO BUSINESS. 105 will give too much ; they, too, are often not ready to give quite as much as they get in return. ]^ow, on both sides, this reaching out for more than they ought to have, this unwillingness to do more than the task put upon them is a fault of character ; and in my judgment it is one of the most serious faults of our industrial life. The workman, on the one hand, who completely overcomes this fault, who is ready for the time being to render more than is due from him, thus showing his spirit of willingness and generosity, is the one whose wages rise, who is promptly promoted, who soon becomes an employer himself. The employer, again, who shows like generosity combined, to be sure, with rigid care and exactness in watching delinquents is the one who secures the best of the workmen, and in the long run secures the most willing service, a result which comes equally to his financial advantage. But these de- fects are all important in industrial society, and ought to be overcome. What can our public schools do to remedy this evil ? SOCIAL OBLIGATIONS. The fourth mistake, or fault, is this: Speaking gen- erally, we all fail to recognize our social obligations. Business men fail to realize their relations to one an- other and their relations to society. A butcher in busi- ness sells meat to his neighbors ; he wants his profit ; in nine cases out of ten, although of course he knows it, he does not realize the fact that he is also rendering a great service to society, and that if he fails to keep his shop clean, or to sell meat that is healthful, he is doing 106 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. a grave injury to society. He is in business for money making. He ought to realize also that he is in business to render service to society; he ought to undertake his business for that purpose. So also with reference to men in any other line of work. A merchant, a manu- facturer, a business man of any kind, cannot cut him- self loose from his social obligations, ^ine men out of ten think they do so. They are in business for the sake of their profits. This is natural, but at the same time they will render much better service, and probably with- out lessening their profits if they will keep the social obligation also in mind. We ought, all of us, to recognize much more than we do the complexity of our industrial life, and how closely we are bound one to another. Think, for example, of the food that we have, the clothes that we wear, every object that we use, — how many people have contributed their service in order that we might have these bits of enjoyment, these items of service. Many of these things have come from across the sea. Workingmen have been toiling on the other side, and mechanics, ship- builders, sailors, by the hundreds, by the thousands, have been at work in order that some little thing might be brought here to us. There is not a day passes, but that if we analyze to the bottom the production of any of the goods that we use, we shall find that thousands of men have been working for each one of us ; and, if we have paid our debts in the honest way in which we ought, we shall have rendered a return service and we shall thus have served in our turn thousands of men. "Now, this social solidarity, this relationship of one man THE RELATION OF THE SCHOOLS TO BUSINESS. 107 in the community to another, the inter-action and inter- relation of all business enterprises, is not sufficiently recognized by the workingmen, or by business men ; but it ought to be so recognized, and it must be, before we can have comforts in society as general as they might be. These are the faults that I wished to speak of, which we find continually. Can our public schools do any- thing regarding them so that social conditions will be improved ? What do our public schools do now to pre- pare workingmen better for life ? KNOWLEDGE AND SKILL. Speaking generally, it is probably no exaggeration to say that our schools give to the average workingman (and that expression means probably nine out of ten of all our people) no skill in handling tools that is of any service, very little new power of judging form or dis- tance or color that is of practical use, though much more is done now than twenty years ago. A certain amount of useful information of a general nature, such as ability to read, to add, to divide, is given the child, together with much useless information along the same line regarding obsolete forms of bank discount, complicated methods of reckoning partial payments and so on, which he will never use. To one who is to be a clerk or a salesman this information is of some slight service. On the other hand, to these and all persons a little knowledge of elementary geography and of history, possibly of drawing, is useful. What is perhaps most useful of all in very many cases, even though the pupils 108 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. leave the schools before they have reached the grammar grades, is a fairly satisfactory use of the English lan- guage which will enable those who are ambitious or those who have the opportunity thereafter to associate with well educated people to pass for persons with much bet- ter education than they in fact have. This knowledge of English is, to be sure, very scanty, and in many cases it is not given ; but in spite of the many faults of our school systems, it is surprising that so much is done to enable even our poorest children, coming from homes where everything is against them in this regard, to speak and even to write with a reasonable degree of accuracy the English tongue. I am not overlooking the just criticisms of our professors who inveigh against our teaching of English. Doubtless humorous illustrations of " English as she is spoke " are plentiful, but still it is probable that the greatest service rendered by our schools is in making readers. They give some useful knowledge. Take the second point : Do our public schools do any- thing to protect people from the effects of the misfit knowledge of which I have spoken ? People need adapt- ability. If a man loses one job he wants to be ready enough and prompt enough and with knowledge enough to turn his attention in another direction. This adapt- ability, too, must be not merely a matter of technical knowledge, it must be a matter also of willingness, be- cause very many of our workingmen, when out of work, fail to take another job, because they are too proud to do so, thinking it beneath them to change their calling. I recall a wagon-maker, thrown out of his trade some years THE RELATION OF THE SCHOOLS TO BUSLXESS. 109 ago for the whole winter. There were plenty of oppor- tunities for him to make a dollar or a dollar and a half, sometimes even two dollars a day by shoveling snow or doing other unskilled work, but he was utterly unwill- ing to do anything of that kind ; he would make wagons, he would do nothing else; and, in consequence, his daughter supported him during the winter, in good part. !N^ow, our public schools can do something more, in my judgment, to take away from the great mass of people that spirit of unwillingness to do anything except in one specific trade. Third, do our schools develop character and a sense of responsibility ? They do something along that most im- portant line. Our public schools are, on the whole, better than any other force in the community in train- ing character, — better than the churches ; they have a better opportunity — better in most cases than the homes. They do far more than any other influence to teach the children punctuality and neatness and the accomplish- ment of any certain task placed upon them. Those things our schools do ; and we must not under- rate the importance of the service. But there is still a failure. These habits are, so to speak, imposed upon the children from the outside. The children are on time at school because they are afraid to be late. Punc- tuality is not and does not become spontaneous. In order that a man may be skilled in business, he must not only do what he is told, but he must seek and see his tasks of himself, willingly. He must be spontaneous. Our schools are not doing much to develop that power. So with reference to the fourth point, the feeling of 110 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. social responsibility. Speaking generally, are we not taught in our schools that the individual pupil is to be developed for his own sake ? In most of our teachers' gatherings that is certainly the thought that I see brought forward most often. " Teach this ; teach it in this way ; do this thing in the schools, in order that the individual may be developed ;" and the other side of the matter, that he should be developed for the sake of society, on account of the relationship that he has with others, is very frequently ignored. In our schools generally we find that our teachers have not themselves this consciousness of social inter-action, social solidarity that they ought to have and that they ought to put into their pupils' minds and hearts. Some little is done; much more might be done. In all these particulars the good work now done by the public schools is strictly limited by the fact that so large a proportion of the pupils leave the schools before they reach the grammar grades, before their habits of work are well formed, and before knowledge or skill can to any material extent be given, or habits of character be firmly fixed. Little or nothing is done to give the flexibility of disposition, the ready adaptability of mind and body to new conditions and new tasks which are becoming more and more needed under modem indus- trial conditions. THE TASKS FOK THE SCHOOL. The problems for the school to solve seem then to be these: First, how can our schools be made more at- tractive to pupils so that they will be willing to submit THE RELATION OF THE SCHOOLS TO BUSINESS, m themselves longer to their good influences, and how can thej be made to appear to the parents to be more useful so that they will compel their children to remain some years longer ? Second, how can the work be so changed as to give (a) greater skill to our workingmen, and more knowledge that will be useful in business life, (b) greater adaptability to changing circumstances, (c) faithfulness to duty with the power of spontaneous self-direction which will make them both faithful to tasks that are put upon them and ready to rely more upon themselves in meeting the problems of life which are given them to solve, (d) the realization of social responsibility ? In addition to our compulsory education laws, in order to make the schools more attractive both to the children and the parents, we must make them in seeming and in reality take hold on life. Character and service are, to be sure, the highest things in life. The develop- ment of a noble character is the greatest need for each individual, and to give it, the greatest service that any school can render. But we must not overlook the fact that, speaking generally, it is not the development of high character that very many parents feel the need of in their children ; it is rather the development of the money-making power. Neither, again, do the children feel that their characters need development. They wish to be interested. Let us begin with facts and take note of actual condi- tions. All of us, of course, as time passes, gradually work toward our ideals. In order to hold the children in our schools, we must recognize what the ideals of 112 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. the school children and of the parents really are. Where these ideals are not the highest, we must endeavor to im- prove them ; but our first practical task is to learn those ideals, so that we can hold the children. The problem is quite like that of the newspaper editor who has for his purpose something higher and nobler than mere money making. He wishes to influence public opinion in favor of that which is best for the state, but public opinion cannot be influenced by his paper unless some one will read it. It is useless to have a paper fashioned to an ideal, however noble it may be, provided the paper is so dull that people will not subscribe. It must, therefore, be made attractive as well as wise. The parents naturally want prompt results from the schools. A man who is working every day, all day long, in order that he may get enough to eat for himself and family, and then possibly goes hungry part of the time, is likely to be thinking of something else than character development. He is thinking of dinner. I recall very well a dear old lady friend of mine who worked all day long and half the night caring for her household, caring for her children, doing her duty as she saw it from day to day, and I have heard her say, time after time, " Oh, I'll be so glad when I get to Heaven, because then I think I can have a rest." The ideal that she had before her was rest ; rest was the greatest happi- ness that she could have in Heaven. Now, when a per- son is feeling that way, he is not likely to look very much higher than ordinary physical comforts. And so I should say, speaking generally, that the parents of most of the children in our public schools are not looking THE RELATION OF THE SCHOOLS TO BUSINESS. 113 primarily for the development of noble characters in their children, though, of course, they want that too. What they want insistently is the development of honest money-earning power. If they can get that, they will be satisfied with our public schools, and if they can feel that our public schools are giving that, they will let their children stay ; otherwise not. The children them- selves have, to a very great extent, as we all know, the same feeling ; it comes from the same source. If then we speak of the problem of doing something more to develop money-earning power in order to hold the chil- dren in the schools so as to develop them in the best way intellectually, we must attack that problem directly. MANUAL TRAINING. It seems probable that the training which will, on the whole, give the knowledge that will be best appreci- ated by those who are called the working men, is that which will fit their children most rapidly for their ap- parent or their probable needs as skilled laborers; i. e. some form of manual training, or, in its simplest form, the " constructive work," as it has been called, directed, as far as possible, so as to fit for the child's life work. Speaking generally too, this form of work interests children. They like the concrete ; they like to do things. Many children who show little interest in arithmetic or reading for its own sake, are delighted to make things which may either serve as toys, or which at any rate serve to keep them busy in the way that interests them. The parents are much more ready to recognize the value of this kind of training when the child shows 8 114 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. himself able to use some of the knowledge gained at school. If a boy can repair his mother's lock, he does something practical that tells. If a girl learning to cook can suggest some meal at home that costs less and tastes better than the ordinary meal, her parents will appreciate that dinner, and they will want her to stay to learn something more. Any one who has had ex- perience in these lines knows that those results do fol- low, and they also enable both parent and child to take a look ahead to money-earning capacity in the future. To secure the best results in awakening this interest of course requires greater skill on the part of the teacher, a point which is to be considered later; but how great the need is of this training in the larger part of the homes whence come the poorer children, cannot be ques- tioned. The cost of living in the poorest way is often as great as that of living much better, if a little trained knowledge can be put at the service of the home. Some years since I happened to learn accidentally of a colored barber with a wife and two children, who, on his wages of from ten to twelve dollars a week, had never known what it was to have $50 ahead. His attention was called to the fact that a teacher in the same town, with a salary of about $150 a month, with a family of the same size, was spending for his table much less than was spent by the barber. Some careful question^ ing on the part of the barber as to methods of buying provisions and preparing them, led, as he afterwards expressed it, to the saving of " dollars and dollars a week," while he lived better than ever before. Every person who has lived among the people with the least THE RELATION OF THE SCHOOLS TO BUSINESS. 115 income knows that not merely is their poverty their curse, inasmuch as it compels them to buy in too small quantities, but perhaps to an even greater degree is their ignorance and their thriftlessness their curse. A teacher who is willing to put into the work of the cooking classes also some careful information regarding buying and preparing, and who can tactfully also see to it that the instruction is made real, so that it takes hold of the chil- dren under her charge, can make both parents and children feel that such training may well be carried on for a considerable time. For purposes of thorough training which shall be applicable to all the different children who are likely to come into the school and which can serve also as a basis for scientific and literary training as well, and which still further will give the adaptability of mind and skill which has been spoken of as one of the greatest of our social needs, probably the plan followed in the newer training schools is, on the whole, for the present, wisest, though any course must be adapted to local needs by taking subjects which connect most directly with local social and business conditions. It is certainly logically and pedagogically sound to take for example the textile industry and carry it through its various stages of de- velopment. Into the children's hands are placed some of the raw materials like wool or the bolls of cotton. They are led to examine the fibers, and are asked to find out for themselves the way these fibers can be made into strings of yarn ; next, they invent the simplest forms of spinning, and then from that are sho"v^Ti the more modern devices and machines for spinning thread 116 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. and jams of different sizes. From the examination of a piece of cloth they learn the way in which the yarn is woven into cloth or knitted into garments. They them- selves under guidance invent the simplest form of loom, and from that they are led to see the improvements made in the looms of the higher type from the earlier days to the present. Thus, step by step, they trace the whole history of the development of that industry from the days of savagery to those of the highest civilization. They have themselves worked through the whole history of the race, and in that way have acquired an idea of what civilization means as compared with barbarism such as perhaps could have been learned in no other way. So, too, besides the acquirement of manual skill, the idea of development and progress in society, and the funda- mental conceptions in anthropology which they uncon- sciously have acquired, they have learned likewise to see the geographical connection that exists between the prod- ucts in their different stages of development. They trace the product from country to country, acquiring thus some insight into commercial processes in the manipulation of the products themselves ; they learn some of the simplest elements of physics, and in other allied lines of work the simplest elements of chemistry may also well be taught. They have been led through not merely the ideas of the history of the race, but they have themselves lived through a good part of the life of the race. Better than this, such study gives the consciousness of industrial solidarity showing the interdependence of the classes of society one upon another, which, after all. THE HELATION of the schools to business. 117 is the most appropriate and possibly the most important lesson that any of them can learn. I have often said that the best lesson taught in the shops connected with our great technical schools is that a man may wear greasy overalls and have a smutty face and grimy hands and still be a gentleman. If a boy has himself worked for a time in these conditions, he judges others more accurately ever after. Such training fits also readily into reading and lan- guage work. I found in the case of my own small boy, that, before it was possible to get him interested in Rob- inson Crusoe or fairy stories or Tales from Ancient Greece, he was lying awake nights to spell out almost word by word, with the aid of the pictures, the American Boys' Handy Booh, which taught him how to make boats and kites. Such work is admirably adapted also for written description and discussion; and foreign lan- guages when read for their ideas regarding a subject in which one is especially interested are studied with new zest. TRADE SCHOOLS. This kind of training must be carefully distinguished from the work of trade schools. These, in most cases in connection with the public school system, will prob- ably not be found practicable. In the first place, they will almost certainly meet with the active opposition of the trade unions and an attempt to introduce them, instead of securing the interest and approval of many of the parents and of the children, will awaken instead their active hostility. Trade unionists complain, and 118 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. often doubtless with much justice, that the result of a trade school training is that employers take young boys directly from the trade schools at boys' wages to sup- plant trained working men upon whom families are dependent. Something of course may be said in defense of this, but much more can probably be said against the plan. The trade school, if carried out in the narrow way which its name would seem to indicate, will give to the boy the ability to do some one especial thing, which would readily enough perhaps enable him to take the place of an older and more skilled workman. On the other hand, it would fail to give him the general deft- ness of manipulation and variety of knowledge which would render him able to adapt himself not merely to one trade, but, if necessary, to any one of half a dozen trades in case he were to be forced out of a position by the vicissitudes of trade and manufacture. Our great polytechnic schools, which are suited for training superintendents of factories of various kinds do not aim to teach specific trades, but instead they give the fundamental principles that underlie all, together with the rudiments of working in wood, in iron, in steel, in the foundry and the machine shop, so that one thus trained, when entering directly into practical manu- facturing work, can learn in a year the work of a factory or a machine shop better than one without such prelimi- nary training could learn it in ten years. The scientific basis which is necessary for all of the most skillful work cannot be learned in the machine shop itself. It should be learned beforehand. In the same way in our THE RELATION OF THE SCHOOLS TO BUSINESS. 119 manual training, it is probably not desirable to teach specific trades, but to teach rather the fundamental principles underlying them all with sufficient practice in manipulation so that one can later turn comparatively readily from one of our modern trades, which requires but comparatively short training, to another. In connection with the kind of manual training school of which I have spoken, comes in also the basis of a commercial training. If a boy studies the various products mentioned, he acquires a knowledge of goods of various kinds from food products and textiles to iron and machines, which will enable him to master the de- tails of any business so that he can much the more readily become a salesman who understands his work. Likewise, there will come with this a knowledge of geog- raphy so essential to commercial life ; the principles of exchange would normally be taught before this work in the training school had advanced very far ; and through- out the whole course from the bottom to the top, habits of order, of neatness, the necessity of accounting for the material put into his hands, the keeping of a regu- lar account with his teacher for everything given him and everything returned, would enable him to catch the commercial instinct in such a way that he could much more readily enter into the spirit of a mercantile business man if he decided to turn his attention in that direction. I am not speaking here, of course, of the special commercial high school, which I believe also should be provided for in any complete public school system of a large city, but rather of the elementary work which can well be started in preparation for such a high 120 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. school in some of the lower grades in connection with the work in manual training. This will necessitate, of course, the use of some commercial museum, which need not necessarily in itself be large, but which can furnish a number and variety of materials sufficient to give the basis for the kind of work that I have suggested. Some years ago in visiting the Commercial Museum in Philadelphia, I was shown a series of exhibits con- sisting of a number of the more common kinds of com- mercial and industrial products which had been put up in boxes to be distributed to the various schools of differ- ent grades in the city, in order that the children might become familiar with these most common products and might make use of them in connection with their work in geography and history. If our schools are to be conducted with particular reference to making them take hold on life, the only difference in the process suggested from the present one would be that we should reverse the usual order, and starting with the materials and with their connection with our everyday life, we should go out from them to the studies of geography, history, mathematics and ac- counting. Now we take our studies first ; we get our practical connection with our materials after our school days are over. After all, as intimated before, knowledge, or even adaptability and skill are not the chief thing that is needed. Above all the chief want in our working men, as well as the chief want in our society everywhere, is the proper spirit. The willingness to adapt one's self to new conditions, the readiness to overcome the mental THE RELATION OF THE SCHOOLS TO BUSINESS. 121 and even the moral inertia under which so many of us remain permanently stagnant in life, is what should be developed, together with the feeling that we are all parts of a great social whole in which each must render service to his fellows. I find that the students whom I recommend to busi- ness positions or to teachers' positions with the greatest freedom and lack of reserve are those students who have been compelled to earn their way through the Uni- versity. They have taken hold on life. In many cases they have no better brains, are not better students than are the others; but, generally speaking, they have been compelled to put their pride under their feet, to wait on their fellow students at table, to take care of fur- naces, to mow lawns, to do other drudgery before the eyes of their fellow students and teachers, and have thus shown their readiness to do the best that they can. They have manifested a spirit of independence and self-re- spect that shows their determination to stand by them- selves, if need be, for their own opinions, to carry out their own purposes and to do every duty under all circumstances. The refusal of laboring men to adapt themselves to new conditions from fear of the opinion of their fellow working men, or from a foolish pride which hinders them from stooping to tasks that require less skill than does their owm trade may perhaps be justified at times. There is not a little force in the argument that one may become permanently classified with the less skilled laborers ; but nevertheless it is usually true that this argument does not hold, and that the spirit of willingness to make the best of a situation, 122 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. coupled with the spirit of thrift, would much sooner put them into a position of independence and of influ- ence among their fellow-working men and elsewhere than would any other influence. This spirit of inde- pendence and willingness to do one's duty however un- pleasant that may be, is something that also is perhaps more likely to be worked out through our schools that are attempting by manual training to take direct hold on life than through those that are more formal in their training. It is not necessary, in order to develop the powers of our pupils best, to give them any specific line of train- ing. We can develop intellectual qualities and moral qualities just as well in a technical school as we can in a Latin school. We should make our schools take hold on life as it is. We do have to make our living. We have all of us various desires to satisfy, but first we must satisfy our desire to eat. If we do not, we shall soon not be in a condition to have any further desires in this world. We should not make getting a living the final purpose of our lives by any means, but that is one prom- inent thing that should be brought forward. Again, how shall we lead the different classes in so- ciety to live in unison and harmony and to work together, unless we train all of our citizens so that they will recog- nize their social relations ? We speak frequently of the strife that exists between the different classes in society. How shall we get rid of it ? Is it not by putting the chil- dren together into the schools, and letting them realize there what the different conditions in life are, and what interdependence there is between the different classes in society, until they can meet one another on an even THE RELATION OF THE SCHOOLS TO BUSINESS. 123 plane ? A man is not better because he is rich, but neither is he any better because he is poor, as a great many people seem to think. A person's goodness or badness depends upon what he does, upon his ideals, upon the use that he makes of the powers that God has given him, and not upon his social status. In speaking of manual training and of commercial training, I trust that I have not been thought to over- look the fact that some at any rate of our children in the schools need another line of training. They are to devote themselves hereafter to professional work, to literature, to law, to teaching, to languages. One must be careful not to overlook them, but at the present time the need is probably chiefly for training along technical lines. In my own judgment, the best work in literature and in history can well be fitted in to the manual cur- riculum of which I have already spoken. As one gets toward the higher grades of work, foreign languages should of course begin for those who are likely to finish their high school course or to go on later into college life. But the kind of training would be different. One would be taught primarily to speak and write with reference to business, not to literary culture. The beginning of foreign language work for those who wished it would be naturally too in French or Spanish or German. As our markets expand into foreign countries, there is becoming continually felt a much greater need for salesmen and agents in foreign countries who can speak there the lan- guage of the natives. Probably the chief advantage which Germany has had over England and the United States in her foreign trade of the last few years, has 124 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. come from the fact that through her commercial schools, often merely of elementary grade, although many of them of course are likewise commercial high schools connected with commercial museums, have been trained men who could carry goods into foreign countries and in the language of that country explain their advantages to prospective purchasers. ADAPTATION TO THE PRESENT CUKEICTTLTJM. The directly practical question for our schools is Where is the time to undertake this work ? The curri- culum is crowded now. The changes must be made gradually, but we may indicate the way. So far as prac- tical work is concerned, we do much useless work now. In our work in arithmetic, for example, our children spend much time in learning tables that are rarely used thereafter, and that whenever they would be needed later in life could be picked up by any average man in a very few minutes when he saw the practical need of it. How many of us can tell now offhand the number of yards in a perch or the scruples in a dram ? How would it bene- fit us if we could ? Many of our school problems are those that were customary fifty years ago and are solved in the same way ; but such means are no longer employed by our bankers or business men. The retention of such processes is often defended on the ground that the mental training is good. Doubtless this is true, but the other training that takes its closer hold on life is no less valuable and is certainly much more attractive. Our business men have found methods now that are THE RELATION OF THE SCHOOLS TO BUSINESS. 125 much briefer than those employed fifty years a^o. The specific training that comes from one business act done by the new method is perhaps not so great as that from a like act under earlier conditions ; but where the business man did one job then he does twenty now, and the ac- cumulated force of the twenty acts is doubtless greater than that of the one. A friend of mine in New York was found one day in his office with long distance tele- phones connected with Washington and Chicago selling a steamship by telephone. It was not the old way, but it was effective. We should seek for the practical methods. As a teacher I may be justified in saying that the fact that these older forms are so generally retained is probably due chiefly to the mental inertia of the teachers and the writers of text-books. Originality is rare in this world ; it is much easier to get one or two or a few new ideas, take an old book and adapt it with these new ideas, than to attempt to see just how much can be thrown away and how much that is directly prac- tical can be put in. CHARACTEK. In all this work, of course, there would be exactness, promptness in attendance required, as is the case in all our schools now. Best of all there would be a better opportunity in a training school for the exercise of that most important of all business characteristics, judgment and impartiality, — the habit of seeing things as they are and in their uses, whether they are immediately in favor of the doer or against him. The business man should see things as his chief competitor sees them; the lawyer 126 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. needs to see his opponent's side as well as his own. This habit of impartiality, like the habit of honesty and of willingness to adapt one's self to conditions is, after all, something that is much more likely to be caught uncon- sciously and indirectly from the teacher than in any other way. This is the fact with all character training. If we stop to think of the effect upon ourselves that has been made by our teachers in schools, in college, or, if not limiting ourselves to the schools, we go outside and ask what the influences are that have shaped our mental habits most, we shall find that the chief influence has been some other person. The truest education, after all, is, in my judgment, the influence of a riper, a nobler, a higher, a better nature upon one weaker or less mature. We must then look after our teachers, and if our teachers themselves are persons that have the spirit of faithful- ness and impartiality of which I have spoken, our chil- dren will get it. We are to be congratulated upon tho fact that, speaking generally, our teachers do have the spirit of faithfulness and of devotion to their work, and at times impartiality ; but if they had it to a greater degree, which means if we were to get people of a higher type for our teachers than we have now, we should have a stronger influence upon our children than we have now. Do not our children of the public schools — those of you who have children can judge whether I am right or not — do not they at times come home and, instead of feeling that their teachers are higher and better and nobler than they are — people whom they would be glad to imitate — do they not rather make fun of them, thinking that one is small and tricky and that another is THE RELATION OF THE SCHOOLS TO BUSINESS. 127 trying to make them do something because she wants to escape some labor ? If I were speaking to teachers I should go more into detail with reference to the personal characteristics of teachers. But I am speaking to the people who pay the teachers. And that brings the matter up from another point of view : why is it that we do not have better teach- ers in our public schools ? If you go to teachers' gather- ings, you will find that the chief complaint of superin- tendents is this : that our teachers are the same unskilled craftsmen that I have been speaking about in connection with business life. The great mass of our teachers — perhaps that is putting it too strong ; very, very many of our teachers are the unskilled craftsmen who are not able to exert the influence that they ought to exert in the way of uplifting the pupils and giving them the sense of social responsibility. They have not the knowl- edge ; in many cases they have not the strength of charr acter ; they have no adaptability to fit themselves to the conditions in which they work. They cannot recognize the differences in the individual characteristics of their pupils and in that way seize the opportunity to develop their pupils as they ought. 'Now, why do we have teachers of that kind ? Simply because we are unwill- ing to pay more. Often the difference of ten dollars a month would make all of the difference between an un- skilled, ignorant, incompetent teacher and a thoroughly- trained one who could put into the pupils the social and faithful spirit needed. But there is also another side to the question : we ought to have our children fitted for industrial life, 128 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. because we all live in our business first, and we live in the higher interests afterwards. Nine out of ten of our waking thoughts are given to business; the tenth is given to these higher things that we set before us as our ideals. That is going to be true with our children just as much as it is with us, and under those circumstances we ought to see to it that they get business training in the highest and best way. It will in no way hinder the planting of ideals. But whom do we appoint to train our children in business ? As a rule, unmarried women who have had practically no experience in business. ISow, to avoid misunderstanding, I should like to say that the best teachers that I know are women ; I think women, as a rule, are as able and as good and as skillful teachers as the men are. But I still contend that, if we are to give our children an all-around business training, if we are to give them the right idea of business life, if we are to start our schools on the basis of our daily life and work outward, we should have our schools some- thing like the life outside the schoolroom. Outside, our workers are half men and half women, speaking roundly ; in our schools let us have the same proportion. Let us have the best women kept ; we certainly could not do better ; let the places of the others be taken by men as skillful as the best women whom we keep. This plan will cost a great deal more money, but it will be bringing our schools much closer to the kind of life that we want to train our children for. The reason why, to a consider- able extent, our schools have failed in practical training, is because we have been unwilling to pay to keep men THE RELATION OF THE SCHOOLS TO BUSINESS. 129 in the public schools. The women are there ; we can get them cheaper. PATIENCE REQUIRED. Ultimately we can make great changes in our public schools and in the influence of our public schools upon our children's lives ; but we cannot hope to accomplish very much at once. In the first place, we must find our teachers and we must train them ; in the second place, we must convince our people that our plan is the right one ; in the third place, we must work out any problem of that kind through a series of experiments. It will take time, but the essential idea is right and the problem must be worked out in that way. Eventually we shall be able to make very great improvements. Again we must not think that we can accomplish too much. The schools can do a great deal, but the schools cannot furnish brains; and very many people are not people of great intellectual ability. IsTevertheless, every one can be improved, and our educational and social conditions may be made vastly better than they are now, by careful training from the beginning, although we cannot hope for too great results. I was reading lately a brief statement made by Booker T. Washington, with reference to his school for negroes at Tuskegee. In my judgment no other man in the United States to-day is doing so great a work in educa- tion, speaking generally, as is Booker Washington. In closing: his autobiographical sketch he gave the aims of his Institute, and told what he was trying to do for the young men and young women who study at Tuskegee. 9 130 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. " In the first place," he said (I am not quoting his words literally), " we try to teach our pupils to take the prob- lems of life that they meet now, and to solve them ; we wish them to learn to do the world's work as it comes to them, now ; in the second place, we try to teach every one of them to learn how, by means of his knowledge and his character, to support himself and others; and in the third place, we try to make every one of them feel that work is something that is noble and beautiful, and we try to instill into each of them a love of work and not a de- sire to avoid it." The result of these efforts has been that most of the pupils who have left there, he said, have shown that they have common sense and self-control. So far as I can see, the Tuskegee Institute is taking up this educational problem in the way that I have had in mind in this discussion. Mr. Washington is taking the life of to-day as he finds it in the South, and he is fitting his pupils for it by direct industrial training, as the central thought, with all of the other culture influences possible brought in to support that, to aid it and carry it out ; and he is bringing into their minds the idea of the social relationships that exist between the different people in the South, whites and blacks alike, and he makes them feel that they are all one great society. When, later on, we can get into our public schools all our children and can give them all a sense of the need for helpfulness, and a desire to serve others ; and then can make them feel also that they have the capabilities for self-direction, we shall have gone a long way toward preparing our pupils for the greater and better state that we all wish to see. V. EDUCATION" FOE COMMERCE : THE EAR EAST.* " Confucius was once keeper of stores, and he then said, *My calculations must all be right. That is all I have to care about.' He was once in charge of the public fields, and he then said, ' The oxen and the sheep must be fat and strong and superior. That is all I have to care about.' " — Mencius. The discussion of Education for Business has been so ably carried on alonj^ general lines either by men im- mediately engaged in directing such education in schools and colleges, or by those doing business, that in speaking of the subject in its rather limited application to the com- mercial problems of the Far East it has seemed best for me to take the position, not of a business man, nor of a teacher, but of an economist "who has had some interest in the study of Far Eastern conditions, and from that view-point to comment upon some principles of busi- ness that are well-known, to be sure, but often over- looked in current discussion. We should note the con- ditions to be met before deciding the educational problem. It must be kept in mind that the work of the economist is simply to investigate and to state the prin- ciples of actual business. There is no true economic * Address at the University Convocation, Albany, July, 29, 1905. North Amei'ican Revieiv, October, 1905. 131 132 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. science that is not based upon actual business, and there can be no sound business education that does not rest upon study of business conditions. Each new set of conditions makes a new problem. It will be assumed also as fundamental that business is a complicated subject requiring intelligence and train- ing to understand it thoroughly and ability often of a very high order to conduct it successfully on any large scale. The needed training must be gained in good part in actual touch with business itself; but the training in a business house may doubtless be shortened and like- wise made broader and better suited to modern opera- tions on a world-wide scale by preliminary study in special schools and colleges adapted to that end. How practical some of this training may be, is shown by the fact that, according to late investigations, over 30 per cent, of the exporting establishments of Great Britain now have in their employ Germans especially trained in the great commercial schools of Germany, and that the number of such trained employees is rapidly increasing. Great Britain has not yet provided schools to meet her own needs. NATURE OF COMMEECE. The subject of commerce includes, of course, retail and wholesale trade on the one hand, and local, national, and foreign trade on the other. Each one of these di- visions has its own problems and its own methods, and to a considerable extent the training for each must be special. ISTaturally some fundamental principles, those of accounting, for example, are similar in all. It is EDUCATION FOR COMMERCE: THE FAR EAST. 133 necessary in every case that the business be so analyzed and understood that the reckoning of costs, and the de- termination of profits and losses can be made clear ; and in many other ways the lines of business will be found similar, whatever their scope. On the other hand, the methods of purchase and sale of the retailer of necessity differ decidedly from those of the wholesaler. His methods of advertising, his systems of credit, his per- centages of profit, his knowledge of markets, his whole range of information and activity must be vastly dif- ferent. Likewise the person who buys and sells locally, whose transportation of goods is limited by the delivery wagon, has problems quite different from those of the man whose business is largely a mail order or express business if he is a retailer, or whose range of sales is national if he is a wholesaler. Still a new and entirely different set of problems come up for the merchant whose business is international in its scope, ISTot merely has he many of the same problems that have perplexed the other merchants mentioned, but in addition come the problems of tariffs in both the countries of purchase and of sale, the questions of international exchange of moneys af- fected both by the character and quality of the moneys themselves and by the relative demand of each country for the goods of foreign countries as compared with the supply of its own goods which it ships abroad. In manv instances, also, aside from the more narrowly business questions, there enter into commercial transactions on a large scale questions of politics which cannot be ignored if one's business is to be successful; and again the question of national politics in the one instance may 134 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. easily broaden into one of international politics in the other. The merchant in Chicago may find his busi- ness considerably hampered by the teamsters' strike and may find that this question is complicated by re- lations which may arise with the city government, the state government, or even the federal government ; but if his dealings are with the Far East, he may find that a shipment of machinery destined for Tientsin in ISTorth China has been carried off to Russian Vladivostock, as in one case which I knew, because the ship happened to carry also contraband of war for the Japanese, and the Russians captured it. GENERAL TRAINING FOR COMMERCE. In current discussions, in the press and elsewhere, many of the more fundamental principles of commerce and the training which is requisite in order to enable our young men to cope with the problems which may arise in their business, have been adequately considered. It is generally conceded that besides the principles of ac- counting and cost keeping referred to, one should pos- sess a fair knowledge of foreign exchange, a compre- hensive outlook over the most important markets for the purchase and sale of leading staple products, a reason- able understanding of shipping by water and rail routes, and the relative costs of different routes and classes of freights, an insight into the fundamental principles of commercial law, a sufficient knowledge of the languages of the countries in which one is to work, besides a detailed knowledge of the goods to be handled and the special requirements of the individual business, EDUCATION FOR COMMERCE: THE FAR EAST. 135 which can be learned, of course, only in the business itself. I may assume, therefore, that these general prin- ciples are accepted and carried into effect, and I will simply answer further questions as to the peculiarities of commerce in the Far East which will require certain special training to be added to the general training thus [ outlined. Among the questions comes t THE PKOBLEM OF THE BALANCE OF TKADE. In most of the late discussions on the trade of the United States with the Orient, there has been emphatic insistence upon the necessity of our " extending our markets into the Orient," of our finding a field in which we may " dispose of the surplus of our manufactures." We have been repeatedly assured that if we are to be- come a great world power, it is necessary that we reach out and capture these Oriental markets for our goods as far as possible in advance of our rivals. Rel- atively very little has been said about the possibility of our finding in the Orient opportunities for purchases which may satisfy our own needs; and I have even found persons who have been speaking and writing upon these questions somewhat embarrassed when they were asked what the Americans proposed to accept in re- turn for the goods which they wished to sell in the Orient. It seems to have been thoughtlessly assumed either that we might be willing to sell to the Orient with- out securing a fair equivalent in return, or, what is much more likely, that the Oriental country to which we might sell would have an unlimited supply of cash with which to pay for our goods. If, however, we are contin- 136 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. ually to expand our sales, there must be a corresponding expansion of the power of production in the Orient of those goods which the West may be willing to take in exchange. To take China for an illustration. For many years in the past China has paid for a large proportion of the goods which she has imported from foreign coun- tries by the export of silk and tea, though of late other shipments are relatively increasing. It is a fair question whether foreign countries, if they double or triple their sales to China are going to be willing to take twice or three times as much silk and tea in exchange at prices which will be substantially the same as those at present ; or whether they will take more products of other kinds from China. If China has not now sufficient acceptable means of payment, will foreigners be willing to take an active part by investing capital to develop certain new industries and added wealth there which will enable that country to supply foreign needs more readily in order to meet her increasing demands for foreign goods ? We too often overlook the fundamental principle that in the long run a country must pay for what she buys, and that, speaking generally, she must pay for the goods which she purchases by goods which she sells. Of course, in certain instances, if a country is a credi- tor country, as is England, she may purchase goods with the interest due on the bonds or stocks which she owns of a debtor country ; or if she has a great merchant marine, she may pay by the freights which foreign countries owe her citizens for transportation; or, if, as in the case of China, many of her citizens go abroad to labor, she may pay, in part, for the goods which she buys by the labor of EDUCATION FOR COMMERCE: THE FAR EAST. 137 her citizens working in the foreign country. In other ways also payments may be made ; but in whatever way we explain the matter as regards details, it is still clear that the citizens of a country, by their labor or by their capital, must in some way pay for the goods which that country buys. They cannot increase their purchases un- less they also increase their sales, although of course it is not necessary that their exports go directly to the coun- tries from which their imports come. An apparent exception to this general principle should, however, be made in the discussion of the exten- sion of our commerce with the Far East. At the present time, China is much in need of railways, of iron bridges, of foreign machinery of various kinds. If our citizens have capital to invest in China and put that capital into the form of railway material or manufacturing es- tablishments, it is probable that these American owners of the capital thus invested may be willing to let their capital stay in China and to draw on that capital for use at home only the dividends on their investments. Indeed, in special cases investors might well be willing practically to transfer their capital to China and to re- invest their profits there, making that for the time being the home of their capital, if not their own personal home. To that extent there might be a selling of certain classes of goods to China for which for an indefinite period there would be no return demanded in the form of exported goods. The pay might be taken in only a claim to wealth there. This would constitute probably the only exception to the general principle laid down above. There is so much popular misconception on this 138 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. subject that it is proper to emphasize here in connection with the subject of commercial extension this funda- mental principle of foreign exchange which would not be thought of in connection with local retail trade or national exchange. OUR TAR EASTERN MARKETS. T7e need also to distinguish rather sharply the differ- ent markets open to us in the Orient ; for the conditions of trade in these markets differ greatly, and the nature of the information needed and the methods to be em- ployed, differ accordingly. It is probable that for some years to come our chief oriental markets will be : (a) The Philippine Islands ; (b) China, including Manchuria ; (c) Japan, including Corea; (d) Other minor countries, such as Hongkong, the Straits Settlements, the Dutch East Indies, etc. The Philippine Islands. While the Philippine Islands are in one sense part of our national territory, in another sense they are to be considered in much the same way as foreign territory, because from their loca- tion many of their problems, such as the question of for- eign exchange in the payment for goods and the cost of transportation, are similar to those in connection with other countries of the Far East. On the other hand, as regards the political influences which have a bearing upon their commercial condition, the problem is mainly domestic. The Government there is, of necessity, friendly to the EDUCATION FOR COMMERCE: THE FAR EAST. 139 Government of the United States. (It is proper, I think, under the circumstances, to speak of a " necessary friendliness.") The Government of the United States is disposed also to favor the industries of the Philippine Islands at the expense, if need be, of other forei^ coun- tries, if not of the United States themselves. The Philippines, in consequence, form in certain respects, perhaps, a better field for investment of American capi- tal than do the other countries under consideration. It is probable also that some of the products of the Philip- pines are better adapted at the present time for Ameri- can investments than those of most other countries, and investments are the forerunners of commerce in such cases. For example, nowhere else in the world is Manila hemp (the chief commercial product of the Philippine Islands for export purposes) produced to any noticeable extent, and as yet, in spite of the partial competition of sisal and other fibers, there has been found no real sub- stitute for it. Under the Spanish regime, and so far un- der the American regime, the methods of cultivation, of transportation, of purchase and sale and of local manu- facture of the hemp are of a very primitive nature. There can be no doubt that here is a very important field for the development of American commerce through a preliminary investment of American capital. Com- missioner Porbes lately wrote that we could " treble the output of hemp by giving adequate transportation and proper pay to the hemp cleaners." This will, in the first instance, make a demand for American machinery and steel in the Philippine Islands, and then later, as the hemp industry develops in importance and in value, 140 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. this increased wealth will lead to an increased demand for other American products. The same statement may be made with somewhat less emphasis regarding the tobacco and sugar and cocoanut industries in the Philippines. The tobacco industry has already been developed to a considerable extent by Span- ish and Filipino capital, although there still remains an opportunity for further growth. It should become an immense industry, as should the extraction of cocoa- nut oil. The sugar industry, however, remains still in a decidedly primitive condition and apparently needs for its large expansion only a somewhat more liberal policy on the part of the American Congress in the di- rection of land privileges and lowered tariffs. Such added wealth would call for many more American prod- ucts to pay for the exported tobaccos, copra and sugars. With proper methods of agriculture, of transportation, and especially of manufacture in the sugar industry, there can be no doubt that it would greatly develop. Moreover, there is every reason to believe that when the capital was once invested, the increased sugar product would be sold largely, not on the American market, as our timid advisers of Congress seem to fear, but rather on the markets of China and other countries of the East, facts just made plain to Secretary Taft's party in Manila. The added purchasing power of the Philip- pines would still make a demand for American goods, even though the product itself were not sent directly to the United States. Still further investments in the building of railroads, of electric roads, of local steamship lines, of saw-mills, EDUCATION FOR COMMERCE: THE FAR EAST. 141 and other industries of the Philippines, would carry out this same principle of increasing the trade of our home country as well as of the Philippines themselves through the development of their wealth by American invest- ments. They will not buy much more than they do now until they can sell more. China. The situation in China is much the same as in the Philippines, with two or three important lines of difference. In the first place, the money of China is without any fixed standard, consisting practically in case of larger payments only of silver bullion to be weighed out. Each large dealer — even each traveler of means — has his own scales to weigh out his money, while almost every separate town has its own unit of weight differing by often a considerable percentage from others. Silver bullion, too, is itself a marketable product of which the value continually fluctuates in terms of gold. These things make the risk of business on account of the impossibility of knowing the value of the money with which one is making his purchases or in which one may be paid for his products so much like gambling risks, that trade must of necessity be hampered until the Chinese Government can recognize its own needs enough to adopt some standard uniform system. The late de- crees of the Chinese Government on that subject are not reassuring. Again, owing to a considerable degree to the ill treat- ment which the Chinese have received from some for- eign countries through the seizure of territory and the mistreatment of individual Chinese, as well as to the very unfriendly attitude of some of the people of the 142 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. United States in connection with Chinese immigration, and the rude treatment of cultivated Chinese at times by our immigration officials, the Chinese themselves are disposed to be suspicious, and, as we have seen of late, even decidedly unfriendly toward American trade. Not only are they inclined to boycott American goods in their purchases, but late letters from China inform me that they are urging the policy of refusing to work at all for Americans, to unload American goods from ships, or to handle them in any way. The boycott movement, put into effect in Shanghai, Canton and other ports in July, is spreading to Hongkong, the Straits Settlements and even to Japan and other places ouside of China where Chinese live in large numbers. This suggests another point in connection with the extension of for- eign commerce upon which too great emphasis cannot be placed. In order to extend business in any country, the dealings with that country both of the Government and of private merchants, must be first honest, and sec- ond courteous. There are many lines of investment in Chinese enter- prises which besides furnishing adequate returns on capital will in turn encourage American exports to China. ITot only may railroads and mines be developed, but such industries as the immense silk industry are managed by antiquated methods, and new capital and modern methods would give them an enormous de- velopment. For the present it is hard to tell whether the condi- tions in Manchuria are to be assimilated to those in China or to those in Japan. It is quite possible that the EDUCATION FOR COMMERCE: THE FAR EAST. 14.3 latter will be the case ; but in any event the conditions must be studied carefully with reference to the needs and tastes and prejudices of the people of Manchuria rather than to our own customs. Japan. The conditions in Japan need to be differ- entiated quite sharply from those in China. In the first place, the monetary system is satisfactory, so that the risk of exchange is removed. Second, the Japanese, while disposed to be friendly, are nevertheless, as a na- tion, looking much more carefully after their own spe- cial internal interests than are the Chinese, so that it is perhaps more difficult to find there a field for profitable investment. As is well known, the feeling among for- eign investors in Japan in many instances is that they have not always been treated with fairness by the Japan- ese Government (for example in the case of the tobacco monopoly and at times in the courts) ; and furthermore, that Japanese tradesmen are not always trustworthy in their dealings. The Japanese are making earnest efforts to develop their own manufactures along many lines, so that their market needs to be more particularly studied with reference to the nature of the goods which Ameri- cans can sell there as well as with reference to the prod- ucts of Japan which can profitably be purchased by Americans. The Other Countries. 'No different condition in the other countries needs especially to be touched upon here as they are severally of relatively minor importance. Hongkong, a British possession, serves of course chiefly as a door for trade in China, while the other countries have each its own special needs to be studied. 144 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. SUGGESTIONS. This hasty indication of what may be found in the Philippines and in some of the other countries serves as a basis for touching briefly upon some of the princi- ples that need to be taught in connection with our com- mercial colleges and carefully considered by our ex- porters. First, it cannot be emphasized too often that in selling goods it is necessary to consider the likes and dislikes of the purchasers rather than our own. Our consuls are continually dwelling upon the fact that American manufacturers and merchants are too strongly inclined to insist upon keeping their own standards and imposing those standards upon the Chinese, Japanese, and other foreigners. We have not yet felt the necessity of developing our foreign trade (in spite of all that we say about it in the newspapers) to anything like the extent to which it has been felt in Europe, and in conse- quence we have not learned this lesson. Illustrations from two of our late consular reports will explain : 1. Chinese shoes are quite different in type and style from American shoes ; in consequence, our American rubber over-shoes and boots are sold hardly at all in China, ^vhereas Germany is supplying many. The Ger- mans make a special, short half-boot of light weight w^hich does meet Chinese requirements, and the Chinese are using them in large numbers ; whereas the American rubbers can be worn, and are worn only by the few Chinese who have adopted the foreign style of dress, or by those who wear them as shoes and not as over-shoes. 2. Ginseng is another American product which for EDUCATION FOR COMMERCE: THE FAR EAST. 145 many decades has been valued in China. As is well known, many Chinese believe that the ginseng root pos- sesses certain mysterious qualities which make it play an important part in their lives, and which render it in many particulars " the greatest medicine of earth." They believe that these unusual qualities are most fre- quently found in roots which are knotted or gnarled or which have a peculiar color, or an abnormal shape, par- ticularly if the root resembles some fabulous animal. These facts are well known to the native dealers, but not in many cases to tlie American producers. The con- sequence is that the American product, which is culti- vated, often takes on a form smooth and normal, and in consequence relatively of slight value, whereas a little care in cultivation would render a root gnarled and ugly and consequently many times more valuable. This is not suggesting an adulteration or a misrepresentation of the product nor selling under false labels or names ; it suggests meeting your customers' wants. In many instances the chief value that the root possesses is that it satisfies the superstitious desires of the Chinese — not their physical needs. The Chinese dealers in many cases, owing to our lack of knowledge and our neglect to classify the products sent, reap a profit which might equally well be secured by the American producer, pro- vided the local conditions were known ; and in addition the American would greatly increase his sales. The Germans and the Japanese have far outstripped us in their readiness to meet Chinese needs. Hundreds of miles in the interior of China are found clocks, cheap ornaments and toilet articles of various kinds made in 10 146 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. Germany or Japan, often after an American model, sometimes labelled as American, but poorer and cheaper than the American product, and in consequence more ac- ceptable to the Chinese. If our merchants had learned the principle that they must study the needs of their customers as thoroughly as have the Germans and the Japanese, we should in many cases be supplying the needs now supplied by them. Moreover, we have not learned to pack our goods well for so long and difficult a shipment. In consequence our goods frequently arrive in the Far East so damaged that they are scarcely saleable — an inexcusable neglect showing lack of intelligent information. Again, the English particularly, but also the Germans, have accustomed the people in the Ear East to long-time credits. Obtaining their capital at low rates of interest at home, they will readily carry an account for six months or a year, whereas our dealers often require pay- ment in cash, even in part before the goods are deliv- ered. We can scarcely hope to achieve great success if we do not recognize customs of credit such as these. Most important, perhaps, of all, as I have intimated before, is the fact that we do not always have the reputa- tion of fair and courteous dealing, either politically or in a business way, though in these regards we are on the whole not worse than others. The Chinese distrust all foreigners in many ways, though generally recognizing the business honesty of the regularly established houses. The record which the Americans have made in work- ing the concession for what is possibly the most import- ant railway in all China (the Canton-Hankow line), EDUCATION FOR COMMERCE: THE FAR EAST. 147 has greatly discredited us. In the concession it was pro- vided that the Company should be and should remain American; but within a comparatively short time the control of a majority of the stock was placed in the hands of the Belgians, who were apparently so associ- ated with the French and the Russians that the Chinese felt, and with reason, that they had been grossly deceived and mistreated, not to use so strong a word as betrayed, by the Americans. Only under pressure of the threat of canceling the concession was the road finally bought back by Americans, and sold back to the Chinese at a; high profit; and it is still an open question whether even the late dealings are to be justified on moral grounds. This treatment, which the Chinese themselves believe to be dishonorable, and which very many Ameri- cans who have investigated the question likewise con- consider dishonorable, has so discredited our Govern- ment and our business men, that the small amount of money made by a few private speculators has been lost hundreds of times over by the loss of national and busi- ness prestige thereby incurred with its consequent ill effect upon our commerce. There is little use of attempting to extend trade in a country, unless we are willing so to deal that the citizens will have confidence in us and will be inclined, on the whole, to like us rather than to dislike us. The prompt action of the President in his orders regarding immigra- tion to our consuls and immigration officials is clearly wise and right. It is to be hoped that we have learned a lesson from our humiliating experience in connection with the Canton-Hankow railway. 148 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. It is to be said, on the other hand, that American in- dividuals, whether travelers or business men resident in China, are often, if not usually, better liked personally by the Chinese than are the citizens of almost any other country. Americans as a rule are more kindly and more courteous in their treatment of the Chinese than are others. They have been trained in a democratic coun- try, and are more likely to treat the Chinese as equals, or at any rate as human beings, than as beings of an in- ferior order which may be beaten or kicked or insulted at will. I have seen foreigners traveling in the Interior stone Chinese bystanders who were merely gratifying a natural curiosity by looking at them, as in our rural districts where Chinese are rarely seen they would be looked at by our people. In Peking even, I saw one day an Austrian sentry, instead of quietly warning off an old ignorant Chinese and his wife riding a donkey along a forbidden path, utterly innocent of any wrongdoing, club them both with a heavy cane until the old woman fell from the donkey in her fright and efforts to dodge. Such actions arouse feelings against all foreigners that are seriously detrimental to commerce. In China particularly one should know the technical laws growing out of the principle of exterritoriality, which obtains in China in the dealings between the Chinese and foreigners. It might frequently be very useful to know the leading points in the commercial laws of Germany, France, England, and other countries, because the laws of those countries are administered in China in the consular courts representing the different countries. Of course the knowledge of goods of the EDUCATION FOR COMMERCE: THE FAR EAST. 149 type which the merchant proposes to sell or buy is essen- tial — this much in general in common with the prepara- tion for all commerce. We need, moreover, to train our young men, whether they expect to serve as consuls or as salesmen, that, if they are to succeed, they must be prepared to stay in the Orient a considerable length of time, and to study carefully the conditions. If their field of work is in China and they wish to be thorough, they must learn Chinese — at any rate must learn to speak the commer- cial Chinese, and that is no more difficult than to learn to speak German, although it is much more difiicult to learn to write Chinese than to learn to write German. The Germans are compelling many of their well-trained young men to familiarize themselves with the Chinese language. We must do the same with ours. Of greater importance is it, however, to study the Chinese customs of living, of manufacturing, of buying and selling, so that our manufacturers may fit their sup- plies to the local demands, and may stand ready to learn what opportunities may arise for improving the products of China which they may wish to buy for export. The general principles of buying and selling, of account keeping, etc. may be learned in our schools ; the details of an oriental business (for they are vastly different from those in our own country) can be learned only in the Orient. The principles of money and of banking, and especi- ally of foreign exchange, must be learned, and thor- oughly learned ; first, because, on account of the present evils arising from fluctuations in exchange, business is 150 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. largely speculative and it is necessary to reduce the risks as far as possible; and second, because it is im- portant that every foreign dealer in China so under- stand what is needed that his influence may continually be used to induce the Chinese Government to improve its system. Too many of the suggestions already made by foreigners, some of them indeed largely accepted by the Chinese, have been suggestions in the wrong direc- tion. It is important, too, for success from a national point of view in this commerce, that a pretty thorough train- ing in economics be had, enough to know and to feel that it will pay as well to learn what the Orient can sell as what it will buy, to see that exploitation is not a sound policy for a permanent foreign trade, but that a large and permanent trade can be built up in the long run only if it is soundly based upon a fair exchange for the benefit of both countries, and that an investment in a foreign country for the purpose of developing its ex- port trade may prove as useful to the home nation as selling goods in that foreign country for the immediate profit of the home exporter. Those interested in our commercial expansion in the Far East may also look further and see what can be done to train capable Chinese here ; the Japanese are looking well after their own training. The education here of Chinese and Japanese will also extend trade, and I con- sider it of prime importance both commercially and politically. It is well known that Japan, Belgium, Germany, and other countries are offering special in- ducements to young Chinese to go to those countries to EDUCATION FOR COMMERCE: THE FAR EAST. 151 study, and they are going to those countries in far larger numbers than they are coming here. According to late estimates there are some 3,000 government students, besides even more private students, in Japan ; 300 to 500 in Germany ; as many in France and Belgium ; while there are perhaps 150 in the United States. There can be no doubt that when these Chinese return home to undertake work as engineers or as manufacturers or as merchants or as officials, they will certainly favor in the long run the countries in which they have been trained. It is greatly to be desired that both our Government and our people do what they can to encourage Chinese, Japanese, Filipinos and other Orientals to come here to secure their training, both general and commercial. We can afford to make good financial expenditures to bring about that result. And, finally, it is important to emphasize again that a fundamental business principle to be taught in our commercial schools and to be kept in mind is that toler- ant, liberal, fair dealing is the only wise policy from the business as well as from the moral point of view. This principle needs particularly to be emphasized in connec- tion with the Orient, and with other countries less de- veloped in commercial and manufacturing methods than our own, because the temptation is always stronger to deal unfairly with those unversed in Western methods, and because, as a matter of fact, the attempt has been made and in many cases successfully, both by govern- ments and by individuals, to exploit unfairly many of the Orientals. VI. FREE SPEECH IN AMERICAN UNIVERSI- TIES.* " The right of private judgment will subsist, in full force, wher- ever true men subsist. A true man believes with his whole judg- ment, with all the illumination and discernment that is in him, and has always so believed. A false man, only struggling to ' be- lieve that he believes,' will naturally manage it in some other way. " — Carlyle. Tpie grave differences of opinion between the presi- dent and the trustees of Brown University regarding the duties and the privileges of a university president make it desirable that the nature of a university be once more carefully considered by the public; for no one questions the good faith and sincerity — even the rare conscientiousness — which, on the one hand, forced the trustees in the performance of their duty to suggest to the president that he more carefully " refrain from pro- mulgating " his private opinions on certain matters of public interest, and, on the other, compelled the presi- dent in the interest of freedom of speech for university teachers rather to lay down his high office than to bind himself beyond what his own good sense should, as oc- * Written at the time of the resignation of President Andrews from Brown University, 1897, but not published. 153 154 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. casion arose, determine. !From the differing points of view each side was clearly right; the right point of view must be found by considering the aims of a uni- versity and the best means of attaining them. Most university trustees are business men, accustomed to employ others to carry out their views and to repre- sent their opinions in business matters. The skilled workman in a factory may have opinions of his own regarding the best methods of work and the best rules for laborers; but he is expected, and very properly, to carry out the views of his employer. Even in other matters, if his habits or his views spoil his efficiency or injure his employer's business, he is not permitted to re- main. An employee is not expected to talk in public re- garding his employer's dishonesty or recklessness in business or even of the foolishness of his investments, if there is any likelihood that the employer's credit will be lessened by the talk. If a lawyer's views regarding the merits of a case are adverse to the client's interest as the client sees it, no one blames the latter for seeking another lawyer. Or, again, if in a Baptist or a Congregational theo- logical seminary a professor becomes convinced that only the Roman Catholic church has the right views regard- ing church organization and government or regarding religious doctrine and feels called upon to convince the young men under his charge that their church is wrong in these particulars, few people would question either the right or the wisdom of the trustees in calling for the professor's resignation and advising him to seek a position in a Eoman Catholic seminary. It is his FREE SPEECH IN AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES. 155 business to promulgate the doctrines of his church as the church authorities have determined them. If from deeper study he comes to the conclusion that the views of his church are wrong, he may properly try to win the church to his views, but if he fails he must be ready to go. He cannot be permitted to wreck his church by teaching false doctrines — and for the time at least every doctrine is false for his church that is rejected by its authorities. It is true that in late years many have believed that teachers in theological seminaries, special- ists of great learning, should be permitted to teach without interference what their studies have led them to believe is true ; but when questions are fundamental to the special doctrine, all would agree that this freedom is impossible. How could a Baptist professor believe in sprinkling and still be a Baptist, or a Roman Catho- lic fail to recognize the authority of his superior ! But the purpose of a university in the best use of that word is different. It does not exist to carry out the specific plans of its trustees as regards business or doc- trine. It cannot proselyte nor specially shape opinions without being false to its principles as a university. A university exists to seek for truth in its various phases and to make of its students investigators, seekers after truth. It must not even make it a chief purpose to teach the truth as its professors see it. If it attempts this chiefly, it becomes a mere seminary (a place for sowing seed) or trade school, and no longer a univer- sity in the proper sense. The spirit of a university is in its teachers. The great teachers are not men who merely tell what they 156 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. have learned — any parrot can do that — and as a source of mere information a book is often better than a man ; but the great teachers are men who can open the eyes of their pupils to see the truth, and can fill their hearts with a determination to seek the truth and to live by it. The university exists, not to make scientists or philoso- phers in the technical sense, but to make men of all pro- fessions who shall be independent and resourceful and lovers of truth ; and such men cannot be made by teach- ers whose business it is to administer dogmas, whether such dogmas be theological or biological or political. Independence of spirit and soundness of judgment are essential qualifications for the highest success in life, and it is these qualifications that the university seeks to give. Moreover, this view is the practical one. It is true that the university is a place where a student acquires knowledge. If his taste leads him to study entomology or electrical engineering or bridge building or Greek or political economy as a specialty, he will acquire a knowl- edge of many facts in connection with his subject ; but he will never become a master, a man who is fit for great work in his specialty, unless he has also acquired inde- pendence of judgment and readiness of resource in meet- ing new problems. The civil engineer has a new hitherto unsolved problem with every new bridge; the statesman one with every new tax law. Conditions in practical life are never twice the same, and only sound judgment and independent power will avail in meeting new conditions. ISTot knowledge primarily, but power, is what one needs in life, and good sense and independ- FREE SPEECH IN AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES. 15Y ent judgment are worth more than knowledge. Knowl- edge can be communicated by dogmatic teaching; inde- pendent judgment can be developed only by throwing the student on his own resources, making him think out his problems for himself, with no attempt on the part of the teacher to urge his own opinion. Unless the teacher can give his pupils the feeling, not merely that they are free to form their own opinions on all questions that come up, but that they must form such opinions with perfect fairness and freedom, he is a failure as a university teacher. This is not the view of the functions of the university that is commonly taken by the newspapers, and presum- ably by many of the best university trustees; but it is the view generally accepted by those most skilled in training young people, and reflection shows us that it is the right one. We more frequently see the statement made that universities are to teach the truth — and in such connection truth, of course, can m.ean only truth as some one, the speaker, sees it. The burden of the complaint against President Andrews is that he has been uttering the truth as he sees it, and not as it is seen by the Corporation. On this point not only the letter of the committee but also that of Mr. Walker, and even the wisely temperate letter of Dr. Wayland, agree. None of them questions the President's sincerity or his manliness. As I understand the matter, none of them would hint for a moment that his influence over young men in the university would be anything but inspiring, ennobling, uplifting. They believe that his political views, if put into effect, would lead to dishonesty. He, 158 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. with equal sincerity, believes that their political views put into effect have led to dishonesty. (In both cases I rule out the meaning of intentional wrong-doing.) Now this difference of opinion, frankly avowed and clearly understood, would stimulate young men at Brown University to face the question of free silver coinage fairly, fully, freely, and would form a test exercise of uncommon interest and value in training their powers of independent thought leading to conscientious action. That one of them could be injured intellectually or morally by such a study of a controverted question is inconceivable. But if he were given only one side of every such question and had the doctrine fed him as the only mental and moral nourishment, his mind and heart might be crammed with learning and prejudice indeed, but would surely be dwarfed from lack of free exercise. Moreover, if he knew that his professor or president was hampered in expression of opinion by the views of others — especially by those who must have studied the question with less care than himself — he would surely be led to feel that the pursuit of truth was not an attractive purpose in life, nor would he reverence and follow the example of his teacher, but would despise him as a weakling. And this attitude toward the teacher is of vital import in all universities. There is little education of consequence that does not come through personal contact. Every thoughtful man knows that there is no other ennobling power that can compare in efficiency with that of a strong personality, working freely on terms of intimacy with those who are young and impressionable. To put a seal upon the lips of FREE SPEECH IN AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES. 159 strong, good men is to dry up the fountains of life of the people. But besides these general considerations regarding the purpose and method of a university, one should note some specific points made by the trustees of Brown. It is urged first, and very proj^crly, that persons in posi- tions of responsibility must place limits upon their utterances, that their very position binds them to self- restraint. This is doubtless true ; but here again we should seek for the guiding principle. The power for good is not limited by restraints that are self imposed for worthy reasons ; it is limited by external restraints that hamper its efficiency. All will agree that the highest duty of every man is to further the best interests of society to the utmost of his ability. Most people will agree tliat this can almost, if not quite, invariably be done best by devoting one's energies to the special work in life that one has under- taken. If one is a physician, his greatest service can be rendered by furthering the interests of his profession ; if one is a preacher, let him devote himself to the moral and spiritual uplifting of his fellows ; if one is a uni- versity president, let liim place before all else the true welfare of his university. Most political campaigns, like the one here involved,* have a moral phase ; but opinions always differ as to the side which is right. In almost all cases the preacher will find that his influence for good, even in political matters, is greatest if he in a non-partisan way sees the *The campaign of 1896 in which the question of the free coin- age of silver was the main issue. 160 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. good on both sides and the evils in both parties and con- fines his preaching to combating generally recog-nized evils and aiding the well-known good without preaching party politics. To be sure he might possibly carry an election locally sometimes by so j^reaching; but, if he did, he would probably by so doing gain the reputation of being a one-sided partisan who could see evil only in his opponents, good only in his friends ; and his per- manent influence for good with a large proportion of the community, including probably many of his o\vn congregation, would be destroyed. It may be that on rarest occasions a minister should in the interest of his fellows abandon the pulpit for the platform or the battlefield ; usually when he does so it is because he is carried away by partisan feeling, not be- cause he is moved by a wise patriotism. Likewise, a university professor of politics or economics, or possibly a university president, by entering the arena of par- tisan contest may weaken his direct influence over those in his charge by gaining a reputation of being prejudiced on one side. It may be in grave emergencies that it is his duty to take an active part in politics, even though his university influence be weakened ; but in most cases his service to the public is likely to be greater if his attitude is that of a fair-minded man rather than of a partisan. While a teacher of politics or economics may perhaps be fair-minded and active in party politics, his students of the opposite party will hardly think so. This however does not mean that a Christian minister, a professor of economics or politics, or a university president is not to have positive opinions on political FREE SPEECH IN AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES. 161 questions and to express them. They are all citizens of the State, and from their positions ought to be im- usually well informed on pnblic affairs. Their coimsel ought to be of value. It is simply a question of the way to render the greatest service in the long run; and the probability is that this will be by fair-minded, tem- perate expression of well-considered views as occasion demands, not by active partisan work, which, for men in their position, is likely to lessen materially their influ- ence in their regular work. But the man who fears to give an honest opinion on a public question which he has especially studied because it might offend someone who has power over him, is a coward and a traitor to the good of the community, whose influence will not go far because people will not respect or trust him. On the other hand, we must not overlook the fact that intemperate or ill-advised or indiscreet expressions of opinion or unwise disclosures of policy are among the best evidences of incompetency that a board of trustees can have. When a professor is dismissed — and prop- erly dismissed — for incompetency, he and his friends will naturally feel that the cause must be something else, and they are likely to refer it to the prejudices of the trustees. They charge an attack upon freedom of teaching when the true cause is unfitness ; unfitness not because the professor has wrong views — that is of slight moment — but because he has not good sense, tact and judgment, which alone would fit him for his work. The supporters of the views of the trustees of Brown University, including Dr. Wayland and Mr, Walker, urge, secondly, that the doctrine of the free coinage of 11 162 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. silver is immoral and that the teaching of immoral tenets must be stopped. All will agree that the teach- ing of some doctrines abhorrent to the moral sense of the community ought not to be permitted in a university. A professor who advocated openly or secretly free love or burglary or generally recognized crime or any crime of any kind ought clearly to be removed; but any sub- ject whatever that in the field of religion or science or politics is so debatable that it can be a matter of party division is clearly not included in this class. To at- tempt to put it there is simply to declare one's self ill- informed or narrow-minded or bigoted. Tolerance has been said to spring from indifference, and this may be true at times ; but generally speaking it comes from en- lightenment. Every well-informed student of econ- nomics and politics knows that every question that be- comes the cause of division between parties has truth enough on both sides so that equally honest and upright men may be found on either side. I trust that it will not seem invidious to call attention to the fact that it is rather presumptuous for the trustees of Brown University and the newspapers that side with them to assume that nothing short of mental weakness or blind prejudices or moral obliquity can explain Presi- dent Andrew^s' attitude on the silver question ; for every well-informed man knows that he has, prima facie at any rate, a better right to a positive opinion on this most complicated and difficult question than, certainly, most of these critics. He was delegated by the United States Government to represent it at the Inter- national Monetary Conference of Brussels in 1892 be- FREE SPEECH IN AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES. 163 cause of his special knowledge of this subject. His rep- utation as a student of this special subject is certainly far greater than that of the great majority of his trustees ; and the significance of his utterance Avas not chiefly, as Dr. Wayland implies, because he was president of Brown University, but because he was a world-wide authority on that special question. Even if one were to urge the popular verdict, the majority of the Rhode Islanders have more than once committed themselves to the doctrine of international bimetallism, and if the doctrine of free silver is dishonest, that of international bimetallism is less so only in degree. Either plan would lessen the value of gold. Moreover, every student knows that the decided majority of special students of the subject the world over have expressed themselves on the side of international bimetallism, so far as its economic practicability is concerned. Many of them oppose it now, because they believe that it is politically impossible, and that therefore to advocate it is like chas- ing moonshine. But whatever his conclusion, every one who has really thoroughly studied the question has so keen a sense of its complexity and almost infinite diffi- culty that he will not quickly accuse any man who differs from him in opinion of either insincerity or men- tal obtuseness or moral obliquity. Since natural science has been thoroughly studied apart from religious prej- udices, few men venture to criticise a scientific expert's judgment in his chosen field. In a similar way, but partly too from indifference, most educated people are tolerant on religion to a fair degree. But few people recognize the complexity and difficulty of economic and 164 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. political problems, while, as the State's action is likely to affect their pockets, they have an intense and abiding interest in them. The consequence is often an intol- erance regarding these matters no longer found in other fields. It is urged further that the president of a university especially, and its professors in a less degree, " repre- sent the corporation," and must therefore not express opinions that differ from those of the trustees, if the trustees think them important. But surely the trustees are represented by these men only in strictly university matters. A Republican Baptist minister might well represent in a religious convention a congregation made up chiefly of Populists. Likewise a Roman Catholic representative in Congress might well be the best repre- sentative for a Protestant constituency. He is not representing their religion but their political interests, though the foolish prejudices of voters might prevent their electing him even if he were the best man for the place. Are trustees of a university also to be moved by prejudice ? The trustees of a college may wisely ques- tion whether their president or professors are fairly representing their spirit in arousing in the hearts of their students the hunger for truth and the determina- tion to live for its satisfaction. If they demand beyond this that the president and professors shall close the minds of the students to all aspects of the truth except- ing those enjoyed by the trustees themselves (and this they do when they ask their representative to abstain from a fair expression of his views when his own good sense tells him that on a public question he should FREE SPEECH IN AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES. 165 speak his thoughts as a man and citizen), they are either short-sightedly failing to see the true purpose of the university or they are recreant to their trust, and are trying to use the organization endowed for the broaden- ing of minds to further their own selfish or narrow- minded views. Personally I do not question the worthiness of motive of the Brown trustees ; but how will the millions of sincere, honest, though possibly unwise men who believe in the free coinage of silver judge the motives of a board who permit one of their professors to leave his students for seven weeks to preach the doctrine of gold which the silver men believe dishonest, and strive to still the tongue of a more gene- rally recognized authority on the subject who merely in answer to a friend's question expressed a belief in the free coinage of silver ! But again, how does a professor represent his college ? A lawyer represents his client, a physician represents his patient's interest ; but in both cases the representa- tives are experts, and if sincerely working for their clients' interests their clients are called fools if they do not grant them a wide discretion. It may be at times, of course, that they must call the expert's atten- tion to conditions that may have escaped his attention ; but the judgment must almost invariably be his. So in a university, the professor is engaged as an expert. He will always be glad to have his attention called to the facilities furnished him for doing his work, to the condi- tions of all kinds surrounding him ; but the conduct of the work must be left to him or the work cannot be well done. If he is not better fitted to conduct his work than 166 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. are his trustees, including his conduct in private affairs so far as it can affect his work, he ought not to be in his place. But it is said, again, that while the trustees cannot wisely interfere with a professor in teaching his special- ity, for that would be an unwise interference with the freedom of academic teaching, a university president is an executive officer — and at Brown President Andrews is not hired to teach political economy — and suggestions to him not to express his views on political questions is not interference with freedom of teaching. No man who knows and feels the spirit of a university life can fail to consider this a mere quibble. The essence of true teaching, as has been said, is the awakening of zeal for a fair-minded search for truth. The spirit may be given in many ways, outside the class-room as well as in it ; and no one so much as the president ought to be the impersonation of the higher life of truth-seeking and truth-loving, jSTo man who cannot be trusted to speak wisely and keep silent discreetly is fit for such a place; but no man in such a place can have his course dictated by others without losing his influence for good. More- over, on questions of public import on which a man from his special study believes himself qualified to speak, a man must be ready to speak temperately and justly when asked, even if his opinions find no echo in the minds of the trustees or of the community ; otherwise he is too poor a citizen and too small a soul to kindle in the minds of his students the loyalty and zeal for truth which it is his chief duty to inspire. Young men like neither cowards nor time-servers, nor respect them. FREE SPEECH IN AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES. 167 The trustees of a university, then, have not merely the privilege but the duty of furthering the interests of the institution in their charge in every practicable way. It is their business to find fit professors and presi- dents and to remove or guide those who in their judg- ment are unfit. The question whether they shall at- tempt to restrict the expression of professors or presi- dents on political or religious or scientific questions is purely one of expediency. From consideration of the purpose of the university itself, however, it appears that interference with such freedom of expression can be only detrimental. The other opinion can have come only from misconception or forgetfulness of the highest aims of a university, and from dwelling too much upon the function of mere knowledge giving. The professors too are largely re- sponsible for this. Many of them teach chiefly with that in view. Many of them, even in economics and politics, seem to feel that to drive the right doctrines, i.e., their doctrines, into their students' minds is the main thing, forgetting that the questions of to-day may be settled to-morrow, or that new conditions may make the solutions of to-day false to-morrow; and that there- fore impartial judgment and power to grapple suc- cessfully with social problems is what especially the coming statesmen need. From this standpoint too, of mere knowledge giving, the financial interests of the university are apt to assume an exaggerated importance. They are of grave import- ance, of course, but the chief expenditures of a uni- versity are for knowledge giving. For building men 168 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. into truth-loving, truth-seeking characters, the chief essential is the personality of the teacher, and the life blood of this personality must be freedom with no limits save those wisely self-imposed. But beyond its special import to teachers and univer- sities, the question to-day, with our great universities largely endowed by wealthy men or directly dependent on the state, has a far-reaching social significance. The wealthy business man is wont to rule. It is natural that he should see somewhat too clearly perhaps the excellence of business methods. With the best of inten- tions, too, it is natural that needy institutions — and all universities are in need — should attempt to please pos- sible benefactors, whether wealthy men or legislators, by catering to their tastes. Energy should rather be expended in giving to benefactors the right views re- garding universities, though this at first would not prove so successful financially. The danger of lower- ing university ideals for money, though possibly not so imminent as many think, is grave ; for truth cannot stoop to sue for favor. The university officials who compromise opinion for money are stifling that breath of freedom by which alone the true university can live. The attempt, conscious or unconscious, to stop the expression of economic or political error is in our country anarchistic in the proper sense of the word, for our ideal government is free. To-day the socialists are saying that the wealthy and the powerful are the anarchists, for it is they, it is said, who are wresting the laws away from their constitutional intent ; it is they who threaten resistance to the will of the majority when FREE SPEECH IN AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES. 169 that will seems to thwart their interests ; it is thej who at times buy legislators and stifle the expression of public opinion. The accusation is becoming a frequent one, and many believe in its truth, that even to-day preachers and teachers are the hirelings of the rich and powerful, bound to inculcate error instead of to seek for and to promulgate truth. The charge to-day, fortunately for our country, has only the slightest basis of truth ; but there can be little doubt that many influences are tending that way. It behooves, therefore, the guardians of our universities that the charge shall not merely not become true, but that no acts of theirs shall so much as arouse the suspicion that it may be true. Even such a sus- picion would do our universities more harm than the open teaching of error. Error promulgated in the light is not dangerous. In social struggles each side that believes itself in the right welcomes an open contest. He who shrinks from an open contest, but would strike an opponent in the dark, confesses his weakness. Truth fights best in the open. VII. 'A CRITIQUE OF EDUCATIONAL VALUES.* "This gives force to the strong,— tliat the multitude have no habit of self-reliance or original action." — Emerson. The article on " The Educational Value of College Studies," by Professor Patten, which appeared in the Educational Review for Eebruary, 1891, is so sound in many of its positions and so interesting and suggestive throughout, that it may seem almost invidious to write in opposition to the views therein expressed; and yet the very ability of the article is, perhaps, a reason why its mistaken opinions should be controverted. Especially is this true, if, as appears, those opinions are such that they would, if generally received, prove a real hindrance to the progress of educational science and practice ; and false opinions on such a subject might readily lead to a revision of college studies that would prove very injur- ious. With the purpose of college life and college studies as interpreted by Professor Patten, whatever some so- called practical-minded parents may think, all progres- sive teachers will in the main agree. Professor Patten well says : " The educational value lies not in the knowledge imparted, but in the effect upon the student. * Published in the " Educational Review" January, 1892. 171 172 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. It gives him a better capacity for work, a faculty to do other work of a like character, purer ideas of life, greater confidence in his intellect, and keener apprecia- tion of his moral obligations." To all this everyone will give the heartiest assent. I find myself also in full accord with the nature of his dissent from those whom he calls the " thinkers of the old school," when he says : " I agree heartily with the thinkers of the old school in desiring to keep the college course a culture course. I differ with them, however, by thinking that certain parts of the new sciences contain elements that have as great an educational value as that of the old studies which they displaced." But it is when he attempts to fix these elements of educational values, and especially when he tells upon what these values de- pend, that he is, in my judgment, at fault. I wish to touch first upon the method of teaching a subject as determining its educational value ; for unless Professor Patten's article is misleading in this regard, he greatly underestimates this factor. He may have purposely omitted the discussion of this point for want of space ; but, if so, he should have warned us. His article leads one to think that he considers it of relatively little im- portance. To be sure, in one or two places in the article, he seems to believe that the educational value of a study depends upon the way in which it is taught. Yet he lays special stress upon content, with the various modifications brought in by " the inherited qualities of the college student, the life the student is to lead, and the judg- ments he must most commonly make, the state of prog- A CRITIQUE OF EDUCATIONAL VALUES. 173 ress of the science — whether inductive, deductive, or transitional — , and the character of the premises of the science and the confidence the student has in them," besides some other minor factors that he does not deem of sufficient consequence to mention. He even says, on page 110, " All studies are utility studies or culture studies, according to the manner in which they are taught; " but so much emphasis is laid upon the other points mentioned, and so little upon method, that one is led to believe that he thinks the manner of teaching to be of secondary importance. It is, perhaps, not too extreme to say, regarding college studies at least, that so far as educational value goes, the manner of teaching is of more consequence than the subjects taught. It is certainly a fact that a student who devotes four years to any one language and to the deductive science, physics, alone — if both are taught as they are taught by the best professors — will receive more culture, in Professor Patten's sense of that word, than he would from Professor Patten's ideal curriculum, with its full quota of moral sciences, if taught as they have been taught in many of our schools and colleges, by the poorer teachers. It seems necessary to make this point em- phatic — and my difference from Professor Patten's opinion here, while, I think, great, is, after all, only one of emphasis — because the other view, if it were believed, might well lead a teacher to underestimate his influence if he happened to be a teacher of some of the deductive sciences, and thus encourage poorer teaching than we have at present. Moreover, in selecting teachers for our colleges and universities, far too little stress is 174 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. laid upon this qualification of aptness for teaching. It would be unfortunate if this tendency were to become more marked. It will be seen, too, that this view of the importance of the manner of teaching a subject, if the right one, leads to entirely diiferent results on other points from those reached by Professor Patten. We learn from his article that " the educational value of a science depends upon the stage of its progress ;" and in fact the main contention of the article seems to be that we must depend upon the sciences that are in the inductive stage — or, better yet, that are in " the transi- tional stage from induction to deduction " — if we wish to get the best educational results ; because a science in that stage best stimulates the self-activity of the student, and because also, " the sciences that are in a stage of transition have the great men and the enthu- siastic teachers." To take up the second reason first, I should be willing to agree that only investigators can be or are great teachers ; but I can see no reason for thinking that when a science has reached the deductive stage, i.e., the stage of having a number of general principles from which one may reason, it still presents no further field for investigation. It may be true that investigation will take a different character, and that the word investigator will have a somewhat different meaning. A man who goes into an unfrequented reg- ion, and looks carefully about him, may perhaps discover a new species of plant or insect, and such a man may be called an investigator ; nevertheless, that kind of inves- tigation, if it ends with that, will hardly justify us in concluding that the said investigator is to be classed A CRITIQUE OF EDUCATIONAL VALUES. 1Y5 with Charles Darwin, or that he is a great scientist, or will be a great teacher. It is possibly true that the more completely developed sciences offer a narrower field for investigators of that class; but one of the excellent qualities of good Mother Nature is that she always has new secrets in all fields for man to discover ; and it is certainly true that advance in any line simply opens up wider vistas of unexplored territory to still lure investigators on. If so, why should there not be great men and great teachers in all sciences ? Do math- ematicians or physicists lack enthusiasm because they cannot extend their sciences ? This question of great men, too, in any field of research, is one of fact, upon which there may be varying opinions. Professor Patten considers physics a deductive science now — ergo, there should be, relatively speaking, few great men in physics to-day, and few great teachers. I have to place in op- position to this the opinion of the professor of physics in one of our great universities, who expresses himself on this subject as follows : " It is true that the names most often met with in the study of science are the names of workers in the inductive stages of the science, because we read principally of the men who have established the general principles ; but it is not neces- sarily true that these men are the greatest men in that particular science. In physics, some of the very greatest names are among the men who did not work inductively. IsTewton, Cavendish, Maxwell, Sir Wil- liam Thomson, Lord Eayleigh, are men among the English physicists alone who rank among the first, and who, with the exception of Cavendish, are noted for 176 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. their deductive work almost entirely." Professor Pat- ten might say that it was not so much the method of work as the degree of development of the science that brought about the result. This point is met as follows : " The last fifty years can show the greatest list of physicists of any like period in the history of the science, and it is doubtful if any generation could compare with the present in its list of great names in the science. True it is that the present generation is much more cele- brated for its physicists than chemists." I have not at hand the opinion of an expert in mathematics, but my own opinion would not be materially different as to that science ; and it might be fairly asked — were it likely to lead to any definite conclusion — if the great names of to-day in physics and mathematics do not deserve to be placed on a par with those in biology, or even in political economy or history. If we write the names of Ilelmholtz and Sylvester with those of Yir- chow and Wagner and Ranke — to name none of our own great men in any of these lines — he will be a bold man who will venture to place one below the others. Kather must we agree with Victor Hugo that among geniuses all are equal. Even if I were to attempt to disprove Professor Patten's contention by an appeal to numbers of great men or of great teachers in the dif- ferent sciences, we should doubtless find that no one could eliminate the personal equation ; we should learn that good men were plentiful in all fields, while the great men were woefully scarce in all. Each one of us knows best the great men in his own special field of labor, while because of our familiarity with the subject A CRITIQUE OF EDUCATIONAL VALUES. 177 we can also see best the weaknesses of even the greatest men in our own field. And still further, is there not much weight in Professor McMurry's question : " Is not the great teacher he who, after knowing his subject mat- ter well, directs his attention and investigations first of all to the relation of this subject matter to the minds of his students; whose chief effort is to fit or adapt the material to the growing mind in such a way as to make it grow strong in the best manner ? " This is certainly true in the case of children, and to a great extent in that of college students, though with them, in my judgment, the teacher should also be a seeker after new truth in his own special field of work. The more important point, however, and it is per- haps the most important one in the whole article, is the other one touched upon. Is it true that a science in the transitional stage " best stimulates the self-activity of the student," and that in consequence a science at that stage is best for culture purposes ? From what has al- ready been said it is evident that, so far as thoroughly trained specialists are concerned, the field of nature is broad enough to offer the opportunities for new dis- coveries in all departments. So far as college students are to be considered — and they are really the ones in question here, though I can but suspect that Professor Patten has at times forgotten this — one might perhaps grant that the possibility of adding something really new to the sum of human knowledge, would serve as a special stimulus to good work, although I doubt if this one thing would ever make an appreciable difference in the classroom or laboratory. 12 178 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. If this were granted, however, one should ask if this added zest may not be given at too great a cost. The question is largely one of methods of teaching. I quite agree with Professor Patten as to the importance of inductive work in science, in language, in history, in political economy, in all fields of study. I fail to see, however, any reason why physics or grammar may not be taught inductively as well as botany or political economy ; but, if so, it takes much of the force from his argument. He well says that " if a science is taught for culture, it must be presented as it was when in a state of transition from the inductive to the deductive stage." This seems to recognize that it is well to train students in inductive reasoning. The subjects are new to the students ; it rests with the teacher to lead his pupils to develop for themselves the general principles. If the science is a fully developed one, the teacher has his choice of a large number of principles to be developed, and may select them in the order best suited to the development of the pupil, without in any way lessening the real drill that the students will get from making their own generalizations. One may well doubt the advisability of attempting to develop with pupils of college grade a generalization that the teacher has not yet made for himself, a process which Professor Patten would make the regular one. The loss from time wasted in fruitless effort — fruitless, because the pupils would not merely fail of results that would help the cause of science, but because they would also be led into discouragements and loose habits of work — would be more than the gain in added inspiration from the hope, a rather forlorn one, A CRITIQUE OF EDUCATIONAL VALUES. 179 of the possible discovery of some new law. For ad- vanced university students, who have already had their powers well developed by a thorough, carefully planned course of inductive work under a trained teacher who had been over the whole field before them, the case might well be different. It should be borne in mind, however, that our college students are mere tyros in science, and have as yet, most of them, had very little practice in really scientific work in any line. One can but feel in reading his article that Prof- essor Patten has seen some good teaching in political economy — his own students would doubtless testify to the truth of this supposition — but some very poor teach- ing in geometry and physics. He is certainly unjust toward much of the work that is done in our schools and colleges. He says that geometry " is always presented in its present complete form." He thinks that it would be better if the student had occasionally to supply a missing proposition, and asks : " Would not the effort of the student in endeavoring to supply this missing linlc be of much greater educational value to him than the learning of a dozen propositions demonstrated in full in his book ? " Of course ; but as long ago as when I was in college, the work in geometry that we did there was nearly all of the kind that he suggests ; the days of learn- ing by rote fully demonstrated propositions had already gone by, in that college at least, and now one seldom finds such methods even in our high schools. Our later text-books are prepared with reference to leading the pupils on to what is for them really original work, as much so as any done by Euclid himself; and a visit 180 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. to many classes in geometry would readily convince one that if Greek boys in the days of Plato studied geometry with more enthusiasm than do ours, the subject must have been enchanting. Political economy and the moral sciences in general may be good to develop habits of inductive reasoning. Surely no one believes that more firmly than I do ; and yet I have seen teachers of politi- cal economy whose pupils were unable to get any drill of that kind, and who found it a " dismal science " indeed. The teacher was at fault, not the subject. Let me quote again from the professor of physics before cited, Professor Sanford, of the Leland Stanford Jr., University, whom, as an advanced teacher of the later days who believes that college students should be taught for culture, not merely for utility, I asked to outline for me briefly his aims and methods in teaching physics. He says : " There are very many possible lines of mental and moral training to be had from the study of physics. In general, I attempt to outline my work so that the pupils will reason from concrete examples to general principles, then deduce other concrete examples from these gen- eralizations, and test their deductions by experiment. To take a single example. I wish my pupils to study the pendulum. I select the law of the relation of the length to the time of vibration, as one generalization which I wish developed. Suppose I ask the following questions : ' How long will it take a pendulum two feet long to make ten vibrations ? one one foot long ? one six inches long ? ' etc. After a number of experiments of this kind, I ask them to tabulate their results and state A CRITIQUE OF EDUCATIONAL VALUES. IgJ the law. Then thej are given tasks to do and confirm by experiments ; e. g.: ' Make a pendulum that will vibrate three times in tv/o seconds,' etc. This seems to me to cover the whole range of reasoning. We have, first, induction ; second, hypothesis ; third, deduction from this hypothesis ; and fourth, testing this deduction, and with it the hypothesis, by experiment. My aim, so far as mental training ia concerned, is to give practice in this whole process. Every generalization in physics can be used to give just this kind of training. Later these general principles may themselves become the in- ductive series for a higher generalization, and the hypothesis thus formed may be used as the major prem- ise in another deduction, this deduction tested experi- mentally, etc. This seems to me to cover the whole ground. It cannot be covered, in this way, by a science which is yet in its inductive stages." Did Archimedes or Galileo get any better training from their study of physics than do young men of to-day from this, now deductive, science, if it is taught in the way here suggested ? Does it not rather seem clear that the more nearly complete the science becomes, the better adapted it is for such thorough training work? As to the interest such work arouses, I have seen students in high schools from preference spend a good part of their play-time in the laboratory. They were hungering for knowledge of the laws of physics, and their teacher saw to it that they got the knowledge by working it out for themselves. It seems also clear that political economy, for ex- ample, could not now — and never can — give training in 182 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. the whole process of reasoning in this way ; though, as I believe, the subject has other advantages that, with an equally good teacher, fully counterbalance this. Good teachers of other sciences will so plan their work as to give good results for culture; while poor teachers of even the moral sciences will make of their subjects mere drudgery from which little culture can be derived. Witness a good part of the teaching in history and political economy that our schools and colleges all over the country have suffered under. It is encouraging to note that there is a genuine reaction in favor of a more careful study of the principles of teaching, that has already produced good results and is destined to do even more in the near future. It is fair, however, to consider the relative values of, for example, political economy and physics, to give training in inductive reasoning or in the various kinds of reasoning already mentioned, when taught with equal skill with that purpose in view. For such a question the answer has already been given above in good part. In physics, the promises can be controlled almost abso- lutely, nearly enough for practical purposes, without any process of assuming a condition of affairs that is not known or may not be in fact produced. The premises may be simple ones or a simple series, as in the example given above, or may be made of great complexity, at the will of the teacher, who can adapt his work to the needs of the class. In political economy all the problems involve many complex and even variable premises. ]^o problem can be made simple, unless it assumes conditions not A CRITIQUE OF EDUCATIONAL VALUES. 183 found in society unmingled with other factors. So far as this one fact is concerned, it would seem that physics is to be preferred ; but this brings me to the next most important point in Professor Patten's article, the one relating to the character of the premises used in the different sciences. I have much sympathy with the stand taken by him regarding this point, for it is one that I have often used in discussions with teachers of the natural sciences over the educational value of their special subjects. And yet, in part as a result of such discussions, I can but feel that Professor Patten has too narrow a view of the question. " The habit of using premises which the student does not question," said he, " creates a dogmatic spirit. It dwarfs his mind by confining him to that form of logic which deals only with relations of premises to the conclusions. Such reasoning excites little interest or activity." And again, with much force, " The study of premises, how- ever, is a study of mankind and of the laws of thinking, and is a necessary condition to good reasoning upon practical subjects. The same premise has a different degree of force upon minds in different stages of devel- opment and in different social environments. To ques- tion the premises from which one reasons, opens up the broadest problems of psychology, and forces one to ex- amine into the complicated phenomena of the society in which one lives. The feeling, therefore, that his prem- ises are open to discussion, gives the student much greater incentive to accurate thinking than he would have if he were studying a science with axiomatic prem- ises." And still again, " If a good professional man is 184 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. wanted, let him study deductive sciences with unques- tioned premises, but beware of praising the same course of study for the culture it gives." Now it is doubtless true that a very large proportion of the judgments that we have to make in our social, and even in our business life, are these moral judgments based on premises that are uncertain, and that have also to be critically con- sidered; and it is well for our young people to have much practice in making such judgments under the over- sight of a cool-headed, careful teacher, who will show them how likely one is to err in such matters, and how modest and conservative one should always be. But here again we come to the consideration of the personal qualifications of the individual teacher. Where it is impossible to bring one's opinions to the test of ac- curate measurement, where one's judgment is after all a matter of opinion, it is hard to convince the fool that he is not a wise man. It is in just this field of infinite de- bate that we find the most foolish dogmatism. Let me mention as proof the attitude of many political econom- ists, many so-called statesmen, nearly the entire popula- tion when it comes to a question of practical politics, or perhaps even worse, when the question is one of practical religion. Young people often differ in judgment on a question of natural science ; but a measuring-rod or a balance, a microscope or a retort, forbids them to dog- matize. It is an easy matter for a teacher of science who has a; conceited, stubborn pupil with a wrong idea that he is tenaciously holding, to refer him to a simple experiment and let Nature, who has no nonsense in her methods of working, show him his foolishness. I have known teachers of science more than once to A CRITIQUE OF EDUCATIONAL VALUES. 185 teach in this way at least an apparent modesty to boys who were disposed to be dogmatic. But when the question is one of literary taste, or a complicated social one, like that of pauperism, or an economic one like that of protection, if you please, much more judgment and skill are required in the teacher. The pupil's opinion can be controverted only by argu- ment, and that combined with wise handling of his individual prejudices. If he does not absorb from his teacher's own wise spirit the habit of tolerance, it can- not be forced upon him, as in the natural sciences. The only test is that of a majority vote of those who are called authorities ; and he has clearly a right to his own opinion as against these. The teacher may say, as I knew one college professor to do : " Do callow youths like you venture to set up your judgment in literary matters in opposition to that of your text-book author, a recognized authority in literature ? " but such a ques- tion is not likely to discourage dogmatism in pupils. As a matter of fact, many of the college students of even our day take the opinion of their professors in political economy and history and literature without any further question; and nothing could more surely lead to dog- matism. Of course, I am not forgetting that many teachers are too wise to permit their pupils to adopt opinions that they have not clearly thought out for themselves, and that some pupils learn fully to appre- ciate the many sources of error in reasoning on social questions ; but it still remains true that more skill in the teacher is required to prevent pupils from falling into dogmatic ways, when the subject taught is one in 186 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. which the conclusion of the student cannot "be put to an absolute test of experiment or proof. Tho the ques- tion is not raised in Professor Patten's article, I still wish to call attention to President Walker's vigorous comparison of the moral effects of the two classes of sub- jects in the October number of the Review. I cannot but think that with first-class teachers in both lines, the philosophical studies would not only not appear to a dis- advantage in the comparison, but rather the reverse. With poor teachers in both, I fully agree with President Walker. Professor Patten is right in dwelling upon the ad- vantages that arise from the study of the complex premises found in social questions of all kinds. As has been seen, I think that he is wrong in thinking that in themselves they check the spirit of dogmatism. I doubt also if they lead to more " accurate thinking," as he suggests, than do subjects with what he calls " axiomatic premises." W^e need further to ask — thinking about what ? The economist probably reasons more accurately on social questions than does the physicist, not because his habits of thinking are better, but because he is more familiar with his premises. On questions of physics, we should find the physicist the more accurate reasoner, even where the problem were well within the comprehension of the economist, and from the same reason. As to which will train to more accurate habits — while from the habit of dealing with complicated premises, the economists will possibly more often ask: Is there any other possible factor ? before he sees proof of it, still A CRITIQUE OF EDUCATIONAL VALUES. 187 this is not all that is needed for accurate reasoning. You must also be sure of your premises, and in physics, no result of value can ever be reached without careful measurement and accurate knowledge of these premises. You are always informed when you have been care- less regarding your knowledge of premises; Nature never forgets to call you to account. On the other hand, while you are equally sure to get wrong results in political economy if your knowledge of your prem- ises is faulty, you may never find it out. Think of the economists whose errors may not be discovered for generations after they have ceased to reason. So far as " accurate thinking " is concerned, the economists might well sigh for kindly but severe Nature to set them on the track of their errors, as she does the physicists. The advantages that the social sciences as culture studies possess over physics, astronomy, etc., are not, in my judgment, those that have been cited by Professor Patten. It is not that they are inductive or transi- tional, nor that they train better to " accurate thinking " because of their complexity. Professor Patten touches it more nearly when he says as quoted : " The study of premises is a study of mankind," etc. Not the study of all premises was in his mind when he wrote that and added, " To question the premises from which one reasons opens up the broadest questions of psychology and forces one to examine into the complicated phe- nomena of the society in which one lives," but the study of the premises found in social problems. The knowl- edge of these subjects is that which comes nearest to our hearts and lives, is that which makes us or may make us 188 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. ■useful or injurious to ourselves and to society; and the dealing with such subjects tends especially to broaden our sympathies and show us how to deal wisely and charitably with our fellow-men. Given two boys of equal ability with equally skilled teachers, one of whom becomes a physicist with electric- ity a specialty, the other an economist with pauperism and crime his specialty, I should not expect to see the latter become the more accurate reasoner, nor the more honest and truth-loving, generally speaking. Qtiite possibly he would do no more for the poor in the long run than the other by his inventions would do indirectly ; but I should expect to see him a man of more sensitive, though better-tempered feeling for the sufferings of others, and one also whose knowledge would keep him from much unwise action in social matters into which the physicist might well be led. I should expect to find him a man better fitted to meet and manage wisely social evils, or for that matter, an excited crowd (if he had studied his subject at first hand, as he should), and one to whom legislators and philanthropists would more readily turn. He might do society no more good than the other; but the good that he did would probably be more direct and more readily seen. Surely these ad- vantages of a moral nature in educational value may be granted to the social sciences. So, too, the moral sciences, including history, language and literature, are doubtless better adapted for training the imagination along special lines, for cultivating the aesthetic tastes, and for inspiring a love for the beautiful and good in literature and art, than are the natural sciences. They A CRITIQUE OF EDUCATIONAL VALUES. 189 are better for many purposes ; but we need both classes of studies for culture as well as for civilization, and our colleges should have both fully represented in their curricula. In one of the latest paragraphs of his article Pro- fessor Patten, I conjecture, does not intend to be taken quite literally. He says : " The college course must select only those problems in each science that have a high educational value, and study them for this value, and not for their utility as parts of a connected whole. In this way all the sciences can have an adequate repre- sentation in the college curriculum without that crowd- ing which at present is so much to be regretted." The expression " all the sciences " is very comprehensive, and even if we were to take it in the narrow meaning of all those sciences which are commonly represented in our colleges and universities, we shall still find it too broad. I wish to state again my agreement with Pro- fessor Patten's desire to teach science with reference to its culture value, and, where the distinction can be made, to omit the parts or problems that do not tend directly toward culture. But if I do not misunderstand the spirit of the passage just quoted, I must still dissent emphatically. It has seemed to many teachers of late years that the short courses in many subjects taught in our colleges — whatever the purpose may have been — are, relatively speaking, of little value for mental culture from their very shortness. Of what use for culture, relatively speaking, is a course in botany, or physics, or history, or German, or Greek, or political economy, if it lasts only twelve weeks, compared with one of two 190 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. or three years ? I do not wish to be understood as say- ing that we should have no short courses in our colleges. I think there is culture in even a little knowledge, and that it is desirable to know at least a little of many things. Furthermore, if one has a thorough understand- ing of some one subject, a good teacher can give him a fair idea of the general nature of another subject in a short course. But if I may quote again from Professor Patten's own admirable words on educational values, I would say that a twelve weeks' course, however wisely the problems may be selected, can give one very little of the " faculty to do other work of a like character," very little " added confidence in his intellect," very little " keener appreciation of his moral obligations," or, to quote again Professor McMurry, very little " lively, permanent interest in the subject " — a very important matter for culture. Not merely discipline is needed, but also mental activity, and only permanent interest in some subject will develop this. Here, too, may be mentioned President Walker's happy citation of law, medical, and engineering students, as showing more interest, and hence giving more attention and earnest- ness to their work. The educational value of this must not be underestimated. To get any of these effects in any noteworthy degree, one needs to devote a good deal of time to some one specific subject ; not with the idea of making one's self an expert workman for pecuniary ends — for I should omit the topics that had no special developing power, if they are to be found — but because every science begins with the alphabet, so to speak, in the learning of which for every college student there is A CRITIQUE OF EDUCATIONAL VALUES. 191 relatively little training of the judgment, and because the best training and the greatest interest come after the student begins to feel in some slight degree the sense of mastery and confidence in his own power to go ahead independently. These beginnings, which I have called the alphabet, of course differ much in character and importance in the different sciences. In one it is the technique of the microscope, in another the mere hand- ling of the laboratory apparatus, in a third the clearing up of definitions, etc. The old classical curriculum was, after all, formed largely on the right plan. There the classics were so studied that, if they were even fairly taught, the student began to get the best of discipline from them. The same thing is true of mathematics. And the two subjects were so diverse in character that the mental discipline was of a fairly diversified kind. The weak point in it was that it did not recognize the differences in individual aptitudes; and this, too, is the weak point at bottom of Professor Patten's plan. He seems to overestimate relatively the value of inductive reason- ing along certain lines, as if all students needed the same thing. Each student needs for his mental de- velopment a thorough course of training in some one line, continued until he has learned to know what it is to do some really thorough work on his own account. I omit here any special consideration of studies that are especially tools, such as language, elementary mathe- matics, etc., that all students must have before they can do thorough, independent work in anything. Until that stage of independent work is reached, the " budding 192 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. man," to use Professor Patten's expression, has not yet bloomed. He is not yet in a condition to bear fruit. He need not have become a specialist in the sense of having set ont on a life career, as is implied in the professional and purely university work; but he must have learned how to handle himself in some independent work, or he is not yet a man, and has not yet reached the development that is or ought to be implied in a college bachelor's degree, nor has he the permanent interest in intellectual work that is essential to mental activity, thoughtfulness, growth. The old classical course gave this power to all those whose natural aptitudes led them toward language, or mathematics, or grammar. They were able to do in- dependent work in any of these lines. The students whose natural aptitudes were of another kind fared badly. Let us frankly recognize the fact that the old course was an admirably planned course, in the main of the modern kind, for those who wished to develop their powers along the line of classical study. It is an excellent special course ; but it is a special course in language, and no more of a general culture course than one planned with literature or physics as its back- bone, though possibly the former is adapted to the needs of a greater number of students than the latter would be. The modern curriculum differs from the classical, not in picking out small parts from all the studies — for even if we were to try to do that by selecting the cul- ture parts, as Professor Patten suggests, we should find it an impossibility to give thorough culture, unless we left enough of some one of them to give a student the A CRITIQUE OF EDUCATIONAL VALUES. 193 power of going ahead independently in that line, and this requires years of work — but in so arranging the cur- riculum that the student may obtain this special drill in the line of his aptitudes ; so that from it he will get the best culture. One cannot be master of himself until he is nearly enough master of some one subject, be it theology or Greek, physics or political economy, car- pentry or blacksmithing, or mule-driving, to work in it to some advantage without a master. The sense of self- mastery does not come without this sense of independent power in work. Again without fairly thorough knowledge of some one subject, that essential element in all culture, that almost indispensable condition of successful growth, the power to get a definite outline for one's own ignorance is want- ing. Until one has a good knowledge of some one sub- ject, he has no conception of the extent of his ignorance on others. A smattering of many subjects is apt to lead one to think that he has a fairly complete knowl- edge of all. The graduates of many of our " mush- room normals " of the West, who have " finished " zoology, botany, political economy, etc., are pitiful examples of the effect of courses that fail to give a fairly thorough mastery of some one subject, although bad teaching is partly responsible for this result. The general effect of Professor Patten's article is to lead one to think that he has a too narrow conception of the meaning of that somewhat indefinite word culture, though his verbal definition of it seems broad enough. The insistence upon the inductive studies, upon the moral sciences, etc., leads one to believe that in his mind 13 194 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. culture means the same thing for all persons ; and especi- ally, so far as intellectual processes are concerned, does it mean for him the power to reason inductively and with accurate judgment regarding the real nature of social conditions. Ought we not to recognize more fully the great variety of human gifts and aptitudes, the great range of human interests ? After the man has gained the one or two essential moral qualities that belong to all true manhood and womanhood as such, especially that quality that Lowell fitly calls " the brave old wisdom of sincerity," and the kindliness of nature that leads to true courtesy — no one can pretend to culture in a complete sense, with the needs of society as our criterion, who has not these qualities — what more shall we ask, except that he have trained and developed the natural powers that he possesses, whatever these may be. Culture is not a matter of knowledge, but of development; and as one man has one gift, while another has a vastly different one, culture is as varied as human nature. I write as a teacher and student of social science, not with reference to the opinions of the " Four Hundred " regarding cul- ture. Recognizing this principle, we need to be much more guarded in our estimate of the relative educational values of the different studies. One study will have a great educational value for one student, while the same study, taught in the same way by the same teacher, will have a much smaller educational value for another. Professor Patten has recognized this principle in part in what he has to say regarding the " inherited qualities of the college student ; " but I think that all teachers of A CRITIQUE OF EDUCATIONAL VALUES. 195 mathematics will agree that not all pupils have inherited any great aptness for mathematics, while it is equally certain that some of them have this aptitude. For one, this study might have little educational value ; for an- other, the greatest. I pass by the question whether a student should study that which is easy for him or that which is difficult. Either answer fits this argument. Educational values, then, may not be estimated with any degree of accuracy without reference to both the manner of teaching and the individual aptitude of the student. The ideal college curriculum would be, not a fixed one, but one that could be fitted to the varying needs of the individual students, so that each one could best bring out what is in him. I wish to be understood broadly. While colleges are especially to give intel- lectual culture, we may with propriety extend the word to include development in other lines. If a man has but little aptitude for book-learning or scholarship in any line, as we commonly use the word, but has a gift for wood-craft or horse-training, and has developed his powers to the best advantage, so that he is doing society the best of which he is capable, I see no reason why he should not have this culture recognized. If he has the sincerity and courtesy that I spoke of before as evidence of moral training, I do not know why he is not the equal in culture of the man who has spent the same time and mental energy and who has attained the same degree of development in mathematics. The college curriculum should include first those studies that seem best fitted to the mental development of the greatest number that will take advantage of 196 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. them, and should then be extended as far to suit the needs of lesser numbers as the means of the institu- tion will permit. I know of no reason why it should stop short of teaching those whose best life-work lies in horse-training to develop their skill, their powers, their natural endowments in this direction in the best possible way, provided the means hold out. Let me not be misunderstood as advocating technical courses for merely technical purposes in a college curriculum. I simply mean to make it clear that the diversity of human nature should be recognized as far as is practicable in our college courses, in order that to each student may be given the best culture that he is capable of receiving. Further than that, let us recognize the fact that the educational value of any study is only relative ; that no study or series of studies is adapted to all, but that the most that we can say is, that if this study is taught in such a way, it is adapted to develop certain named qualities in a student. If then an individual student needs such a development, let him take this study ; but if he needs another development, give him another sub- ject suited to his needs. Or, in many cases, it will be sufficient to have the same subject taught in different ways to meet different needs. But, let me repeat, the purpose of it all is the best development that each stu- dent as an individual is capable of receiving. So, too, we cannot well speak absolutely of quantity of educational values, but rather of the kind of educational value. We may not say geometry has more educational value than political economy, or vice versa; though we A CRITIQUE OF EDUCATIONAL VALUES. 197 may saj geometry is better adapted for training in ac- curate deductive reasoning perhaps. This might lead us to say also, in a specific case, that geometry has more educational value for this boy than political econ- omy; while at the same time, we should probably be comjDelled to say of another boy in the same college that political economy has more educational value for him than has geometry. Again, when we have studied college students with especial reference to the kind rather than the amount of development that they need, we may say this study has more educational value for American students as a whole, because more of them need it, than has that study. Our college curricula, then, will first offer facilities for those studies that will, on this basis, as was intimated before, meet the needs of most students. When means are small, if college officers are wise, they will not try to offer a little of everything, but, in addition to the elementary courses that all must have, they will endeavor to make thorough those one or two courses that in their territory are likely to do the most good. Students that need different training should go to another college that is offering some other specially strong course in the line of their needs, or to a large wealthy one that offers many such courses. Though the reasons for my opinion are materially different from those given by Professor Patten, as has been shown, I still expect to see a somewhat similar evo- lution of the college curriculum, yet with an important difference. The difference lies in this, that instead of " the college course " with the moral sciences occupy- ing a " prominent and perhaps a dominant place," I 198 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. should rather speak of co-ordinated college courses, in more of which the social sciences will have a promi- nent, and often even the dominant part than in the courses of the past. I should not say with him, " Com- plete courses, making the student a master of what he studies, must be given only in graduate work," un- less by " complete course " is meant a specialty which one expects to make his life-work, and not then if it be one that has equal value in developing the stu- dent's powers. I rather believe, for the reasons already given, that every college degree should signify that its holder has had in at least one subject a training so thorough and complete as to arouse in him a perma- nent interest and make him capable of going ahead into independent work in that line with a reasonable degree of certainty that fruitful results will follow. I agree with him that the social sciences form, for many, and an increasing number, " an ideal group." While mathematics, the languages, and the natural sciences will always have their place, and that a large one, in the college curriculum, I think that as society in- creases in complexity, and also in refinement and right- eousness, many more students than at present will find their delight and their development in the study of those social sciences that deal, perhaps, more directly with all that is highest and best in man and society. VIII. POLICY OF THE STATE TOWAKD EDUCATION.* " No one will doubt that the legislator should direct his atten- tion above all to the education of youth, or that the neglect of education does harm to states. The citizen should be moulded to suit the form of government under which he lives." — Aristotle. Some little time ago we had the pleasure at Cornell university of listening to an address by Mr. Booker T. Washington, principal of the Tuskegee industrial insti- tute in Alabama. Mr. Washington is perhaps doing more for the education of the colored people and the development of industrial interests at the South than any other man in the country. He is one of the great educators. He told us that when colored young men and women had come to his school, and were sur- rounded by its influences for a year or two, learning what it was to be clean and to respect cleanliness and decency, their lives were so changed that they influenced others. When these graduates went back to their own home districts where there were often nothing but one- room cabins — large families living in this one room — where all members of the community were deeply in * Impromptu discussion at University Convocation, Albany, July 5 1894. 199 200 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. debt and oppressed by the mortgage system that claimed their crops before they were grown, the conditions seemed so desperate that nothing apparently could re- generate them. Yet frequently one girl school-teacher, preaching cleanliness by example and precept through the year, encouraging the poor negroes to pay off their mortgages as rapidly as they could and to build two- room cottages, would succeed in three or four years in transforming the whole community. The problem was simply this : to put better ideals into the minds of the negroes, to raise their standard of life. The economic problem that is involved in the rail- road strike that is on to-day in the West is also a ques- tion of the standard of life, and of the elevation of that standard among the working people of the country. There is practically unanimous agreement among lead- ing economists of this country and of the old world, that the one influence, which more than anything else tends to raise the wages of labor and to harmonize the differ- ent classes of society is the elevation of the standard of life. When children in the JSTorthern states have spent half their time for 200 days in the year in clean school buildings surrounded by the elevating influence of in- telligent teachers ; when they are taught that there is something better than gaining a few cents or a few dol- lars to spend for gratification of sensuous appetite; when they have been trained in this way for eight or ten years for half the days in the year, they do not for- get the influence of these lessons afterward when they become wage-earning men and women, though the spe- cific bits of information may have been forgotten. They POLICY OF THE STATE TOWARD EDUCATION. 201 will not feel that the wages they earn must go for the gratification of the lower appetites ; but they will have the higher and better ideals that will enable them to spend their money more wisely, to elevate their stand- ard of life and consequently to raise their wages as they ought to be raised. More than any other one influence toward bringing about harmony in the economic conditions of society is bound to be the elevation of the standard of living ; and the opinion of President Andrews of Brown university for one, as well as that of many other thinkers, is that no other one influence in this country can be so powerful to- ward raising the standard of life as are the common schools. It has just been said that the faults in our com- mon schools at present are due very largely, almost solely, perhaps, to the standard of life or to the standard of education held by the patrons of our common schools. What the common schools ought to be in order to raise this standard, the patrons of our common schools will find out better from the high schools and the colleges than in any other way. All our country communities need the elevation that comes from graduates of col- leges and higher schools. But another influence, and an influence that teaches much more directly politics and the principles which lead to improvement, economic and political, may come in part from the teaching in the common schools, though more particularly from the teaching of the higher schools. What we need in our voters, and in all our citizens, more than any other one mental habit at the present day is the spirit of thoughtfulness, the habit of 202 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. independent judgment. Pupils in our common schools of primary grade, because of their youth cannot be taught to any very great extent to reason, to think and to judge independently. Their work in the schools must of necessity be the gaining of information, the get- ting of tools for their later work ; but the chief business of both high schools and colleges is to teach students to think, to be independent, to judge for themselves on questions of the day and to act as their good judgment dictates. I might speak especially of the teaching of political economy that was referred to so particularly this morn- ing by the chancellor, and to the teaching of politics in our colleges; but personally I regard that as almost a secondary consideration. If a man brings to the study of political questions an independent, critical, honest mind, he will look at them fairly and squarely, judge them independently and vote accordingly. I have often asked politicians, students and thought- ful men in the community, what proportion of our voters act independently — I do not mean independent of political parties — , what proportion act thought- fully, what proportion think over the issues of the day and vote in accordance with their own best judgment in- stead of being swept along simply by party passions, or by getting their political views from their parents or their associates ? You can answer the question for your- selves. In most cases I have had the answer that not ten per cent act independently in voting on the questions of the day. We inherit our politics. We gather our politics from POLICY OF THE STATE TOWARD EDUCATION. 203 our associations, or are forced into them by the necessi- ties of the case, owing to our strict party organizations. If our higher schools develop independent characters, they will do much toward solving our political ques- tions. Please understand that I am not advocating mug- wumpism in distinction from party allegiance. I be- lieve that we need political parties and that the greater part of our voters will find it best to belong to a politi- cal party and to act in accordance with this party; but it is also best that our politicians (all of us voters, because we ought all to be politicians) should do the thinking for our parties instead of letting the parties do our thinking for us. When the newspapers and leaders of public opinion in the communities cease to do all the thinking for the parties, and the individual voters do their share, we shall have less trouble with our politics. Our politicians also, many of whom are not college men, should study economics and the science of politics somewhat more than they now do. For example, it is the opinion of all thinkers on the subject that there could hardly be more unjust tax laws than those of this country ; and this is simply one example. If one reads the debates and discussions on the economic and politi- cal questions of the day as they are found in the reports of Congress and of our state legislatures, he will likely come to the opinion that our legislators are partisans first, patriots second, and economists and thinking men last. Our politicians are not to blame for this. We are to blame for it ourselves. It is the citizens who force our legislators to become partisans first and statesmen 204 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. second. When we become independent enough in our judgment to let ourselves be swayed by thought instead of by partisan feeling, our legislators will be only too glad to do as we would like to have them in that respect. We ourselves are, or should be, the dictators. And we should use our schools to make thoughtful citizens. The question has been discussed whether it is right or wise for the state to support universities. It is asked, too, whether it is American to support universities, or whether such support is paternalism. To one who has received all his schooling from public elementary and high schools and state universities, the question seems absurd. It seems almost ridiculous that in the state of New York it should be necessary to discuss this question at all. If we who are the state are unwilling in our corporate capacity to support state universities, we must rely on public spirited men to endow universities for us. It is a good thing, of course, when such men as Vassar, Cornell and others are willing freely to grant the privi- lege of higher education to our citizens. When they do this freely we cheerfully and gladly accept the gifts; but when we put ourselves in a position to depend on such men, when we go begging for such gifts, then we are paupers — and better paternalism than pauperism. But yet is it paternalism for the state to support uni- versities or the higher schools ? Do not we the citizens compose the state ? It is certainly the theory of demo- cratic government that we do ; practically I am inclined to think in many cases we do not. At any rate, we do not feel, as we ought, that the state is ours. When we think of the state we think of it as at Washington or POLICY OF THE STATE TOWARD EDUCATION. 205 Albany. We do not feel that state institutions belong to us personally. And yet there are some people who do feel that way, certain officials who have gifts of the state to grant their partisans, to the men who helped them, get office. Those men feel that the state belongs to them ; and we let it belong to them instead of making it belong to ourselves as it should, instead of taking it and keeping it for ourselves as citizens where it of right be- longs. If we were to make a better and larger use of the state, if we were to get more benefit personally from the state through our schools and other public means, we should feel closer to the state and the state would be closer to us. We should take better care that state affairs were managed as they should be. This may sound socialistic; it depends on what you mean by so- cialism. The idea of socialism as set out by many social- istic writers seems to me absurd. The idea that by any system of legislation we can immediately modify and materially improve the form of society so as really to change its nature and effects, is absurd on the face of it. The forces that move society are as sluggish as changes of habit, often hidden from all but the keenest of think- ing observers. The development of society must be a matter of the slowest growth, and we cannot expect by any system of legislation very materially to modify the form of society as it is at the present day. We may do something by laws to set at work influences that will slightly modify people's opinions and the economic con- ditions of society; and that w^ill possibly determine in part the distribution of wealth. Such things as that 206 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. we may do, but to pass a law at present to put society on a socialistic basis would be absurd ; for such a law to suc- ceed would be impossible. But we ought not to be afraid to use the powers of the state for the benefit of the citizens, so as to enable them, as Aristotle says, " Not merely to live, but to live well ; " and if we freely and fearlessly do what we can toward supporting our higher institutions of learn- ing and through them toward developing the spirit of in- dependence, the spirit of thoughtfulness and responsi- bility, we shall do something that will benefit not merely ourselves, but our posterity and the people of other nations as well. IX. SCHOOL-BOOK LEGISLATIOK* " That education should be regulated by law and should be an affair of state is not to be denied, but what should be the char- acter of this public education and how young persons should be educated are questions which remain to be considered." — Aristotle. In the discussion of matters of public policy that may demand legislation, it is usually necessary to consider not merely what may be for the best good of the state, but also what may be possible under the relations ex- isting between the chief political parties. Now in no state in the Union has partisan feeling in politics more to do with legislation than in Indiana. For this reason, an account of circumstances attending the drafting and passage of the text-book bill in Indiana may serve as a useful introduction to a study of the legislation that may be desirable in other states. We need to know the motives that influence legislators in practice, before we can tell what bill will be a wise one to put before any given legislature. For some two or three sessions previous to that of 1889, certain members of the legislature, believing that the school text-books were costing more than was neces- sary, and that a more nearly uniform series was de- * Political Science Quarterly, March, 1891. 207 208 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. sirable, had introduced bills looking^ toward improve- ment in these respects. However, there was little public interest in the subject, and other matters of legislation, particularly those of a partisan nature, were given the precedence, so that practically nothing was accom- plished. Only the good of the schools was at stake ; and school children and teachers have little political in- fluence. If a body of legislators is to be thoroughly aroused, some subject is desirable that will stir the im- agination, that will furnish opportunity for striking metaphors, and that will appeal to the pockets of the constituencies. How to secure prompt action on the text-book question was, under the circumstances, a problem. It was solved largely through the instrumentality of a man who felt that he had in past years been wronged by the agents of a prominent publishing firm. The potent and at times not wholly unselfish interest of school-book agents in our teachers and school officers is no secret. That the acquisition and loss of positions by teachers and officers is often determined by their opin- ions of certain text-books, is generally conceded. The person referred to had lost a lucrative office, as he be- lieved, through the influence of a publishing company in favor of his successful rival. JSTaturally, the influence of publishing houses over the schools assumed in his eyes most threatening dimensions. At the same time, the fact that several firms had entered into an agreement making competition less active in the sale of their books became very significant. Patriotism and desire for re- venge w^orked side by side in raising in the ready press SCHOOL-BOOK LEGISLATION. 209 the war-cries : " Smash the book trust ! " " Cheap books for the children ! " Stimulated by the prospect of parti- san advantage, a: vigorous agitation for reform began in various leading newspapers. The Governor now took up the matter. In his next message to the legislature, he characterized the prices asked for school-books as " exorbitant " and recom- mended the free text-book system. According to his esti- mates, the average cost of school-books to each pupil throughout the state was about $3.00 per year. Under the free text-book system employed in Michigan (in but one city at that time, generally now), the cost was estimated at 50 cents per year; in Maine, at 26f cents; in Vermont, at about 33 cents; in Wisconsin, at about one-third of the former cost. He further stated that experts and booksellers had informed him that the prices paid for school-books in Indiana yielded from 300 to 600 per cent above the average cost of production. The free text-book system, in his judgment, would reduce the cost to a " reasonable price " and lift these very heavy burdens from the " parents and guardians." Moved by the articles on this subject that had ap- peared in the papers, and by the message of the Gover- nor, no less than six members of the House of Repre- sentatives and several members of the Senate introduced bills looking toward cheaper text-books. Various plans were proposed — from the California system, which pro- vided for the compiling and manufacturing of text-books by the state, to the contract plans as found at that time in Minnesota and Indiana, and to the free text-book sys- tem. The Democrats favored some plans that would 14 210 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. give a imiform series throughout the state ; whereas the Republicans, adopting the idea expressed in the Gover- nor's message, declared for free text-books, to be fur- ished to the pupils by the county or the town. Thus the matter was made a party issue. Neither party dared re- fuse to " down the trust," but the Democrats accused the Republicans of favoring a measure that would only strengthen the trust. The bills in the House were re- ferred to the committee on education ; but when the com- mittee made a report, it was evident that the various opinions were extremely divergent and that no one of the bills already submitted could pass the House. As a compromise, the matter was referred to a special com- mittee, with instructions to prepare a bill that should harmonize the conflicting opinions so far as possible. It may be worth while to note the character of the task that the committee had before it. As soon as it seemed probable that some system providing for uniform text- books and possibly for state publication would be adopted, the agents of different publishing firms made their appearance, and the members of the legislature were subjected to all the influences that a well-trained lobby can bring to bear, in order that the old system might be retained. The members of the state board of education, while taking no open part in the discussion of the question, were known to be opposed to any system providing for state compilation and state publication of text-books. The adoption of such a system would greatly increase their work, with no adequate return, and the results would probably be unsatisfactory. At any rate, it would subject them to criticism. The Demo- SCHOOL-BOOK LEGISLATION. 211 crats had openly declared for state uniformity through either the California or the contract plan, but many of them also really preferred a free text-book system. Moreover, of fifty-seven Democrats in the House, seven or nine were Roman Catholics, and it was soon found that these men would agree to no plan that involved any increased taxation. The Catholics, they said, were al- ready sufficiently burdened with the regular school taxes and the support of their parochial schools. A like feel- ing prevailed among the Lutherans, whom the politi- cians could not afford to alienate. It was necessary to draw a bill providing for state uniformity, and at the same time avoiding the objections of the Catholics and Lutherans to any increase in taxation. The committee was composed of four Democrats and three Republicans. At the first meeting, the chairman, a Democrat, inquired if the members of the two parties could agree upon any bill. He said that the Democrats would insist upon state uniformity. Two of the Republican members at once declared that they would support no bill providing for more than county uniformity. The third Republican seemed willing to consent to state uniformity. Two of the Republicans, therefore, immediately withdrew from the committee to prepare a minority report. The third member, after remaining in session with the Democrats for one day, also withdrew. One of the Democratic members was called home by illness in his family, and the bill, substantially as passed, was prepared within forty-eight hours by the three remaining Democratic members. The bill provided for state uniformity of text-books, which were to be supplied by contract under 212 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. specifications as to prices and quality. Tlie committee took as the standard quality the books most commonly Tised in the public schools of Indiana ; and the prices, the committee says, were taken, with some slight modi- fications, from a leading firm's special contract price- list. A comparison with price-lists, however, shows that in most cases the exchange price was made the basis. When the bill was reported to the Democratic caucus, the following clause was inserted, to secure the approval and support of the Catholics and Lutherans : Any patron or pupil of any school or schools other than the public school, and also any child between the ages of six and twenty-one years of age, or the parent, guardian or teacher of such child, shall have the right to purchase and receive the books and at the prices herein named, by payment of the cash price therefor to the school superintendent of any county in this state; and it is hereby made his duty to make requisition on the contractor for any and all books so ordered and paid for by any such person or persons. With this amendment the bill was adopted by the cau- cus, reported back to the House and passed, many of the Republicans voting for the bill when they saw that its passage was assured. The papers had brought another influence to bear upon the representatives in favor of the measure. It was repeatedly asserted that " the trust " was spending money freely to prevent the passage of the bill, and the impression was conveyed that members of the House were being approached or even had been bribed by the representatives of the trust. Threats had even been made by the friends of the bill, so it is asserted, that if SCHOOL-BOOK LEGISLATION. 213 any Democrats in the House voted against it, their names would be kept standing in the columns of the papers as avowed friends of the trust and enemies of the people. It is interesting to note that one of the most active members of this special committee personally preferred a free text-book system ; but knowing that, owing to the Catholic opposition, there was no hope of the passage of such a bill, he took part in drawing up and passing the present bill as the best one possible under the circum- stances. Another interesting fact is that the prices es- tablished by the committee were made known to the special agent of a large Eastern publishing house, sent to Indianapolis expressly to look after this law, and were declared by him to be satisfactory to his firm, who would be ready, he said, to bid for the contract.* After- wards, his firm, like the other leading book firms of the United States, declined to bid. The bill did not meet with the approval of the Gover- nor. It was not in accordance with his ideas ; but at the same time, believing it to be constitutional, and be- lieving also that by it the prices of books would be ma- terially lowered, he suffered the bill to become a law without his signature, and he has since favored its thor- ough enforcement. Soon after the passage of the law, the state board, in accordance with its provisions, met and advertised for bids to supply the state with the ordinary text-books, at prices within those set by the law. No responsible book * This fact was obtained from a member of the committee, who had a personal conversation with the agent on this very point. 214 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. publisher put in a genuine bid, and it seemed at first that the law would be a dead letter, that the legislature had made a mistake and put the prices too low. At length some firms from outside the state, thinking that they could meet the prices set, asked some leading capi- talists in the state to go on their bond, in order that they might bid if the state board should advertise a second time. These capitalists became convinced upon investigation that good books might be furnished at a profit within the prices mentioned. Accordingly, in- stead of signing bonds for foreign corporations, they formed a company, consisting of four Republicans and four Democrats, and themselves put in a bid when the board advertised a second time. The formation of the company had been so quietly effected that the state board knew nothing of it until the bids were opened. The new firm had succeeded in finding a set of readers, a set of geographies and a set of arithmetics that met the re- quirements and were accepted by the board. The board were unable to find, at the prices named, a grammar, a United States history, a physiology, or a spelling-book that was up to the standard ; and the appropriation made by the legislature for advertising being exhausted, these books have not yet been provided for under the new law. A series of writing-books offered by another firm were preferred by the board to those offered by the new con- cern and were accepted. In accordance with the terms of the law, several manuscripts were offered the board ; but careful inquiry in Chicago and elsewhere convinced the officials that they would be unable to contract for the publication of such manuscripts within the rates fixed in the law ; so these were not further considered. SCHOOL-BOOK LEGISLATION. 215 The reason why the leading publishers of school-books did not bid is not entirely clear. The assertion has been made, in their behalf, that the prices were too low to allow any publisher to furnish good books and make a fair profit. Again, it has been said that they could fur- nish them in large quantities at the rates named and make living profits ; but that if they furnished them in Indiana at those rates, they would be compelled to sup- ply other states at the same rates, which would greatly reduce their profits. From the fact that so many of them refused to bid for this contract, after some of their agents had expressed an intention of bidding, it seems probable that they had at least a confident hope of break- ing down the law and ultimately forcing its repeal. Favoring this view is the fact that a ISTew York firm put in a mock bid, offering some books that were entirely out of date; while a western house sent a letter, taunt- ing and, to say the least, scornful in tone, in which it was asserted that no reliable firm would or could bid. It is noteworthy that the first-mentioned bid also was a mere taunt — illegal, as not accompanied by a bond. Whatever the reason may have been, the refusal of the old publishers to bid has resulted in giving to the new corporation an apparently profitable contract for five years. In most of the counties of the state the books were introduced into the schools without opposition ; but some of the county superintendents and school trustees were unfriendly to the law and, believing the books inferior to those in use, declined to order them from the con- tractor. This refusal naturally resulted in lawsuits in 216 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. which the constitutionality of the law was brought into question. A case having been carried up on appeal, the law was definitely declared constitutional by the su- preme court of the state. So far as one can see, the law is at present accepted throughout the state, and nearly all those superintendents who were opposed to it at first, and who still perhaps consider it unwise, are neverthe- less willing to give it a fair trial, and hope that the legis- lature will make provision for the completion of the series of text-books required.* The school-book question is still (1891), however, a factor in politics. Resolutions touching the matter were passed by both the leading parties in the state in their last nominating conventions. The Democratic resolu- tion endorsed the law recently enacted and called for ad- ditional legislation to give full effect to the object of this act and to extend its scope. The Republican resolu- tion demanded legislation which to free school-houses and free tuition should add free text-books, but which should be so framed as not to impair contracts to which the state was already pledged. f One of the candidates in the Republican party for the nomination of state superintendent was known to be hostile to the law. The Indianapolis News, an inde- pendent paper, in its issue of September 5, 1890, made the following suggestion : We suggest to the Eepublican state convention that it can- not be too careful, in nominating a candidate for the office * A bill for this purpose was passed Mr. 5, 1891. t Indiana School Journal for October, 1890, page 552. SCHOOL-BOOK LEGISLATION. 217 of Superintendent of Public Instruction, to select one free from taint of suspicion of sympathy with the school-book monopoly, which, beginning with a corrupt lobby to prevent the passage of the present law, has abated no jot or tittle of its purpose to cripple and kill the system if possible. There has been too much aid and comfort in this way from too many state officers to make it anything short of perilous for a state nominating convention to fail to define itself in a positive manner on this question. This shows the feeling in the state. Some warnings were given by other independent papers, and some of the Republican papers agreed with them. In the nomin- ating convention this candidate was beaten and another nominated, the opposition being avowedly on the ground that he was supported by the friends of the school-book firms. In the succeeding election the Democratic candi- date for superintendent was successful, along with the rest of his ticket, the text-book question having in his case little or no effect. At the election of township trustees, in April, 1890, the school-book question was in many places made an issue. The result of the elec- tion was very favorable to the Democrats, the champions of the law. Whether the result were due to this issue or another, it is a fact that out of 92 counties in the state, the number in which the majority of the township trustees was Democratic was changed by the election from 40 to 74. So far as one can judge from conversa- tions with school men and others upon the subject, tbe people are inclined, for the present at least, to be satis- fied with the law and to give it a fair trial. Turning now to the merits of the case, let us inquire 218 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. why the legislature should interfere in any way, to provide the children with text-books or to attempt to secure for them text-books at cheaper rates. A main argument brought forward by the champions of such laws is that uniformity in text-books is very desirable on the score of convenience for school classification. In every country school, it is said, if the children are pro- vided with a variety of text-books, a correspondingly large number of classes must be formed, thus making the teacher much unnecessary work. Again, in the cities, the work of grading the schools, and in the coun- try the arrangement of courses of study, are made very difficult. Besides, if there is no state uniformity of text- books, pupils moving from one town to another within the state must provide themselves with new books. On pedagogical grounds there seems to be no reason for demanding uniformity in text-books beyond the limits of the same school — or possibly, at the very farthest, of the schools in the same town or county. Most educators agree that the matter of uniformity in text-books may be carried too far, and that one series of text-books throughout the state cannot meet the differ- ing wants of schools in unlike circumstances and in dif- ferent localities. Superintendent Akres of Iowa, in his report of 1883-85 (page 55), gives the opinion of a num- ber of leading educators on the subject. The general be- lief seems to be that with good teachers a variety of books and hence a diversity of treatment would be rather an advantage than a hindrance to good work. It must be admitted, however, that it is not reasonable to ex- SCHOOL-BOOK LEGISLATION. 219 pect this of the young teachers, of whom we employ so large a number. 'All agree, moreover, that state uniformity is too much to ask ; that uniformity of text-books in the towns, or at the utmost in the counties, is enough. In some of the southern and western states, state uniformity is pre- ferred on account of the ignorance of local boards ; but this has nothing to do with the pedagogical view given. Another reason urged in favor of legislation is that the text-books are so frequently changed that unneces- sary expense is incurred. Many of the states have sought to remedy this by the provision that text-books shall not be changed within a limited time — usually four, five, or six years. Certainly no state-publishing law or state-contract system is necessary to prevent changes in the text-books. A law on that single point is amply sufficient. The argument that has proved most effective in se- curing legislation in Indiana, and also in other states, is that school-book publishers have combined into a "trust," and that their power, exerted politically, has been detrimental to the state so far as the excellence of its schools is concerned, and has also resulted in exorbi- tant prices for the text-books. A table, made from re- ports by the county superintendents of schools in Indi- ana to the committee on education of the legislature of 1889, gives the names of the publishers supplying text- books in the different counties throughout the state.* It * See attorney-general's brief in State ex rel. Philip Snoke vs. Elijah A. Blue, Trustee, page 40. 220 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. shows that more than seventy-five per cent of the text- books used in the common schools, have been supplied by a single firm. The Indianapolis Sentinel published this table with the following comment : It will be seen that this great firm supplies readers in sixty-nine of the eighty-four counties reported, arithmetics in eighty-two out of the eighty-four, grammars in eighty-one, geographies in sixty-nine, physiologies in forty-seven, his- tories in fifty-nine and spellers in seventy. The other trust houses are allowed to sell a few books in scattering localities, just to " keep up appearances," but not enough to interfere with the * * * monopoly. This table, published in the Sentinel, had doubtless great influence with the legislature in the passage of the present Indiana law. It was assumed by the paper that the uniformity was too great to be natural, and that it proved the employment of unfair means on the part of the successful house. I suppose that no one would claim that this uniformity was due entirely to the superior excellence of the books manufactured by the firm in question. But on the other hand, does it show anything more than exceptional push and energy in the usual methods of trade ? We all know the ways of active traveling agents in all lines of business. There can be no doubt that corrupt means have, at times, been em- ployed to secure the introduction of text-books. Indeed, the former Indiana school law itself favored the employ- ment of unfair means by book publishers. The school trustee alone, in the township, had authority to declare what text-books should be used in his schools, and a ma- jority of the trustees in the county had the right to name SCHOOL-BOOK LEGISLATION. 221 the text-books for the county as a whole. It is obvious that the decision of the few men who held these powers might be influenced by active agents with comparatively little difficulty, and in some cases, if the agents were willing to employ corrupt means, at comparatively slight expense. But though the methods employed by agents may at times have been doubtful, and though the pub- lishers may not always have inquired too curiously into the means employed by their agents in making sales, it is not to be believed that the methods of school-book men were more corrupt than those ordinarily employed by other wholesale dealers who have to do with public functionaries.* Nor can one who has been ac- quainted with hundreds of school teachers believe that the teachers and trustees of a state as a whole were pur- chased by one or by several book firms. But this much at least may safely be asserted, that the means employed by publishers to urge books upon the schools have not always been fair, and that it is not surprising that efforts have been made to check them, though these ef- forts may not always have been wisely directed. * The actiA'ity of agents in inciting parents, teachers and school officers to put in their books, even contrary to law, is shown in a circular, November 24, 1890, by the state superintendent of Mississippi to county superintendents, in which he says that " certain persons, acting as agents of the American Book Com- pany, were going from school to school in counties where the books of the company had not been adopted, and were inciting the people to refuse to supply their children with the adopted books, efc." The attorney-general ruled concerning the law that the use of the books adopted was mandatory, and that " a county superintendent cannot lawfully pay a teacher who refuses or neg- lects to comply with his contract, which requires that only books selected under the act of 1890 shall be used." 222 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. So far as can be learned there is no evidence that the combination of book publishers at that time had resulted in more than a partial division of territory, and conse- quently in a slackened competition between the differ- ent houses, with a correspondingly lessened expense to themselves for agents. There is no evidence that the prices of books had been raised by this combination, or that competition had been entirely done away with, as in the case of a trust proper. The combining firms simply agreed to abandon one form of competition — that which consisted in employing agents specially com- missioned, in the first place, to oust from the schools the books of other firms, and in the second place to pro- tect the books of their own employers against such ouster. Each firm agreed to respect the status quo. It is probably true that the prices of school-books were higher than would have been necessary under the normal conditions of trade. The expense of keeping so many agents in the field, before the combination was made, necessitated these high prices ; and business firms are seldom prompt to lower rates. But it is doubtful if the abuse was great enough to merit so aggressive action as was taken in various states. It is of course under- stood that the cries, " Smash the trust," " Strangle the octopus " and so on, which filled the papers were war- cries to carry the bill through the legislature. Assuming, however, that the prices of text-books were unreasonably high, let us consider the relative merits of the different measures proposed in different states to remedy this evil.* The first system is that by * Note the date of this article and the note at the end. SCHOOL-BOOK LEGISLATION. 223 which the state becomes the publisher and owner, and in some cases even the author, of the text-books used in the schools. California is the only one of our states that has given this plan a fair trial. In 1882 the matter was made a political issue in that state, " by some politi- cians," it is asserted, though, doubtless, many who voted for the new plan thought the state was to derive great benefit from it, financially and otherwise. In 1884 an amendment to the state constitution obliged the state to provide its own plant and to set about the compilation of the necessary books. The first estimates of the state printer as to the cost were ridiculously low — not ten per cent of what has actually been expended ; but the legis- lature promptly voted the appropriations asked for, and the plan has been fairly tested. From the report of the state superintendent for 1886 I take the following. The superintendent first states the prices of Bancroft's, McGuffey's, and Swinton's readers, and thus continues : The series of the state costs but little more than one-third of the price of the cheapest of the above.* Here is a triumph- ant success, not dreamed of by the most hopeful of the friends of the enterprise. * * * Henceforth no man will dare try to abort this great reform and saddle again on the people the grinding exaction under which they have heretofore groaned. [Page 36.] Some longer extracts from the report of 1888, with a careful comparison of prices, lead, however, to a conclu- * It sliould be said that there are only three readers in the California series, to five in tlie other, though in paging there is less difference. 224 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. sion somewhat different. The writer is evidently labor- ing to make out his case. On page 49, he says : The state of California has taken a step in the right direc- tion in furnishing books of its own manufacture to the children at cost. It should in my opinion go one step farther, and furnish the use of text-books free to all children attend- ing the public schools. In his judgment, this step would save half the cost to those districts that were willing to buy the books and loan them to the children. It would probably save more than that. He further says that the complaints against the system have been due to the poor binding of the first edition, and that there has been no complaint in respect to the later issues. Since some of the books have been issued and have gone into use, he finds that many per- sons who were opposed to the undertaking at first have become convinced of its feasibility and economy. Then, becoming definite as to prices, he adds : It may be claimed and must be admitted, that it costs the state more to manufacture the books than it will cost a pri- vate publishing house. The state pays better wages than the private publisher and works its help eight hours a day, while the private publisher works his help ten hours a day. But the consumer is interested not in the actual first cost of the books but in the cost to him. Since the state charges no manufacturer's profit, no jobber's profit, and the retail dealer is allowed by law to charge no more than it will cost the pupil to have the books sent to him by mail (the retail dealer making only the difference between postage and freight), it follows that the consumer, or pupil, pays the SCHOOL-BOOK LEGISLATION. 225 private publisher, or his retail dealer, from 30 per cent to 66 per cent more than he is required to pay the state for his text-books. To support this statement, he gives a series of tables of books and prices. I cite the last one, which summarizes the others. Set of State Readers (three books, 928 pages) $1.25 Set of State Arithme- tics (two books) ... .75 State Grammar 50 State History (432 pages) 80 State Speller and An- alysis 30 $3.60 Set of McGuffey's Readers (five books, 1088 pages) $2.50 Set of Fish's or Robin- son's Arithmetics (two books) 1.25 Reed and Kellogg's or Harvey's Grammar.. .75 History (Anderson's, 379 pp. ; Barnes', 352 pp. ; or Eclectic, 400 pp.) 1.25 Reed's Speller 30 $6.05 So far as prices are concerned, the showins^ is cer- tainly very favorable for the state series ; but still it seems to me not quite fair. In both cases, retail prices are given, and presumably these prices were asked and obtained in the Sacramento stores. But these figures seem too high for Sacramento, since the price hy mail of the state books was five cents higher than that allowed to be taken by retail dealers, while I find that at that date the other books would have been sent by any job- 15 226 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. bing house hj mail, one book at a time, for a total of thirty-five cents less than the quoted prices — a small difference, perhaps, but worth noting. Turthermore, the two series of readers compared, while both are con- sidered complete, differ so much in number of books as well as in paging, that the difference in prices should not be reckoned at full value. Again, and this is of consequence, the prices of the California series are supposed to be so calculated as to cover in twelve years the cost of plant, together with the cost of compilation and plates reckoned on an eight-year life, and one cent per copy profit is added to cover possi- ble errors. As has been said, the first estimate as to the amount of capital required was but a small part of the amount actually expended. Again, it was found in 1888 that the prices has been fixed too low, and they were raised at that time to the present rates. These two facts taken together seem to show that in all prob- ability the state has lost, so far at least, the interest on the money invested, besides some of the working capital ; and one may well be somewhat skeptical as to future im- provement. If the interest on the capital invested be added to the price of the state books — and this seems fair — the difference as compared with the publishers' price becomes less still or even entirely disappears. The prices of the California state books are as low, it seems, as they can be put; but within the last two years the publishers of other school-books have lowered their prices to purchasers of single copies, and any school district can make very favorable terms with them. If for the prices given above I should substitute the SCHOOL-BOOK LEOISLATION. 227 present mailing prices offered by the American Book Company, we should have : McGuffey's set of Headers $2.11 Fish's Arithmetic 90 Harvey's Grammar 65 History, either of those mentioned above . . . 1.00 Speller 25 Total $4.91 The same books could be bought by the school districts or counties or state on contract for $3.94. If we take into account the difference in the number of books and the quality of work, to say nothing of the contents, it seems clear that at present, at any rate, a state, if Cali- fornia is typical, can contract with publishers to furnish it with text-books at a cost as low as that at which it can manufacture them, and can thus escape all the risk and trouble of the manufacture and save the interest on the investment. Indeed, the book companies offer to mail to individual buyers sets of books at rates apparently as low as the mailing prices of the California books. Let me cite one example only of ten lists offered by the American Book Company. In addition to the list of California books given above by the state superintend- ent, the state publishes an elementary geography at 60 cents, and an elementary language book at 30 cents, making the total cost of the set $4.50, or by mail $4.55. The book company places in opposition the following list: 228 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. McGufFey's Eevised First Eeader $0.17 McGuffey's Revised Second Reader 30 McGuffey's Revised Third Reader 42 McGuffey's Revised Fourth Reader 50 McGuffey's Revised Speller 17 Fecklin's Primary Aritmetic 28 Fecklin's National Arithmetic 70 Maxwell's Primary Lessons in Language . . . .30 Maxwell's Introductory English Grammar . . , .40 Swinton's United States History 90 Harper's Introductory Geography 48 $4:62 Other combinations are made at about the same rate, one or two of them at even less than $4.55, and all of them containing some of the best books. It is noticeable, however, that the set of readers is not complete, though containing one more than the state series. The state of California at present then is not saving money by manufacturing books, if we compare prices with those it might contract for, size and quality of books being considered. It is probably true, moreover, that selections might be made by any board from the books of private firms that would on the whole be better adapted to the work of the schools. Many statements have doubtless been made by private publishers in de- nunciation of the California series that convey too strong an impression of worthlessness ; but the general opinion of educators, as well as the circumstances under which the books have been compiled, both lead to the SCHOOL-BOOK LEGISLATION. 229 conclusion that they are inferior to the best standard works of private publishers.* It is probable that the credit for the more liberal rates offered by the school-book publishers, and for the greater care that they are taking to supply books directly to puj)ils or to school boards, should be given largely to the California movement and to other plans adopted in other states, looking toward cheaper text-books. While the state-publishing plan costs more than a state- contract system might, or than a system of free text- books bought in large quantities by county or town offi- cials, it has, nevertheless, perhaps lowered the price somewhat when compared with the system of free com- petition now existing in most states.f *0n the 3d of December, 1890, the biennial convention of California school superintendents adopted, almost unanimously, the following resolution : " Resolved, that wliile certain of the state text-books — notably tlie primary language lessons and elementary geography — have met the approbation of the public school teachers of the state, Ave desire to record our severe criticism and disapproval of others of the state series, and express our judgment that their thorough revision by comptent authorities, so as to adapt them to the wants of the scliools, is imperative and should be entered upon at once." — San Francisco Examiner, Dec. 4, 1890. It may perhaps be said here once for all that, while this article is written mainly from the political and economic standpoint, the writer nevertheless considers that the quality of the books is of chief importance. A saving of even fifty cents a year for each pupil, important as it is, is not of such vital consequence as good training ; and this training, considering the poor preparation of many of our teachers, is largely dependent on the text-books. f In a letter to Superintendent P. R. Walker, of Rockford, 111., received after this article was in the printer's hands. Super- intendent Hoitt of California distinctly acknowledges that the 230 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. Several states, with Minnesota the first, and per- haps, with the exception of Indiana, the most promi- nent, have adopted a uniform series of text-books for the common schools, and have made arrangements to purchase the books at a fixed price from one contractor. In Minnesota the act was passed in 1877, directing the governor, secretary of state, and attorney-general to enter into a contract with Daniel D. Merrill, to supply the state with books for fifteen years; the books to be equal in size and in quality of both matter and material to certain books named. The prices were fixed in the law, the former price as well as the contract price being stated. In 1878, provision was made for submitting to the voters the question of continuing the act. In 1880, a majority of those voting on that question were in favor of its repeal; but this was without effect, since a ma- jority of those voting at that election was necessary to repeal the law. In 1883, and again in 1885, some amendments were made regarding the distribution of books; but these were afterward declared unconstitu- system has not met his expectations. It has cost the state more to manufacture, he says, and there is a lack of confidence in tlie authorship. He adds: " In the light of our experience . . . lam reluctantly compelled to admit that I would not advise another state to enter upon state publication of text-books, but I would advise the making of a uniformity text-book law, and tlie pur- chase, at wholesale, in open market. I believe that publishers would give to a state a less wholesale rate than to individuals ; and taking into consideration the interest on the appropriations in this state, and the wear and tear of the plant, books could now be purchased at wholesale rates by the state for less than it costs the state to manufacture them. In my opinion every state should provide for the free use of text-books." SCHOOL-BOOK LEGISLATION. 231 tional, and the original law still stands. The section of the law fixing prices reads as follows : The prices to be paid by the state for the above-named text-books shall be for the Speller, not to exceed 15 cents. Present price. $0.25 First Eeader, ' ' 10 a u .20 Second Reader, * ' 20 a u .45 Third Reader, ' ' 30 u u .60 Fourth Reader, ' ' 40 11 u .90 First Grammar, ' ' 25 a u .60 Practical Grammar, ' ' 50 a a 1.00 First Arithmetic, ' ' 12 u C( .25 Second Arithmetic ' ' 25 ce li .40 Third Arithmetic, ' ' 50 u u .94 First Geography ' ' 50 it a .80 Second Geography, ' ' 80 S s c ■5 6 .2 '•B a a a B a a a) 4) aj n. a 6 t 1 6 ei 6 S5 eo 6 6 "S 6 1 30 35 55 60 85 60 45 "60 65 65 '75" 70 75 1 40 1 40 20 50 45 '56" 85 75 80 75 85 1 10 1 00 20 30 30 30 35 40 35 35 50 50 45 50 60 65 60 60 85 1 00 85 85 45 60 75 65 20 Martin 1 25 1 25 1 30 1 35 60 70 75 1 25 1 35 1 25 1 35 1 50 20 1 50 1 50 70 20 Montgomery. 60 85 45 55 85 60 45 85 70 80 80 65 85 'i'io' 1 25 1 35 1 00 1 00 75 55 65 65 60 75 i'36 1 25 1 50 i'35 1 35 1 35 1 50 75 65 60 20 Noble Ohio 20 20 30 20 30 35 35 34 35 35 45 50 50 45 50 55 60 60 55 60 80 90 85 75 1 00 ■56" 55 55 60 50 26 50 35 50 Orange 'i'66 20 20 Pilie 20 20 30 30 1.5 17 30 30 35 35 35 35 30 30 35 40 50 50 50 50 45 45 50 55 65 60 60 60 55 50 60 70 80 85 85 85 85 75 85 1 00 '46' 30 40 30 '56" 60 60 65 60 50 60 65 40 45' 80 '96' 50 50 45 50 40 45 50 55 80 75 'so' 76 65 80 85 1 30 1 15 1 15 Posey.. 65 1 30 1 50 70 70 70 75 " "75 1 00 20 10 20 Randolph . .. Ripley Rush 1 25 1 00 1 35 1 35 65 55 65 60 1 28 1 30 1 50 60 1 50 1 60 20 17 20 Scott 20 Shelby Spencer 20 25 30 20 20 30 17 15 20 35 40 35 35 35 35 30 35 35 50 55 45 45 50 50 42 35 50 60 75 55 60 60 60 50 43 60 85 1 00 75 "75 85 85 73 60 85 45 ■35' 45 60 65 60 60 '46' 65 '76' 90 .... '75' 45 55 45 '45 50 50 42 75 90 70 '75' 80 75 65 54 1 25 1 35 1 10 i'oo" 1 20 'i'66' 84 1 20 76 75 1 20 1 35 20 St. Joseph... 75 60 65 60 55 46 60 i'36 1 25 1 20 1 30 1 00 1 35 1 60 20 Switzerland. Tippecanoe.. Tipton 1 55 1 00 70 84 60 60 "26" 17 42 15 Vanderburg. 20 Vigo... Wabash Warren Washington. Wayne Wells 25 20 30 25 30 20 40 35 35 40 35 35 50 50 45 60 50 50 65 60 55 75 60 60 90 85 85 90 85 85 '45" 65 60 60 60 60 50 50 50 50 50 85 75 65 85 75 'i'36' 1 10 1 35 75 65 65 75 65 70 65 65 1 40 1 40 1 35 1 40 1 35 1 35 1 25 1 30 75 75 65 45 65' 45' '46' 75 'ss' '75' '76 "26" '26' ' i'50 70 75 ""66 50 50 50 75 75 75 i'is' 20 White Whitley 35 30 35 35 50 45 60 60 85 75 '45" 20 20 It is difficult at this early date to give exactly the saving made to the state by this law. The preceding table, compiled from figures submitted by the county 241 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. superintendents to the committee on education of the last legislature, purports to give the usual prices ob- tained for the text-books in the various counties of the state. The table has permanent value, as showing the vari- ation in prices throughout a state, under a system of free competition modified bj county contracts in places. It is due the publishers to say that it has been clearly shown, since the publication of this table, that some few of the county superintendents sent in " contract," in- stead of retail prices. The superintendent of Union county, for example, writes that he sent in " contract " prices, while prominent dealers of the same county give their regular retail prices about the same as those in Vanderburg county. Similar facts appear regarding Payette County. In Bartholomew county there is clearly a mistake as to the readers in general use, as the county had adopted Harvey's instead of McGuffey's. There are probably other mistakes of more or less conse- quence. It still holds true that this table, based on re- turns from the county superintendents, had a powerful — very likely a decisive — influence in securing the pas- sage of the bill. It is true, too, that the table does show really wide variations in prices in the different coun- ties; and the advocates of the law, who were de- nouncing the " school-book trust," of course charged this lack of uniformity upon the publishers. Doubtless the retail dealers were more to blame ; for in the case of the State ex rel. Philip Snoke vs. Elijah A. Blue, Trustee, it was proved, by the affidavit of a member of the firm which furnished the great majority of the books in use, SCHOOL-BOOK LEGISLATION. 245 that their prices, as issued by themselves and by whole- sale dealers in general, were uniform ; also, that in their sales throughout the state to dealers, they had consist- ently followed their regular rules regarding discounts, and had in no case given more than 16 2-3 per cent. Catalogues of large jobbing houses confirm the testi- mony. If, now, we grant that the books furnished under the new text-book law are equal in paper, binding and print to those named in the law — and this has been virtually affirmed by the state board of education — we can see that a great saving has been made in the cost of books. The city superintendent of one of the largest cities in the state estimates this saving at from thirty-three to forty per cent. Other good authorities estimate it at even more than that. The state superintendent, think- ing that the cost of introduction, which may fairly be added to the prices of the books, is very large, has se- cured reports from as many counties as possible in the state, with the purpose of showing the cost of introduc- tion of these books during the first year. These reports, from over forty counties, show that, if the estimates are fair, the cost of handling the books for this year amounts to some $22,000 ; others, reckoning by districts, put the expense at nearly $40,000. Some of the school officials are of the opinion that this item is enough to more than balance the saving in the price of the books. The law, then, in their judgment, results merely in a shifting of the burden from the parents to the tax-payers. These figures, however, cannot be considered as fairly representative. In the first place, the cost of introduc- 246 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. ing tlie books in the first year will greatly exceed — in fact, will probably more than double — that of supplying the regular demand for the books thereafter. Again, in many of the counties where the expense seems great- est in proportion to the amount of books sold (as, for instance, in Warren county, where, for selling $189.20 worth of books, there was paid to the trustees and county superintendent the sum of $320), little attempt has been made to carry the law into execution; on the contrary, decisive efforts have been made to throw discredit upon it. In contrast with this report can be placed the report of the city of Fort Wayne, where, according to the state- ment of the city superintendent, more than $2,000 worth of books have been introduced, at an expense of less than $12 ; and where the total expense, including new books furnished to the teachers at the expense of the board and those furnished to indigent pupils, was $132. 29. In this case, the cost of introduction is the amount paid for drayage and the mere handling of the books. The work done by the city superintendent and the jani- tors and by the clerk in selling the books is not reckoned. The labor of these officers has been increased, but their salary has remained the same. So, too, it is doubtful whether the amount returned by some of the county superintendents and school trustees as to the expense of handling the books is fairly estimated. The work of selling the books must in many instances be so combined with other work that it is difficult, if not impossible, to separate it. Where, owing to this law, the county super- intendent has been furnished with an assistant, it is easy to determine the extra expense ; but in many cases it is SCHOOL-BOOK LEGISLATION. 247 difficult, if not impossible. Another report of the state superintendent, given in a private letter, shows that the cost of managing the educational affairs of the counties, so far as the trustees are concerned, exceeds in 1890 that of 1889 by $13,061.85. Even granting that the returns made to the state superintendent in the first list are just and fair, we still are able to see that there has been a real saving of con- siderable extent in the price of books furnished to pu- pils, provided, of course, that the books are of equal quality with those replaced. The book company has furnished during the year some $300,000 worth, and if only twenty per cent has been saved in price, this is enough to counterbalance the cost of introduction twice told. This last item of course varies greatly ; but when the effort has been fairly made, the introduction appears to cost from five to ten per cent of the selling price. "When the system is fairly in operation, this item should not be more than ten per cent, and should in most cases be less. It must not be forgotten that the contractor pays the freight to the counties. It is probable that the law would be improved, if an amendment were made permitting the contractor to deal directly with local dealers, rather than with the coimty superintendents and school trustees. Many of the dealers would be will- ing to do the work at a low percentage of the sales ; some would do it for nothing. This would be both cheaper and more convenient. The third plan of providing the schools of the state with cheaper text-books, and the plan most favored by the best educators, is the free text-book system which 248 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. has been adopted, wholly or in part, in Massachusetts, Michigan, Vermont, JSTew Hampshire and Wisconsin, in the cities of California, New Jersey and New York, and in other places. Under this system, the school boards or the county boards, as the case may be, purchase the books that they deem most desirable from the publishers, at wholesale, in large quantities, and then either rent them or, more commonly, loan them to the children. In Massachusetts, where this system has been compulsory for several years, the saving has been very great.* School-book men in general say that under this sys- tem the average life of a text-book is from three to five years, so that besides the cheaper prices obtained by pur- chasing books from the publishers in large quantities, the same book may be used by at least three, and fre- quently more, different pupils. In the seventh and eighth grades of the grammar school in Frankfort, Indiana,! standard text-books in literature have been furnished by the school board to the pupils, instead of readers. The same books have been used by two sections of the same class and by both classes at the same time, making four students that were using the same book at once. In spite of this use, the books that were bought twelve years ago are still in use in that school, and are *In Boston, the average cost per pupil for six years was $3.43 in the high schools ; $1.14 in the grammar schools; 23 cents in the primary grades. This covers a larger series of books than are contained in the lists given above ; but I have not the data for exact comparison. \ Given on authority of Professor R. G. Boone, of the State University (now Editor of Education), formerly the superin- tendent at Frankfort, and the one that introduced the plan. SCHOOL-BOOK LEGISLATION. 249 &till in good condition. Some of the text-books, for ex- ample " Kellogg's edition of Shakespeare," cost origin- ally twenty-five cents each. This made the cost, for each pupil, only about six cents for one year, and half a cent for each of the tAvelve years. Under a, system of indi- vidual purchase, the outlay for books to do the same serv- ice would be per pupil twenty-five cents yearly, or for the twelve years, three dollars. This example shows most strikingly how much money may be saved by this free text-book system, even if the prices paid the pub- lishers be not so low as may be obtained under the con- tract system. Similar results are shown in the sup- ply of pens, stationery, ink, etc. Other reasons given for the adoption of the free text-book system, instead of the state-manufacturing or state-contract system, are perhaps well summed up in the following: 1. Much time is saved. It has been estimated in Massachusetts that some five days' time is lost each year by delay of parents in purchasing books. 2. It secures a better classification and greater uni- formity than purchase by pupils, unless the purchase be under some prescribed uniformity law. In the Report of the State Superintendent of Missouri for 1890, we find the following: One man [a member of a school board] a few weeks ago was complaining of the multiplicity of text-books in use in his school ; he said : " There are three kinds of arithmetic of the same grade, two geographies and four grammars in use, * In an admirable little pamphlet on Systems of Text-book Supply, by S. S. Parr, the average per capita cost per year under any of the systems is placed at about 60 cents. 250 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. and, don't you know, that are [sic'] too many for one teacher to teach every day." [Page 18.] Similar instances as regards both the number of books and the learning of the director can be found in many states. 3. It effects a saving in expense. This has been abun- dantly illustrated. 4. It cultivates respect for public property. Con- trary to the general impression, experience proves be- yond question that children, acting under the influence of the teacher and of the stimulus that comes from the penalty of buying a new book if the one owned by the district is carelessly lost or spoiled, take better care of books belonging to the school than of their own. 5. It secures a better variety and choice of books. Especially is this shown along the line of supplementary reading, etc. 6. It effectually prevents waste in the case of a change of residence on the part of families. Y. It increases the attendance. In East Saginaw, Michigan, the year the free text-book system was in- augurated saw an increased enrollment of ten per cent with less than one per cent increase in the school census. In Fall River, Massachusetts, in seven years the enroll- ment increased but two per cent, while the average at- tendance increased twenty-seven per cent. The superin- tendent says : " The result is due almost entirely to free text-books." Indeed, this is the universal testimony, and no one can fail to recognize how powerful an argument it is in favor of the system. SCHOOL-BOOK LEGISLATION. 251 8. 'Eo discrimination is made between rich and poor. As regards objections to the plan, it may be said that children are not forbidden to purchase their own books if they wish, but are enabled to secure them at cost price ; that no ill effect in the way of transmission of con- tagious diseases has been seen, and that this effect would more likely come from our public library systems, where no such effect appears; that so long as the books are furnished to all, no feeling of dependence is engen- dered ; that not so much time of school officers is taken as under any system of state supply to pupils at cost ; and that in any case, when the books are furnished to the school as a whole, this is not a burdensome task.* As regards the assertion that the pupil's text-books fre- quently furnish the nucleus of a private library, it may be questioned whether they are especially adapted for this purpose. The money saved by free text-books, however, if invested in supplementary works, might well serve to start such a library. The weight of opinion among school men — state superintendents, city superintendents and others — is very decidedly in favor of free text-books, with the choice of books left to local authorities; though in not a few cases county uniformity, and in some instances, especially in the South and West, state uniformity is thought desirable. In our new states, doubtless, the local authorities are often not competent to select suit- able books, and it is doubtless wise for the state authori- * This summary is mostly taken from the Report of the State Superintendent of Indiana for 1888, pp. 429 et seq., and Iowa Re- port 1883-85, pp. 69 et seq. 252 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. ties at least to recommend a list from whicli they may choose. The state superintendent of Texas in his report for 1888, page 23, says: "The free text-book system would not be generally practicable in Texas outside of the larger towns and cities, on account of the want of suitable provisions for the care and preservation of the books." He nevertheless thinks that system the best one where there are good buildings. Along the same line of thought, he recommends state uniformity of books for the ungraded schools, but not for the cities ; and he has through his personal influence brought about county uniformity in many or most of the counties of the state. It will be a matter of surprise to many that, in spite of quite a general feeling against it among school men, no less than eleven states at present [1891. See note at end of article for conditions, 1905.] have state uni- formity of text-books ; while in some others the state su- perintendent furnishes more than one list of text-books from wliich the counties or districts must or may choose. Delaware, which formerly had the system of state pur- chase, somewhat similar to the system in Minnesota and Indiana, has abandoned it, though there is still state uniformity of text-books. Maryland, with former uni- formity throughout the state, has now county uniform- ity only. In three states, Massachusetts, Maine and New Hampshire, text-books are free throughout the state. In at least seven other states either the town, district or county may decide hj vote to make books free. In other states still, this power is probably in the town. SCHOOL-BOOK LEGISLATION. 253 Wherever the system is introduced it grows rapidly in favor. In Michigan, a law providing for submission of the question to the several school districts having passed the legislature in 1889, at the following spring election not fewer than 520 districts voted in favor of free text- books. In many states it has been for some years the custom for the tow^n or county officials, when adopting a series of text-books for use in the schools, to enter into a defi- nite contract with the publisher to sell at a fixed price to pupils, as well as to dealers, though the board does not itself undertake the sale of the books. All the cases in which the state officials purchase books out of the public funds and then sell to pupils have been already given, it is thought, except Iowa, where this may be done by town or, after special vote, by county officials. In case of free text-books, of course, the public funds are used to purchase the books, but no regular mercantile business is done, though individual pupils are usually allowed to get books at the contract rate. From our study so far, we reach the following con- clusions : 1. The state manufacture of text-books, as carried on in California, has not directly reduced the expense to the state. It is certain that most of the books are inferior to those that might be obtained at about the same prices by special contract, wherever the school officers are fairly competent men. The special-contract system, moreover, enables the different localities to suit their own needs. 2. The contract system in Minnesota, where all the 254 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. books are furnished by one contractor, has not directly lessened the cost of books to the pupils, if we take pres- ent rates. It probably did, with California and Indi- ana, have an influence in reducing prices. Some of the books are not satisfactory, though they are by no means so nearly worthless as represented. 3. Prices in Indiana have been materially lessened by the contract system. As regards the quality of the books, they may fairly be called good, though not the best, both in material and in subject matter. The list is not yet completed. Better books might readily be obtained in open market at somewhat higher prices. 4. The action of these three states in particular, and the agitation of the question in other states, has doubtless produced good results, in that it has led to lower prices from publishers, better control of retail dealers as regards their profits, and a careful study of the whole question. The agitation has been in good part due to the desire of politicians to pose as friends of the poor ; but the success of the movement is largely due to methods, often unwisely political and sometimes positively corrupt, employed by publishers' agents in pushing sales. 5. The free text-book system seems, on the whole, to be the best, both as regards economy and the general effect on the schools. In some few localities it may be impracticable, as the state superintendent of Texas affirms that it is in many of the country districts of his state, though even there it would probably work better than he thinks. 6. Whether these text-books shall be prescribed and SCHOOL-BOOK LEGISLATION. 255 purchased by the state, county, or local board, will de- pend upon special circumstances. In the states in which the local boards and even the teachers are almost utterly untrained, it would seem best for the state to take the matter in charge, at least so far as to select a number of standard sets from which a choice may be made. In the more progressive states, the towns and cities can well manage the business for themselves. Here state uniformity is doubtless an injury. In states in which the county superintendents are attempting to grade the rural schools, the county should be charged with the selection of the books, so far as those schools are concerned. In some few of the smaller states, the whole state corresponds roughly to the county in the larger states, and similar circumstances there might well require state uniformity. Again, in some of the east- ern states, where there is practically no county organ- , ization, of course the towns must serve as the unit where (^ the state does not. The whole question is an exceedingly interesting one to the student of political science. The whole agitation is evidently but part of that great movement away from individualism and toward the increase of governmental functions — toward even a strongly centralized control. The question, too, is by no means settled. In several states the matter is being discussed, and before this arti- cle shall appear in print, many bills will doubtless be under consideration by our state legislatures and some new laws may already have been passed. We may feel confident that however much political parties may use the question to serve party ends, or however much rival 256 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. publishing houses, in their own interests, may scheme to promote or smother special bills, the public schools are, after all, dear to the people ; and whatever plan shall have shown itself by experience to be best will eventually prevail, though it may be only after many costly experiments. In this matter, as in so many others, we need more light on present conditions, more comparative study, and we should not legislate too hastilj, NOTE. This article on school-book legislation shows the con- dition of legislation on that subject throughout the United States at the time the article was written, and gives also in some detail an account of the influences w^hich brought about the legislation in the State of Indiana. It has been thought that it would be interest- ing to supplement the article with a brief note which would show the conditions since that date. It is evident that the movement which was just well under way at the time of the passage of the Indiana law was one which met with popular aj^proval. The subjoined data show that from the year 1894 to date forty-one of our states have taken some action regarding either uniform- ity of text-books or the supplying of text-books to the pupils, either free or at low rates. How far the move- ment has been primarily in the interests of the schools, how far it has been an attempt to win popular favor by an attack upon the so-called " school-book trust," how often individual manufacturers were looking for an ex- clusive contract, and how far other motives of a private nature may have entered into the actions of our legis- lators, of course cannot be kno^vn without a very de- tailed study. Enough, however, is shown in this note NOTE. 257 to make it clear that our people generally have made arrangements for providing onr pnpils with text-books which they deem snitable, at such rates — if, indeed, they are not furnished free — that no hindrance shall be put in the way of a thorough elementary education. In the following digest the method of citation followed is that used by the State Library of I^ew York in its index of legislation. It contains chapter number or page of act or resolution and day and month of approval or passage. In most of the states the session laws are numbered consecutively. "Where this is the case the abbreviation for chapter (ch.) is omitted, e. g., 94, 5 Je., 03. In the other states the abbreviation for page (p) is given. I. Uniformity of Textbooks. A. State to adopt and contract for. Wash. 150, 21 Mr. '95— not to be changed within 5 yrs. W. Va. 37, 22 F. '95. Okl. 34, art. 9, 12 Mr. '97.— Supt. of public in- struction to contract for 5 yrs. Mon. p. 61, 1 Mr. '97. Tex. 164, 10 Je. '97. Extra sess. 12, 15 My. '03. Kan. 179, 13 Mr. '97. (Additional textbooks to be adopted by state commission. Kan. 176, 2 Mr. '99.) Mich. 198, 29 My. '97. (Eepealed Mich. 27, 30 Mr. '99.) Id. p. 85, 6 F. '99 — textbook commission to fur- nish. Also Id. p. 401, 9 Mr. '99— for 6 yrs. Or. p. 87, 17 F. '99— for 6 yrs. Tenn. 205, 13 Ap. '99— not to be changed oftener than 5 yrs. (Merchants and dealers may buy and sell schoolbooks contracted for by state. 17 258 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. Tenn. 71, 22 Ap. '01. Amending '99, ch. 205, sec. 8.) N. C. 1, 8 F. '01— for not less than 5 yrs. Nev. 39, 8 Mr. '01 — change not to be made oftener than once in 3 years, or except by act of legislature. (Board of education to recommend to legislature [formerly prescribe and cause to be adopted] series of textbooks in common school sub- jects; no district entitled to public school money unless using books adopted by legislature. Nev. 38, 8 Mr. '01. Amending '99, ch. 78.) Va. '02. Amendment to Constitution. — State board to select textbooks and appliances. (Text- books not to be changed oftener than once in 4 yrs. except histories of the United States. Va. 694, 3 Mr. '98.) Ga. P. 53, 13 Ag. '03. — Textbook commission to adopt and make 5 yr. contract for. Mon. 116, 122, 7 Mr. '03 — no change to be made ■within 4 yrs. ; textbooks to bear union label ; dis- tricts to vote on question, Ala. p. 167, 4 Mr. '03.— 5 yr. contracts. Ky. 3, 8 F. '04.— " " " Miss. 86, 19 Mr. '04.— " " « B. County Uniformity. (1) Obligatory. K C. 164, 6 Mr. '95. Md. 135, 4 Ap. '96. W. Va. 62, 22 F. '97. — County schoolbook boards appointed by county courts to decide upon and con- tract for. S. D. 59, 9 Mr. '97 — to adopt every 5 yrs. and contract with publishers. Fla. 19, 5 Je. '99. — County board of public in- struction to adopt. S. D. 113, 5 Mr. '01.— County boards to adopt. NOTE. 259 (2) Optional. Ark. 89, 31 Mr. '99.— On vote of electors; county boo'k boards to select texts; special districts may adopt different books ; books in use in counties not adopting shall not be changed for 1 yr. la. Ill, 29 Mr. '00. — Questions of county uni- formity of textbooks to be submitted to electors on petition of one-third, formerly one-half, of rural school directors of county. Amending Code 97, sec. 2832. (Uniform textbooks of county to be in charge of county supt. unless otherwise ordered by board of education. Amending Code '97, sec. 2832. la. 112, 14 Mr. '00.) II. Establishing State Textbook Board. W. Va. 37, 22 V. '95. Id. p. 401, 9 Mr. '99. Kan. 31, 6 Jan. '99. Amending '97, ch. 197.— State textbook commission made permanent; con- tracts may be renewed. Col. 5, 12 Je. '01. — Board of education to ap- point textbook commission of 5 persons for 5 yrs. to select textbooks for districts of first class; com- pensation $3.00 a day. N. C. 1, 8 F. '01.— State Board of education made state textbook commission. Cal. 173, 18 Mr. '03. Amending P. C. sec. 1874. — Textbook committee to adopt, compile, manufac- ture, and distribute books for primary and gram- mar grades on approval of board of education ; text- books to be used for period of 4 to 8 yrs. Ga. p. 53, 13 Ag. '03. — Board of education con- stituted schoolbook commission. Mon. 116, 122, 7 Mr. '03.— State textbook com- mission to consist of 7 members appointed by the governor for 4 yrs. (replacing board of textbook commissioners created by '97, p. 61.) Tenn. 209, 20 Mr. '03. Amending '99, ch. 205.— 260 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. Term of textbook commission fixed at 5 yrs. ; per diem allowance limited to 60 (formerly 30) days. Tex. extra sess. 12, 15 My. '03 — replacing board created by '97, ch. 164. Ala. p. 167, 4 Mr. '03. Ky. 3, 8 F. '04 — "schoolbook commission." Miss. 86, 19 Mr. '04. III. Providing por Free Textbooks. A. Throughout the State. Del. 67, 12 My. '98. (Meeting of state board of education for the purpose of changing textbooks every ten yrs. Del. 187, 8 My. '95.) Id. p. 401, 9 Mr. '99.— But any school district may decide not to have free textbooks, and may sell to pupils books adopted by the state commis- sioners. (Textbooks in houses where there has been contagious disease to be disinfected. Id. p. 451, 13 Mr. '99.) N". J. 36, 26 Mr. '02. U. 60, 12 Mr. '03— provided that school boards shall purchase all such books now remaining in the hands of merchants and pupils of their re- spective districts. Amending K. S. '98, sec, 1818. B. Throughout the Counties. Md. 135, 4 Ap. '96. — County school commis- sioners to adopt, purchase, and furnish free ; money therefor appropriated by the state. (Apportion- ing appropriation for textbooks. Md. 330, 8 Ap. '02.) C. Local. S. D. 59, 9 Mr. '97.— On petition of majority of electors. NOTE. 261 N. Y. 195, 7 Ap. '97.— On majority vote of any union district. Wash. 118, 19 Mr. '97.— Shall vote on question. Id. p. 28, 6 Mr. '97.— Books may be loaned free or sold at cost. N. D. 82, 8 Mr. '99.— Board to provide when two-thirds of voters petition, or when board see fit. Amending K. C. '95, sec. 863-4. Wy. 29, 16 F. '99.— School directors to provide free textbooks and school supplies. Id. p. 217, 16 Mr. '01.— Electors, rather than trustees, to determine whether books are to be free. Amending '99, p. 306. Minn. 314, 21 Ap. '03.— In cities under 10,000 board of education may provide free textbooks; on petition of 25 voters board to provide such books or request council to submit question to electors. W. Va. 28, 28 F. '03.— Boards of education may provide free textbooks from building funds; pur- chase, distribution, and use. (1) On popular vote. N. D. 109, 18 Mr. '95. la. 37, 7 Mr. '96. Kan. 179, 13 Mr. '97. (Contracts may be re- newed. Kan. 31, 6 Jan. '99.) Mon. p. 61, 1 Mr. '97. Mich. 198, 29 My. '97. (2) State school funds to be withheld from towns neglecting to provide textbooks. Me. 64, 11 Mr. '99. (Parents may provide books at their own expense for exclusive use. Me. 47, 25 F. '95.) (3) Textbooks may be loaned to pupils in private pay schools during vacations, on certain conditions. Pa. 106, 7 Je. '97. 262 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. D. Furnished to the Indigent. Ct. 27, 15 Mr. '97.— School visitors may buy at town expense. S. C. 539, 30 F. '02.— District school trustees may furnish. N. M. 39, 12 Mr. '03. Amending C. L. '97, sec. 1555. IV. Providing Depositories for Textbooks. W. Va. 62, 22 F. '97. Ga. p. 53, 13 Ag. '03. — Contractor to maintain. Ala. p. 167, 4 Mr. '03. — State depositories and county agencies. Ky. 3, 8 F. '04. V. Purchase and Sale of Books. A. Purchase. (1) Agents shall not be interested in textbooks or supplies. Mass. 429, 25 My. '96. (Pupils may re- tain and purchase; school committee to make rules for use of free textbooks in accordance with '84, ch. 103. Mass. 472, 6 Je. '01. Amending '84, ch. 103.) (2) Unlawful for teachers, supts. or trustees to act as agents for textbooks. Tex. 7, 21 F. '00. (3) State to contract with publishers. Id. p. 401, 9 Mr. '99— through state board of commissioners. Or. p. 87, 17 F. '99— publishers to contract to sell at fixed prices. Mo. p. 22, 13 Mr. '97 — providing for second 5 yr. contract by state commissioner. Tenn. 205, 13 Ap. 99— or with authors. NOTE. 263 K D. 82, 8 Mr. '99.— No contract for free text- books shall be for less than 3 or more than 5 yrs. ; publishers to furnish supt. of public instruction lists of books, prices, and sample copies. Amend- ing R. S. '95, sec. 863--4. U. 10, 14 F. '03. — On expiration of contract state supt. to call convention consisting of state supt., county supts., and principal of Normal School to provide for new contract. Amending R. S. '98, sec. 1855, 1858. (4) Publishers to maintain agencies throughout the state; competitive bids. Mon. p. 61, 1 Mr. '97. Tex. 164, 10 Je. '97. Kan. 179, 13 Mr. '97 — maximum prices fixed in law. Mich. 198, 29 My. '97— but state may purchase manuscript and print textbooks. Mon. 116, 122, 7 Mr. '03. B. Sale. (1) At cost to pupils. K H. 50, 19 Mr. '95. S. C. 257, 17 F. '97— at cost or exchange price. (At cost; unlawful for schools and colleges receiv- ing aid from free school fund to use any text- books disapproved by state board of education. S. C. 473, 21 F. '98. County supt. to keep office open at certain times for purchase of books. S. C. 204, 17 F. '00.) Id. p. 28, 6 Mr. '97— clerk of trustees shall be custodian. (2) At 25% advance on contract price. W. Va. 62, 22 F. '97. 264 CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS. (3) At 10% advance. S. D. 59, 9 Mr. '97. (4) County, city, and town boards of education may purchase school books, and rent or sell them to pupils, or may contract with merchants to sell them at stipulated prices. Ga. p. 90, 16 D. '97. VI. Eegaeding Special Textbooks. (1) State board of schoolbook commissioners may order revision of geographies and histories ofteiler than every 5 yrs. Ind. 216, 11 Mr. '01. Amending '93, ch. '93. (2) School directors may buy for reference in schools Constant's History of Wyoming and Carroll's Sabbath as an American War Day. Wy. 38, 14 F. '01. Amending E. S. '99, sec. 597. (3) State board of schoolbook commissioners may adopt a reading primer. Ind. 51, 29 F. '03. Pedagogues and Parents By ELLA CALISTA WILSON Gilt top, 290 pp. $1.25 net (by mail $1.37) This book is a discussion of schools and education, actual and ideal, and of some of the older educational classics. It is lively and vivacious. It is written by a parent, and "is a plea for that much-neglected entity, the individual, and that equally neglected quality, common sense." N. y. Times Review:—" A thoughtful and suggestive little book; one, morever, so rich in apt quotation, so sparkling, and so original that the reader cannot fail to be fascinated." N. V. 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