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CIVIC EDUCATION
SOCIOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS
AND courses
occº
BY DAVID SNEDDEN
Professor of Educational Sociology
and Vocational Education, Teachers College
Columbia University, New York
Formerly Commissioner of Education
$n Massachusetts
YoNKERS-ON-HUDSON, NEw York
WORLD B O O K COMPANY
I 9 2 2

WO R. L. D B O O K C O M P A N Y
THE HOUSE OF APPLIED FONOWLEDGE
Established 1905 by Caspar W. Hodgson
YonkERS-ON-HUDSON, NEw York
2126 PRAIRIE AvLNUE, CHICAGO
The making of competent citizens is the
most important function of the schools of a
democracy. Conscious civic education, how-
ever, has as yet little tradition, and less sci-
ence, of its own. Its materials are not less
abundant in the social groups about us than
is nitrogen in the air in which we live; but the
fixation of these materials for practical serv-
ice, like the fixation of nitrogen, is a problem
which may well tax our best patience and
wisdom. It is the problem to which this book
is addressed. Thus Civic Education is de-
signed to follow the ideal of service as ex-
pressed in the motto of the World Book
Company, “Books that apply the world's
knowledge to the world's needs”
). A. . *--> !! £2
* * * f : ; ſ -' 4. -
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Copyright 1922 by World Book Company
Copyright in Great Britain
All rights reserved
PRINTED IN U. 8, A.
PREFACE
HUNDREDs, probably thousands, of the teachers and others
interested in schools are now wrestling with the problems
of civic education. They believe that our country needs
more and better education for citizenship than it is now
getting. It appears to them that our public and private
schools, both higher and lower, have thus far made but
partial and insufficient contributions toward the civic knowl-
edge and idealism that our country, with its complex eco-
nomic and political life, certainly needs. These schools do
achieve much in general education; but of purposive civic
education they give little, and that little is too often made
futile by its formalism or wasted by its puerility.
America needs more and better education for citizenship —
to that proposition all will give ready assent. Many com-
missions are studying ways and means of civic and other
forms of social education. Special efforts are being made
everywhere in teacher-training institutions to inspire and
equip regular or special teachers for this difficult work.
Philanthropy finances the “scouting education” of the
Boy Scout movement in large part because of its promis-
ing contributions to good citizenship. The exactions of
the war and the economic perturbations consequent on the
War have forced us to see that our political institutions,
serviceable as they have become, are not fully equal to the
social loads they must carry.
Hence the current varied and intense aspirations for more
extended and more scientific civic education in schools,
especially those that claim our children from their twelfth
to their eighteenth years. Statesmen and other students of
social life are insistent in their demands. Progressive edu-
cators are generally awake to the need. It is only when
we try to define specific objectives that we find ourselves
l] l
424046
iv PREFACE
in a jungle as yet largely unexplored. Naturally we make
little progress in devising effective means and methods
where our actual goals are so obscure. It does not take
long to find that memorization of formal texts, and rigid
recitation treatment of dry didactic materials, will rarely,
in present-day school life, contribute to the functioning
habits and knowledge, to say nothing of the appreciations
and ideals, that blend in approved civic behavior.
This book is designed to aid teachers and other educators
who are seriously trying to find and develop more purposive
and effectual objectives and means of civic education. The
discussions and conclusions here presented are based upon
these convictions: (a) that the aims or objectives of any
proposed type of education must first of all be derived from
studies, essentially sociological in their nature, of the needs
of contemporary societies, especially as evidenced in the
adult members thereof; (b) that it is just as practicable and
desirable to use a precise and specific terminology in educa-
tional discussion as in other fields of applied science; and
(c) that what should properly be called civic education is
only one part or type of education,-a part of increasing
relative importance, indeed,—and that as respects specific
aims and essential methods it will differ greatly from other
types.
Teachers and other educators may conveniently and not
inaccurately be divided into two classes — those endowed
with some ability, possessors of some disposition to be
curious, inquisitive, inventive, and progressive in their
work; and those who find little time and have little desire
to do other than prescribed and routine work.
The present book is designed for the former class only.
The writer is convinced that much valuable and necessary
work in education will always have to be done by teachers
who can pretend to no originality; and much more by those
PREFACE V
who, even if endowed with some gifts of creativeness, are
nevertheless too much preoccupied in meeting the routine
requirements of their tasks to permit the development of
these gifts. !,
The educator who can do little original work may be
very serviceable in well-established fields of training, in-
struction, and growth-control; but he has as yet little place
in direct civic education. The field is too new, the really
serviceable means and methods too undefined, if not elusive.
For youths from twelve to eighteen, at least, better no
purposive civic education at all than the bungling and bruis-
ing efforts of men and women who can only employ the
crude didactic tools of intellectual apprehension that have
evolved in connection with the centuries of effort to enforce
the learning of foreign languages, mathematics, and history.
Because of the character of the audience addressed, there-
fore, the writer has not hesitated to introduce numberless
questions and problems that will doubtless require years
for their answer and solution. Neither has he refrained from
setting forth provisional interpretations and solutions where
it has seemed that these might contribute to further under-
standing or provoke more concrete discussion.
Each of the first two parts of this book traverses in a
measure the same ground. In Part I, the general aspects
of the problems considered are presented. Part II is devoted
to a more detailed study of certain of the problems found
in Part I. -
Civic education will for the present be largely a localized
study in its best developments — that is, it will be in par-
ticular communities, schools, or under particular teachers
that its most significant achievements may be expected.
Certain portions of the subject must, indeed, like good
nature study, always spring from local conditions, repudiat-
ing formal texts and cut-and-dried procedures. Certain
vi PREFACE
other portions may be based on manuals and texts that
ought to be capable of general use — of which, in the sub-
jects of civics and economics, many forerunners have long
been on the market. For the present, however, each school,
or at any rate the schools of each progressive community,
must, outside the more formalized subjects, initiate their
own efforts and develop their own leaders. Toward such
work it is hoped that the materials of this book may prove
helpful. -
The reader must remember that we have as yet no object-
ive criteria or standards of educational values and certainly
none in the field of civic education; hence here one man’s
opinion may be held to be as good as another's — and
perhaps a “good sight better,” as the recent immigrant
remarked. The history teacher will almost certainly dissent
from the evaluations of his subject found herein. He will
still contend that history as a chronologically organized,
compendious subject has been or can be so taught as to
be functional of civic results.
But the time has passed when the partisans of any par-
ticular subject or group of related subjects can claim im-
portant shares of school time and energy without at least
indicating their attitude toward claims of other subjects
and the defenders of other educational values. In fact, a
very heavy burden of proof should now be carried by the
special pleaders for the prescription of any particular group
of subjects in secondary education. Undoubtedly all the
subjects commonly urged for inclusion in secondary schools
are valuable — but not necessarily valuable for all classes
of learners. The disposition on the part of all specialists
is toward each having his own subject made compulsory
for all learners. The wealth of knowledge now available
for teaching purposes, our increased understanding of the
variabilities in powers, interests, and probable future re-
PREFACE vii
sponsibilities of learners, coupled with clearer perceptions
of the significance of educational values, justify us in up-
holding ideals of very flexible curricula for secondary schools.
Certainly the time has not yet arrived when we should
make universally prescriptive in secondary schools anything
but the briefest presentations even under civics. But we
should develop, according to the resources of our schools,
a wealth of elective offerings — from service projects and
“scouting” to hard problems in contemporary politics, from
inspirational readings to detailed studies of the historical
roots of the economic and other social problems that must
vex the minds and try the souls of the next generation
of voters.
D. S.
CONTENTS
PART ONE – SUGGESTIONS TO TEACHERs
CHAPTER PAGE
I. SUGGESTIONS TO TEACHERS: INTRODUCTORY CON-
SIDERATIONS 1.
Social betterment . s & º & l
The re-creation of social groups . . . . . 3
Education one process in social bettermen 5
Current demands for civic education 7
The example of vocational education 9
The aims of education . . . . . . . . . . 11
The aims of social education . . . . . . . . 13
Federate groups develop needs of organized
civic education . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
II. SUGGESTIONS TO TEACHERs: CIVIC EDUCATION IN
SECONDARY SCHOOLS . . . . . . . 17
The pending reorganization of secondary
education * * * * * * * 17
Results as shown in an adult citizen 20
The socially efficient man 22
Educational objectives 25
Standard of social worth 26
The meaning of civic education 29
Some further problems of definition . 31
Objectives of civic education . 32
Justification of civic education 35
The general need of civic education . 36
Society’s need of civic education in schools 38
Differentiations of the specific objectives of
civic education . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Civic education and the teacher of social
science . . . . . 42
The province of the social-science teacher . . 44
1X
X CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
III. SUGGESTIONS TO TEACHERS: MISCELLANEOUs . . 46
To rural elementary school teachers . . . . . 46
To teachers in small high schools . . . . . . 54
To teachers in seventh and eighth grades in
urban schools . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
To a superintendent of schools . . . . . . . 63
PART Two — SoCIOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS OF
CIVIC EDUCATION
IV. INTRODUCTORY CONSIDERATIONs . . . . . . . 73
V. THE SOCIOLOGICAL MEANING OF EDUCATION . . 83
What is education? . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Education in the broadest sense . . . . . . 85
School education . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Qualitative distinctions in education . . . . 88
Classification of aims based on social objectives 89 .
Physical and vocational education . . . . . 90
Cultural and social education . . . . . . . 91
VI. THE MEANING OF SOCIAL EDUCATION . . . . . 94
Preliminary analyses . . . . . . . . . . . 94
Conditions of social education . . . . . . . 97
Some problems in social psychology . . . . 99
Some educational presuppositions . . . . . 101
Other varieties of social education . . . . . 105
Social groupings: Some problems summarized 107
Social evaluations . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
Crude social valuations . . . . . . . . . . 113
Relative standards . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Weighting of civic qualities . . . . . . . . 117
VII. SOCIETY’s NEED OF CIVIC EDUCATION . . . . . 121
Social control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
CONTENTS xi
CHAPTER }*AGE
Developmental civic education . . . . . . . 122
Needs for civic education . . . . . . . . . . 125
Contemporary estimates of needs . . . . . . 126
The use of the case group study of needs. . . 128
Avoiding excessive abstractness . . . . . . 130
The direction of specialist service . . . . . . 132
VIII. THE OBJECTIVES OF CIVIC EDUCATION . . . . 135
Methods of determination . . . . . . . . . 135
Determination of “civic shortages” . . . . . 136
Civic shortages in social classes . . . . . . 139
How teach principles? . . . . . . . . . . . 141
Adaptations of objectives to groups of learners 142
Kinds of objectives of civic education . . . . 144
IX. EDUCATION FOR DEMOCRACY . . . . . . . . . 146
Sociological conditions of democracy . . . . 147
Nature’s limitations . . . . . . . . . . . 148
What is oligarchy? . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
What is democracy? . . . . . . . . . . . 151
Social repressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
Social democracy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
Industrial democracy . . . . . . . . . . . 157
Strivings for more democracy . . . . . . . 158
Education as a means to democracy . . . . 160
Education for democracy . . . . . . . . . 162
Democratic education . . . . . . . . . . . 164
PART THREE – PROBLEMs of OBJECTIVES, Courses,
AND RESEARCH IN CIVIC EDUCATION
X. MEANS AND METHODS OF CIVIC EDUCATION . . 169
Preliminary analyses . . . . . . . . . . . 170
Construction of courses . . . . . . . . . . 172
Effects of school environment . . . . . . . 174
xii
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
XI.
XII.
XIII.
XIV.
Sources in social practices of adults .
General principles of method .
Specific objectives
Civic prognosis . - - - -
Means and methods classified • * *
School discipline as a means of civic education
History studies . . . . . . . . . . .
Social sciences by didactic presentation
Project methods
Developmental readings .
“Problem” methods.
Cours ES OF STUDY FOR CIVIC EDUCATION
First six grades
Second six grades .
PROBLEMS OF RESEARCH
The “case group” method .
Needs of civic education
Extra-school civic education
Values of school subjects
Related problems .
FREEDOM OF TEACHING SOCIAL SCIENCES
Problems of freedom in teaching the social
sciences • e º - e s is
What is meant by “teaching”? .
Realistic cases -
Social-science teachers
Guiding principles
SAMPLE STUDIES - - - * * * - - - - e.
I. (C.B.M.) Proposed courses in civic
education for case group “owning
farmers.”
. 264
:
:
:
2
7
9
279
CONTENTS xiii
II.
III.
IV.
VI.
VII.
VIII.
IX.
X
PAGE
(A.L.McC.) Proposed courses for girls of
poor environment . . . . . . . . . 284
(A.R.) Proposed course in citizenship
for a 9th grade . . . . . . 288
(M.S.) Proposed program of education
for citizenship for children of Russian-
Jewish immigrants (especially ages
12–14) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291
(C.C.P.) Proposed courses of study for
9th and 10th grades for a type group 301
(R.A.C.) A plan for communicating the
spirit of America to the foreign-born
pupil (ages 12–14) . . . . . . . . 307
(M.E.D.) Program for a case group of
boys from high-grade environment . 313
(R.W.H.) Proposed program for selected
group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 815
(J.W.L.M.) Proposed program of civic
education for apprentice schools in
the manufacturing crafts and in rail-
road shops . . . . . . . . . . . . 320
(C.H.C.) Problems of program of special
civic education for a Chinese group 322
XI. (P.F.W.) Certain problems of method 325
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 330
INDEx . . 331
PART ONE
SUGGESTIONS TO TEACHERS
CIVIC EDUCATION
CHAPTER ONE
SUGGESTIONS TO TEACHERS: INTRODUCTORY
. CONSIDERATIONS
The purposes, aims, or objectives of all education find
their final justification in the increased social well-being
which results from right education. But only from sociology
can we determine what are valid standards and conditions
of social well-being. In a certain sense any one who proposes
enlargements or reforms in education rests his case on founda-
tions of sociological fact or assumption. Consciously or
unconsciously he strives to express himself as a sociologist.
The sociologist studies human beings as they live and
act in groups — societies. He seeks first to find the facts
of group behavior, and then to control the structures and
processes of group behavior toward better ends.
All kinds of social groups or societies can thus be studied.
The family, the business partnership, and the schoolroom
class are societies no less than a city, a nation, or a race.
Social groups, like all other things human, may be good
or bad (as affecting the individual or collective well-being of
men, women, and other sentient beings); they may beincipient
or mature, complete or incomplete, efficient or inefficient.
SOCIAL BETTERMENT
To sociologists (or social economists, as many prefer to
call the men and women whose chief concern is with the better-
ment of societies or helping the people who compose them)
even more than to other well-informed men, human societies
seem nearly always capable of improvement. They think
largely of better families, better nations, better economic ar-
rangements — and even of better prisons, better schools,
I
2 CIVIC EDUCATION
better streets. They see endless possibilities of extending
human happiness through better stock, better government,
better education, better economic production, better worship,
better recreation. (Perhaps the word “well-being” is to be
preferred, since the notion of “happiness” seems too closely
associated with that of “pleasure as an end in itself.”)
Coöperation. The general realization on earth of lives
that shall be richer in the things that we call good or pleasant
(in the long run) and less subject to the things we call evil
or unpleasant, depends above everything else, as sociologists
See it, on increase in varieties, scope, and efficiency of co-
Operative action. Throughout all his history man has been,
indeed, very coöperative. Some of the structures that he
long ago evolved for that purpose were wonderfully effective
— the family, the clan, the village community, the partner-
ship, the militant nation, the worshiping congregation, the
master-apprentice combination, and the buyer-seller com-
bination for economic exchange. Some of the social proc-
esses created during the last ten thousand years are as
yet too near to call forth the full admiration they deserve —
processes of collective defense, of administering justice, of
invention, of recording and diffusing knowledge, of exchang-
ing products, of organizing productive effort under the
corporation.
But the very increase of social knowledge upon which
we now pride ourselves reveals endless possibilities still
ahead. Our social groups are like the bodies that nature
gives — despite their fundamental healthiness, they still
abound in frailties, they are very liable to disorders, and
they frequently prove unequal to the new needs that an
evolving world imposes upon them. To the social economist:
. all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untraveled world, whose margin fades
Forever and forever when I move.
INTRODUCTORY CONSIDERATIONS 3
THE RE-CREATION OF SOCIAL GROUPS
The most important social groups of human beings resem-
ble organic species in this — the groups are relatively per-
manent, whilst their individual members come and go.
New York, France, the Mohammedan Church, the Republi-
can Party, and a university are social entities that have
witnessed the infiltration and the silent departure of un-
numbered members. Even that relatively transient group,
the family, with its usual span of less than sixty years. "
witnesses periodically the accession of plastic children and
their withdrawal twenty years later as shaped adults to
form new unions.
The great drama of sociology is thus revealed — the per-
petual processes by which every type of social group, from
a boys’ gang to an empire, must be perpetually renewing
its membership, domesticating and training its recruits,
educating its plastic novices. “The world” has gradually
accumulated an immense stock of knowledge, customs, insti-
tutions — as well as machines, highways, cleared lands, and
subjugated beasts. All this wealth — the social inheritance —
passes on steadily from the older to the younger generations
— with the hope that the newcomers will be able to appre-
ciate and wisely to use the ancestral fortunes and in due
season to add to them. -
Not only is all this true of those vast groupings which
we call “our country,” or a Christian denomination or
civilization, or society-at-large; it is no less true also of
particular social groupings. The Methodist Church, the
city of Philadelphia, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows,
the American Federation of Labor, the New York Central
Railroad, the Adams family, the lovers of Mendelssohn's
music, the Sierra Club, and unnumbered other social groups
—each of these has likewise its peculiar social or associational
inheritance which attaches to the corporate entity and is
4. CIVIC EDUCATION
shared in by each new recruit as he reaches the full stature
of responsible membership.
But education is the essentially central fact in the drama
of socialization — the processes partly of inducing each new-
comer in society to enter upon his inheritance, and partly,
under some conditions, of compelling him to do so, or at
least of forcibly restraining him from interference with others
who would do so. It is the drama of an education that is not
of schools alone, indeed, but is carried on in every home,
church, club, shop, army, play place, theater, newspaper office,
police court, library, and convention in the world. Often
these educative processes are unobtrusive and silent, some-
times they are sensational and shocking. E. A. Ross in
his book on Social Control has surveyed the very web of
processes by which both young and old are educated
toward good group membership. Sumner in his Folkways,
Tarde in his Imitation, as well as other sociologists, have
shown the magnitude and complexity of the processes
historically developed.
Literature and other art loves to dwell upon the individuals
who have refused tamely to submit to socialization. Indeed,
the young — except the very young — are often reluctant to
settle into the harness of group coöperation, especially into
that of the larger groups. At all times and everywhere we
find those who wish to share in the feast but not to pay
the price. They want the social goods of family, state,
private property, culture, and personal freedom without
making the personal concessions and even sacrifices necessary
to “keep up” these agencies.
Civilization, indeed, presents two kinds of drama – and
like the popular shows of today, the performances are con-
tinuous! On the one hand we have tens of thousands of
Societies, little and big, accessioning, disciplining, domesti-
cating, and assimilating new members. On the other are
INTRODUCTORY CONSIDERATIONS 5
millions of children, youths, men, and women, yielding to these
socializing processes, but eager nevertheless to preserve their
own individualities, those individual souls which ancestors
from millions of years back projected for them. Science
must here search always for the golden mean. Humanity
or civilization can ruin itself just as certainly from too
much, as from too little, organization, from being too co-
operative as from being not coöperative enough.
EDUCATION ONE PROCESS IN SOCIAL BETTERMENT
Education, then, in its multifarious school and non-school
aspects, devotes itself, now to making strong, resolute, and
aggressive the individual; and anon to making him submis-
sive, kindly, and coöperative. Now in one of its varieties
it seeks to make of a few associates loyal, energetic, and
regimented members of “small groups” — family, corpora-
tion, club, union, sect, or party; then, in other varieties,
it seeks to produce the man devoted to the commonwealth,
to humanity, to the service of God — the patriot, the human-
itarian, the Christian.
Without number, therefore, are the purposes of education
— its possible aims or objectives. Speculative writers often
ask, “What is the aim of education?” The sociologist can
only answer, “There is none — none, that is, distinct from
the purposes or aims of life itself as expressed in human
tendencies, or in civilization, or in what we may interpret
as progress.”
Education is a matter of many agencies, and not of schools
alone as the obscure literature of the subject would some-
times lead us to believe. It centers most heavily on the
plastic, the formative, years in the lives of human beings.
Along countless channels it seeks first to make vital, func-
tional, possessive, for each person those things from the
general and particular social inheritance which he can “take
6 CIVIC EDUCATION
on” or utilize. In highly developed special forms it may
also seek to prepare choice spirits to add to the world’s
goods that the next generation may be the richer by new
knowledge, new beauty, new aspirations.
Differentiation of education in purposes follows the same
lines along which the “goods” of society are differentiated —
the social values or worths found in various forms of security,
health, wealth, righteousness, knowledge, beauty, religion,
and sociability. The history of education, as well as any
cross-section of contemporary practice, shows hundreds of
avenues along which men have worked to make of oncoming
generations competent defenders, workers, voters, thinkers,
and players. By numberless means these have been fostered
toward being healthy and strong of body, fearless in battle,
diligent in industry, moral in family life, public-spirited in
the community, loyal to the state, reverent toward God.
Neither the state nor any other social organization has
yet achieved perfection in its educational processes. In a
dynamic or progressive society it is safe to predict that
final perfection is never to be achieved, since new and higher
goals always reveal themselves far beyond present stages of
practicable accomplishment. But it is clear that civilized
Societies are steadily shifting to those specialized types of
educational agencies that we call “schools” a constantly
increasing share of responsibility for difficult and complicated
forms of education. Agencies other than schools have, in
many cases, done well enough in the past; but they will
not suffice for present and future needs.
That is the meaning of contemporary demands that many
and varied schools shall be provided for vocational educa-
tion, instead of a few for those aristocratic vocations, the
professions, as heretofore. That explains why contemporary
social economists, forced to see the wastes of happiness
resulting from physical defect, seek through general or
INTRODUCTORY CONSIDERATIONS 7
special schools the varieties of physical education that shall
assure to the next generation better health and physique
than have been the portions of the present generation.
CURRENT DEMANDS FOR, CIVIC EDUCATION
And that, too, explains current demands for civic educa-
tion in and through schools. America needs and wants more
and better education for citizenship. The majority of adult
Americans are, of course, not bad citizens, as judged by
historic standards; but it is apparent to all careful observers
of social life that the task of citizenship in a democracy as
large and economically complex as ours imposes heavier
responsibilities every year. The men who settled the colonies,
and those who built up the states as frontiers were pushed
westward, were in the main good citizens for their times and
places, in spite of the fact that their schooling gave them
little purposive civic education. So were the “Boys of '76,”
as well as those of 1812, of 1861, and again of 1898. And
when the latest crisis came America found that she could
confidently rely upon the higher civic behavior of her sons
and daughters to play a fine part in the Great War.
American life — in the home, on the farm, in the shop,
and even on the street — together with American education
— as given by public and private schools, churches, the
press, the stage, and numberless agencies of less direct influ-
ence — has given us a citizenship that on the whole is law-
abiding, progressive, and possessed of social good will toward
all the world. -
Future social evolution. Why, then, do we find statesmen,
educators, and other students of contemporary social life
not only keenly interested, but even uneasy and urgent, in
promoting more purposive and more far-reaching civic
education? It might appear, superficially, that they were
reflecting severely upon the ideals and achievements of our
8 CIVIC EDUCATION
forebears. At bottom, however, that is not the case. It is
true that for purposes of propaganda we all revert occasion-
ally to historic instances of corrupt politics, of national
greed, of the ineptitudes of adolescent democracy. But we
are, after all, not blind to the devotion, honesty, coöperation,
good will, and intelligence that have made America what it
is. Most of our fathers as well as ourselves have been and
are pretty good citizens as the qualities of citizenship must
be judged by proper sociological standards.
It is not the past, but the future, that now concerns us.
We are anxious not to lose the momentum of our three
centuries of social evolution. We are certain that the future
presents difficulties and responsibilities not faced by the past.
We have grown to be a very numerous people; our free lands
have been absorbed; our raw resources have been largely
preempted, if not consumed. Our economic life has become
complex beyond all previous example, and our economic
interdependence correspondingly far-reaching and acute.
Aspirations for “more democracy” — political, social, cul-
tural, industrial, religious — increase in all parts of society,
and thus greatly complicate, if they do not arrest, the opera-
tion of other means making for social efficiency. In a hundred
respects it is certain that the average American citizen of
the future will face responsibilities calling for degrees of
intelligence and kinds of coöperative effort which in the
past have been demanded only of a few leaders.
The civic education upon which we have built this republic
has been largely of an indirect order. Home and church and
school inculcated the simpler pre-civic social virtues — that
is, everyday morals. Public and private schools have in-
sured a constant increase of literacy, which our forefathers
were right in believing to be one of the primary foundation
stones of good democratic citizenship. In spite of instances
and occasional tendencies of a harmful character, the Ameri-
INTRODUCTORY CONSIDERATIONS 9
can press has contributed immeasurably to the upbuilding
of intelligent civic consciousness and ideals. Scores of other
agencies have been at work — even including commercial
enterprises, international intercourse, scientific research, and
finally war itself.
But of conscious and purposive civic education based
upon a clear diagnosis of probable needs of adults, we have
had heretofore little indeed, beyond the instruction in ver-
nacular reading which early became the central objective
in all public schools. American history and geography in
very formal and somewhat meager measure we have also
included in elementary school curricula primarily for the
purposes of imparting civic vision and ideals. Studies in
civil government and community civics have been developed
experimentally in progressive schools, but so far neither
specific aims nor methods in these subjects have been at all
satisfactory.
The pressing educational problems of the present, then,
as regards preparation for citizenship, are to be found not
so much in the domains of indirect education, as in those
of direct and purposive instruction and training toward
clearly defined goals. An analogy from another coördinate
field of education will illustrate this.
THE EXAMPLE OF WOCATIONAL EDUCATION
There began in our more progressive states some fifteen
or twenty years ago a movement for publicly supported
“vocational education.” It was felt that many youths were
deprived of opportunities to acquire vocational skills and
knowledge; that industries, agriculture, and homemaking
were suffering because of the incompetency of young work-
ers; and that social well-being on the whole was impaired
for these reasons. It took time for us to gain proper per-
spective in the campaign for vocational education. Finally
10 CIVIC EDUCATION
the following conclusions have become clear: (a) All adults,
now and in the past, have followed vocations, and, since
instincts give man only slight immediate vocational powers,
it follows that all these adults have, by one means or another,
received vocational education, using that term in a broad,
but sociologically justifiable, sense. (b) The methods of
vocational education in the past have been substantially
of three kinds, namely: (1) school vocational education,
which gives us about 5 per cent of all adult workers, chiefly
physicians, army officers, Stenographers, pharmacists, engi-
neers, agricultural experts, elementary School teachers, and
ministers; (2) apprenticeship vocational education, giving
from 5 per cent to 6 per cent of all our workers, chiefly
printers, locomotive engineers, barbers, plumbers, and some
carpenters, machinists, electricians, tailors, and other skilled
artisans; and (3) what may properly be designated “pick-
up” vocational education, giving us approximately 90 per
cent of our workers, among whom must be numbered nearly
all farmers, homemakers, factory workers, clerks, and casual
laborers. In essence, then, the current “movement for voca-
tional education” is in reality a social effort to substitute
for “pick-up” vocational education more effectual forms —
that is, more direct, purposive, and pedagogical forms.
The leaders of this movement do not condemn as worth-
less the vocational education of the past; they perceive that
it has brought us to the wonderful stage of economic devel-
opment we have reached today: but they strongly hold that
the old system is not sufficient for future needs, any more
than was the private “hit-or-miss” literary education of
former ages sufficient for modern cultural and social needs.
Civic education. Similarly must we interpret the current
agitation for the extension and improvement of civic educa-
tion. The wine of the new citizenship inevitably demanded
by our complex social order can no longer be preserved in
INTRODUCTORY CONSIDERATIONS II.
the old bottles. Domestic and community virtues, indispen-
sable as they must continue to be for “social group” solidar-
ity, may be expected to play relatively diminishing rôles in
that citizenship which must increasingly participate in a
hundred responsibilities growing out of “federate” or “large
group” social activities – political, economic, sanitary, cul-
tural, religious, and even martial. .
Sociologists and educators encounter many obstacles in
planning for better civic education. Perhaps the most imme-
diately baffling is the prevailing confusion of terminology.
We hardly know just what are the specific objectives, means,
and methods that we are talking about. Again, while it
is easy enough to depict general needs of social education,
it is very difficult to define the specific needs to be found
among distinguishable social groups and ages of learners.
Then, too, available means and methods of work are but
poorly defined.
Hence it will be the first purpose of this book to analyze
those essentially sociological problems that must be solved
before we can do effective work on courses and programs.
THE AIMS OF EDUCATION
The words “civic education” should, at the outset, there-
fore, be made accurately descriptive of certain distinctive
objectives and procedures in the total scheme of education.
We need not only a positive content for the term, but also
a formulation of its limitations — the things that are ex-
cluded from it. (It is a weakness of terminology in education
today that many of the technical words used are like rubber
bags – they may be stretched to include almost anything.
Educators are often loath to say what their favorite shib-
boleths exclude.)
Either by analysis of all the qualities found in an approved
type of adult, and segregation of those due to education
12 CIVIC EDUCATION
(school and non-school); or else by survey of all types of
education now consciously promoted by schools, homes, and
other agencies, we can secure a conspectus of the hundreds
of aims and procedures that can properly be called educa-
tional. These we can proceed to group or classify as is done
with the phenomena studied in any science.
Within the entire field of educational objectives toward
“good manhood,” “good citizenship,” “social efficiency,”
“sound character,” etc., these classifications may be based
upon the principal ends controlling:
(1) Physical education. One set of educational procedures
aims primarily at promoting development of body, physical
strength in general, ideals of health, special physical powers,
recreative interests, beauty, longevity, health knowledge (per-
sonal hygiene, and social sanitation). Incidentally – but only
secondarily — these aims affect vocational success, cultural
success, and social success. -
(2) Vocational education. Another set of educational pro-
cedures aims primarily at vocational success — in terms of
the skills, technical knowledge, appreciations, and social
ideals required to succeed in a specified vocation — e.g.,
carpenter, poultry grower, or electrical engineer. Inciden-
tally, these aims overlap with those of physical, cultural,
and social education.
(3) Cultural education. A third set of objectives centers
in the cultivation of those intellectual and aesthetic interests,
appreciations, and non-vocational powers that enrich the
personal or individual life, apart from social or vocational
ends. These objectives involve chiefly development of “high
grade” consumers’ appreciations (in art, literature, travel,
general knowledge, history, science, and the like), some-
times accompanied by powers of “amateur” execution
(painting, music, craftsmanship, research). Cultural educa-
tion as here defined has incidental but not primary relation-
INTRODUCTORY CONSIDERATIONS 13
ships with the forms of efficiency which are designated as
physical, vocational, and social.
THE AIMS OF SOCIAL EDUCATION
(4) A fourth set of aims relates primarily to fitting the
individual for successful group membership. For conven-
ience a man’s group relationships may be classified as: asso-
ciate, federate, and spiritual. Associate groups are those
where personal acquaintance and personal contact prevail.
Neighborhood rural communities, villages, countrysides,
towns, clubs, congregations, crews, camps, partnerships,
companies, schools, clans, local vocational unions, local
political party groups, etc., are associate groups.
Federate groups involve slight personal contact of mem-
bers, hence must function chiefly through delegates, repre-
sentatives, laws, written communication, etc. “Large com-
munity” (or better, commonwealth) groups — cities, coun-
ties, provinces, states, nations, empires, federations, alliances
– as well as large religious, vocational, cultural, political
party, standard of living, racial, linguistic, and sumptuary
groups are here classified as “federate groups.”
Spiritual relationships are those involving primarily God,
departed saints, etc.
It is obvious that any social group can function in defense
or other vocational coöperations, in recreation, worship, mu-
tual culture, race perpetuation, sociability, etc. Hence while
all social education aims toward promoting the effective func-
tioning of the group, its aims in the case of the individual are
properly limited to preparing him to use his physical strength,
his vocational powers, his culture, his sociability, his marital
and parental dispositions, his spiritual leanings, his com-
bative instincts in socially effective ways.
(5) In the earlier stages of the education of individuals,
procedures will sometimes be found which cannot well be
14 CIVIC EDUCATION
classified in only one of the above categories. Reading as
taught to small children will later function, perhaps equally,
in realization of cultural, vocational, and social objectives.
Physical play in some forms may give results of equal
importance to physical and to social development. But in
later stages every scientific tendency in education is toward
differentiation of specific objectives as a condition of effective
administration. Such differentiation presupposes classifica-
tion and comparative valuation of ends to be achieved,
first considered with reference to individuals and society
in general, but finally with reference to specific types, classes,
or grades of individuals and particular societies.
Kinds of social education. Within the general field of
social education, then, we can distinguish three large divi-
sions: (a) that which fits the individual primarily for good
membership in family and non-political associate groups —
moral education; (b) that which fits for membership in
political and all other federate groups—civic education; and
(c) that which fits for religious relationships with deity —
religious education.
The evolution of early social life took place chiefly in
connection with associate groups and religious relationships.
Primitive social groups were small, and intergroup relation-
ships infrequent and of the simplest order — usually war
or barter. The evolution of federate groupings of political
kinds – phratries, federated clans, expanded tribes, sub-
jugated areas, city-states, provinces, kingdoms, nations,
federations, alliances — is but of the sociological yesterday.
Since this political evolution has involved terrific strains,
contests, and incessant efforts to promote “understanding
at a distance,” it is easily to be understood why recorded
history is devoted almost exclusively to the politics of
“federate” groups. In the basic evolution of social qualities
it is probable that the village ranks next to the family in
INTRODUCTORY CONSIDERATIONS 15
importance; but historians find little to record in the cease-
less interplay of social forces in village life.
FEDERATE GROUPS DíðVELOP NEEDS OF ORGANIZED CIVIC
EDUCATION
We can thus again interpret current public interest in
civic education as a school function. Statehood in its modern
manifestations — nationalism, municipal relationships, the
province — affects the lives and welfare of men as never
before. Men once relied heavily upon the state for only one
function — security of life and property against external
foes. Later the state became the chief agency for the ad-
ministration of legal justice. Now we depend upon it for
education, road-building, mail carriage, fire protection,
policing, coinage, and the supervision of scores of otherwise
private functions — banking, meat-packing, railway trans-
portation, sanitation, and many others. Some of us want
it to undertake transportation, house-building, coal-mining,
and operation of “movies.”
But it is not merely the political functions of society that
thus become complicated and of momentous importance.
Many strictly private functions have long transcended
village boundaries. A large part of modern exchange of
commodities takes place over thousands of miles of distance.
Wheat, cotton, coffee, and rubber growers sell their products
a third of the way round the earth from places of production.
The organized daily gossip that we call news comes to us
through agencies that are almost as impersonal to us as
machines. The workers in particular fields of technical
direction, investment of capital, or manual labor unionize
themselves in battalions that reach from one boundary of
a nation to another. Worshipers organize themselves in
armies that overlap many nations.
Science and invention diminish distance and other bar-
16 CIVIC EDUCATION
riers to social intercourse, but they so multiply and magnify
social interdependencies that face-to-face contacts come to
play a negligible part in many of the most vital of human
relationships. Current aspirations for democracy, seeking
to exalt not only the individual, but every kind of individual,
complicate social structure and processes still more. Demo-
cratic conditions are hard enough to secure within primary
groups where the warmth of face-to-face contacts prevails;
but the difficulties are enhanced tenfold when distance
begets impersonality and the social magnitudes to be dealt
with override the possibilities of personal likings and “small
group” appeals.
Hence the persistent, even if only half-articulate, demands
in all civilized countries, for varieties and amounts of civic
education adequate to prepare men for their recently de-
veloped responsibilities and opportunities in the social order
now so rapidly evolving. The empires developed through
conquest in the past were indeed complex, but only a special-
ized “governing class” needed to be educated for the func-
tions of social control over those “large groups.” Now we
diffuse that control very widely. Civic virtues have hereto-
fore been simply the moral virtues expanded, but that
process of providing for democratic social control of right
kinds will no longer suffice. Society must address itself
more than ever for security to teachers — not, in civic
matters, so much to teachers in general, perhaps, as to
specialized teachers of civic education.
CHAPTER TWO
SUGGESTIONS TO TEACHERS: CIVIC EDUCATION IN
SECONDARY SCHOOLS
THE PENDING REORGANIZATION OF SECOND ARY
EDUCATION
THERE is a new and better secondary education now in
process of formation in America. The historic stereotyped
high school subjects of study are being examined from new
angles. Heretofore it has been a matter of unquestioned
academic faith that their educational worth was great.
Hence educational discussion was chiefly concerned with
best methods of teaching and testing them. Now many
educators are daring to question whether, after all, the
study of algebra is so important that all high school pupils
should be required to take it. Some are losing confidence
in the educational values of French, Ancient History, and
Physics as now taught. They even suggest that the objec-
tives of the English studies ought carefully to be reëxamined
from the standpoint of ascertained social needs and learners'
possibilities.
New demands. In the meantime new demands upon
secondary education are also being made. Many laymen
as well as educators believe that the public high schools
especially should devote far more attention and effort to
what is vaguely called physical education. Some, still hold-
ing that the general or liberal arts high school should concern
itself largely with “cultural” education, insist that more
should be done to teach during adolescence those apprecia-
tions, tastes, and special forms of insight that raise the
levels of utilization and give resources wherewith richly to
fill the leisure hours of adult life. Vocational guidance and
practical arts are thought by others to be of much potential
17
18 CIVIC EDUCATION
importance in secondary education. All seem now to be
agreed that in the 9th or 10th grade there should be a course
in “general science” the objectives of which should be
essentially “cultural” rather than “practical,” in the voca-
tional sense.
Demands for more and better civic education are a part
of the new movement. The public support of high schools
has long claimed justification on the ground that these were
essentially schools of “good citizenship.” This claim does
not now stand up well under critical analysis, it is true; but
there can be no doubt that it has always embodied strong
aspirations. We all know that high school graduates will
furnish to society a far larger proportion of leaders in busi-
ness, followers of the highest vocations, and men and women
of influence generally, than will those young persons who
do not enter high schools. Naturally we desire that in pro-
portion to their opportunities these graduates shall be dis-
posed and able to be excellent citizens.
Now there are many prospects that we are, as a people,
bent upon translating our aspirations more definitely into
programs of achievement than heretofore. We are especially
determined that more of the social sciences shall be taught
in our secondary schools—under which term are to be included
the junior high schools which will probably increasingly
replace the upper grade organization of the elementary school
in all progressive communities.
In fact, we are seeking something more comprehensive
and better than the teaching of the social sciences. We
want to assure better civic education, whether by means of
formal studies, or by any other means which will “function.”
The proposed “reorganization of secondary education”
may well involve some rearrangements or extensions of
departmental teaching. We ought soon to have in all our
high Schools specialists who know much about the aims and
CIVIC EDUCATION IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS IQ
methods of physical education. Our larger secondary schools
will certainly have specialists in vocational guidance.
Specialists as teachers. Similarly we shall certainly tend
to evolve a professional group of specialists in civic educa-
tion. At present we usually assign to teachers of history
the civics subjects. There is of course no inherent reason
why teachers schooled in historical studies should be found
specially qualified to organize and administer civic education,
even though the historical sciences are properly to be in-
cluded among the social sciences. But many “history
majors” in college develop also exceptional interests in
economics, political science, sociology, and other social
sciences. From them will come probably during the next
few years a large proportion of the departmental teachers
of civics and other subjects making up the courses in civic
education.
Let it be assumed that the reader is either now or in
expectancy such a teacher, employed in a combined junior
and senior high school, to organize and conduct all the
specific forms of education directly designed to produce good
citizenship. He has had several college courses in history
and a few in economics. Consulting his own ease he would
prefer to teach history only, but he has become doubtful
as to the importance of history, as now taught, in a scheme
of civic education. He would be glad to teach high school
seniors the rather formal economics which he himself had in
college, but here again he is aware that economics is but
one of various means for vitalizing civic education in grades
seven to ten by various activities or projects of which scout-
ing may be regarded as simply an exceptionally successful
extra-school example. The purpose here is to survey the field
of such a teacher’s work, to indicate its few solved and its
many unsolved problems, and to suggest means for the
further study of the latter.
20 CIVIC EDUCATION
What should be expected from these teachers? What will
probably be their problems? Questions like the following
provide serviceable approaches here:
a. What is the meaning of civic education?
b. What are the present needs of civic education?
c. What shall be the objectives of civic education?
d. Can we now find sociological sources or foundations
whereon to base replies to the foregoing questions?
e. What shall be the methods of civic education?
f. Can we now find psychological guidance to the discov.
ery of those methods and also to the testing of the results?
|RESULTS AS SHOWN IN AN ADULT CITIZEN
Assume the case of Mr. B, who at the age of forty is
in all essential respects a man to be approved both for
his personal and for his social qualities. We should speak
of him as a “good” man, or, loosely, as a good citizen. All
his admirable qualities, resting on foundations of good hered-
ity and nurture, reflect the education to which he has been
subjected — the education of his home, church, and com-
munity environment, the education of the schools he has
attended, and finally the self-imposed education of his later
years of self-direction.
Personal efficiency. On the physical side Mr. B possesses
the health and strength essential to work and general happi-
ness. He has a reasonable knowledge of personal hygiene.
He is wise enough to employ expert medical service when
he needs it. But the kinds of education that have contributed
to these qualities cannot properly be called civic. If, how-
ever, at some stage those who taught aimed specifically to
interest him in the needs and possibilities of public sanitation
and so to educate him that later he would consciously
comply with sanitary regulations and laws and, in addition,
take an active part in promoting the further development
CIVIC EDUCATION IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS 21
of these forms of public service, such education could properly
be called civic.
Mr. B is also vocationally efficient — that is, in whatever
line of work he has undertaken, he can render a large amount
of useful service with relatively small expenditure of effort.
As a result he can “live well,” and adequately support
those dependent upon him. But here again we must recog-
nize that such purposive vocational education as he has
received cannot properly be described as civic — notwith-
standing the tendency of careless writers sometimes to
imply that the controlling purpose of vocational education
is “good citizenship.” Apart from his vocation, he will of
course be expected to render public Service – perhaps as a
soldier, sometimes as an unpaid official, and possibly often
as an upholder of right standards of public behavior. Toward
these, of course, civic education in some form (including
military training when not specialized on a paid or profes-
sional basis) must contribute.
Again, Mr. B possesses a variety of cultural interests
which enrich his life, enable him fruitfully to spend his
leisure and to participate in the “higher life” generally.
His fondness for some form of music, literature, sport, or
travel gives him diversion, wholesome recreation, and inci-
dentally induces him to associate with those of similar
interests and to contribute to the advancement of the special
cultures to which he is devoted.
But his cultural interests and powers are only remotely
related to his moral and civic qualities. Highly cultured
men sometimes discharge their civic obligations very badly:
and men with fine civic conscience and exhibiting admirable
civic behavior are often very deficient in culture.
This brings us, then, to the fourth set of qualities pos-
sessed by Mr. B. Assuming him to be an “all-round”
efficient man, he will add to his physical, vocational, and
22 CIVIC EDUCATION
cultural efficiency social efficiency in the more specific sense.
That means that as a member of social groups — small or
large —- he will be a good conformist and a positive force.
He will be moral, law-abiding, coöperative, friendly, patri-
otic, and religious — a good “group member.” He will be
“strong” and “sound” in family relations, as a churchman,
in connection with political parties, and as a promoter of
community well-being. These qualities of “social efficiency”
will incidentally contribute to his health, vocational success,
and cultural growth; but from the standpoint of educational
processes all history proves that they can and should be
made ends in themselves.
THE SOCIALLY EFFICIENT MAN
The efficient man (or woman) as we know him, then, is
a composite of many parts and qualities. One set of these
qualities we recognize as being primarily physical — physical
health, physical strength, physical endurance, physical
grace. Another set of his qualities we think of as primarily
vocational — the skills, technical knowledge, and workers’
ideals that, from small beginnings acquired between twelve
and twenty years of age, have grown to be a substantial
part of his total character and productive powers. A third
group of his qualities we describe as cultural — his enduring
personal interests in good speech, good reading, good music,
good pictures, travel, nature, history, refined manners, and
the like. A fourth set of the qualities which make him
worth while are essentially social — the qualities which are
directly reflected in his moral, civic, and religious behavior.
Sources of efficiency. Toward the production of the array
of approved qualities found in the man who is socially and
individually efficient many agencies have contributed. His
stock, ancestry, or heredity provided the foundations of
body and instincts, The conditions of his nurture shaped
CIVIC EDUCATION IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS 23
and reshaped these during the entire period of his prenatal
and postnatal growth. Taking him as we find him, we may
safely guess that his parents were healthy, intelligent, moral,
and industrious people; that they insured to him during his
prolonged infancy ample food, shelter, and rest; and that
they made it possible for him to have an abundance of
play, association with others of his own age, and a wide
range of experience. But they also “trained him in the way
he should go,” forcing him, where imitation and suggestion
did not suffice, to “behave properly,” to exhibit decent
manners, to work, and to take care of his body.
When he first went to school at six years of age he was
already well advanced in the ways of the world that was
becoming increasingly his. He had acquired vernacular
speech, numberless motor powers, and a host of forms of
social behavior toward parents, older brothers, playfellows,
adult acquaintances, and strangers. He only “played” at
work as yet, but on the cultural side his home and neigh-
borhood environment had already given him many likings,
“dislikings,” interests, tastes, appreciations.
For the next ten or fifteen years his schools played a
large, but in only a few particular respects a paramount,
part in making him what he eventually became. To his
early schools he owed almost wholly his mastery of the
mechanics of reading, writing, composition, and numbers.
His later schools did much to increase and deepen his
knowledge of nature, history, other languages, and literature.
They added something to what his parents had taught him
of hygiene and current events. By the groups created within
Schoolroom, school building, laboratory, or library he was
induced, or, if necessary, forced, to learn and to practice
new forms of social behavior. Also he soon adapted himself
to the various social groupings growing around the fringes
of his schools, his home, and his neighborhood.
24 CIVIC EDUCATION
Growth after school. Presently he went to work – partly
voluntarily, partly under compulsion. Perhaps he belonged
to that minority who find opportunity to be trained for
their work in vocational schools. But in his vocational
school or in the pursuit of his vocation itself, he steadily
acquired new appreciations and powers — primarily voca-
tional, but secondarily physical, social, and cultural. As
he matured, new instincts asserted themselves – sex, voca-
tional ambition, religiousness, honor, desire for family – and
these, oriented and molded by his environment in and out
of schools, eventually gave final shape to his personal char-
acter and his place among men.
Any candid and detailed biography or autobiography is
a picture of the processes suggested above. In The Edu-
cation of Henry Adams one of the strong and sensitive men
of the last generation has told such a story with much
literary, and some psychological, power. Perhaps educators
should often read many kinds of biography in order to
see their own contribution in true perspective — something
that is hardly practicable when the eyes rest on school
surroundings exclusively.
It is from study of this kind that we can best analyze,
classify, and eventually evaluate the desirable and practica-
ble objectives of school education. In any proper sociological
sense of the term, education derives from many sources
besides schools. Schools are the primary agencies of educa-
tion only in certain limited respects. The vernacular speech,
the “small group” morals, the vocational powers, as well
as a large proportion of the cultural tastes and interests of
our fellow men and women were chiefly acquired from non-
school sources. Schools have obviously been the primary
agencies in giving powers of reading, writing, number, and
in contributing some data of science, history, and art. How
far the active interests of a typical man or woman of forty
CIVIC EDUCATION IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS 25
in literature, civic affairs, contemporary events, and recrea-
tion are traceable more than incidentally to what schools
have done must finally be solved by educational studies
more detailed and far-reaching than any we yet possess.
EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES
The first and fundamental groupings of educational ob-
jectives that arise easily from a survey of the composite
qualities of “efficient” adults are, as implied above, the four
classes, physical, vocational, cultural, and social. These
classes are not rigid or altogether mutually exclusive, but
for the present they will serve many useful purposes in
thought and communication, provided we do not waste time
in niceties of distinction or extent. The facts of physical
and of vocational education, both as to results seen in adults
and as to methods of education witnessed during childhood
and youth, are fairly patent. The word “culture” is itself
so ambiguous that difficulties can easily arise in trying to
conceive the essentials of cultural education. But it is
highly serviceable now to interpret culture (as one major
objective of school education) chiefly in its non-utilitarian
and largely personal aspects – as having little connection
with vocation, health, or civic activities.
The “social qualities” of a man express themselves in his
relationships to his fellow and to postulated supernatural
beings. Each adult is a member of scores, rising to hundreds,
of social groups. He is born into some, forced into others,
and voluntarily joins still others. These social groups may
be classified conveniently according to their most obvious
social functions. In relation to his family, the efficient man
is a “good” son, brother, husband, father. Among those
with whom he works vocationally he is, according to cir-
cumstance, a “good” servant, employee, foreman, com-
panion, chum, mixer, sport, and, perhaps, gentleman. As
26 CIVIC EDUCATION
a community member he is characterized as public-spirited,
progressive, safe, law-abiding, generous, open-handed. In
relation to municipality and state he will be an upholder
of the laws, a conservator (believing in conservation of
social goods), a sound voter, a willing taxpayer, a good
party man, a good worker in giving unpaid service, a “true”
reformer, a “radical” in his disposition to correct vested
evils. Toward his country he will be a patriot, a good soldier
in time of danger, a helpful counselor, a liberal for progress.
Since no nation can live unto itself alone, the socially efficient
man reflects also certain sentiments, knowledge, and deter-
minations in spheres of international action. He favors
peace, but also justice and the “square deal,” as between
nation and nation. He dislikes race prejudices and fights
their promptings in himself. Finally, as a member of a
society that includes, by hypothesis, invisible divinities and
malevolent beings, he gives to God reverence, the sacrifice
of worship, and conformity to divine will as he believes it
revealed to him.
STANDARD OF SOCIAL WORTH
Any type or species of education that is directed primarily
toward improving one or many of the social relationships
is social education. History abounds in examples of educa-
tional efforts to make youth or adults better sons, fathers,
servants, employers, mixers, community members, patriots,
worshipers. Incidentally these efforts may enhance wealth,
vocational proficiency, or personal culture; but that is not
their primary justification. All such efforts presuppose
standards of group “excellence” – as fixed by custom, even
if not always held consciously. Any one of us can easily
give expression to conceptions as to what constitutes a
“good” family, vocational grouping (partners, employees
and employers, or corporation), community, municipality,
State, nation, world, party, church, or social company.
CIVIC EDUCATION IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS 27
Social virtues. There are certain “virtues” that appear
in more or less specialized forms in various social groups.
Truthfulness is apparently a relatively essential virtue in
all group life; so also is toleration designed to unify for
some purpose individuals largely unlike and strange to each
other. The word “cooperation” may be applied to virtues
that seem to possess some common characteristic but which
certainly vary in such groups as the family, the nation, and
industrial organizations. Property honesty is held as a
virtue wherever it is important for the group to increase or
conserve individual possessions, especially of a material
character. Only in some group relationships, such as those
of husband and wife, employees and employers, and a gov-
erning group toward individual subjects, does “justice”
become an important virtue. In other special connections
mercy, piety, chastity, temperance, and the like assume
importance as social virtues. Loyalty, fidelity, courage,
kindliness, are of many very distinctive species, according
to the character of the social groups in which they are
developed and prized.
Experience proves that individuals are often more or less
in conflict with the requirements of their social groups.
Constant friction results. The individual tries to escape the
group or to lessen its control over his action. Everywhere
about us we see children rebelling against parental control,
party members “breaking” with their party, men leaving
the church, wives divorcing their husbands, employees
striking, partnerships dissolving, traitors and anarchists
fighting governments, robbers pillaging the community.
Hence, as respects individuals we get dissent, untruthfulness,
revolt, rebellion, delinquency, sin, crime, disloyalty, and the
like.
Social coercion. Nor is it the individual who is always
in the wrong — if we use the words “right” and “wrong”
28 CIVIC EDUCATION
to mean the conduct which tends respectively to make or
break the well-being of the greatest number in the “long
run.” It is easily possible for the group unduly to coerce
the individual, to lay too heavy a burden on him, to cut
off possibilities for his personality – either physically, men-
tally, socially, or vocationally. At times parents expect too
much from children, the employer exploits the employee,
the nation unnecessarily sacrifices the soldier, the local com-
munity browbeats the conscientious member. Art in all its
forms — but especially in drama, story, and song — re-
hearses endless tales of revolt. Perhaps this is because under
normal conditions a heavy burden of proof lies on the indi-
vidual in justifying his dissent, self-determination, or revolt.
Of more interest to modern societies at least are the com-
petitive efforts of various groups for the contributions that
a man can make to the collective success of each group.
The time, energy, and devotion that an individual can give
to various groups are obviously limited; and many of his
groups are often in potential, if not actual, conflict for what
he can give. A man’s family has prior claims on a large
part of his economically productive effort, his personal
devotion, his time. He may easily so give of these that
he is niggardly to political party, church, the community,
and the state. Similarly a man may easily so center his
efforts in his business, or his “fellowship societies” as to
neglect his family. Through taxation and conscription the
state may assert its paramount claims in the interest of
public safety; but it sometimes does so to a degree that
deprives other groups of their just dues.
Competition for ascendency. But of still greater moment
is the never ending struggle of social groups for ascendency.
Nation is in competition with nation, church with church,
party with party, industrial group with industrial group.
Also state is in competition with church, sociability groups
CIVIC EDUCATION IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS 29
with vocational groups, municipalities with states. Often,
perhaps, these competitions are wholesome rivalries; but not
infrequently they become tempestuously destructive or in-
visibly disintegrating. A volume could easily be written on
the topic “The Struggle for Existence” as this prevails
between and among social groups.
Education, of course, can only work with and through
individuals. In fact, group action of each and every sort
finally reduces to its prime elements in individual human
beings who must successively take up and use the “social
inheritance” of each group. Professor Ross's classic book,
Social Control, traces, with a wealth of illustrative detail,
the numberless and ever-active ways in which social groups
seize upon and shape the oncoming generations of individ-
uals to their group needs.
Social education can, as before noted, be well subdivided
according to the social relationships it is designed to produce
or modify, into three major species — moral, civic, and reli-
gious. Under even the more exceptional conditions schools
(leaving aside the adjuncts of residence and recreation in
boarding schools) are only secondary and residual agencies of
moral education; but the home, neighborhood, and church
may prove so inadequate in civic education that here the
school may yet have to assume certain primary responsibili-
ties. For the present schools do or do not enter the domain
of religious education, largely according as they are “non-
public” or “public” — that is, state-directed.
THE MEANING OF CIVIC EDUCATION
What is meant by civic education? Can we profitably
assemble its objectives under citizenship?
Citizenship, as the term is loosely used, is effected through,
or affected by, all forms of education, in school and out.
This is so because the word “citizenship” has come to mean
30 CIVIC EDUCATION
not merely the exercise of civic or even, in a more limited
sense, political functions but also the possession of basic
qualities which condition in large measure the exercise of
those qualities.
Indirect factors of citizenship. For example, a man’s
success in his vocation or his potential vocational proficiency
are not in any ordinary sense a part of his citizenship. It
is clear, however, that what he will be able to do as a citizen,
through his virtues as a “follower,” or by those of leadership,
will be largely conditioned by his vocational appreciations
and powers. -
The same applies in the field of physical health. Health
and citizenship in the ordinary sense are things far apart.
Nevertheless it can well be held that the man who is physi-
cally unfit is thereby precluded in large measure from the
exercise of civic responsibilities and functions that are easily
possible to the physically well man.
Similar considerations apply to those areas of social life
involving what for the sociologist are the “small group”
relationships. Education for citizenship normally would not
include education for family membership. It is certain,
however, that the man whose family membership is open
to serious social criticism is thereby impaired as to his
abilities to exercise civic functions.
The words “citizen” and “citizenship” may, therefore,
be probably too inclusive, too confused with varied conno-
tations, to be profitably employed as embracing only the
proper objectives of civic education. We must wait and see
whether popular usage will have its way here; we may be
forced to admit that all good education contributes to the
making of the approvable “citizen” — it is all good “Ameri-
canism,” perhaps. But we need not thus extend the useful
words “civic education.”
CIVIC EDUCATION IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS 31
SOME FURTHER PROBLEMS OF DEFINITION
It is necessary to recognize that there are many kinds
of education, because there are many kinds of results to
be achieved through education. Schools teach handwriting,
dancing, and a foreign language toward very unlike ends.
The methods employed also differ greatly. Similarly such
more generalized forms of education as physical and voca-
tional must differ fundamentally not only in practical pur-
pose but in essential methods as well.
Unfortunately these distinctions are not willingly accepted
in the present state of educational discussion. Con-
fusion also arises from present tendencies everywhere to
“stretch” the values of education. It is claimed that ath-
letics are valuable means of education for citizenship; that
the study of mathematics makes a “clear-thinking citizen”;
that music should be studied as a means of civic education.
Various purposes of education. For the sake of practical
efficiency in their work educators must learn to consider
separately the various specific purposes that, at any given
age, should control at least all direct and purposive educa-
tion. In no other way can efficient means and methods
be devised. In all other affairs of civilized life we recognize
that one (and almost always only one) primary purpose should
determine and control a given course of action. A factory
or any given part of it is erected to produce a specified
product. There may indeed be many by-products, just as
there may be in education. A child being taught hand-
writing may be getting as by-products some physical and
moral training in the process; but the essential reasons for
painstaking drill in handwriting are not to be found in
any aspect of either physical or moral education.
Let us therefore recognize at the outset the special province
of civic education. Because of its indeterminateness let us
32 Civic EDUCATION
use the term “citizenship” as little as practicable, and then
only in the limited sense heretofore specified.
First, civic education does not include training in reading,
spelling, handwriting, or simple arithmetic, or in other funda-
mental processes such as drawing, the reading of a foreign
language, or forms of laboratory manipulation. It includes
none of the primary forms of physical or vocational educa-
tion. Finally, it excludes many forms of cultural education
where the controlling purpose is to establish enduring inter-
ests of an aesthetic or intellectual nature toward the enrich-
ment of the individual life.
OBJECTIVES OF CIVIC EDUCATION
The special objectives of civic education, then, have to
do largely with political and other “large group” member-
ship, including compliance with laws of state, municipality,
etc. These may be classified as follows:
a. The promotion of the appreciations, ideals, attitudes,
and minor amounts of understanding necessary to procure
conformity to legal and other directions and restraints, such
conformity being always measured in terms of specific forms
of social activity, such as honesty in property relationships,
obedience to traffic laws, etc.
b. Promotion of the kinds and degrees of devotion to
country, city, town, and other political groupings as col-
lective social entities with a view to insuring the welfare
of the commonwealth and the community. One species of
these types of devotion can well be called patriotism, but
there are others which can easily be distinguished.
c. Training in dispositions and abilities to participate
actively in parties, volunteer service, and other activities
of a positive nature designed to promote the public wel-
fare. -
d. Training in dispositions to advance the state directly
CIVIC EDUCATION IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS 33
by good service in family, vocational, religious, and other
non-political social groupings.
Studies of adults. The actual objectives of civic education
under the above heads will often best be understood by
social science teachers through studies of adults now com-
posing any particular type of society. The methods of such
study, as discussed more at length elsewhere, may be called
“case group methods.” The kinds of groups that may well
be studied by educators will be variable. For some purposes
it may seem well to take regional groups, for others occupa-
tional, and for still others racial groups. From another
standpoint groupings might be made on the basis of culture,
sex, or age and will further subdivide on the basis of com-
binations of two or more of the foregoing qualifying condi-
tions. The following are typical of the questions that suggest
studies of this kind. *
a. Rating citizens on the basis of their civic qualities in
five groups as excellent, superior, average, inferior, and poor
and for the present assuming the application of the same
standards to all groups, what are the proportions of citizens
of each rank or grade in the city of AP
b. What proportions respectively among 1000 women fac-
tory workers in that city?
c. What proportions respectively among men of at least
high school education now in business?
d. What proportions respectively among 100 negro manual
workers of ages 30–50 in the given area? -
The foregoing analysis presupposes a composite estimate
of civic qualities. Many kinds of refinements are possible.
For example, the various groups could be rated purely with
regard to their compliance with the laws of the common-
wealth or nation; or with reference to their activity in party
politics; or with reference to their disposition to initiate
civic reform movements.
34 CIVIC EDUCATION
Variable civic potentialities. It is evident, however, that
such ratings of citizens will be limited in usefulness because
they presuppose uniform potential civic powers. Society
has a right to expect that 100 men who have had the ad-
vantages of the native abilities and environments that enable
them to graduate from college shall be held for very different
amounts and kinds of civic virtue from those who have
had no such advantages. Consequently a still more com-
plete system of evaluating citizenship would suggest ques-
tions like the following:
a. In terms of the standards of civic worth deemed appro-
priate by a competent jury for men who are college grad-
uates, who are successful in business, and who are from 30
to 50 years of age, what are the relative proportions of men
of each civic grade found in 100 college graduates of this
description in the city of B?
b. In terms of civic standards appropriate to unmarried,
negro manual workers in Northern cities of from 25 to 40
years of age, what are the proportions of good citizens, as
judged only with reference to compliance with laws, found
among 100 negroes chosen at random in the city of CP
Ultimately for studies of this character we must derive
not only the qualities of civic worth that shall be sought
through school education but standards of reasonable expec-
tancy of civic virtues for different social classes.
Such analysis may reveal, for example, that negro children
of less than average intelligence in our public schools should,
between the ages of 12 and 15, be trained in compliance
with laws, given ideals of good conforming citizenship, and
given considerable drill in the most simple of economic
principles.
On the other hand in a junior high school offering a con-
siderable range of electives in social science subjects, the
kinds of civic instruction that would be provided and recom-
CIVIC EDUCATION IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS 35
mended for those brighter and better circumstanced indi-
viduals who will very probably go through high School and
into college and thence into the higher vocations, might
well include training in “reasoning about” a large number
of debatable problems in social sciences, as well as a very
considerable experience of the kind of leadership that scout-
ing and community service work provide.
JUSTIFICATION OF CIVIC EDUCATION
Why, to what extent, and toward what specific goals or
objectives does modern society, and conspicuously that of
America, need more and better civic education? Sooner or
later we must be able to give reasonably scientific answers
to this question. -
Our popular faiths here are important. They serve as
Pole Star ideals of orientation at least, even if they give
no idea of distances or character of courses. Let us review
some of them:
Our state, its governmental institutions, and our individual
relations to these rest on constitutions, representative gov-
ernment, general suffrage, and ideals of democracy. In all
respects these tend to exalt the place and importance of the
individual, which means more specifically all kinds of indi-
viduals — good and bad, informed and uninformed, far-
sighted or short-sighted, “little group” minded or “big
group” minded. More than under other political systems
the average man in America is able to help the welfare of
his fellows throughout the state according to the degree to
which he is “able-minded” and rightly predisposed.
Hence one need of more and better civic education, even
than that which gave us the boys of '76, of 1861, and of
1917. Good citizens, in some cases very good citizens, can
still be made when the school only adds literacy and a slight
knowledge of American history and geography to the moral
36 CIVIC EDUCATION
and civic virtues learned from the home, the church, neigh-
borhood associations, shop and farm work, and apprentice-
ship participation in politics. But quite apart from other
considerations, it is desirable, as in the case of hygiene,
that we reduce mortality and morbidity rates. We should,
and through proper education we probably can, reduce the
proportions, at any level, of Grades C and D citizens and
increase the proportions of Grades A and B citizens. We
can do this not so much, perhaps, by following the methods
of extra-school civic education, as in definitely supplementing
with specific new objectives.
THE GENERAL NEED OF CIVIC EDUCATION
How would the sociologist determine the needs of civic
education at any time and in any given society?
He would first define what is meant by the civic virtues
as these show themselves in the behavior of adults. Any one
can readily enumerate scores of these virtues by name. It
is hard, of course, to avoid the use of excessively abstract
words in describing them, and it is almost impossible for
even the sociologist as yet to indicate their relative im-
portance in any quantitative way.
It helps here to classify some civic virtues as “virtues of
conformity” and others as virtues of initiative. Obeying the
laws, conforming to the ordinary requirements of the social
Order, and accepting gracefully the conscriptive requirements
of society — to attend school, serve in the army, serve on
juries, pay taxes – are among the conformist virtues. But
forcing others to obey the laws, forming parties to effect
particular reforms, and scrutinizing the acts of officials are
among the virtues of initiative.
We often need still more special definitions. What is
meant by “good” political party membership, and what is
the importance of various forms of party behavior? What
&
CIVIC EDUCATION IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS 37
is the relative importance in good citizenship of strict com-
pliance with the laws bearing on corrupt politics and those
governing automobile traffic?
Such definitions should clearly indicate the relations that
are assumed to exist between the specific civic virtues and
the basic qualities (e.g., of health, vocational proficiency,
general education, personal morality, etc.) which are sup-
posed to condition them.
Civic shortages. Next the sociologist would study some
fairly distinctive social group in order to ascertain the most
conspicuous “shortages” of civic virtues, the correction of
which in the oncoming generation could be made the pur-
pose of at least part of some immediately practicable pro-
grams of civic education. Some of these groups are referred
to on page 109.
The analogies here to sound schemes of physical education
are many. Certainly the various specific objectives of such
a scheme should be based upon ascertained deficiencies in
the health or physique of known groups of people. For
example, if it is found that in certain areas farmers in large
numbers suffer much ill-health traceable to dietetic ignorance,
then one specific objective of instruction in hygiene for the
next generation is at once suggested. If the adult workers
in certain vocations suffer malformations that could have
been prevented by earlier specific physical training, then
another objective is defined.
Sociologists have already made large progress in diagnosing
social deficiencies; but educators have as yet made practi-
cally no use of that knowledge in defining objectives of
school procedures to counteract these. This is no less true
in civic education than in the fields of the modern languages,
vocational education, and instruction in the sciences.
38 CIVIC EDUCATION
SOCIETY’s NEED OF CIVIC EDUCATION IN SCHOOLS
What are the evidences of the need for civic education
in schools?
To discover these needs it is desirable that we first proceed
to evaluate civic education of non-school agencies such as
family, church, neighborhood environment, party, and
vocation. In all of these cases we are dealing principally
with what Cooley calls primary groups. These agencies are
very effective for particular forms of moral education. They
cultivate the soil out of which may be expected to spring
some “large group” virtues. But modern social organization
makes increasing demands for the civic virtues of political
and other large groups which these primary associations do
not adequately meet. •
Criminality as a measure. The general prevalence of crime
is sometimes urged as a reason for civic education through
schools. Ordinarily, however, pleas put on this basis overlook
certain social facts. On the one hand criminal classes are
recruited very largely from family and other small groups
that are themselves socially deficient. On the other hand
criminal classes show an abnormal proportion of mental sub-
normality. More and better education could undoubtedly
reduce the proportion of criminals, but to be effective it
would have to be specialized education at least for all ages
upwards of 10 or 11. It will have to be specialized in the
first place to offset the disadvantages of home environment.
In the second place it will have to be specialized in order
to make the most of deficient mental powers.
But the real needs of civic education must be considered
first of all with respect to the 70 to 90 per cent of adult
men and women of the country today who already compose
a body of moderately good but not sufficiently good citizens.
The needs of civic education are sometimes derived from
study of contemporary politics. It requires no very compe-
CIVIC EDUCATION IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS 39
tent powers of observation to see in contemporary politics
much of inefficiency, indifference, and even corruption. So
far, however, no satisfactory evidence has been adduced to
show that persons who have received the smallest amounts
of civic education now offered are, relatively to their abilities
and opportunities, inferior in civic virtues to those who
have received large amounts of such education. It is not
certain, for example, that the college graduates of America,
having in view their superior native abilities and the excel-
lent environment in which they were reared, are propor-
tionately better in civic virtues than less fortunate citizens
in other classes.
Growing complexity of social life. Much more satisfactory
are the arguments growing out of the increasing complexity
of social life on the one hand, and increasing needs for
democracy on the other. Our modern economic life has
become enormously specialized, and the component com-
munity and other groups in our society are interdependent
in degrees that did not exist formerly. But social control
must extend over the larger groups and the functions of
government are obviously becoming more complex. It is
therefore a fair inference that society must find in all, or at
least in some of its members, powers of civic understanding
and action far surpassing those formerly called for.
Another set of valid arguments can be built upon modern
conceptions of social economics. Our ancestors could, largely
because they must, tolerate high mortality and morbidity
rates as well as much poverty and general social deficiency.
One large goal of modern society is the lessening of these
various sources of personal unhappiness. We are striving
steadily to lessen the rate of disease and to prevent thriftless-
ness and low efficiency generally.
For exactly the same reasons modern social economics
aims to lower the ratios of lawless, vicious, and corrupt in
40 CIVIC EDUCATION
all social groups. Our forefathers could tolerate a certain
amount of venality in politics, perhaps because they were
indifferent or perhaps because they were powerless to prevent
it. We have set ourselves higher standards, and civic edu-
cation becomes one of the means of achieving them.
DIFFERENTIATIONS OF THE SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES OF CIVIC
EDUCATION tº
As stated earlier, by “objectives” is here meant something
more than aims, purposes, or intentions. Rather the term
means the “goals” to be realized, the achievements and
attainments that are definitely expected. Aims may be
qualitative without being quantitative – that is, they may
designate direction without distance. The Pole Star is often
an “orienting” ideal or aim for mariners, but it is never
a goal. Lighthouses are often goals or stations, partly to
steer by, but partly also to pass.
The objectives of civic education, like those of many other
forms of education, can profitably be divided into two classes
or orders — the developmental (beta) and the projective
(alpha). The results in adult life of the pursuit of develop-
mental objectives can hardly be tested, at least by any
methods now known. But the results of the pursuit of pro-
jective objectives ought to be within the powers of socio-
logical science to determine.
The derivation of objectives of civic education can best
be made on the same basis as that previously suggested
for the study of the needs of such education — the “case
group” method. Certainly all teachers can profitably under-
take the study of objectives for specific case groups. For
example:
Case Group MN. In certain New England cities large
numbers of girls (from 16 to 22) and smaller numbers of
women (unmarried from 23 to 40) are employed in textile
CIVIC, EDUCATION IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS 41
mills. Most of these are “American born of foreign parents.”
We can assume that 60 per cent of them have more than
a sixth-grade and less than a tenth-grade education; 15 per
cent have tenth-grade education or more, and 25 per cent
(some foreign born) less than a sixth-grade education.
Most of these workers live fairly moral, but rather dingy,
home lives. They are good church members. For diversion
they depend heavily upon the photo-drama, considerably
upon commercialized dances, much upon street visiting,
only slightly upon home associations, and hardly at all
upon coöperative activities of an amateur character. They
read freely afternoon newspapers, and 40 per cent patron-
ize freely the fiction of the public library. Almost none read
articles or books on civic affairs.
Some are members of unions, but take little interest
except in times of crisis. They are highly specialized in
their work, earning fairly good wages but having little to
anticipate of economic advancement. Some are careful
savers, but by ordinary standards most of them are extrava-
gant spenders. -
Their political interests are meager and essentially con-
ventional — that is, they leave to others all activities pre-
liminary to voting, and in voting follow behests of leaders
heard or read about. They know very little indeed about
problems of contemporary politics. They cherish many
ancient prejudices. -
Their extra-school education — home, church, neighbor-
hood, shop — has made them fairly good citizens as regards
observance of laws and socially approved conventions.
Their civic initiative is practically nil.
The rising generation. Growing up in these cities are
today thousands of girls who will follow vocationally in the
footsteps of their elders of the above case group. On the
average, their parents have had slightly more contact with
42 CIVIC EDUCATION
American institutions and they themselves may be expected
to average about one grade more of schooling, besides 140
hours of continuation schooling between ages 14 and 16.
The problem is set us of providing for the newer generation
more effective civic education than that had by the elders.
For the present we shall consider possibilities in connection
with all those who attend seventh and eighth grades but
who will not go farther (except for 140 or 280 hours part-
time school attendance the possibilities of which for civic
education are still uncertain).
Assume further that in the seventh and eighth grades
one fourth of all available school time (or a total of 720
hours within and without the school) is available for civic
education, to include all that is given of history. Assume
that in the first six grades civic education remains substan-
tially as at present — developmental readings, projects, and
discipline, with about 100 hours systematic American history
and 100 hours social geography in Grades 5 and 6.
By such sociological analysis we can bring ourselves to
the place where the making of constructive proposals becomes
profitable. In later chapters some methods for such work
are suggested.
CIVIC EDUCATION AND THE TEACHER OF SOCIAL SCIENCE
Questions like the following will be of the utmost impor-
tance during the next few years to teachers of social sciences:
a. Have we now sociologically valid bases for proposals
for civic education?
b. Does sociology itself suggest the means of providing
such bases? .
c. From what starting points shall we move in search
for them?
The following answers for the time being seem valid:
a. All contemporary proposals for civic education are
CIVIC EDUCATION IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS 43
based upon faith rather than upon assured knowledge.
The actual (but not the nominal) foundations for the teaching
of American history have been cultural rather than civic.
It is by no means certain that such subjects as civil govern-
ment, community civics, and the like as now taught are
necessarily functional in civic values. We have very strong
faith that Scouting and good boys’ club work are so func-
tional, but we are certainly far from possessing any valid
knowledge to that effect, taking account of the selective
personalities with whom these systems, based upon volunteer
information membership, deal.
b. Sources of programs. It ought to be entirely prac-
ticable to obtain sociologically valid bases for programs of
civic education. Some methods for such research are in-
dicated elsewhere. Let it be repeated that the most effective
single method certainly is to proceed from an analysis of the
most conspicuous civic defects found now among adults, to
elaboration of concrete proposals for the prevention of such
defects in the next generation.
c. This method would at least give us certain criteria
which are now wanting. For example, we can think in
terms of conformist virtues of citizenship and especially
those limited to compliance with laws regarding property.
Analysis of various distinguishable groups of citizens will
show full or only partial compliance with such laws, and
the degree to which it is found will vary from group to
group, by economic levels, or otherwise.
d. From this starting point, then, we can propose par-
ticular educational procedures designed to influence the next
generation of citizens in these particular respects.
e. Similarly it should prove practicable to study various
groups as to the standards and kinds of group participation
which their individual members show and to discover their
prevailing interests in the various forms of approved social
44 CIVIC EDUCATION
behavior entering into citizenship. Needs of civic education
to be met are thus revealed, after which will naturally
follow proposals for ways and means for meeting these needs.
f. Social science teachers, as well as school authorities
responsible for the formulation of courses for civic education,
will be constantly under temptation to teach the formal
“science” of the subject, forgetting that the final test of
the efficacy of their work is civic behavior, not possession
of civic knowledge. The rich content of such books as
Ashley's The New Civics is very comparable to the rich
content of some modern texts in geography, American his-
tory, arithmetic, or physics. But all the statements of facts
and interpretations thus assembled and organized may or
may not be important from the standpoint of a program
of civic education. The book, like a good cyclopedia, will
provide an abundance of reference materials for topical
work; but it is doubtful if it should be studied textually.
THE PROVINCE OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCE TEACHER
Teachers of the social sciences are not now professionally
trained even to the extent that high school teachers of
foreign languages, English language, chemistry, mathematics,
and home economics can be called professionally trained.
In many cases teachers of the history studies are being given
that work.
In the meantime astonishing numbers of students are
studying the social sciences in colleges. Very probably from
these will be drawn the social science teachers of the early
future. They will be well informed in economics and sociol-
ogy, but at first, as has been the case with college graduates
who have majored in natural science or English literature,
they may be expected to teach over the heads of their learn-
ers. Nevertheless, from these sources only will at first come
teachers of civic education.
CIVIC EDUCATION IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS 45
What will prove desirable limits to their activities? Shall
they also teach the various branches of history? Shall they
be expected to direct those highly educative social activities,
such as civic service projects, self-government projects,
neighborhood visitation, etc., which properly should sup-
plement, if not precede, formal instruction?
Departmental organization. The problem obviously pre-
sents as many difficulties as that of physical education.
Clearly the entire field of civic education — its develop-
mental and behavioristic aspects as well as its instructional
and training aspects — should in any school system be co-
ordinated under one specialist, at least so far as the needs
of children from 12 to 18 years of age are concerned. There
are, nevertheless, great difficulties to be encountered in
trying to combine under one person responsibilities for sys-
tematic instruction in history and economics as well as
Supervision of the socializing aspects of school discipline.
The eventual solution in large schools, it is probable, will
be found here, as in the case of physical education, through
the coördinating authority and knowledge of a responsible
supervisor for the entire field of civic education, in junior
and senior high schools and perhaps vocational and part-
time schools, operating through specialists teaching one or
more of the subjects or guiding the socializing activities
denoted by such terms as service projects, social science
readings, salient American history, community civics, eco-
nomics, study of peoples, political problems, and the rest.
CHAPTER THREE
SUGGESTIONS TO TEACHERS: MISCELLANEOUS
TO RURAL ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TEACHERS
LET us assume the case of a young woman, teaching her
first year in a rural one-room elementary school having
twenty-five pupils, the first seven grades being represented.
She graduated from an ordinary type of high school, and
she has had two years of normal school training. As she
looks back, her general and professional education seem to
have been rather congested. She seems not to have received
much of the specific appreciations and powers apparently
needed to meet her present needs in giving civic education.
In diagnosis of her problems, and for advisory purposes,
the following considerations are addressed to her:
The teacher's work. “As a conscientious teacher you are
still seriously disconcerted by conflicting ideas as to what
your work actually is or should be. Memories of your own
elementary school life revolve around lessons in arithmetic,
spelling, geography, and American history, with incidental
hygiene, nature study, music, and cardboard work. You
recall much rather futile drill in oral reading and composition
writing. Your high school studies were even more stereo-
typed, but from them you derived quite extraneous satis-
factions, because you had a good mind and could easily
outdistance your competitors. Your two years of normal
school work have resulted in confused recollections of very
lively and pleasant social experiences, demands for class-
room results that you could never more than partially meet,
and an intellectual swallowing of vastly more materials than
you felt you could properly assimilate. You still have an
uneasy feeling that, whilst you have been trained in some
few noteworthy respects, and instructed somewhat Super-
46
MISCELLANEOUS SUGGESTIONS 47
ficially, perhaps, in endless reaches of knowledge and ideals,
you are still very imperfectly educated — which, of course,
if you knew it, raises an old question that even the philoso-
phers can only answer by expressions of opinion couched in
vague and by no means unequivocal terms.
“But from many sources you have acquired convictions,
still held largely as mixtures of beliefs and aspirations, that
somehow the ‘new’ education for which you, among others,
are to be in part responsible, must be vastly better than,
and different from, the ‘old.” The war, we have been often
told, clearly demonstrated our national needs of civic educa-
tion and of better physical education. It did not need the
war to prove to many of us that our rural schools were
falling far short of meeting the needs of our time.
Modern theories. “Back of all this, however, it has been
incessantly borne in upon you that in the past our schools
have taught ‘subjects’ too much and children too little;
and that the teacher was too often the slave of the textbook
instead of its competent master. Throughout your period
of professional training you responded with much sympa-
thetic interest, although often with cloudy understanding,
to the pedagogic ideals of utilizing ‘activities’ in teaching,
of adapting your instruction to the ‘life’ or life’s interests
of the pupils, and of using ‘projects’ as valuable means of
self-expression, and the like.
“Now, in possession of your own school at last, you are
mystified. The rather uninspiring county ‘course of study’
inherited by you, with registers and other paraphernalia,
from previous teachers, still seems to lean heavily on the
teaching of spelling, arithmetic, geography, and the like.
It says little about physical education beyond some prescribed
lessons in hygiene, and makes no mention of civics until
the seventh grade. You learn that there has been complaint
of former teachers on account of their failures sufficiently
48 CIVIC EDUCATION
to advance or perfect their pupils in arithmetic, handwriting,
and spelling. There remain grievances also with regard to
discipline. Some of the pupils were allowed to be disorderly
and abusive.
“The situation confronting you is very like that faced by
tens of thousands of young teachers each year for at least the
last quarter of a century. Of these tens of thousands many –
a majority, it is to be feared — soon allowed themselves to
be bound tight to the wheel of the day’s needs — the tradi-
tional school routine. They gave most of the energy that
they had left after keeping their restless pupils in moderate
and always precarious order, to the formal teaching of the
formal subjects. They concluded that these were after all
the staples, compared with which all the other things hinted
at in normal school lectures are luxuries. For schoolroom
procedure and methods of teaching they found themselves
harking back to their own childhood experiences more fre-
quently even than to their normal school training classes.
“Like manual workers whose daily drudgery leaves them
neither time nor energy to think, these teachers gradually
lose hold on their aspirations and come to believe the pro-
posals of the ‘new’ education impracticable under present
working conditions. They fall back upon the substantial and
comforting guidance of textbook study and daily drill.
They are momentarily thrilled anew by educational idealism
at institutes and association meetings but they fail of the
necessary resolution and inventiveness to carry their re-
kindled ideals into practice.
Gifted teachers. “At the opposite pole are the half-dozen
gifted and inventive spirits that any ten thousand of human
beings will produce. These teachers are unquestionably
greatly favored by some kind of extraordinary inheritance —
frequently a bundle of splendid qualities born into the very
fiber of their being. They have exceptional courage, often
MISCELLANEOUS SUGGESTIONS 49
exceptional energy. They are full of social sympathies and
are good mixers. Above all they have “enterprise.” Some-
times, in an excess of zeal, they are mercurial, running
always after new ideals, and not very stable in discharging
accepted responsibilities. But at their best they find ways
of doing well the day’s work, and also of keeping their
aspirations fresh, whilst throwing themselves into new and
promising enterprises for the good of the school or the com-
munity.
“Perhaps we shall have to confess, sadly, that people of
the latter type are ‘born’ – and born but seldom. Like
the great explorers, they may discover lands that others of
more common clay can inhabit, and they break the paths
which the average of humanity can readily tread. But
occupying their lands and following their paths do not endow
the rest of us with their energy, inventiveness, social leader-
ship, or love of enterprise — institute lecturers to the con-
trary notwithstanding.
Average teachers. “Between these two extreme groups are
many young teachers who are every year contributing much
that is good to American education. They soon learn to
distinguish between ‘Pole Star’ ideals — by which men may
steer, but which they can never hope to reach — and “light-
house’ ideals, which are guiding lights that may be ap-
proached, passed, and left behind as new goals come into
view. These are the teachers who know that in their imma-
turity and inexperience they can neither hope at once to
“lead’ (or, horrid words, “reform’ or “uplift’) their com-
munities, nor to initiate sweeping changes in curricula and
School courses that have been in process of slow evolution
for decades, if not centuries. They do not hope to see the
fundamental aims of the schools changed overnight, nor
the methods of instruction and training revolutionized
readily. Nevertheless they are convinced that progress is
50 CIVIC EDUCATION
taking place and will take place in education as in other
fields of human effort, perhaps through rather blind trial-
and-success methods for the present. -
“These teachers therefore accept with patience the routine
of each day’s work, whilst keeping fresh their aspirations and
ideals. They are eager to try the new that comes to them
on approved authority, and especially desirous of holding
fast to that which is good. They are not afraid to be ex-
ploratory, even radical, in their private thinking, but they
are sanely conservative in action, as befits workers who are
yet only slightly beyond apprenticeship stages.
“What can the rural teacher of the type last suggested
do in the field of civic education? She cannot hope to de-
velop the powers of the departmental specialist. Most of her
energies must be given to the younger children. Here are
Some suggestions:
1. The historic subjects. “She can see clearly what a large
part the older school subjects play in education for citizen-
ship. The forefathers were right in thinking of literacy as
the very foundation of civic education. They were also
right in believing that moderate amounts of arithmetic,
English composition, American history, and geography give
the ideals of vocational and cultural life to an extent that
produces the civic confidence and intellectual tools necessary
for further study. The rural teacher should do as much
as lies in her power to see that in these subjects attention
is focused chiefly on essentials and that these are well taught.
2. “The rural teacher can school herself in the practical
realization that the group of pupils whom she daily meets
is itself, like the family, an elementary social group, good
membership in which is itself one contribution toward good
citizenship. Younger rural teachers probably can do little
to develop and promote school self-government — for it
usually takes very strong and experienced leaders to insure
MISCELLANEOUS SUGGESTIONS 51
safe self-government; but it may well be within the powers
of enthusiastic beginners to promote some degrees of co-
operative participation in government on the part of her
most influential pupils. -
3. “In all grades, and with comparatively little expendi-
ture of teaching energy, the rural teacher can keep alive,
and often very considerably develop, some of the various
sentiments, aspirations, and ideals that enter more or less
into good adult citizenship. These include especially: appre-
ciations and admirations of the founders of our common-
wealths in their various evolutionary stages from colonial
or frontier settlements to modern sovereign states; interests
in the historic events that have marked salient points in
our social evolution; and a moderate amount of knowledge
of the trials and difficulties that have been overcome in
developing democracy, republican institutions, and our
prominent national position in the world of affairs today.
The pursuit of these objectives need not severely tax the
teacher, since to a large extent they can be achieved by
keeping at the disposal of the learners some of the stories,
biographies, and other readings that should be found in any
rural school library; and in supplementing these with occa-
sional talks, commemoration day celebrations, and the like.
4. “In the upper grades American history will be taught
in a systematic way. Here the teacher can use all the influ-
ence she possesses over the prescribed course of study to
eliminate all the dry and needless details of history and in
singling out for full discussion and idealization those phases
of our history that are chiefly significant to citizens of today
and tomorrow. Within limits the same procedure is pos-
sible in the teaching of geography and even literature.
5. “The rural-school teacher can well afford, in the in-
terest of civic education, to give special attention to the
keenest minds among her pupils. A large proportion of
52 CIVIC EDUCATION
the political and other leaders of this country spend their
early years in rural schools and are probably to an important
degree shaped for subsequent leadership by the environment
and independent activities that country life affords. Every
rural school teacher has opportunities to inspire these poten-
tial leaders with ideals that may become of the greatest
importance in orienting their subsequent lives.
6. “On the negative side she should not feel obliged to
put herself into competition with specialized or depart-
mental teachers in the junior and senior high schools of
villages or cities. Her responsibilities are primarily to the
younger children, in any event. The multiplicity of her
tasks renders it impossible that she should successfully com-
pete with departmental specialists. Hence the importance of
selecting from the entire field of civic education a few essen-
tials (and this applies equally to physical education) and
in doing these fairly well in the time left after meeting
her primary obligations in the regular school subjects and
in maintaining good school order. +
7. Community leadership. “This is not the place to
suggest in detail the part that should be played by the
teacher herself as a citizen, independent of her functions as
teacher. The tendency of our recent educational literature
has been hopelessly Utopian in its ambitions on behalf of
rural school teachers. It is repeatedly suggested that these
teachers, in spite of their immaturity and inexperience,
should play a leading, not to say directing, rôle in rural
community affairs. Clearly the utterances of Utopian
writers here reflect aspirations rather than practicable pro-
posals. As a rule young doctors, lawyers, engineers, military
officers, and the rest do not play prominent parts, certainly
not directive rôles, during their years of professional appren-
ticeship. They are expected, first of all, to do well specific
work assigned them; next to fit conformably and without
MISCELLANEOUS SUGGESTIONS 53
too much conceit into the social order about them; to take
minor rôles of volunteer service willingly; and finally to
keep their minds open in order to have the fullest possible
experience and balanced judgment when ripened maturity
eventually brings them responsibilities of leadership on their
own behalf. American women graduating from normal
school or college have yet much to learn with respect to
participation in urban or rural community life in the United
States. The spectacle of their attempting, at the outset of
their work, to take prominent part in affairs lying outside
their strictly professional field would often be ludicrous
were it not rendered pathetic by the oft-repeated exhorta-
tions of well-meaning, but not very practical, educational
leaders that they thus atone for the deficiency of the other
agencies among which they must work. Sinclair Lewis in
his novel Main Street gives a vivid picture of the “uplifting’
type of young college woman who, in a rural town, lets her
aspiring zeal run far ahead of her practical experience or
social wisdom. Education has its Carol Kennicotts as well
as village reform. Let the young teacher move slowly until
she can move securely.
8. “The young teacher must not forget that other agen-
cies besides the school are continually at work, perhaps
more in rural communities than elsewhere, toward the
making of fairly good, even though not ideal, citizens out
of our boys and girls. The men who developed out of Indian-
possessed forests the commonwealths of the North Missis-
sippi Valley probably averaged less than 250 days of school-
ing per man. ‘By their works shall they be known.” Our
forefathers who gave us this nation were not bad citizens.
Most of their sons, grandsons, or great-grandsons in our
schools today would not make bad citizens, even if schools
kept only three months in the year. But we hope to give
them better schools than their fathers had, and to expect
54 CIVIC EDUCATION
even better results than their fathers produced. That is
not an impossible, not even a very difficult, task.”
TO TEACHERS IN SMALL HIGH SCHOOLS
Out of 13,951 high schools reporting to the Commissioner
of Education in the United States in 1918, 7042 had not
to exceed 50 pupils. Seventy-five per cent of all high schools,
representing an enrollment of nearly 700,000 pupils, out of
a total of 1,735,000 found in all the public high schools
of the United States, had each 100 or fewer pupils.
Such high schools receive almost all the rural and village
youths who care for secondary education. Little scientific
study seems to have gone to the making of curricula for
these smaller schools. Only two clearly defined “large”
objectives seem to be held in view. (a) Because a few of
their ablest and best-environed pupils will each year go to
college or normal school, the “college preparatory” subjects
are essentially well taught, as a rule. (b) In many of these
schools a “commercial” department is found which appeals
to not a few students because the studies are probably less
difficult than those of the college preparatory curriculum,
and desirable vocational goals are temptingly held forth.
A few small “high schools of agriculture” are now found,
but as a rule their “vocational coating” or flavor is just
sufficient to serve the purpose of “holding pupils in school.”
Small high schools have not yet defined schemes of ob-
jectives that should constitute a curriculum of genuinely
“liberal education” for that majority of their pupils who
will neither go to college nor take up stenography as a
vocation. (The commercial curricula are usually illusory as
vocational preparation for any vocation except stenog-
raphy.) Great difficulties will obviously be encountered in
doing this so long as the requirements of the two curricula
just mentioned are standardized as at present. The time
MISCELLANEOUS SUGGESTIONS 55
and energy of the small faculty will necessarily be wholly
employed in meeting traditional objectives.
Nevertheless, changes will eventually take place. Every-
where there is now very keen interest in three groups of
studies for these schools — English literature, general sci-
ence, and civics or the “social sciences” — that point
toward truer realizations of cultural and civic (or, together,
liberal) education than have heretofore prevailed. Around
these three centers enterprising teachers with clear ideals of
what a functioning liberal education is, can build long or
short courses — in some cases of “alpha” or “projective”
type, in others of the “beta” or “developmental” type —
that should prove especially significant to those youths who
can spend only from one to three years in high school.
History teachers. These paragraphs are addressed pri-
marily to that teacher whose program includes the usual
offerings in history, with perhaps the beginnings of civics
or economics. He will naturally be interested in the objec-
tives of civic education and in various possible answers to
the questions, “What can be done for the small community?”
and especially “What can be done in the small high school?”
It is obviously unsatisfactory to make the small high school,
either as a whole, or in particular parts, a small and weak
imitation of the large urban high school. Teachers in highly
departmentalized large high schools can readily undertake
enterprises that must be quite beyond the powers of the
teacher in a small school to whom is assigned from twenty-
five to thirty hours of instruction per week in from three
to five subjects.
Suggestions for civic education. The following are sub-
mitted as suggestions looking to the most feasible and
profitable lines of effort for that teacher in every small
high school most interested in civic education:
a. He can study the objectives of civic education in terms
56 CIVIC EDUCATION
of the adult citizenship now found in the region of the school.
Most of the adults there from 30 to 70 years of age are
now moderately good citizens. A few are not. Of those
who have had at least the equivalent of a full elementary
education probably very few are “undesirable citizens” in
any ordinary meaning of that term. Probably the majority
of the obviously “bad” citizens were either indisposed or
unable to profit by any considerable amount of schooling.
As indicated in detail elsewhere in this book, the first
business of the educator interested in civic objectives is to
forecast the probable citizenship of the children of today in
terms of resemblance to, and differences from, that of the
adults of today. This is the sociological method — the
only scientific method of ascertaining valid objectives for
education through schools or by other agencies. The total
available means of civic education in the future will un-
questionably be a highly differentiated composite of long
and short courses — and from these each school will select,
first those elements which local conditions suggest as most
urgent, and second those courses which the school can best
handle.
b. Much the most available means of civic education.
for the small high school will be found in so-called develop-
mental readings, ranging from biographies and local history
to well-written analyses of current economic problems. A
stimulating teacher, holding at least weekly conferences of
readers, and having at hand a considerable range of materi-
als, ought to experience no great difficulty in keeping a
very considerable group of active first or second year pupils
keenly interested in these readings and the attendant dis-
cussions and debates.
c. The third opportunity lies in the gradual recasting of
history studies so as to reduce to the minimum “salient”
or strictly formal history and to enlarge the scope of “prob-
MISCELLANEOUS SUGGESTIONS 57
5
lem history.” This will not prove easy until a new order
of textbooks shall have been written. These, starting with
topics of current social interest, will present various problems
on which the light of history can be shed to the advantage
of civic insights, appreciations, and ideals.
TO TEACHERS IN SEVENTH AND EIGHTH GRADES IN
TJRBAN SCHOOLS
A very large proportion of American children between 12
and 14 years of age in villages and cities are still taught
under “graded school” conditions; that is, one teacher is
responsible for all subjects except manual training and
household arts. In a few graded schools departmental
teaching is found; and wherever the junior high school
plan has been more than nominally carried out, departmental
teaching certainly prevails. Very few schools abroad carry
undepartmentalized teaching to the extent that America
has always done with children over 12 years of age. The
prevailing system here is, of course, largely a survival of
rural school conditions. - - *
In the typical seventh grade and only to a somewhat
lesser extent in eighth grades will be found many pupils
whose full-time school attendance will close at 14 or 15
years of age. The abler pupils, and particularly those of
favoring environment, will go for two or more years to
high school. Their civic future is, in a sense, much more
assured than is that of the less capable and less favorably
circumstanced pupils who early drop out of School.
Hence teachers in ordinary communities (except select
residential suburbs) can well afford to present their work
in civics in the seventh and eighth grades on the assumption
that mome of their pupils will enter high school. They should
most study the possibilities of those slower boys and girls
who are likely to become the rank and file of voters, to
58 CIVIC EDUCATION
compose the modal groups in society in point of earnings,
civic interests, standards of living, and cultural attainments.
Undepartmentalized teaching limits seriously the powers
of the individual teacher to master the content and teaching
methods in particular fields or departments. Very few men
or women have the abilities to become good teachers in
such varied subjects as English language, arithmetic, geog-
raphy, American history, English literature, civics, music,
drawing, hygiene, and general science in accordance with
the standards usually appropriate to pupils 12 to 14 or 15
years of age. Under these conditions a given subject must
be adapted no less to the capacities of teachers than to
the needs of learners. What is the scope and character of
possible civic education in seventh and eighth grades under
conditions of undepartmentalized teaching?
The suggestions made to rural elementary school teachers
in another section all apply as well to the upper-grade
teachers here considered. Certainly their richest opportuni-
ties for group civic education lie in the promotion of stimu-
lating “readings” calculated to give civic appreciations,
ideals, and insights. Opportunities for valuable work in “ser-
vice projects” or other projects external to the schools may
not be many, but the performance of even a few genuinely
civic projects — dramatic or service — may be important.
Graded schools. The peculiar advantage of the graded
school over the rural school from the standpoint of the
teacher’s work is found, of course, in the relative homo-
geneity of groups of pupils. But the peculiar temptation
of this situation is excessively to organize and formalize
all subjects of instruction. The evils of this are plainly
apparent in the teaching of the only two important subjects
of civic education now usually found in upper grades,
American history and didactic civics or civil government.
As now organized in textbooks these subjects are badly
MISCELLANEOUS SUGGESTIONS 59
congested. The language of presentation is very abstract.
Undue systematization or logical organization of content
gives to each subject a rigidity of form and angularity
of outline not unlike that of the human skeleton. Good
intentions of textbook makers to the contrary notwithstand-
ing, their products inevitably show the characteristics of
compendiums, reference works, or digests. No important
fact is omitted. Concrete descriptions or amplified treat-
ment, such as might lend attractiveness of style or artistry
of content, are usually not permitted. The book must omit
nothing, yet it must all be compressed within the customary
few hundred pages.
All good departmental teachers, of course, use texts merely
as adjuncts or even as reference books and guides. But only
one grade teacher in a hundred can find the time or resources
for such a procedure. These teachers must lean heavily on
the text, often leaving it as almost the sole source of in-
spiration and guidance to the learner. Under these condi-
tions it is little wonder that neither history nor civics proves,
usually, an interesting or informing subject of study for
any but pupils of extraordinary powers of imagination — the
rare kind that can make waters of learning gush even from
rocks of dry verbal statements.
Available resources. However, until we can get aids to
learning built along lines very different from those of ordinary
textbooks, teachers must use such resources as are available.
But they can often exercise discretion in their use. Here
lie some available opportunities for grade teachers in civic
education. If they can come to see what are the things
that count most, they can often shape textbook treatment
to the ends thus conceived. They have already learned to
do so in good language and arithmetic teaching. American
history offers rich opportunities for further efforts of this
kind.
60 CIVIC EDUCATION
The authorities are not yet certain whether all the ob-
jectives of American history should lie in the field of civic
education. But teachers in seventh and eighth grades are
justified in assuming that the major functions of this study
should be the establishment of certain kinds of civic ideals,
civic attitudes, and civic insights. Toward these ends a
large part of the minute data or information found in the
typical textbook is probably quite irrelevant. Often, how-
ever, the personal characteristics of heroic figures, real or
fictitious, as given in tale, anecdote, or poem may be very
significant. By shifting emphasis from minutiae dear to
the historian's heart, to massive considerations comprehensi-
ble by average learners, the teacher can probably do much
to make American history a live subject not only culturally
but, more important, in producing civic appreciations and
attitudes of much significance and functioning worth in later
civic behavior. Materials found in books other than texts
may sometimes prove more valuable for this purpose than
the texts themselves.
American history. Another kind of shifting of emphasis
is possible even within areas of the “big” facts of American
history — that is, toward the things that have a vital signifi-
cance to the problems of citizenship today and in the near
future. For example, the numberless contests of our ances-
tors with Indians furnish indeed picturesque materials for
study, but such studies are probably quite without civic
significance to present and to future generations of citizens.
Leave them to the cultural education of the lower grades.
Even slavery, long the most tremendous and portentous
source of problems for American voters and statesmen, is
now a dead and buried issue. The strenuous struggles it
occasioned make important chapters in cultural history, but
have little relevancy for the history that is to help in the
making of citizens capable of facing the new problems of
MISCELLANEOUS SUGGESTIONS 61
our generation. The effective coöperation of whites and
blacks in the United States gives us now, it is true, some
difficult civic problems; but only the briefest review of the
origins of the black race in this country is necessary to
give the setting of these problems.
Similar considerations apply to our conflicts with Great
Britain. The issues over which these conflicts were waged
are now dead. There are no new ones in sight. The real
civic problems of America in connection with the British
Empire are those of fullest practicable coöperation. Many
things in the history of the last hundred years give potent
interpretations to right ideals, appreciations, and under-
standings here. f
Elsewhere in this book are given various suggestions as
to possible reorganizations of the materials of history as
means of civic education. These reorganizations will in all
probability eventually be shaped into suitable texts. But
in the meantime grade teachers must work with existing
“chronological” and compendious texts — compendious in
quantity of specific data, if not in pages. Can these teachers
construct for themselves certain large objectives out of
the plain civic needs of our time, and then use the
materials of history, largely to shed light and inspiration on
these?
Live problems. Few will dispute that among the most
important groups of problems confronting the next genera-
tion are the following: the proper regulation and assimilation
of immigration; territorial specialization of production; the
relative decline of rural peoples; military preparedness;
the destructive exploitation of raw resources; and many
others of similar quality. Now topics bearing intimately
on each of these sets of problems recur constantly in our
history studies. It is easy to single them out for special
attention. Teachers are not required to be partisans of
62 CIVIC EDUCATION
particular doctrines in order to do this — in fact, for pur-
poses here under consideration, it is better that they be
non-partisan and scientific, but much interested in directing
the thoughts of their pupils toward all aspects of the ques-
tions involved. In the tangled regions of these problems no
simple formulae will save us; wisdom comes only from gen-
erous knowledge and appreciation and a wide range of
understanding, even if only partially developed.
Coupled with this is the other conception that we can use
the cumulative impressions of history study to deepen and
expand these things: appreciation and respect for fore-
runners, voluntary leaders, and the self-sacrificing ones of
past and present; wholesome admiration for ourselves as a
people; convictions that safety and progress for a republic
are only possible when a large proportion of citizens help
to direct and forward the ship of state; and faith in the
wisdom of abiding patiently by the will of the majority
and of trusting the outcome of tolerant discussion in heated
issues. Here lie large possibilities of making history a truly
“civic” subject. The historian, solicitous for the “logical
integrity” of his subject, will probably object; but he is
prone to forget that in the grades most studies are not
ends in themselves, but means. Will he tell us in clear and
certain language to what memorization of the chronologically
arranged data and generalizations of history, as he records
it in the ordinary text, leads that is of general educational
value?
Similar suggestions apply in the case of civics for the
seventh and eighth grades. Let the crowded teacher use
the text first of all for “reading” purposes. Let her select
a few large topics for special study by individual pupils.
Promote ideals and insights in a few areas of major sig-
nificance and interest. Avoid drill and memorization of
details as far as practicable.
MISCELLANEOUS SUGGESTIONS 63
TO A SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS
It is certainly no easy matter for the administrative
officers of a school system, responsible for the organization
of courses and employment of teachers, to strike happy
mediums amidst the conflicting demands made by educa-
tional specialists and other partisans today. In the upper
grades and high school nearly all writers on educational
subjects are special pleaders and partisans of particular
interests. All want their pet subjects made obligatory, since
they see them as of transcendent importance. The recent
history of various committees appointed to consider the
place of history in secondary education abundantly demon-
strates this. They have worked out elaborate series of
courses, generally with the suggestion that these be made
prescribed for the intermediate grades and sometimes even
the high schools. The partisans of modern languages have
succeeded in having their favorites established as specific
requirements for admission to college. Home economics
teachers in many cases feel very keenly that all girls should
be required to take home economics. It is a matter of
history how required algebra and plane geometry have held
their places in high schools. We are now confronted with
new demands. Civic education, physical education, and
vocational guidance, to say nothing of vocational training,
are not only urged for inclusion in high school curricula,
but in each case partisans are anxious to impose them as
requirements on all pupils. The superintendents must find
the optimum resultants of these various demands.
New demands. Consider here the new demands for civic
education. From the standpoint of the needs of our country
and the local community it is not difficult to make out
a case for the need of more and better civic education. We
are, of course, as yet sadly in need of the sociological analysis
which will enable us not merely to trace the existence of
64 CIVIC EDUCATION
prevailing defects of citizenship, but, to an extent that has
not yet been done, locate them in particular classes and
even in individuals within classes. In current discussion we
are apt to overlook the fact that, just as a majority of adult
human beings are reasonably healthy, so in all societies a
majority of adults are also reasonably moral and of good
civic culture. **
The fundamental responsibilities of the superintendent of
schools for civic education lie, first, in the development of
adequate guiding courses for teachers, and in the second
place in bringing to bear all legitimate pressure for the
achievement of the objectives established in the courses.
The following are submitted as considerations of moment
to superintendents at the present stage in the evolution in
civic education:
1. All school education may be regarded as of some civic
consequence. Educational mystics are fond, however, of
deluding themselves and others with the idea that panaceas
may be found either in historic types of school material
or in proposed new types. Sound sociological analysis of
the numberless qualities that are combined in the kinds of
men and women whom we agree to call good citizens will
show that many probably valuable civic qualities are the
indirect outgrowths or by-products of forms of education
that have had other ends than civic education as their
primary objectives. Common sense will tell us that without
vocational proficiency a man cannot be a wholly good citizen;
but vocational education must not be considered as having
its first justification in civic competency. Citizens with
chronically poor health or physically undeveloped have poor
foundations for the kind of civic competency that the coun-
try needs, no matter how good their intentions or motives.
Nevertheless, physical education is not to be regarded as
primarily designed for civic purposes.
MISCELLANEOUS SUGGESTIONS 65
2. The social demand of our time for more direct and
more purposive civic education is very strong and without
doubt justified by the increasing complexity of our social
relationships. But our interest in better civic education
need not blind us to the remarkable achievements of the
past in America.
3. It is doubtful if any new and important discoveries
in the field of civic education will materially change work
in the first six grades or with children under 12 years of
age. Doubtless considerable improvement of means and
methods can be devised in these grades. The discipline of
the schools and the use of literature and historic story as
a means of promoting ideals and appreciations can be con-
siderably extended. By informal means the teacher can
promote somewhat greater insight into neighborhood social
relationships than is now achieved.
4. Future possibilities. The largest possibilities for the
evolution of civic education in the near future are undoubt-
edly to be found in the grades or schools that contain chil-
dren from 12 to 16 years of age. Here we have the last
full-time school attendance made compulsory by law. Here
also will increasingly be found departmental teaching and
the use of specially prepared instructors. Throughout this
book will be found many references to possible means of
providing for better civic education in this area. These may
be summarized as follows:
, a. Iless rather than more space in these grades should be
given to formal or didactic American history. This subject
now occupies usually from 15 to 20 per cent of the pupil’s
time for two grades and, as commonly taught from the
difficult textbooks in use, is probably without important
civic results for large proportions of pupils. At any rate
the superintendent should shift upon the history specialist
the burden of proving more in detail than has yet been
66 CIVIC EDUCATION
done the actual functional values toward civic education of
the numberless statements of fact that now congest the
pages of the typical textbook of American history.
b. All prevailing textbooks in civics that employ primarily
the method of “didactic inculcation” should be examined from
the standpoint of their probable functioning in the case of
at least 90 per cent of the pupils.
c. The very large possibilities of developmental readings
should be exploited and every incentive held out to pub-
lishing companies to develop this type of material. If ex-
perience shows that service and dramatic projects are not
too difficult of administration, every incentive should be
held out to departmental teachers to make use of these as
II].628.I].S.
d. Probably the “problem method” is destined to be
found of very great value in civic education, but for the
present it must wait upon the development of more adequate
problems and of manuals and handbooks for guidance.
5. The junior high school. We have only begun to appre-
ciate the possibilities of the junior high school as a means
of realizing the objectives of civic education. The junior
high school of the future will almost certainly be character-
ized by a very great flexibility in curricula, thus making
possible a considerable diversity of offerings according to
the needs of various case groups or even according to
dominant interests found. As suggested elsewhere it will
probably prove advisable to develop a group of teachers
having primary responsibility for the whole field of civic
education, including not only the instructional aspects, but
the “activity” aspects as well.
6. What will be the place of scouting in the public schools?
(a) It must be recognized that the fundamental virtue in
scouting at the present time is its dependence on volunteer
service. (b) Scouting is at its best always when the members
MISCELLANEOUS SUGGESTIONS 67
composing the troop are voluntarily enlisted. Obviously,
this and the first condition cannot be realized under public
school conditions. (c) It does seem highly desirable to
have something analogous to scouting developed under pub-
lic school auspices. Probably this should take the form of
educational organization of volunteer groups, formed some-
times for exploration, sometimes for home service, sometimes
for the promotion of physical training or practical arts.
Each one of these groups should have the direction of a
teacher appreciative of the extent to which the coöperative
endeavor thus developed will manifestly serve the known
ends of civic education.
7. In framing courses of civic education superintendents
should be on guard against too much reliance upon the
coöperative aspects of games, sports, and athletics as means.
All group play is, of course, greatly productive of social
qualities. The easy inference that these qualities naturally
expand from the limits of small groups and as between very
similar competing social groups is probably erroneous.
8. History studies. For the present, as stated above, it
can be assumed that American history will remain one of
the stable and difficult subjects in the seventh and eighth
grades. The writer is personally convinced that American
history will, especially in the junior high school, eventually
be very much reorganized so as greatly to reduce the
strictly chronological portions and greatly to increase the
utilization, through the social science subjects, of the mate-
rials of American history in shaping the ideals, appreciations,
and especially comprehensions, centering in particular social
science problems or topics.
But the practical suggestion that might well be urged
now is that teachers shall reduce the amount of attention
given to the memorization of the formal facts of American
history and correspondingly extend the treatment, and
68 CIVIC EDUCATION
especially that of an interpretive nature, of those topics
that have a visible and tangible connection with the political
problems of today or tomorrow.
9. The way is now clear to the fuller development of
community civics as a live and vital topic in the junior
high school. This community civics should center largely
in those local and changeable studies of problems that have to
do with political action, and should tend to extend the pupil’s
comprehension of the social life about him. Some excellent
little texts are now available in this field. The chief re-
sponsibility of superintendents here is the selection of
teachers who can themselves organize as junior high school
subjects on a strictly modern pedagogical basis the locally
accessible materials of community civics – no easy task,
even under most favorable conditions. ,-
School government. Most administrators have doubtless
considered often the possibilities of school self-government
from the standpoint of civic education. They are now
usually agreed in this: under the influence of live teachers,
or even more under competent principals, school self-govern-
ment, in any one of its numerous forms, is a very possible
thing. But it seems doubtful whether it is an economical
or effective means of maintaining schoolroom and school-
building order, if that be intended as its sole purpose. In
this respect it reminds one very much of the endless attempts
that are made by communities at joint or coöperative mar-
keting. The attempts work very well, and seem to pay, for
a while, but when interest lags they cease to be profitable.
10. Self-government should, therefore, be regarded as a
means of civic education, and therefore as something that
should be undertaken from time to time primarily as a sort
of joint civic project. Arrangements should be made with
due planning whereby the pupils of a room or a school or
as a group of individuals should be expected for a certain
MISCELLANEOUS SUGGESTIONS 69
period to perform collectively or through representatives
certain civic functions, among which might well be the ad-
ministration of school justice, the establishment of school rules
and the maintenance of school order or the orderly conduct
of special group functions. For these purposes various kinds
of machinery might well be devised, including school city
plans, the use of legislative bodies, and the like. None of
these should involve too prolonged service, but of course
time enough should be given for the execution of the project.
From one month to three months might amply suffice, in
most cases, for the realization of educational gains to an
expected point of “diminishing returns.”
11. We may safely assume that to an increasing extent all
the subjects of the large American senior high school will
tend to be elective, and that pupils will be more intelligently
guided in making up programs of study. Hence, until further
progress has been made in the study of educational values,
it may well be doubted whether it is worth while seriously
to consider the actual prescription of any civic or history
subject in the regular high school grades.
No reference need be made here to the history subjects
which should be offered as electives. Under the general
head of civics might well be offered at least three elective
subjects that could easily be given from 90 to 180 hours
each. The first of these might well be called “Social Prob-
lems,” or, if the subject must have didactic organization,
“Elementary Sociology.” The second should be “Civil
Government,” or “Elementary Political Science” or “Civics”;
and the third, “Elementary Economics.” In every case the
problem method should be developed and applied as fully
as possible. -
PART TWO
SOCIOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS OF CIVIC
EDUCATION
CHAPTER FOUR
INTRODUCTORY CONSIDERATIONS
EACH and every variety of conscious educational procedure
has its aims, purposes, or objectives. These, as we find them
at any cross-sectioning of societies, are usually crystallized
as faiths or customs, with their attendant appreciations,
ideals, and half-insights. In some cases (and these bulk
large indeed in the history of education) aspirations for
change rather than customs give us the principal literature
of educational aims.
Social conflicts. As with nearly all other “valuable ends”
or “social worths” which are made the objectives of family,
guild, or state action, conflicts between “individual good”
and the “good of all” (or of the group) are always to be
found in education. Parents naturally desire the social
advance, the moral uprightness, the religious Orthodoxy,
and the vocational success of their children. They desire
and support educational programs to these ends. The
church, the army, the old guild, the state, and perhaps
even a class-conscious proletariat or aristocracy desires and
supports education that contributes to their respective
objectives of control, greatness, or service. Sociologically
speaking, “small groups” — the family, village community,
vocational group, and sect — tend to be narrow, intense, and
often short-sighted, but very articulate, in their educational
desires; whilst “large groups” – municipality, federation,
political party, province, nation – tend to be diffuse, inde-
terminate, and inarticulate.
Education now tends to become scientific in aims and
methods. Heretofore its immediately basic sciences — psy-
chology and sociology — have been too imperfectly devel-
oped to permit this. Hence as a field of practice it has
lagged behind manufacturing, transportation, distance com-
73
74 CIVIC EDUCATION
munication, agriculture, and medicine in supplanting beliefs
and customs by scientific determination of purposes and
methods.
The methods of achieving known educational objectives —
from training in skill of handwriting to the evoking of desired
ideals — are increasingly to be determined and tested by psy-
chology. The discovery of specific objectives most worth while is
increasingly to be achieved through the help of sociology, to
which we must turn for prognostications as to the probable
future opportunities for life and service of those whom we
seek to educate — service, that is, to themselves and to
their fellows. The following are a few samples of the num-
berless problems requiring consideration in this connection:
1. What is the meaning of educational sociology? Pro-
visional answers can be obtained through analyses suggested
in these questions:
a. How does sociology compare with astronomy, chemis-
try, physics, mathematics, geology, biology, bacteriology,
and psychology as to possession of bodies of tested knowledge,
laws, means of quantitative description, etc.?
b. How does education compare with medicine, war,
agriculture, architecture (as building engineering), mining,
manufacturing, distance communication, navigation, elec-
trical work, and worship, as to evolution of extensive systems
of practice, effective use of trial-and-error methods, per-
sistence of untested tradition, use of scientific knowledge,
disposition of workers to employ science, etc.?
c. How does educational sociology compare as to organ-
ization, usefulness, availability of tested materials and future
prospects, with: navigational astronomy, agricultural chem-
istry, engineering physics, mining geology, medical biology,
educational architecture, educational psychology, business
economics?
d. It is alleged that sociology itself is only a scientific
INTRODUCTORY CONSIDERATIONS 75
patchwork; that its methods are chiefly “philosophical”
(meaning?) rather than scientific; and that it has few con-
tributions to make to education in any event. What are
possibilities?
e. In working in a field of applied science how far is
it necessary to be assured of tested knowledge in the related
“pure” fields? In practice what examples can we cite of
problems in the applied field itself being stated and studied?
Illustrations are possible from agriculture, navigation,
War, etc.
f. What are the uses of the study of: educational psy-
chology, educational economics (or finance), educational
medicine (or hygiene), educational history (or history of
education)?
g. What are the possible uses of educational sociology
in ascertaining: (a) the social characteristics (including in-
stincts and effects of environment) of those whom we edu-
cate; (b) the specific aims which, for a specified group,
should be pursued in schools; (c) the organization of means
and methods of education to serve ascertained specific needs
not now met; (d) the readjustment of existing means (sub-
jects) and methods so as to meet current needs, or more
effectively to meet needs that have always been known?
2. Subjects of study and research in educational sociology
should have one or more of the following characteristics:
(a) the evident practicability of applying organized knowl-
edge of individual facts or principles now approved in soci-
ology, anthropology, ethnology, government, politics, crim-
inology, relief, migration, economics, politics, history, etc.;
(b) the practicability of proceeding from analysis of a sup-
posed educational need to the social conditions now resulting
where this need is not met, and evaluating consequent losses
to society or to certain individuals in it; (c) the practicability
of providing improved means and methods of meeting
76 CIVIC EDUCATION
ascertained needs of individuals or of groups or of society
as a whole.
In view of the yet chaotic character of sociological sciences
and the dominance of philosophical methods in the study
of their larger problems, it is probable that most problems
to be studied in educational sociology during the next five
years will be derived directly from consideration of current
or approaching educational needs. For example:
a. Is it desirable that public resources be used to support
the teaching of modern languages in the United States?
What needs will be served by such studies? What languages?
What kinds of attainment in each — prescribed, or advised,
or permitted? for how many?
b. Is it desirable that the public schools enter more
extensively upon the teaching of “citizenship”? What is
citizenship? What is education (or training) for citizenship?
In what respects is present adult citizenship (the product
of the teaching of 5 to 30 years ago) bad? in what groups
or classes? by what standards? What preparation for citi-
zenship is given by non-school agencies? How can we
ascertain for specified groups the efficacy of this? Should
school civic education replace or supplement it? Is American
history a valuable means of civic education? How do we
know? What are the most effective school contributions
now made toward citizenship at ages 4–6, 6–12; 12–14;
14–16; 16–18; 18–20; extension, etc.? Do vocational educa-
tion, physical education, and cultural education make impor-
tant or distinctive contributions to civic objectives?
c. Is it desirable that provision be made at public expense
for vocational education in City B? What are occupational
fields now open in City B? What occupational pursuits are
followed away from City B by persons reared in that city?
How have adults now following vocations in City B been
trained therefor? What have been deficiencies of social
INTRODUCTORY CONSIDERATIONS 77
training, for specified classes of workers? Are needs increas-
ing or is non-school education becoming less ineffective?
If school education is to be given for a specified vocation,
what shall be its relations to non-school vocational educa-
tion? What standards of attainment shall it set? How much
shall be attempted at 16–18 or 17–192 How much postponed
to later upgrading stages, full-time or part-time?
d. What are useful purposes now served by mathematical
studies? What better purposes should control in such
studies? What better uses could be made of time required?
3. Methods to be used in study of problems of educational
sociology are not clearly defined. Wherever accurate de-
Scription is sought statistical methods are, of course, neces-
sary; but many of the situations to be studied are less in
need of exact quantitative statement than of other forms
of study. For perspective and for use of remote data his-
torical methods must be used. º
But the chief problems of educational sociology center in
Social values — and these are not to be accurately determined
as yet by either quantitative or historical methods, because
the underlying social valuations are still considered by
philosophical methods. It is easy to enumerate abstractly
such social valuations as: security (of personal life), health,
wealth, righteousness, sociability, knowledge, beauty; or
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; or family, vocation,
communion with God, Christian fellowship; or “success,”
social approval, power, etc. But sociology gives few effective
methods of determining the relative values of these “goods”
or of the extent to which any or all of them should be sought
through state action, school education, etc.
The following methods are always needed: (a) accurate
definitions of terms; (b) concrete analysis of general con-
cepts, as used so abundantly in current social and philo-
sophical writings; (c) consideration of society in terms of
78 CIVIC EDUCATION
defined social groups, specifically described as to prevailing
age of members, economic position, civic status, etc.; (d)
concrete expression of social values as product of composite
opinion (and especially of persons of known criteria of
evaluation).
Clear and definite thinking can for the present be greatly
facilitated by the use of the “case group” method. In
this method sociological analysis, evaluation, and construc-
tive proposal center about a known social group, rendered
relatively homogeneous by the common possession of one
or more qualities. The following are illustrative:
a. The French-Canadians who immigrate into New
England to work in factories are largely homogeneous as
regards language, religion, culture, sumptuary standards, and
domestic life. It is alleged that among the men from 30
to 50 years of age certain political qualities (limitations,
prepossessions, aspirations) are prevalent. These mature
men can readily be studied in respect to their prevailing
civic behavior — that is, they can be taken as a fairly con-
Crete, realistic, and peculiar “case group.” Their “prevailing
forms of civic behavior” can be evaluated, if necessary, and
conclusions reached as to what “probable shortages” should
be anticipated and provided against in the oncoming gener-
ation.
b. We thus reach a basis for the consideration of a “pupils
case group.” Among these French-Canadian factory workers
a large proportion of the boys from 10 to 15 years of age
of modal intelligence will probably walk in the footsteps
of their fathers, except for certain modifications due to
American environment, general progress, and the purposive
education of schools. What are now the prevailing social
characteristics of these boys? What specific procedures of
civic education can be provided to correct potential civic
shortages similar to those of their fathers?
INTRODUCTORY CONSIDERATIONS 79
c. In practice much educational procedure has always
been based on the assumption of distinctive group or class
characteristics. Children in schools are formed into “classes,”
promoted, and admitted to higher institutions on basis of
certain qualities rendering the groups relatively homogene-
ous. The blind have special schools because of the defect
which they possess in common.
d. Sociological surveys of population now open the way
to discrimination of numberless “case groups,” many of
which deserve careful analysis from the standpoint of the
distinctive educational needs to which they give rise. Even
where we postulate as desirable a common goal in the edu-
cation of all — e.g., certain basic qualities of “Americanism”
— it will be found that the “start” toward this goal already
provided for varying groups by heredity and social environ-
ment varies greatly. Only by considering each group in
respect to its needs and possibilities can effective procedures
be devised — a truth long ago learned in medicine, military
training, and industry.
4. Wague objectives. A large proportion of present
writers on civic education content themselves with vague
terminologies, general terms, and indeterminate aspirations.
For example, it is often urged that the schools should teach
coöperation. In fact, it is now a general belief that social
education, under its differentiations of moral, civic, and
religious education should aim to intensify, diversify, extend,
or otherwise increase coöperation among men. But, as pre-
liminary to any effective planning for such education, it is
very desirable that preliminary study be given to questions
like these:
A, DEFINITIONS
(1) What is the derivation of the word “cooperation”?
(2) Give any single example of its most common usage.
80
CIVIC EDUCATION
(3)
(4)
(5)
(6)
(7)
(8)
(9)
(10)
(11)
(12)
(13)
(14)
(15)
(16)
(17)
(18)
Frame two or more definitions.
Does it seem related to: physical health; intelligence;
age; sex; race; character of work; education?
B. FROM PERSONAL EXPERIENCE
What were your strong coöperative qualities at ages,
6; 12; 15; 21; when you first became independent and
self-supporting; when other fundamental changes in
your life had occurred?
Similar questions as to noticeably weak qualities of
coöperation? -
In what respects have associates tried to educate you
toward better coöperation?
In what respects have schools done so?
What circumstances as to associates have impaired
your powers of coöperation?
In what respects have powers of coöperation been so
instinctive as to be practically unconscious?
In what respects have forms of coöperation become
habitual with you?
Discovering some respect in which your coöperative
abilities are inferior or unsatisfactory, how would you
proceed toward self-education for improvement?
C. FROM YOUR OBSERVATION OF OTHERS
What species of animals have you observed closely
coöperating?
Do children from 2 to 5 years of age coöperate?
When children are 7 to 10 years of age, is there co-
operation in a classroom during penmanship exercises?
Report instances of coöperation between employer and
employee.
Do physicians and patients coöperate?
When you buy an article in a store, is there coöperation?
INTRODUCTORY CONSIDERATIONS 81
(19)
(20)
(21)
(22)
(23)
(24)
(25)
(26)
(27)
(28)
(29)
(30)
(31)
(32)
(33)
Do mothers and children coöperate?
Do brothers coöperate?
Do black and white children, under 10 years of age,
in Southern villages, coöperate?
Do rich white men and poor black men in Georgia
coöperate?
Is a partnership a form of coöperation?
Does a stock company or corporation involve a high
grade of coöperation?
Does the relationship of passenger and conductor on
a railway train involve coöperation?
Is the prevailing relationship of elector (voter) and
public office holder one of coöperation?
What differences do you see between the coöperation
of guests and waiters in a hotel and that of the mem-
bers of a political party?
What differences of coöperation do you see between
the members of an old political party and those of
one just forming?
What kinds of coöperation do you detect among school
children?
If the formal and official relationships between teachers
and pupils are not coöperation, how shall they be
designated?
Is coöperation now found between labor and capital?
Or rather in a large railroad system between stock-
holders and other employed executives on the one
hand and other employed laborers on the other?
D. FROM HISTORIC SOURCES
Does it seem to you that savages or primitive men
coöperated better than do modern men?
How would you describe the coöperation within the
Jesuit Order?
82 CIVIC EDUCATION
(34) How would you distinguish coöperation as found
among pirates from that found among the men of
1776 in the colonies?
(35) How would you distinguish the coöperations of an
adult East Side gang from those of a church con-
gregation?
From detailed analysis similar to the foregoing we should
be able to divest ourselves of the habits, hampering many
writers and speakers, of thinking of “coöperation” as
“simple.” We can proceed to determine and designate
various species and intensively to study one or more of
these.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE SOCIOLOGICAL MEANING OF EDUCATION
whAT IS EDUCATION?
THE term “education” has been variously used in recent
literature of the subject. Perhaps its philosophical con-
notations are now hopelessly confused. For sociological
purposes it seems best to agree upon certain definitions
more or less inductively derived.
Men and women in their maturity and at the maximum
of their powers are the products of the two sets of influences,
respectively referred to under the words “heredity” and
“environment.” Heredity is assumed to be uncontrollable
as far as the individual is concerned. (Collectively, of
course, it is controllable through selection of potential
parents — i.e., eugenics.) But environment, both material
and social, is, within limits, controllable.
Every group of human beings, from the family to the
nation, exerts controls over the social environments of its
members, consciously or unconsciously, accidentally or
intentionally, through material, or through human, agencies.
Where control of environmental conditions, extending to such
specific forms as instruction and training, is directed toward
increasing, hindering, or otherwise modifying “natural
growth” in any of its myriad forms, we have what will
here be called education. Obviously such control may be
consciously purposive, or its purposes, subconsciously de-
rived, may be obscured in custom and unconscious social
routines. The resulting effects may appear in bodily changes,
or in mental habits, appreciations, ideals, and knowledge.
Heredity and environment. Profitless debate is often
indulged in as to whether “heredity” or “environment” is
the “more important.” Obviously one might as well ask
83
84 CIVIC EDUCATION
whether the brain or the stomach is more important in the
individual economy. Without the peculiar plasticities of
nerve and other tissue, environments of course could produce
nothing; whilst such tissue must be acted upon at least
by those environmental influences called nurture to be of
any significance whatever.
Any one of scores of functions may profitably be examined
as illustrative here — for example, speech. Heredity gives
vocal organs and their directive nerve structures. Environ-
ment — nurtural, including social example – gives forms
for development — language. Purposive education corrects
or reinforces the growths stimulated by environment and
thus gives correct or effective speech. Similarly, the in-
quisitive learner will trace the sources and development of
adult appreciations and powers of: running; handwriting;
maternal care; love of literature; gang coöperations; religious
aspirations; and hundreds of others.
The ease with which appreciations and powers are ac-
quired depends obviously on limitations set by qualities
of inheritance, on the one hand, and on the effectiveness
of educative environmental adjustments, on the other.
“Nature” (as we say) has made man unable to thrive upon
grass, to live under water, or to fly by muscular powers.
She makes some people easily able to go far in learning
pugilism, music, or mathematics. She denies large structure
of body to some, of mind to others, and, probably, of moral
sensibility to still others. The “educability” of every indi-
vidual, as respects any function, is clearly a limited
quantity.
Insufficient food, rest, or play “stunts” the body, just as
poor educational stimuli give deficient speech, low moral
character, or narrow range of knowledge. But on the positive
side in all organization of educational means, a point of
“diminishing returns” is sooner or later reached.
SOCIOLOGICAL MEANING OF EDUCATION 85
EDUCATION IN THE BROADEST SENSE
Education, then, is a product of all group activities. Its
effects flow also, in primitive varieties, from the contact of
the individual with the non-human elements of his environ-
ment. The experience thus gained by contact with stones,
water, winds, fire, and animals might helpfully be called
self-education. But the human environment surrounding
and affecting every individual is so pervasive and enveloping
that in effect it practically always conditions the contacts
thus made, as well as gives significance to the resulting
experiences. Hence education may practically be termed
a “social process.”
Extra-school education. All persons are in a degree in-
stinctively teachers, especially toward those who are younger,
smaller, less able, or otherwise “inferior” to themselves.
Equally all persons are instinctively learners, especially
from those who are older, wiser, abler, or otherwise superior
to them. Sociologically, the family is commonly the most
compact, as well as also, usually, the most heterogeneous,
of all social groups. Within it education goes on incessantly,
but commonly toward goals that are held as only half-
conscious precipitates of custom or convention.
Within vocational groups — employer-employee, master-
servant, partners, guild, union, corporation — certain forms
of education are never absent. The same is largely true
also within religious groups, sociability groups, community
parties, cults, and states. The great majority of social
groups persist, whilst their numbers come and go. Ac-
cessioned members are usually subjected to educative influ-
ences to fit them for the group — from the baby growing
up in the family, the neighborhood, or the state, to the
adult adopted into a fraternity, a club, a corporation, or
citizenship. Education thus becomes one of the means of
social control — not by any means the only one, but in
86 CIVIC EDUCATION
some cases the most effective one, partly because the most
economical one. *
Education or educative processes can profitably be ana-
lyzed with reference to the social groups, for whose furtherance
or interests they are effected — from the family, local com-
munity, clique, and party at one end, to the federation,
nation, and hierarchical system (including service to God)
at the other. The incessant interactions of individual and
group here should be understood. Much education is con-
sciously designed “for the good of the individual,” but in
turn the “good” of the individual is seldom conceived as
an end in itself. The “good individual” becomes in turn
“good” for one or another social group, perhaps for that
abstract collectivity of social groups called “society” or
“humanity.”
Educative processes may profitably be studied with
relation to the agencies which prominently carry them on.
The home, the playground, the church, the work place, the
club, the press, the stage, the library, the police power are
notable agencies whose educational purposiveness is com-
monly less direct or comprehensive than that of “the school,”
which is, generally, an agency created primarily to promote
some form of education. Several or all of these agencies
may obviously be more or less influenced by any social
group as to the aims or methods of the education it permits
or consciously gives. Sometimes the family, sometimes the
church, and for the present the state, is given relative
ascendency here. The home is only slightly affected by state
oversight; in America the church, stage, press, playground,
club, shop, and private school are essentially private agencies;
whilst the library, police power, and public school are very
much under public direction,
SOCIOLOGICAL MEANING OF EDUCATION 87
SCHOOL EDUCATION
Educators are prone, naturally, to exaggerate the potency
of school education. Helpful methods of evaluating con-
tributions of various agencies can be devised by taking (a)
an adult case group and (b) a specific form of bodily or
mental quality known to be possessed by them, and tracing
the latter to its origins. For example:
a. College graduates, men aged 40–60 in business, exhibit
moderate (or very modest) reading knowledge of French.
Sources will of course usually be found in schools. b. Same
exhibit certain more or less standardized manners toward
ladies. To what extent, probably, have home, sociability
association, and schools respectively contributed? c. Same
exhibit certain varieties of vocational success. Sources in
home, schools, “shop” experience? d. Same exhibit certain
characteristic civic qualities. Sources? -
e. African savage men, aged 30–40, exhibit certain pre-
vailing qualities of physical well-being. Trace sources,
apart from heredity, to family nurture, tribal customs,
warrior training, etc. f. Same exhibit certain distinctive
moral qualities. Trace to sources.
g. The “owning farmers,” 40 to 50 years of age, of North
Mississippi Valley states exhibit distinctive types of voca-
tional proficiency, health, moral traits, civic and cultural
qualities. Trace to sources their: habitual literary interests;
abilities to apply principles of scientific agriculture; defects
in coöperative enterprise; general good health.
h. It is alleged that “middle class” married American
women of high school education or more, between ages of
30 and 40, are prevailingly of the “nervous housewife”
Order, as respects health — that is, are excessively subject
to neurasthenia, in spite of property, social position, sub-
normal number of children, and small amount of work.
Trace defects to probable sources in heredity or environment.
88 , - CIVIC EDUCATION
QUALITATIVE DISTINCTIONS IN EDUCATION
For practical purposes it is serviceable to divide specific
forms of education into (a) developmental or “beta” and
(b) projective or “alpha” types respectively, according as
they primarily: (1) aid or make possible fairly normal types.
of development as these are strongly projected by hereditary
predispositions; and (2) train or instruct toward relatively
artificial objectives dictated by supposed needs of civilized
or other highly organized life. The ordinary physical plays
of childhood; the learning of vernacular speech in the home;
the enjoyment of music; interests in popular stories as told
or read; hunting arts for adolescents; social intercourse;
the fear of the unseen — are examples of the first order.
Handwriting; a foreign language acquired after childhood;
a trade well learned; the solution of mathematical problems;
the substitution of correct for incorrect vernacular structures
or pronunciations in maturity; the learning of the “manual
of arms” — are usually examples of the second order. If
the connotations of the words permitted, we might profitably
call the first “natural” learning and the second “artificial”
learning. Under favorable circumstances the objectives of
the first order will usually best be realized in the “play”
spirit; and those of the second in the “work” spirit.
“The child is instinctively a learner,” it is often said.
True — in certain areas of life’s activities, and up to a
certain degree of fineness or arduousness of effort. But in
other areas, and beyond certain points, the coercions of fear,
of love, and of desire for “goods” to be achieved only
through the means of toil and concentration, are needful.
Schools are provided by societies largely to provide just
these coercions and the controlled conditions needed for the
work. Coercion is more necessary to teach routine corn
hoeing than to teach fishing. The multiplication table is
learned less easily than the vernacular. Imitative singing
comes more readily than notation reading.
SOCIOLOGICAL MEANING OF EDUCATION 89
CLASSIFICATION OF AIMS BASED ON SOCIAL OBJECTIVES
The numberless specific varieties of education may be
classified for convenience in several different ways. For-
merly the terms intellectual, moral, spiritual, and physical
were used to designate different varieties, based, presumably,
upon assumed differences in the make-up or “nature” of
the learner. The evolution of schools has given many cate-
gories based upon the logical divisions into which knowledge
and skills fall. Thus we obtain such groupings as linguistic,
literary, scientific, mathematical, artistic, historical, and
professional. More specifically we find schools, or at least
classes, in spelling, French, Shakespearean dramas, trigonome-
try, chemistry, English history, geography, music, chorus,
painting, dancing, rifle shooting, stenography, oral surgery,
and very many other “subjects.” -
It is probable that the scientific study of the desirable
and feasible objectives of education (for varying kinds of
learners and to meet varying conditions of environment)
will find of most service classifications based upon objective
study of the products of education as achieved or desired
on behalf of the members of societies. And since, scientifi-
cally as well as popularly, infancy is “preparation for life”
(adult life chiefly of course), these products will have to
be studied mainly as they exhibit themselves in adult years.
Social groups. One hundred American men from 35 to
55 years of age, chosen at random either from all Americans,
or from a defined class — e.g., men of high school education
in business; men of less than fifth-grade education; tenant
farmers of a given area; journeymen carpenters; adherents
of the Methodist church; regular patrons of good drama,
etc. — exhibit a large variety of powers and appreciations
as respects: use of English, literary interests, moral character,
civic ideals, healthfulness, vocational success, etc. By cur-
rent standards of social valuation some of these qualities,
90 CIVIC EDUCATION
as found in a large proportion of the individuals under
consideration, are “satisfactory” — or the reverse. From
this sociological starting point ought to begin processes,
first of evaluating the education which these men have had,
and second of planning for better or otherwise different
education, for the next generation. Probably only through
some such processes as this can we finally learn how to
trace respectively to heredity and to various phases of
environmental influence, including conscious education, the
origins of the qualities we find.
PHYSICAL AND VOCATIONAL EDUCATION
From the composites of qualities that we find in adults
it is even now practicable to derive certain groupings which
are very useful as throwing light on possible means and
methods of producing similar or different qualities in the
next generation. Thus a large variety of qualities composing
“physical well-being” stand out — the healthful functioning
of teeth and lungs and heart, the ability to withstand com-
municable disease, the possession of strength and endurance
easily to sustain the strains of vocation, the tastes for physi-
cal activity that make leisure time a zestful experience.
“Physical education” can, therefore, be made a convenient
bracket for all those forms of more or less purposive controls
of nurturing environment, trainings of bodily function,
instruction in hygiene, and idealization of “the sound body”
which are designed to minister in minor measure to the
immediate physical well-being of the infant, and in major
measure to that of the adult.
Similarly the qualities that distinctively make for the
vocational efficiency of adults stand out. “Job analysis”
on the one hand and “individual diagnosis” (vocational)
on the other are now in process of rapid development in
accordance with scientific method. Presently we shall be
SOCIOLOGICAL MEANING OF EDUCATION 91
able, it would seem, after measuring the success of an in-
dividual in his vocation, to trace to their respective sources
in heredity, nurturing environment, general education, “pick-
up” vocational education, and school vocational education
the factors of this success. The next step, naturally, would
be 'to improve in specific measures upon the discovered
educational means for the benefit of the next generation.
CULTURAL AND SOCIAL EDUCATION
A variety of qualities, lying largely apart from the voca-
tional and health categories, have been historically com-
prehended by the elastic word “culture.” Manifestly the
abilities of adults to use the vernacular in oral and written
forms for purposes of general and social intercourse should
be included here. So also should those numerous intellectual
and aesthetic “non-utilitarian” interests that are capable of
extensively enriching life. Even the arithmetic, reading,
nature study, and geography of the elementary school can
well be included here, since their vocational and civic “func-
tioning” in adult activities are relatively minor to their
contributions to personal culture as found in “high-grade
utilization.” Some, at least, of the cultural “shortages” or
defects of adult case groups are easily capable of determina-
tion as a basis of discovering specific objectives for the
better education of the rising generation.
Finally there can readily be diagnosed in any group of
adults a host of moral, civic, and religious qualities that
primarily affect their “social group” relationships. To these
we often apply the standards of ethical evaluation — good,
moral, righteous, honorable, fair, decent, altruistic, lovable,
etc., on the one hand; and bad, immoral, sinful, dishonorable,
unfair, indecent, self-seeking, etc., on the other. Since all
men have lived from infancy in social groups, the educative
influences that have operated to shape the “social natures”
92 CIVIC EDUCATION
given by original heredity have been all but numberless.
Nevertheless, as social groups grow in complexity, whilst
“original nature” does not materially change with successive
generations, the field of purposive “social education” (a
good term to include moral, civic, and religious education)
waxes steadily in importance and scope.
Other classifications of educational objectives may prove
helpful. Sociological analysis shows that a large proportion
of the activities of men fall into two groups, indicated by
the words “productive” and “utilizing.” Of great sociologi-
cal significance is the fact that the processes of social evolu-
tion persistently narrow and specialize the field of any
individual’s effective production whilst at the same time
expanding his field of utilization. The men and women of
America follow, according to fineness of classification, from
two thousand to five thousand distinctive vocations; but
as utilizers of the world’s science, music, architecture, useful
arts, civic service, transportation, foodstuffs, fabrics, and
housing, the scope of their utilization widens continuously
and the quality of such utilization improves partly as our
schools train in right tastes and judgments. In production
men become increasingly dependent on environment, whilst in
utilization they become relatively independent of it.
“Education for leisure” and “education for good family
membership” denote groups of objectives urged for special
consideration by some educators.
The “disciplined mind” is obviously an important possible
objective in education, but probably not apart from specific
functionings in useful or pleasing forms of vocational, civic,
and cultural powers and appreciations. It is poor logic and
worse science to speak of the “trained body” or the “trained
hand,” apart from the service-rendering functions given by
those mechanisms. Similarly, it is valid to assume that
no great importance attaches to specific forms of mental
SOCIOLOGICAL MEANING OF EDUCATION 93
training except as these “function” in the approved activi-
ties of life — and chiefly, again, in adult life.
Loose interpretations of some of the current literature
of education may easily lead to a confusing of means and
methods on the one hand with objectives on the other.
Those who seek escape from the formalisms of historic types
of schools and subjects of study talk much in terms of
“activities” and “projects.” But these obviously are means,
not ends — except, perhaps, for a few “developmental” ob-
jectives. They are means — but to what known ends?
Here much of contemporary educational thinking becomes
vague and inarticulate. Before effective “correlation” as
a means or method of education becomes finally effective,
there must be clearer understanding than we yet possess
(except perhaps as respects the specific powers of spelling
and handwriting) of, first, the desirable, and second, the
feasible, objectives that should or can be realized on behalf
of specified groups or levels.
It is important in all groupings of the adult qualities
that profitably suggest classifications of educational objec-
tives, to distinguish focal (or primary) from marginal (or
secondary) aspects. Thus health, moral rectitude, and per-
sonal culture often play a part in vocational success; but
they are accessory, not primary factors, and are not legiti-
mately to be sought as central objectives in vocational
education. Vocational success is often a factor in healthful-
ness, civic behavior, or even personal culture; but it is not
a primary and universal factor except by very forced and
needlessly artificial interpretations. Here we shall be much
helped by discriminating study of the valuations that have
grown out of the common experience of mankind.
CHAPTER SIX
THE MEANING OF SOCIAL EDUCATION
PRELIMINARY ANALYSES
THE specific objectives of social education can best be
considered in connection with the particular group relation-
ships which are intended to be affected. Some social groups
are properly civic groups, some are not. Many social virtues
or social vices are capable, of course, of affecting a man’s
relationships to several kinds of groups; but effective pro-
cedure will often require that in education the principal
group relationship be kept in the foreground. The chief
social groups requiring consideration are:
a. The family or domestic groups, involving the relation-
ships of children to parents, parents to children, brothers
to brothers, husbands to wives, etc. The principal moral
virtues here are various fairly tangible varieties or species
of coöperation, fidelity, loyalty, tolerance, truthfulness,
chastity, frankness, reticence, kindliness, obedience, leader-
ship, submission, respect for authority, self-restraint, self-
denial, etc. Recall the connotations or implications of such
words as: filial, fraternal, parental, conjugal.
The principal moral vices are certain easily recognized
forms of antagonism, conflict, anger, brutality, jealousy,
Sulkiness, insubordination, irresponsibility of leadership,
cruelty, greediness.
The following sociological conditions should be noted.
(1) The membership of the family group is very heterogene-
ous. Hence subordination and superordination play a large
part, and failures of proper functioning easily become
grievous sources of disharmony. (2) The membership is
exceedingly intimate. (3) Instinctive reactions play a large
rôle, often and easily overriding habits formed educationally,
94
MEANING OF SOCIAL EDUCATION 95
frequently for bad, sometimes for good, ends. (4) The
family is the center of coöperative utilization and, although
in lessening degree, of coöperative production. Hence
sumptuary and industrial disharmonies easily arise.
b. Neighborhood groups in their non-political relationships.
Many of the traditions and perhaps some of the instinctive
reactions in neighborhood groups derive from a time when
kinship was a determining bond. Under primitive social
conditions neighborhood groupings assured coöperative pro-
duction, including defense, and sometimes coöperative utili-
zation. They have always contributed to sociability, friendly
intercourse, relief of distress, joint worship, cultural coöpera-
tion, etc. At any age, sex, or occupational level they are
usually quite homogeneous as respects composition by family
groups, subject to well-known minor forms of “aristocracy.”
The conspicuous virtues here are certain easily defined
forms of toleration, kindliness, mutual aid, chastity, regard
for property rights, truthfulness, moral courage, self-denial,
friendliness, reticence, etc.
The conspicuous vices are certain varieties of: selfishness,
intolerance, pugnacity, backbiting, cliquishness, tale-bearing,
“gangishness,” unfriendliness, jealousy, envy, unchastity,
property dishonesty, obscene speech, gossip, etc.
c. Vocational groups, formed for coöperation in production
or in meeting conditions incident to production. Conspicuous
relationships are those of master and apprentice, employer
and employee, partners, agent and principal, etc. (School
groups may be regarded as primarily vocational groups.)
The conspicuous virtues here are specific varieties of: in-
dustriousness, honesty, truthfulness, loyalty, tolerance, co-
operation, subordination, responsibility, conscientiousness, etc.
The conspicuous vices are recognized varieties of: idleness,
deceit, insubordination, disloyalty, dishonesty, scamping,
disorderliness, etc.
96 CIVIC EDUCATION
d. Religious groups formed for purposes of joint worship.
Conspicuous virtues are varieties of: piety, humility,
loyalty, fidelity, faithfulness, Christian fellowship, ceremo-
nial observance, submission, etc. Conspicuous vices are:
infidelity, hypocrisy, disbelief, heterodoxy, insubordination,
irreverence, profanity, idolatry, etc.
e. Political groups, formed for the purpose of promoting
by concert of action such ends as common security, enforce-
ment of justice, and provision of public utilities. These
groups include: villages, municipalities, states, nations, and
confederations organized for defense, aggression, adminis-
tration of justice, and provision of utilities (coinage, roads,
education, colonization, trade); and political parties or other
voluntary or partisan groupings centering about promotion
of political policies.
The conspicuous civic virtues are certain, as yet imper-
fectly defined, varieties of: conformity to laws, ordinances,
conventions; submission to duly constituted authority in-
cluding, in democracies, the expressed will of majorities;
loyalty to approved institutions and policies; fearless and
active participation in political party group activities; self-
sacrifice (in the common defense or other emergency); and
political honesty.
The conspicuous civic (including martial) vices are certain
varieties of: poltroonery, disloyalty, insubordination, law-
lessness, criminality, dishonesty, grafting, self-centered
individualism, irresponsibility, intolerance, seditiousness,
predatoriness, etc. -
f. Cultural or mutual improvement groups, such as scien-
tific associations, clubs for promotion of intellectual or
aesthetic ends, etc.
g. Man’s relationship to animals constitutes a special
field of social ethics. Virtues are tolerance, humaneness,
etc.; the vices, cruelty, brutality, meglect, etc.
MEANING OF SOCIAL EDUCATION 97
CONDITIONS OF SOCIAL EDUCATION
The final products or results of physical, vocational, and
cultural education are essentially individual, even though
many of their later consequences are necessarily social. A
hermit or Robinson Crusoe could, in spite of his isolation,
exhibit some high achievements in health and strength,
vocational proficiency, and cultural interests. --
But the products or effects of social education, on the
other hand, must be measured and evaluated from the
outset by standards of social worth. Social worths are de-
termined by the effective functionings of social groups.
But social groups ultimately resolve into individual per-
sonalities through, and by means of whom, social qualities
are developed and manifested. Social education, building
on original nature, is directed toward intensifying, extending,
modifying, or repressing that original nature toward the needs
of group life as these at the present time exhibit themselves.
Varieties of social groups. Certain practical considera-
tions of primary importance to social education grow out
of the facts that: (a) the various social groups in which
any individual has voluntary or involuntary membership
vary greatly in their size, complexity, and the accessibility
of their needs and processes to his understanding; (b) the
instinctive leanings or pulls toward good group membership
as found in any individual vary greatly as toward different
kinds of groups; (c) the mechanisms of social control already
developed or capable of being developed by the various
groups vary widely and by no means directly as the useful-
ness of these groups to the ends of civilized society; and
(d) finally the social qualities of individuals, as resulting
from instinct and early nurture (and giving appreciations
of “self-interest” and of particular or small group interests)
vary greatly. Hence the needs of carefully organized social
education vary greatly as the groups, the needs of which
98 CIVIC EDUCATION
are being considered, are largely natural groups, or are mod-
ern products of the conditions of civilization — that is, rela-
tively artificial groups.
a. For such relationships as mother and children, husband
and wife, playfellows, small and local sociability groups,
there exist ancient instinctive foundations in man’s “original
nature.” Similar instinctive foundations are also found for
the relationships (toleration, mutual aid, subjection to
leadership, etc.) involved in more or less sporadic economic
groups — productive work, partnership, master and servant,
and also simple political groups — committees, mobs, gangs,
martial bands. Self-defense and predatory instincts often
give bases for very strong groups among primitive peoples.
b. But for many of the groups and group relationships
required in civilized life, instinctive foundations in the
individual are weak, sometimes antagonistic. This is con-
spicuously the case where (a) eatensive groups must be
formed — cities, states, nations, large worshiping, coöpera-
tive, and cultural groups, etc.; (b) where unlike human beings
must be brought into relations of tolerance and coöperation —
blacks and whites, cultured and uncultured, men and women,
rich and poor, etc.; and (c) where the “goods” resulting
from coöperation are uncertain or likely to go to certain
parts of the group only – stockholders and unionized
employees, mercenary soldiers, distant consumers, skeptical
worshipers, etc.
c. Since civic groupings are those for which there exist
fewest instinctive foundations; in which the visible values
are hardest to discern (except in time of danger from war);
and which necessarily enforce or at least need participation
of most heterogeneous social elements — therefore, for them
there is required the maximum of positive or direct education.
d. Under conditions of civilization nearly all forms of
group life become more complicated, more delicately ad-
MEANING OF SOCIAL EDUCATION 99
justed, more liable to derangement. Hence the growing
need for specified forms of social education that shall con-
form to the conditions imposed by decline of authoritarian
control, by rise of effective demands for democracy, for
freedom of thought, etc. This need seems to be especially
great in all civic groupings.
SOME PROBILEMS IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
Social psychology is yet deficient in analyses of the motives
and directives of civic action. But personal experience and
observation enable us to use for practical purposes some
popularly understood classifications and valuations.
a. Among the motive forces we easily recognize:
(1) Fear – of punishment, of disapproval, of failure,
of death, etc. (endless special varieties may be
traced).
(2) Love, ambition, desire, sentiment — in endless
variety, as toward self-realization, aggrandize-
ment, approval, security, gratification of senses,
etc.
(3) Conscience, sense of honor, etc., perhaps irradia-
tions or sublimations of more primitive qualities.
All of these have foundations in instincts, of
course, and their activity has strong emotional
or pleasure-pain accompaniments. All of them
tend toward certain kinds of fixities in habits,
attitudes, appreciations, ideals, crystallized
“character.”
b. Among the directive means of social or civic action in
the individual we can recognize:
(1) Instincts, impulses, and intuitions — social, in-
dividualistic, etc.
100
CIVIC EDUCATION
C.
(2) Appreciations, feeling attitudes, likes and dis-
likes, prejudices, tastes, valuations, preferences,
desires, etc.
(3) Habits, non-emotional attitudes, inertias, ob-
sessions, etc. (these merge with (1) and (2) but
are supposed to be relatively non-emotional
except when frustrated).
(4) Knowledge, intelligence, insight, understanding.
(Note that motive and directive qualities con-
stantly interact, perhaps blend, in practice.
But their handling for educational purposes
probably takes different methods.)
(5) Aspirations, ideals, and the like in their dynamic
aspects.
In the processes by which the adult citizen becomes
what he is in motives, habits, understandings, etc.,
there has been a great deal of sifting, growth, and
fixation of qualities. The final products give us the
relatively stable composite called “character.” — good
or bad. Those specific qualities of character that can be
“countedon” in action we can best call virtuesandvices.
Note the terms — and their opposites — in common
use to describe these: alert, inventive, artistic, rational,
sincere, thorough, useful, adaptable, attentive, cautious,
coöperative, decisive, directive, executive, industrious,
obedient, persistent, purposeful, responsible, teachable,
thrifty, conscientious, independent, magnanimous, pru-
dent, refined, self-controlled, self-respecting, thoughtful,
considerate, congenial, courteous, faithful, genuine,
harmonious, helpful, honest, honorable, just, law-
abiding, patient, pure, respectful, regardful of rights
of others, sociable, tactful, trustful, truthful, ambi-
tious, appreciative, hopeful, courageous, self-confident,
MEANING OF SOCIAL EDUCATION 101
determined, earnest, forgiving, friendly, generous,
grateful, humble, humorous, idealistic, kindly, loyal,
poised, progressive, public-spirited, reverent, righteous,
sportsmanlike, sympathetic, tolerant, truth-seeking,
etc. (based on Milton Fairchild’s Perfect Human Being).
d. There is greatly needed some kind of rating of potency
(either generally or as varied among individuals) of
various motives, as found native or as modified by
social control. When is the boy’s fear of his playmates’
displeasure greater than his fear of the teacher's wrath?
Under what circumstances will a man's fear of death
yield to his fear of being called a coward? What is
meant by “Every man has his price”? When can love
of an admired one’s approval outweigh self-interest?
When does “knowing” what is right (or what is ex-
pected by most approved authorities) assure right
action? Educational proposals seem to pass lightly
over the problems implied here.
SOME EDUCATIONAL PRESUPPOSITIONS
Most well-informed educators now agree that we cannot
extensively derive “general powers” of observation, reason-
ing, imagination, memory, attention, and the like, from hard
and persistent training in specific varieties or “species” of
these powers. The same principle probably applies to such
qualities as “the scientific attitude,” “the religious attitude,”
thrift, industriousness, etc. Only slowly are we beginning
to see that it doubtless holds no less true regarding the
moral and civic virtues — honesty, truthfulness, loyalty,
fidelity, patriotism, altruism, etc. In practice each one of
these is a kind of “genus” — with each its many varieties
or species. Each person has developed — or been trained
in — one or several varieties. If these varieties have common
elements, these tend to fuse or blend in general experience,
102 CIVIC EDUCATION
appreciations, ideals, attitudes. Possibly relatively general
ideals may emerge from intense particular experiences — but
the psychology of this is obscure and dubious.
Is it natural or usual for the mind or spirit to generalize
certain residual qualities – valuations, appreciations, ideals,
attitudes, tastes – from a few specific experiences? Common
experience seems to answer affirmatively, as it formerly did
the question as to whether “observation,” “reasoning,” and
other generalized mental powers could be taught. Moral
and civic education find it urgently necessary to determine
how far specific training, instruction, or idealization in or
of honesty, truthfulness, reverence, civic interest, law and
order, patriotic sacrifice, international sympathy, and the
like, will produce general qualities as a dependable part of
civic and moral character.
Moral disciplines. Social psychologists seem to be substan-
tially agreed upon these principles:
a. That as respects the neural basis or foundations of
moral as well as intellectual qualities — and including there-
under instincts as well as learning plasticities or teachable-
ness — individuals probably differ greatly, as they do in
potentialities for size, color of hair, musical abilities, fear,
and other “physical” qualities. Men are in general more
combative than women; women seem to have greater sym-
pathy for helpless children; some persons have much keener
social sympathies than others; whilst similar native differ-
ences, perhaps very great, exist as regards parental affection,
sociability, gregariousness, altruism (toward federates), and
other distinctively social qualities.
b. That when specific experience produces certain atti.
tudes in particular situations, recognition of similar elements
in new situations will tend to revive similar attitudes. For
example, a child made afraid by a dog will fear other animals
behaving like or resembling dogs as long as contrary experi-
MEANING OF SOCIAL EDUCATION 103
ence is not strong. A man made reverential in the believed
presence of one Deity will transfer attitude to a situation
involving a spirit related to that Deity.
c. That for the highly rational man it is possible, on the
basis of limited experience, to reason more or less deductively
from isolated experiences to general application. “Ridicule
hurts me, and I easily learn that it hurts my friendly asso-
ciates; by inference, it hurts my enemies, distant people,
perhaps certain animals.” Now if the man’s motives not
to hurt have somehow become general, then action will
follow combined motive and understanding, unless counter-
vailing pressures exist.
d. That where a strong motive already exists – due to
natural qualities plus experience in a very general range of
activities — then intellectual identification of a particular
possible act as coming within that range will, except for
countervailing pulls, insure performance in line with the
motive. A child is very anxious to please his mother; an
authority tells him that a certain form of behavior will do
so; his action follows. A “club” man is very anxious to
avoid the ill-opinion of his club associates; some one who
“knows” says of a certain possible course of action, “It is not
done, you know.” A man instinctively fears physical injury;
therefore he avoids action that is alleged to promise it. A
man cherishes a reputation for business honesty; he will
eschew conduct, otherwise promising, which might interfere
with this reputation. Self-analysis will show that each one
of us holds scores or hundreds of these guiding motives —
rooted in ideals, appreciations, ideas.
e. That the moral and civic struggles, mistakes, and
tragedies of life arise chiefly from these sources:
(1) We have not the right motives in consciousness.
(2) We have right and wrong motives in consciousness,
but in acting the wrong are stronger than the right.
104 - CIVIC EDUCATION
(3) We have right motives of adequate strength, but we
are ignorant of right courses of action.
f. That social disharmonies result largely from the fact
that average persons are prone: t
(1) To serve their individual interests or desires before
those of their kin and fellows.
(2) To serve the interests of their kin — in family groups
— before those of their associates and federates (subject
to the exception that when one is breaking away from the
filial group and has not welded himself strongly in marital
and parental groups he goes through a period when some
instinctive associate group – gang, club, band — may hold
him more strongly than his family group).
(3) To serve the interests of associates before those of
federates.
The foregoing may be called defects due to “excess of
natural tendency.”
g. That at times social disharmonies result from inversion
of natural tendencies. These may be called “excesses of
virtue.” -
(1) A man sacrifices himself to others.
(2) A man neglects his family for associate or federate
groups.
(3) He serves spiritual beings to the neglect of humans.
(4) He devotes himself excessively to an abstract ideal —
justice, art, science, exploration, invention.
Conclusions. In the absence of dependable knowledge
regarding “transfer” (more accurately, “general spread”
from particular experiences, habits, ideals, etc.) of moral
and civic qualities — powers or appreciations – the follow-
ing questions are raised:
a. Why should we not devote our educational resources
and efforts to producing good moral and civic conduct or
behavior on the part of the individual toward the groups
MEANING OF SOCIAL EDUCATION 105
in which he now has membership — school work groups,
play groups, community groups, family groups, common-
wealth federate groups? The virtues here — of conformity
and initiative — are easily analyzed and many examples of
successful devices are available.
b. Why should we not, in the second place, seek to produce
those specific virtues which, while not especially germane
to youthful life, nevertheless manifestly function in adult
life? Specific types of courtesy to women, of property
honesty, of respect for parks, of conserving the cleanliness
of streets, of preservation of game, of relief of poverty, of
observing the Sabbath, etc., come under this head.
OTHER VARIETIES OF SOCIAL EDUCATION
The foregoing would be sought as virtues in action – i.e.,
as complexes of instinct, appreciation, habit, attitude, ideal.
The test of the efficacy of the teaching would at any time
be conduct. No mystical assumptions as to “spread” need
be entertained. But certain supplemental lines of social
education are also possible:
a. Under teaching guidance young learners could be led
to comprehend and — in degrees practicable to non-partici-
pants — to evaluate (criticize) social conduct in real or
imaginary group situations in which they do not now have
membership. For this, “present company excepted” is an
essential attitude. Youths thus may scrutinize, come to
understand, and in a measure morally evaluate behavior in
other schools, among other peoples, among contemporary
adult groups, etc. Will pupils “take” results here that will
affect their own conduct when later ages or changed condi-
tions bring them into “grip” with the inducements and
other conditions of the groups criticized adversely or ad-
mired? Possibly, but expectations should not be too
Sanguine.
106 CIVIC EDUCATION
b. Under teaching guidance learners may readily be in-
duced to respond in appreciations and ideals to particular
social situations where factors of feeling are large. The
Marseillaise arouses patriotic fervor, Black Beauty evokes
love of horses, The Song of the Shirt begets aspirations for
the oppressed. Note large use of drama, painting, fiction,
poetry, moving pictures, ceremonial, pageantry, for these
purposes. What have been the social functions of Art here?
Note also how oratory, sermon, religious observance serve
same ends. None question that when related conduct is
possible soon after emotional appeal, effects are strong.
But will results “keep” long, if action (behavior, conduct,
expression, performance) is not at once called for? This is
doubtful. Excessive reliance on the method is of dubious
worth at present.
c. Under teaching guidance moral or civic problems (as
these perplex adults) may be studied, elucidated on the part
of youths. If these are still problems when youth is con-
fronted by needs for action, knowledge may carry over.
(But note that when these are controversial, teachers may
be estopped by partisan zeal from extensive analytical treat-
ment of them, especially if harm or good to vested interests
and cherished prepossessions might result.)
d. Information about structure and functions of govern-
mental and other social agencies and institutions can be
taught as knowledge, as one can teach facts of history,
principles of physics, etc. But:
(1) Such teaching is formal where no active motive for
learning exists.
(2) Its usefulness is often not clear.
(3) Should such stored and organized knowledge be
regarded as one regards the dictionary, railroad time tables,
collections of statutes, gazetteers, encyclopedias, etc. — to
be available and organized for ready use when needed?
MEANING OF SOCIAL EDUCATION 107
SOCIAL GROUPINGS: SOME PROBLEMS SUMMARIZED
Experience clearly shows great variabilities in: (a) the
sizes of the social groups in which man has membership;
(b) the efficacy of instinctive pulls to good membership;
(c) the efficacy of self-interest appeals; (d) the coercive efficiency
of machinery of social control; (e) the need of systematized
educational adjustment.
Examples: (a) The instincts, customs, etc., of family con-
trol usually insure good group membership on the part of
children from birth to ten years of age. School or other
supplemental agencies are little needed. (b) Harmony of
husband and wife is furthered as a result of religious and
social education, with laws and penalties for cases of extreme
disharmony. (c) Within ordinary conjugal family group
(for example, 2 adults, 4 children) specific virtues of tolera-
tion, coöperation, truthfulness, continence, property honesty,
etc., are usually assured. (d) Within village community,
conformist virtues are largely assured by public opinion,
Mrs. Grundy, church, and school; but youngsters often
break conventions. Virtues of initiative are not assured,
resulting in weak coöperation except where self-interest is
manifestly served. (Consider thesis: “In prečnlightenment
stages of social evolution the village is the chief nursery
of the true civic — i.e., beyond kinship — virtues; but under
enlightenment, the village is too small and diversified to
give foundations for constituent societies and larger co-
operations.”) (e) Within national or other state groups
conformist virtues are secured by law, cool justice, influence
of voluntary leaders. Coöperation is secured with difficulty
except in the tangible stress of war dangers. Here is the
central area of the true civic virtues.
Classifications of virtues. The following classifications of
virtues will prove profitable in subsequent studies: (a) In-
dividual virtues, those that make the individual strong,
108 CIVIC EDUCATION
successful, happy, for himself. (b) Kinship virtues, those
that insure solidarity, success, mutual aid, mutual pleasing
within family and allied kinship groups. (c) Neighborhood
associate civic virtues, those that give effectiveness to group
relationship within component group, embracing chiefly
those who come into personal contact with each other —
usually 10 to 500 persons. (Elsewhere included as “associate
civic” virtues.) (d) Commonwealth or federate civic virtues,
those giving civic effectiveness in large municipality, state,
or nation, where men reach each other at second hand
through leaders, legislation, printed matter, books, etc.
Consideration must later be given to the suggestion that
focal area of school social education, ages 4–9, should be
kinship groups and school community groups; for ages 9–12,
neighborhood community groups; and for ages 12–18 the
commonwealth groups.
Problems. In terms of fundamental social values under
normal conditions is it essential to social soundness that:
(a) an individual should give first consideration to being
a well-developed, strongly functioning individual personality;
(b) that next in order of importance is good family member-
ship; (c) that third in order is good local community mem-
bership; and (d) that last in order is good commonwealth
membership? Would or should this order be readjusted (a)
in time of national danger? (b) in time of civil war? (c) in
time of famine?
How should this order be considered in special reference
to: girls, aged 5 to 12; men, aged 20–25; women, aged 30–40
of less than average abilities; men, of super-average ability
and hereditary advantages, aged 30–60; recent immigrants
of low ability and precarious economic conditions?
Is it reasonable to assume that, in view of the efficacy
of non-school agencies, the responsibilities and work of
schools in social education will be tenfold greater in pro-
MEANING OF SOCIAL EDUCATION 109
ducing the commonwealth civic virtues than in producing
the local community civic virtues? And proportionately
greater in producing the local community virtues than the
kinship virtues?
Is it reasonable to assume that security and social prog-
ress are multiplying demands on commonwealth virtues,
only moderately increasing demands on local community
virtues, and perhaps diminishing demands for kinship
virtues?
From studies of these problems could we derive formula-
tions of reasonable or optimum social expectancies as to
possession of social virtues?
Proposed studies. To what extent will forms of social
analysis and evaluations like those suggested below prove
helpful in planning social education?
CASE GROUP DR. Young white men, ages 20–24, of aver-
age abilities, inclined to manual vocations, unmarried, but
keenly interested in opposite sex, foreign-born ancestry,
resident in small city, of elementary school education, no
inherited wealth. (Presuppose normal conditions of peace,
and include functioning ideals and practicable desires as
well as practice.) Reasonable optimum social expectations
rated on basis of 10,000 positive units.
a. Individual virtues, 4000 units (include health, voca-
tion, personal culture, and sumptuary or “consumers’.”
standards).
b. Kinship virtues, 2000 units (include support of parents,
coöperation with brothers and sisters, proper sex relations
with women, and active ideals toward forming own family).
c. Neighborhood or associate civic virtues, 3000 units
(include geographic community, vocational group, relations
to employers, culture and sociability groups, local political
party and religious groups, local voting, etc., and include
sex relations in so far as these affect rights of others).
110 CIVIC EDUCATION
d. Federate civic virtues, 1000 units (include patriotism,
contributions to representative government, state and
national politics, participation in federations of political
party, religious, vocational, cultural, and sociability groups,
as well as overflow of these in international relations).
What different “expectation ratings’’should be provided for:
CASE GROUP DX. College-educated business men, 35–60
years old, with some inherited wealth, American ancestry,
resident in city of 25,000 population.
What expectation ratings would you give Case Group DR
in time of great danger from external war?
What expectation rating would you give Case Group DX
men in time of war?
Suggested analyses. Society holds certain crude expecta-
tions of its members as to economic productiveness and
conservation. For example, is it normal that:
a. A child of six on a farm should have no stored wealth
(capital) and may easily consume tenfold what he produces?
b. A single man aged 22 of good health, high school
education, and family environment, having discontinued
educational preparation since 18, should have stored wealth
measured at several hundred dollars, relatively high (high
school graduate standard of living) sumptuary practices, and
a productive capacity 50 per cent greater than consuming
practice?
c. That a man of 40 of moderate education, poor health,
and inferior vocational capacity who has elected to build
a family should have $500 worth of stored wealth, low or
very economical consuming practices, and productive powers
three times as great as his own individual needs of con-
sumption? -
Variable potentialities. Should society hold expectations
similarly varied as regards good citizenship? Analyze from
standpoint of (a) conformist and (b) dynamic virtues in
MEANING OF SOCIAL EDUCATION 111
(1) kinship, (2) meighborhood, and (3) federate groups, opti-
mum (or reasonable) expectations from:
a. Boys aged six in good families on small hill farms;
b. Women elementary school teachers in cities, ages 45–60;
c. Negro illiterate workers in soft coal mines;
d. Well-educated married women in prosperous suburban
families;
e. Young men, unmarried, operative laborers, sons of
recent Hungarian immigrants, with whose language and
customs they are rapidly losing sympathy?
SOCIAL EVALUATIONS
The “worth” of a man in terms of all or of some of his
qualities is to be estimated from any one of several stand-
points. Every man, of course, values his qualities in terms
of the satisfactions they give himself. His health may
give him a net balance of pain; his vocation a large amount
of pleasure; his convivial associations a large net satisfaction;
and the like.
The valuation of qualities from external sources arises
from social relationships. A man’s vocational industry may
give much value to his family, while his moral behavior
may give much pain. His manners may give his associates
a net amount of dissatisfaction, whilst his aggressiveness
toward invaders may give large positive values in public
security.
Social criticisms. Wherever and whenever social groups
are formed, social valuations of individual members are
incessantly being made. The courage of this man is fair,
good, excellent, or “marvelous”; of that man, poor, con-
temptible, or infamous. The business rectitude of Brown is
high, that of Jones, low. Patrick is a good mixer, a fine
fellow; Sandy a dour and close curmudgeon. Ferguson
minds his own business, Sullivan is a “buttinsky.”
I 12 CIVIC EDUCATION
“The Grundys,” public opinion, the press, and especially
“persons of influence,” and finally quasi-judicial agencies,
soon produce “party,” if not social, judgments. The “re-
spectable” people of the neighborhood, or possibly the
neighborhood as a whole, look upon the various Smiths as
“shady,” vagrant, thieving, immoral, or else as upright,
thrifty, or “patterns of moral character.” The police classify
certain men as to criminal character; commercial agencies
rate the credit of business concerns; and statutes are enacted
discriminating the kinds of securities insurance companies
may invest in.
Social valuations made from the vantage ground of any
one kind of group naturally rank qualities heavily in terms
of that group’s interests. A young man’s dress and manners
are very important to his convivial associates, but of less
relative importance to his employers unless these happen to
need his services in making certain kinds of business con-
tacts where personal presentableness avails much. A man
of forty with his composite character is very differently
valued respectively by his family, his club, his political
party, his church, and his nation in time of stress.
We not only constantly thus “value” individuals; we also
value groups of individuals, from cliques and sets to nations.
The members of a certain family are all loose and mean,
or the reverse; all the pupils in a certain school are given
to cheating; the men of a certain geographic region are all
prevailingly shiftless; the Adams and the Walsh families
give prevailingly high-grade citizens; the business morality
of Japanese is lower (some allege) than that of Chinese;
the Irish are more superstitious than the Norwegians;
Southern Italy yields fewer good citizens than the Valley
of the Po; negroes are less moral than whites.
Biased valuations. These valuations also reflect heavily,
of course, the interests and prepossessions of the group
MEANING OF SOCIAL EDUCATION 113
making them. Confederates think of Federals as white-
livered shopkeepers, whilst from the other side Confederates
are looked upon as firebrands and slave drivers. Puritans
are kill-joys to the theater-going crowd, whilst the opinion
held by Puritans of actors and their associates passes easy
description. Where material, moral, or political interests
clash, valuations formed on either side are so heavily colored
by feeling as to be largely unserviceable for sociological
purposes.
These sweeping judgments are of course uncritical and
often prejudiced. They are frequently formed, as Booker
Washington once mildly complained, “by comparing the
worst negro with the best white man.” But they often
reflect substantial realities; and we cannot escape the fact
that to a very large extent they do govern social action — in
reality, they are as yet often the only available means of
guiding social action.
CRUDE SOCIAL VALUATIONS
Crude social valuations of the kind here illustrated have
largely motivated the numerous attempts at civic education
(as well as all other forms) heretofore developed. Illiterate
voters are “bad or dangerous voters.” Men who know
nothing of the history of their country can hardly be ex-
pected to vote as true patriots. “Unamericanized” immi-
grants are certain to be undesirable citizens. Pupils who
have learned no obedience to rules of law and order in schools
will care little for the corresponding rules outside of schools.
Men who, as children, learned nothing of self-government in
Schools will hardly understand its meaning in later years.
Democracy is chronically short of the right kinds of leaders;
hence we must publicly support high schools and state
universities in order to provide sound political leadership.
Music should be fostered in the public schools as a valuable
114 CIVIC EDUCATION
means of socialization. The foundation of good citizenship
can be laid in the kindergarten. Teaching prospective voters
to read is not in itself any guarantee of good civic behavior;
somehow we must teach them what to read.
To this effect are numberless current tendencies to rank
or grade either qualities expected or means of producing
them. At best these rankings are indicated by terms of ethi-
cal derivation, and are always heavily affected by the sub-
jective prepossessions of those making them. But these
processes are not to be disparaged, except when better are
demonstrably available. The social progress of the world
to date has been achieved largely through just such crude
refining of social judgments as lies back of recent American
efforts to provide educationally for “better citizenship.”
Scientific evaluations. If civic education is to be made
more purposive and more efficient, it is necessary that proc-
esses of social valuation should become more exact. If
objectives of civic education are to be derived chiefly from
studies of the acceptable and unacceptable qualities now
exhibited by adult citizens, we must find effective means of
distinguishing and evaluating these qualities as now found
not only in individuals but especially in definable groups
of individuals.
In describing simple qualities a few gradings could well
be used; and these would have much value if they merged
the valuations of several competent judges. They would
have still more value if the judgments thus combined came
from sources representing different social backgrounds.
Thus three judges representing respectively the points of
view of the police judge, the social worker, and the estab-
lished business man could pass upon the “civic worth” of
illiterate male negroes or recent Jewish immigrants or native
American casual workers or high school teachers, all from
30 to 40 years of age. Given sufficient acquaintance with
MEANING OF SOCIAL EDUCATION II.5
the individuals judged, this small jury would probably,
without much difficulty, agree in grading the individuals
concerned into such classes as “excellent,” “superior,”
“inferior,” and “bad.” Perhaps they could still more readily
do this if, instead of being asked to grade them in terms
of the highly composite quality “good citizenship,” they
were required to consider relatively various concrete quali-
ties, such as “business probity,” attention to voting, kind
of political reading habitually done, volunteer efforts in
social reform, and the like.
RELATIVE STANDARDS
But very soon the problem of relative standards would
arise. Should all these citizens be measured by the same
yardstick? When we say the handwriting of a seven-year-
old child is “good,” does the term denote the same kind
and degree of excellence that would be similarly defined in
the handwriting of a bookkeeper? The courage, staying
powers, “punch,” and pugilistic skills of a bantam fighter
are graded by standards for “men of his class”; and in
several important respects these will differ from the standards
developed for heavyweights. From the standpoint of the
expectations of society for civic conformity and civic
initiative surely “college men in business,” recent immigrant
Russians, Western “owning” farmers, and migrating negro
wage earners are in different classes. Perhaps in some
ultimate scheme of social evaluation all the qualities of all
members of society should be measured in some fundamental
unit, as we now measure various forms of energy in the
physical world; but for present purposes such an expectation
is Utopian. We can only hope to refine upon and render
more objective the standards, measures, and methods of
social valuation now universally, even if roughly and par-
tisanly, applied.
116 CIVIC EDUCATION
Another difficulty is very soon encountered when we seek
to evaluate, not composites or resultants of civic qualities,
but specific component qualities. We can readily rate these
specific qualities; but how shall we value them in comparison
with each other? -
Suppose we are trying to “evaluate” the health of two
men. The first is excellent in all respects except instep
arches, which are graded “bad”; the second is excellent in
all respects except for serious tubercular infection which
causes him to be rated “bad” as to respiration or lungs
or whatever is the “species” agreed upon. Obviously these
two “bads” are not of equal seriousness. Somehow they
must be weighted.
Similarly two negro laborers might be graded as respects
a variety of social qualities — property honesty, interest in
good voting, thrift, general sociability, etc. A is rated
excellent in all qualities except the first, where the fact that
he steals on all convenient occasions causes him to be rated
“bad.” B is rated excellent in all qualities except participa-
tion in voting, in which he is bad. Obviously these two vices
are not equal as social liabilities — they also must be weighted
by means not as yet well established.
Several initial stages in the processes of social valuation,
first of individuals and then of groups of individuals, are
now sufficiently established to be capable of profitable
application. These stages include:
a. The selection of social groups that are reasonably
homogeneous as respects the more prominent qualities that
differentiate humans in objective society.
b. Analysis by experts of the qualities (in as concrete
terms as practicable) that make up the composites finally
to be evaluated as sources of educational objectives for this
group, or for today’s youth who are potential members of
similar groups ten to forty years hence.
MEANING OF SOCIAL EDUCATION 117
c. Weighting of these qualities for the group under con-
sideration.
d. Evaluation of individuals in rating.
e. Assembly of individual ratings to obtain group ratings.
The process of deriving educational objectives from these
valuations would entail additional problems. Let us assume
that the purpose of this study is to determine objectives
of civic education in schools for the oncoming generation.
Our analysis reveals “prevailing defects” among adults.
Some of these and some only would have been remediable
by school education. Which? What can be done with or
through other agencies? concurrently with school life?
subsequent thereto?
WEIGHTING OF CIVIC QUALITIES
The more exact evaluation of civic worth requires first
a classification of civic qualities (for the present the terms
“virtue” and “vice” will be freely employed to designate
approved and disapproved qualities respectively). Since
every specific variety of human action is the resultant of
a variety of influences, it is not practicable to devise cate-
gories that shall be entirely mutually exclusive. A man's
health at times affects his moral behavior, his vocational
powers, and his cultural interest. Under other circumstances
any one of these may affect his health.
Nevertheless practical distinctions as made in everyday
life are largely valid. A man’s property honesty, patriotism
in war-time, conservation of his own health, and interest
in specified forms of culture are commonly viewed as rela-
tively independent qualities. Doubtless they all derive from
a common source or soil of inheritance, just as do so many
organic compounds made up almost wholly of the four
common elements, carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen.
But from the standpoint of educational effort, once the con-
I 18 CIVIC EDUCATION
ditions imposed by “original nature” have been accepted,
each of these qualities can be made the objective of training
or other modifying effort.
The groupings of qualities found in men and women
elsewhere proposed (pages 85–93) as a basis for analysis of
educational objectives can serve as a starting point here —
namely, the physical, vocational, social, and cultural. These
are capable of much subdivision. -
Contrasted social groups. For illustrative purposes let us
assume that the civic worth of two somewhat contrasted
groups of adults is to be estimated from the standpoint of
the local or neighborhood community. The two groups
selected will be men high school teachers, ages 30–50, and
negro manual workers (in a Northern city) of the same
ages. The total worth of each individual to the community
will be rated on the basis of 10,000 plus or positive points
for his virtues and 10,000 minus or negative points
for his vices. The high standards of positive worth for each
group will be those which neighborhood judgment commonly
implies by such words as excellent, first class, A grade, best,
or 100 per cent. Similarly the low standards of negative
worth are expressed in social judgments as to “lowest grade,”
vicious, criminal, vagrant, “a thoroughly bad example,”
depraved, and the like.
The zero point of a virtue or a vice need not now concern
us. We are simply trying to find provisional ratings for the
purpose of somewhat refining everyday neighborhood judg-
ments. We readily recognize the significance of the words
a “first-class negro street sweeper” (in terms of vocational
performance). Other workers in these groups we can grade or
relate to these standards down to a point at which they would
be found to be doing more harm than good by their alleged
service, after which we could rate them by negative points.
A high school teacher, scrupulously observing the laws
MEANING OF SOCIAL EDUCATION 119
of property, paying his debts to the full and the like, would
rate up to excellent in this general virtue. But if he steals,
fails to pay his debts, and in general flouts social needs
for property honesty, he would be rated as of less than
no positive worth — he would be a source of harm. For
the present we may expect endless difficulties to arise from
the tendency to confuse low positive ratings with negative
ratings. It is, of course, evident that the “points” here
used have no absolute values. Neither have the points used
for different groups as now assigned any comparative values.
And finally it must be evident that negative and positive
points have no relative values to each other. These points
only serve conveniently to indicate relative importance of
the positive or negative qualities of one group to the others.
Standards. Since we are here concerned primarily with
problems of social education, we need not dwell upon methods
of allocating “points” to other than social qualities. Let
us assume that from the standpoint of the community the
relative importance, for both case groups under consid-
eration, of the physical, vocational, cultural, and social
qualities are indicated by the allotment of a total of
10,000 points for the positive and for the negative qualities
respectively distributed as follows: physical, 1000 positive,
1000 negative; social, 5000 positive and 5000 negative;
vocational, 3000 positive, 3000 negative; and cultural, 1000
positive, 1000 negative. In other words in an all-round
first-class citizen (of optimum efficiency) from either group
the relative importance, as measured, of course, in terms
of social (or community) expectancy, of excellent health,
excellent vocational ability, excellent culture, and excellent
social behavior would be in the ratios indicated; whilst
similarly the low depths of all-round badness (pessimum
efficiency) would be similarly weighted as among the four
types of qualities.
120 CIVIC EDUCATION
The next step is to form working classifications of social
qualities. The first ready division is into the moral, the
religious, and the civic qualities (as defined on pages 94–96).
But a further analysis can profitably be made. The moral
qualities chiefly affect men’s “small group” relationships; but
of these the family relationship possesses an importance in
most communities equal to all others together. Hence our first
division is into family morals and “other small group” morals.
Civic behavior readily reveals such divisions as: general
observance of laws (civic conformity); upholding of civic
ideals in all kinds of social intercourse; political party activ-
ity and voting; participation in reform or civic reconstruc-
tion activities, apart from political party service; giving of
uncompensated political service; and national patriotism in
its nonconformity aspects.
The following, then, is submitted as a provisional allotment
of points (optimum and pessimum standards):
PROPOSED ANALYSIS AND WEIGHTING; STANDARDS FOR
CASE GROUPS M AND N
Case Group M (Men | Case Group N (Negro
High School Teachers) Manual Laborers)
Virtues Vices Virtues Vices
Family morals . . . . . 800 I000 1500 1000
Other small group morals 500 I000 I 500 I 500
Religion . . . . . . . 500 500 300 500
Observance of laws . . . 200 1000 1000 1500
Promotion of civic ideals 1000 1000 100 100
Political activity . . . . 500 100 200 100
Reform work . . . . . 500 100 100 100
Volunteer service . . . 500 200 100 100
Patriotism . . . . . . 500 j ()() 200 | 00
The next step would be to provide, through a jury of
competent judges with somewhat unlike subjective standards,
for the “rating” of individuals from each of these groups.
CHAPTER SEVEN
SoCIETY’s NEED OF CIVIC EDUCATION
SOCIAL CONTROL
“SOCIAL control” is found by sociologists to have been
a universal social process in human societies from their
beginnings. Since men can only exist by and through some
or many forms of group life; and since inherited instincts
give in the main only vaguely shaped, even though powerful,
impulses toward social action, it follows that those most
vitally interested in all social groups shall in numberless
ways shape and hold the young, the individualistic, and the
short-sighted, steadily toward right types of conformity and
service to the group. This is just as true of a boys’ gang
as of the state; of a club as of a business corporation; of
a social party as of an army.
The nation, the municipality, and the neighborhood of
associates, as inclusive social groups, have always presented
great difficulties of social control because of the unlike
qualities of the members. These groups necessarily include
men and women, adults and children, the ignorant and the
learned, the prosperous and the poor, the selfish and the gener-
ous. Theindustrious, peaceful, and law-abiding members must
incessantly be protected or protect themselves from the idle,
the predatory, the lawless. But to make the village per-
manently healthy, the municipality generally prosperous,
and the nation able to defend itself, it is also necessary
to prevent idleness, useless contentiousness, and lawlessness.
The means of social control adapted for these purposes
have been all but numberless. On the one hand they include
the coercions of custom, of religion, and of law. On the
other are found the endlessly varied forms of appeal to good
nature, intelligence, and desire for approval, all of which are
121
122 CIVIC EDUCATION
essentially educative. Just as medicine tends to become
preventive rather than curative, so social control in nearly
all kinds of groups, and especially in those having political
functions, tends to become educative (or “attractive” in
the earlier etymological sense of the term, as used by Lester
F. Ward) rather than coercive.
There are many reasons why modern political groups need
greatly improved and extended civic education of their
members. These reasons fall mainly into four groups: (a)
Modern political groups are becoming vastly more complex
and intricate on the economic side. (b) We are demanding
more of security, health, wealth, and the other means of
happiness from our political groupings than ever before.
(c) These groups are increasingly dynamic, changing, evolv-
ing, instead of static. (d) Under the ideals of democracy
individuals and “small group” members are even more
insistent in claiming the maximum of “self-realization”
and self-determination.
Human beings are probably not now born into the world
with greatly different or better social instincts and other
qualities of “original nature” than were those of our savage
ancestors of ten or fifty thousand years ago. Hence to make
of these infants social men and women suited to the needs
of complex civilization requires from the cradle to manhood
and in some respects even to the grave, education of many
specific kinds, as well as other more external means of con-
trol, such as laws, parties, and governments.
IDEVELOPMENTAL CIVIC EDUCATION
Developmental education has in the evolution of the race
been accomplished largely through extra-school agencies —
especially the home, community group, shop, and church.
A large part of this education has always resulted in the
moral appreciations, habits, and ideals essential to group
SOCIETY'S NEED OF CIVIC EDUCATION I-23
harmony and solidarity. A portion of it might properly
be called civic, especially in periods when war threatened
or nation-building was in process.
Conquest and subjugation of peoples led several thousand
years ago to the establishment, in the more habitable parts
of the world, of governing classes or aristocracies. Direct
civic education adapted to the prospective needs of rulers,
leaders, and dispensers of justice naturally appeared. On
the opposite side, the civic virtues of subordination, sub-
mission, and service were taught to the conquered, rarely
in schools, but much through other agencies.
The evolution of republican government, built upon
aspirations for democracy, general suffrage, and constitu-
tionalism, has quite generally been accompanied by the
promotion of public education. In large part this has been
designed for civic ends. Literacy is conceived as the first
essential; then history, with adjuncts of biography, patriotic -
Song, and perhaps geography. Finally appear the beginnings
of civics as a separate study.
What is now the need of more direct civic education in
the United States than has heretofore been provided through
the schools? For the present we answer this question largely
on the basis of faiths and beliefs, and generally as partisans
of a few, rather than of many kinds of, educational objec-
tives. Our contemporary educational philosophy, built so
extensively out of aspirations, gives little place to the serious
treatment of relative educational values. Looking upon that
vague composite, called education, as a social “good,” it
is easy to say “we cannot have too much education.”
The partisans of special types of education are also prone
to say “we cannot have too much of health education, or
vocational, or musical, or linguistic, or historical” education,
according to the color of their respective prepossessions.
Under present conditions educational aims may be said to
I24 CIVIC EDUCATION
be in constant competition, and the “fittest” survives —
which often means the best advertised, or the very fashion-
able, or the most vigorously promoted.
Relative values. Fundamentally, of course, all questions
of educational needs and values bring us to problems of
relative needs and relative values. All education must be
achieved under limiting conditions. Time is the most ob-
vious of these. At the most it is only possible to claim from
one thousand to two thousand hours of the child’s time per
year for from eight to fifteen years for school purposes.
The educability of the child is another limiting factor. This
is an extremely variable quantity, but even the most able
or brilliant learner eventually reaches his limits. A third
limitation is found in the resources wherewith parents and
the state may support and produce education. Education
can be achieved only through teachers working with such
instrumentalities as subjects of study, texts, laboratories,
and the like. Teachers are human instruments and their
mechanical aids are never perfect. Their work must be
paid for from the products of other labor — itself subject
to limitations. -
There was a time, perhaps, when the scope and variety
of the offerings possible in schools were small because few
“subjects '' were well enough organized for school pur-
poses. But that time has now gone by at all school
levels. Even in the lowest grades many more objectives,
all of demonstrable worth, can be set than it is possible
to achieve within the limits of existing abilities, time, and
pedagogic resources.
Hence the central problem in all studies of educational
need today is not, “Is this thing needed?”— of any par-
ticular objective in hygiene, language, science, art, vocation,
or culture; but, “Is it more needed than something else,
the time and learning energy for which it would prečmpt?”
SOCIETY'S NEED OF CIVIC EDUCATION I 25
NEEDS FOR, CIVIC EDUCATION
The conventional arguments in support of more and
better civic education in our public schools can thus be
again summarized:
a. Even under favorable conditions, and in compara-
tively simple societies, the individual receives only a very
imperfect civic education from extra-school agencies. This
is evidenced by the numbers of bad and incompetent citizens
found in all primitive societies, and the never ending failures
of these societies to organize, support, or stabilize good
government and other forms of social control.
b. Even when this developmental civic education is sup-
plemented by “a common school education,” thus assuring
quite general literacy and some appreciation of history and
social geography, results are still far from satisfactory, as
every modern state with a well-developed public school
system testifies.
c. But the problems of finding and maintaining effective
forms of governmental as well as of other “large group”
mechanisms grow daily more complex. The functions of
government, once largely restricted to defense, the conserva-
tion of internal order, and the administration of justice,
now visibly multiply. The scope and intricacy of public
policies increase in every direction. States enlarge, economic
interdependence of widely separated geographic relationships
assumes vital importance. Extension of suffrage has resulted
in wide distributions of responsibilities for initiating, testing,
and applying political policies, as well as for the selection
of legislative and executive agents to carry them into practice.
d. The functions of public education have heretofore been
excessively individualistic, rather than social. Schools have
been designed chiefly to aid individuals to succeed in life
rather than to help the state and other large social groupings
to succeed. It becomes now the obligation of society to
126 CIVIC. EDUCATION
extend and improve the social objectives of public education,
of which civic education toward political competency is
among the most important. The social science studies, as
well as other means to this end, should therefore receive
greatly increased emphasis. -
e. The materials for civic education are now better organ-
ized and more available than ever before. Even history
studies which, as heretofore taught, have probably func-
tioned in civic ideals or enlightenment only to a slight
extent (except possibly in the case of a few vigorous and
aspiring minds) are now in process of fundamental pedagogic
reorganization on a basis more calculated to give valuable
results in civic education. Economics, heretofore an abstract
and difficult body of knowledge, is being gradually given con-
Crete and simple forms suited at least to secondary schools.
Civil government, once essentially a study of political
anatomy, is also being developed into applied and case forms
of much concreteness and simplicity. It seems not improbable
that other social sciences, including sociology itself, will soon
be presented in forms suitable for use in school curricula.
f. A constantly increasing proportion of American chil-
dren attend school between the years of 12 and 18 — the
years of transition from childhood to adult estate, which
are peculiarly suited to the establishment of civic apprecia-
tions and ideals, the fixing of at least some important civic
habits and attitudes, and the communication of some salient
facts of civic knowledge and enlightenment. -
g. Finally, the number of students of college social sciences
who could easily qualify to teach these subjects in schools
increases constantly.
CONTEMPORARY ESTIMATES OF NEEDS
The aspirations and proposals thus summarized are found
scattered voluminously throughout the contemporary litera-
SOCIETY'S NEED OF CIVIC EDUCATION 127
ture of education. Unfortunately they are nearly all charac-
terized either by vagueness or by unscientific derivation. The
philosophical proposals are couched in very general terms.
The programs, courses, texts, and pedagogic instrumentali-
ties are apt to be opportunist, faddish, or too severely logical
for successful presentation under American school conditions.
Account must be taken of the many serious defects in
prevailing methods of estimating contemporary needs of
civic education. Chief in importance probably is the failure
to allow, in a sociological sense, for the educative effects
of non-school agencies on persons of favoring heredity and
good environment.
It is a commonplace that among the colonial settlers
of America were many very good citizens. The circumstances
preceding and following the American Revolution brought
to the front many excellent citizens, some of whom were
giants in their day. A large proportion of the men who
gave their efforts, and in many cases their lives, to save
the Union more than half a century ago were certainly
good citizens.
We often allude to farmers as being the backbone of
American citizenry. Well-led and patriotic groups of home-
conducting women, of artisans, of business men, of racial
or immigrant representatives everywhere attest to the vital
potentialities in American life of making out of some children
good citizens, quite without purposive civic education in
schools. In spite of our misgivings, we found that a large
proportion of the men and women called upon for service
in the Great War were sound not only in body, but in patri-
otic citizenry as well.
The sociological fact is, of course, that in any group of
adults, differentiated on any other than purely moral and
civic grounds, there will be found some exceptionally good,
some very bad, and many average citizens. No class or
128 CIVIC EDUCATION
other social group has now a monopoly either of civic virtue
or of civic vice, nor will it have after we shall have de-
veloped a thoroughgoing program of civic education through
the schools. Some very good citizens, made such by their
environment and a favoring heredity, will be found among
“owning farmers,” village handymen, domestic servants,
men high school teachers, unskilled negro laborers, women
very wealthy by inheritance, frontiersmen, recently immi-
grated Norwegians, bank presidents, half-nomadic tenant
farmers, college professors, and ministers. Bad citizens, too,
will be found in all these groups. s
THE USE OF THE CASE GROUP STUDY OF NEEDs
The social efficiency of a people in its political activities
is largely determined not by the fact that bad citizens are
found in all its component groups, but by their proportions
in various groups, and especially in those of greatest civic
influence. If large proportions of our ministers, owning
farmers, merchants, college-educated men, women of good
family extraction, skilled artisans, school teachers, and well-
educated negroes were venal, anarchistic, or insurrectionary
in their citizenship, then would our social state be bad
indeed. We can stand a few anarchists among recent immi-
grants or migratory manual laborers, and some grafters
in our political slums, so long as the more vital parts of
our social body are strong and healthy enough to resist
infection.
Hence, as stated elsewhere, the first step in the scientific
study of the need of better civic education requires that
we should evaluate citizenship as we now have it. The
superficial man, of course, forms judgments on individual
instances. Because a half-crazed vagrant assassinates Presi-
dent McKinley, the public schools are denounced. Because
an occasional immigrant acts the anarchist, all immigrants
SOCIETY'S NEED OF CIVIC EDUCATION 129
are blackened as citizens. Some negroes (often with more
white than black blood) sell their votes or support corrupt
leaders, and all negroes are condemned therefor.
We shall not be on sound ground here until we apply
statistical methods to our problems of civic need. The
method will not prove simple, although at every stage now
we should practice in making estimates, if we can school
ourselves to hold them always as tentative. For example,
there are over 25,000 men teachers in the high schools of
the United States. As a class or group what kind of citizens
are they? Do they stand high in the conformist virtues of
respectability, compliance with laws, good example? Do
they rank low in the virtues of civic initiative? Even in
their conformist virtues do they rank as high as society
has a right to expect from persons of their fortunate heredity,
educative environment, and social position?
Set against these the numerous young women from 18 to
25 years of age found in some Eastern manufacturing city.
Wherein do they show “prevailing” civic virtues? What
proportion probably “sell” their votes? What proportion
vote on the wrong side of important public questions?
What proportion break laws established for the protection
of property, the family, public order? What are reasonable
standards which society should expect them to reach in
virtues of civic initiative? What proportion fail to reach
these standards?
Other social groupings should be similarly studied. It
may prove most convenient at first to take these on a voca-
tional basis, since vocational preferences or compulsions are
often determined by factors of intelligence, family rearing,
general education, race, recency of immigration, and habitat.
But we must not differentiate on economic lines too ex-
clusively. We must sooner or later answer, with some par-
ticularization, such questions as these: (a) Are women
130 CIVIC EDUCATION
prevailingly worse or better citizens than men of the same
education? as respects what civic qualities? (b) Are negroes
in the Northern states better or worse citizens than whites
of the same ability, education, and economic opportunity?
(c) Do Italians or Hungarians give the larger proportion
of “good” conforming immigrant citizens under similar
environing conditions? (d) Are urban or rural dwellers the
better citizens at similar economic and educational levels?
(e) Do men of high native intelligence make proportionately
better citizens than the poorly endowed? (f) How do men
of strictly orthodox religious faiths compare with agnos-
tics of the same intelligence and environmental levels as
regards qualities of civic conformity? civic initiative?
AVOIDING EXCESSIVE ABSTRACTNESS
In view of the diversities here suggested, it would seem to
be an excess of simplification and abstractness to generalize
about “the citizen.” As well generalize about “the religious
man” without reference to creed or denomination, “the
immigrant” without reference to antecedent conditions, or
the “gainfully employed” with no further indication of status
or productivity. Citizenship, in the practical sociological
sense, is to be measured finally by standards of specific
performance; and that must vary greatly according to age,
sex, ability, educative environment, vocational pursuit, and
many other factors. The needs of civic education, as well
as effective contributions to it, and especially those “residual”
needs toward which contributions are possible from schools,
can be expected to vary hardly less.
There is a second very conspicuous weakness in current
discussions of the need of civic education. It appears when-
ever the abstract terms “the child” and “the pupil” are
used. It carries unavoidably the assumption that all chil-
dren are of equal “educability,” if the word may be per-
SOCIETY'S NEED OF CIVIC EDUCATION 131
mitted. Here the only road to sane evaluations is something
resembling the “case group” method of approach. A few
further examples will serve as illustrations.
A. In any urban elementary school can be found sub-
stantial proportions of boys of whom the following facts
are true enough for all practical purposes of providing school
curricula: They are over 12 years of age; they are from
one to four grades retarded; their inherent intelligence is
below average; they are well developed physically; their
home environment is crude; they show little interest or
ability in the more abstract studies; they are very social
among themselves, inclining toward “clan’’ standards of
loyalty and community sentiments; they have real interests
in manual work and team sports; the ambitions of them-
selves and their parents point not at all toward professional
or even commercial careers; they may be expected to become
manual workers, leaving school as soon as the law permits.
As adults most of these boys will be fair “conforming”
citizens; but they will develop few initiatory civic virtues;
and they will frankly disclaim ability to comprehend the
intricate questions so frequently arising for civic considera-
tion and decision.
B. Contrast with these a somewhat smaller proportion
of girls found in the same elementary schools; they are
from 10 to 14 years of age and are all in the seventh and
eighth grades; they are intellectually keen and ambitious;
they come from favoring home environments, and will
almost certainly finish high school, if not college or pro-
fessional school; they are especially able in abstract
studies, and somewhat disdainful of manual work; they and
their parents are very sensitive to public opinion, unwilling
to give excuse for criticism, and almost ultra-conformist
in their morality. Lofty civic ideals can easily be communi-
cated to these girls, though their civic performance in adult
132 CIVIC EDUCATION
years will often show less initiative than might be expected.
From the standpoint of their respective possibilities of
civic education these two case groups are manifestly no
less unlike than will be their respective contributions toward
civic life in their adult years. To the first group much of
the material contained in our textbooks of civics must
remain largely “Greek.” As adults they will, indeed, develop
their own sources and standards of civic action no less than
the other group, but on what a very different basis! In
face of these potential differences, how naïve and fruitless
seem many of our generalizations as to what should be done
with and for “the pupil,” “the child!”
THE DIRECTION OF SPECIALIST SERVICE
What are the respective responsibilities of the leadership
of expert service and of followership in the conduct of the
state and other “large group” social organizations? Failure
adequately to analyze the elements of this problem is the
third conspicuous defect in current aspirational discussions
of the need of civic education.
In the non-political affairs of life men take action, in
all those complicated situations toward which they are not
themselves specialists, only under the guidance of specialists.
Few of us are well qualified as physicians, bookkeepers,
watch repairers, preachers, teachers, or printers. Our needed
work in these and scores of other fields we “hire” done
for us. The optimum measure of education for us in these
fields probably consists in making us able to appreciate
and discover the right kind of service or service products.
In certain areas of political service the same principle
is now consciously applied. The citizens of well-governed
cities employ, directly or indirectly, expert or specialist
service to provide their water, keep their public service
accounts, police their streets, teach in their schools, advise
SOCIETY'S NEED OF CIVIC EDUCATION 133
them in legal difficulties, control their epidemics, and manage
their public hospitals. The citizens of the nation similarly
have specialists to direct their defense, develop public irriga-
tion systems, transact international business, administer
justice, coin money, and conduct the mail service.
But policies of municipal, provincial, or national action
must be passed upon by all citizens alike. Theoretically,
each man is expected to be a qualified judge in problems
of tariffs, treaties, issue of money, forest conservation,
public land disposal, military service, mail carriage, street
formation, treatment of delinquents, and public education.
Practically we know, of course, that comparatively few
citizens have ability, information, or time adequately to
consider intricate questions of public policy. Practically
they are usually guided by the opinions of others whom
in one sense or another they regard as leaders — editors,
party spokesmen, economists, or neighbors. .
Education for utilization. Thus we come to the proble
of the citizen as “utilizer” of expert service. It is obvious
that herein lie some of the most complex situations affecting
civic education, especially as that aims to promote the virtues
of civic initiative. In certain respects comparable problems
are found in medicine. Each adult should be educated to
live hygienically, but also, under many conditions, to submit
to expert service. No man can successfully decide for himself
for what specific purposes he needs a dentist, oculist, surgeon,
, or general diagnostician. But he must usually himself
decide when he shall seek expert service and to whom he
will go. Are we as yet successfully educating our youth
toward the adequate performance of these last functions?
In the fields of political and related activities analogous
forms of education must eventually be developed. The
large majority of citizens can no more be trained to assemble
data and to derive sound conclusions with reference to the
134 CIVIC EDUCATION
complicated economic, fiscal, justiciary, educational, sump-
tuary, and other social problems now increasingly falling
within the purview of government, than they can be trained
to provide their own dental, ocular, and surgical service
or to diagnose obscure diseases. Somehow citizens must be
so educated in civic matters that they will know when
and where to rely upon conclusions reached by themselves,
and under what circumstances to seek the guidance of
experts. Of special importance, of course, is any education
in appreciation and knowledge that will qualify them to select
and use the right experts. The following are sample problems:
a. It is known in the state of New York that a large
sum of money will be asked from the next legislature for
the forestation of a hilly tract of state land in a mountainous
part of the state. An enabling amendment to the state
constitution is to be voted upon at a general election. A
number of farmers in the Mohawk Valley want guidance
as to how to vote. They know little about problems or
results of artificial forestation, and they know the state
is now burdened by taxation. To whom shall they go for
information? State officials? The National Department of
Agriculture? Certain college professors? Editors? Public
school men? Hunters? Lumbermen and paper company
experts?
b. A strong effort is being made to impose high protective
tariffs on dyestuffs. These were almost exclusively made
in Germany before the war, but many factories were de-
veloped in the United States during the war. A group of
citizens wish to use the influence of their ballots and opinion
in promoting policies which shall be good for America and
fair to the rest of the world. By whose advice shall they
be guided? Editors? Technical experts in chemistry?
Chemical manufacturers? Textile manufacturers in America?
College professors of economics? Whom else?
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE OBJECTIVES OF CIVIC EDUCATION
MTETI IODS OF DETERMINATION
BEFORE effective programs of civic education can be
devised for given age levels and school conditions, it is
indispensable that we have clearly defined specific objec-
tives, so differentiated that it will prove easy to discover
experimentally at what age levels and by what methods
they can best be realized. As indicated elsewhere, these
objectives can best be derived from concrete studies of the
observed performances of social case groups in governmental
or other forms of collective action.
For the purpose of setting the problems of objectives
clearly before us let us assume: (a) that in all of the normal
adult social groups that will first be studied the majority
of members are at least fairly good citizens; (b) that through-
out all groups will be found some common civic defects
(hereafter called shortages of civic virtue) characteristic of
nearly all the members; and (c) that in each group will
be found shortages somewhat peculiar to that group.
Civic shortages. How shall these shortages be measured
or even accurately described? It must be remembered that
sociology has as yet devised few tests or measures of relative
social values. Nevertheless, as indicated in an earlier chapter,
it is certain that men have always followed the practice of
rating their fellows, individually and collectively, as to their
practice of civic and other virtues. We speak of men as
good or bad citizens, as patriotic or the reverse, as devoted
or niggardly in public service. The terms “grafter,”
“slacker,” “bribe-taker,” “profiteer,” “anarchist,” and
scores of others signifying social opprobrium are applied
to individuals; whilst the excessive prevalence of such indi-
135
136 CIVIC EDUCATION
viduals in a group gives rise to such phrases as “a politically
corrupt city,” “the prevalence of law-breaking,” “political
indifferentism,” “degraded citizenry,” “bureaucratic rule,”
and numberless others. -
In the absence of other means it is practicable to refine
upon and reduce to scientific procedure many of these
characterizations. For purposes of this chapter we may
employ the crude process, previously discussed, of consoli-
dating the evaluations of several judges representing different
fields of experience. Assume five men, one a professor of
political science, one a state legislator of long experience,
one a Superior Court judge, one an artisan, and one a
merchant, asked to study the practices of citizenship found
in certain designated groups.
In trying to determine the prevalent civic “shortages’
of various groups these men might use as standards of
comparison (a) past practices in similar groups, (b) con-
temporary practices in comparable groups, or (c) demon-
strably practicable ideals or standards now held by the
well informed. -
For example, take venality in voting among small farmers.
In a given situation in State X, is venality more common
there than it is among similar people in State YP Is it
demonstrable that such venality is far more excessive than
it would be if suitable special civic education and super-
vision were provided? Similar comparisons could be insti-
tuted as to: war-time “slacking”; corruption in public work;
inefficient legislation; support of education; prevalence of
needed forms of coöperation; and scores of other more or
less prevalent civic shortages.
3 3 & 4
3.
DETERMINATION OF “CIVIC SHORTAGES.”
Only provisional inferences can now be made as to the
prevailing shortages upon which the jury would agree at
OBJECTIVES OF CIVIC EDUCATION 137
this time. We can, however, readily imagine their report
taking this form: -
a. Among the citizens of all the groups studied there is
found less of some specific forms of political idealism than
is found in certain other republics (e.g., Switzerland). It
is practically certain that such forms of idealism could be
produced by civic education under aims and methods now
clearly defined. These forms of idealism include, specifically,
those relating respectively to (1) the help of lay citizens in
reducing crime, (2) the speedy and inexpensive rendering
of justice, (3) general exercise of suffrage, and (4) harsh and
unfair criticisms of public officials.
Against these shortages might be noted recent advances
in ideals and practices relative to: (1) the efficient perform-
ance of that public work which readily lends itself to simple
engineering standards, as water supply and road construction;
(2) theft of public funds; (3) patriotic service under pressure of
war; and (4) character of men selected for executive offices.
b. Among the citizens of all groups is found unnecessarily
poor scientific understanding of those economic facts and
principles that now largely give rise to political action —
unnecessarily poor, that is, in view of present simplification
of economic science and of the multiplied attendance now
found in secondary schools and colleges, where it is demon-
strably practicable to teach these subjects effectively.
c. Unpaid political service must always be expected
chiefly from the citizens who have had the advantages of
secondary and collegiate schooling. But comparison with
former eras or certain other countries shows a serious preva-
lence in America of unwillingness on the part of the best-
educated groups to take responsibilities of unpaid office.
It is believed that the provision in secondary schools and
colleges of special teaching service and courses can in a
measure produce improvements here.
138 CIVIC EDUCATION
d. International relationships become yearly more in-
tricate and more vital to the public welfare. But here again
only men of considerable education are in a position to
possess the necessary information for sound judgments.
Others of less education must be largely influenced by their
judgments. But it appears that men of secondary and
higher education fall lower both in comprehension of inter-
national matters and in disposition to promote international
harmonies than is desirable and probably feasible if some-
thing more of time and effort were given to these ends in
secondary schools and colleges.
e. Among artisan workers it is found that certain eco-
nomic doctrines are held which are unsupported by scientific
evidence. For example, they hold that “labor is the only
source of wealth,” meaning that in corporation production
the factors of capital (seeking interest) and organization
and risk-taking (seeking profits) are not directly productive
and therefore are unessential. They also fail to distinguish
between money as currency (measure of exchange values)
and money as wealth (especially capital), thus giving rise
to much confusion in political discussion and action.
The jury is of the belief that it is practicable and very
desirable to provide, perhaps in lieu of the nonessential
arithmetic now taught in junior high schools, a simplified
economics especially designed to promote the formation of
sound conceptions in these clearly defined fields.
f. The owning farmers of the North Mississippi Valley
states are in general good citizens. But by admissions of
their own best-informed members their most pronounced
general civic defect at present is a failure to enter into
those forms of public and voluntary coöperation which
modern economic conditions seem to necessitate, such as
road building, coöperative buying and selling, the joint
ownership of expensive and occasionally used tools, and
OBJECTIVES OF CIVIC EDUCATION 139
community provision of facilities for diversion and recrea-
tion. -
It is believed that provision of a variety of very simple
and concrete readings in rural Schools, such readings to be
promoted by teachers in the homes as well as in the schools,
would largely correct these defects in the next generation.
Many other general and special case situations could thus
be studied by expert committees. Tendencies to be con-
stantly guarded against are, obviously: (1) to pursue vague
Utopian ideals of social well-being; (2) to fail to take account
of positive and valuable qualities now found; (3) to judge
a class or social group by its worst members; (4) to propose
objectives, the practicability of which is still very question-
able. But it is clear that the method of social inquiry here
proposed would gradually produce for school use a variety
of concrete and feasible objectives toward realizing which
through didactic instruction, development readings, service
projects, and the like definite experimental work could be
undertaken.
CIVIC SHORTAGES IN SOCIAL CLASSES
The objectives of civic education might be sought from
another direction. What are some of the specific weaknesses
— diseases or defects, if we like — of our social life? Upon
whom — class or group — in the first instance does responsi-
bility for these rest? Can these defects be corrected in the
next generation?
Sharp distinctions must, of course, be made between those
alleged defects or social shortages which are only believed
to be such by certain experts or enthusiasts, and those
others as to which there is general agreement. For example,
some persons greatly favor public measures to conserve or
increase wild game. But the value of wild game to society
is still far from clear, except in a few specific respects. A
140 CIVIC EDUCATION
party forms to protect from private exploitation certain
forests or waterfalls. But it may still be very uncertain as
to whether the aesthetic values of these in the natural state
outweigh the values that would accrue from their practical
utilization. Hundreds of problems of public policy as to
parks, water supply, specialized forms of education, public
control of utilities, immigration, finance, control of com-
merce, and the like must remain for years perhaps in the
limbo of “party” discussion and propaganda, participation
in which on the part of schools may have to be very greatly
limited.
We need the development of methods by which a large
variety of generally agreed-upon social valuations can be
given concrete interpretation in such definite forms that
defects or shortages can be traced to the social groups
most responsible. For example: • ,
a. It is desirable that all qualified citizens should vote
in elections.
(1) Only a small proportion of the citizens of Community
A vote. It is found that the causes are political apathy. Pro-
cedures for correction necessary in the next generation should
take what form?
(2) In Community B a few men and many women vote.
Causes? Proposed corrections?
(3) Traveling men and others away from home cannot
vote. Remedies to be found in other than educational
means?
b. It is desirable that country villages should be physically
and morally “clean.” First, very clear definition of practical
and “sane” standards is necessary. Then, in terms of these
standards:
(1) Villages A and B are needlessly below par. Are edu-
cational objectives in schools practicable for corrective pur-
poses?
OBJECTIVES OF CIVIC EDUCATION 141
. c. It is desirable that all urban and village communities
should have pure water supplied by public or private cor-
poration. Standards need definition, and these judged as
practical under various topographic and drainage conditions.
(1) The provision of pure water in large cities is now
so largely a direct engineering enterprise, and standards of
demand on part of the public are so well established, that
no vital educational problem for city schools is found here.
(2) Rural villages in flat regions frequently still have
very defective water supplies. Means of correcting these
defects are well known. Specific civic educational objectives
can readily be devised.
d. In time of actual or threatened war against our country,
certain new attitudes and activities are very much needed.
Concrete definitions are needed of areas of freedom of criti-
cism of officials; spending on luxuries; submission to govern-
ment orders; volunteer service, etc.
(1) Group A (defined) has had in America no opportunity
to acquire right ideals or ideas in this field. What educa-
tional objectives are suggested? What for Group B, which
is chiefly old American stock?
e. (Hundreds of other similar devices of diagnostic analy-
sis can be readily provided.)
How TEACH PRINCIPLEs?
A caution is necessary at this point. There will be those
to urge that the objectives of civic education must be for-
mulated largely in terms of principles, and that the first
aim of the schools shall be to teach these principles. This
brings us to one of the worst forms of poms asimorum over
which educators stumble. Dearly loved by the pedantic
mind is the teaching of “principles.” For centuries we have
been attempting it in mathematics, philosophy, and classic
literatures, and for many decades at least in natural sciences,
142 CIVIC EDUCATION
graphic art, and the social sciences, including ethics. But
educators who rely heavily upon the teachings of principles
find themselves always more or less defeated in their efforts.
Different mental types. It seems very probable that cur-
rent psychology still interprets this field of pedagogy inade-
quately and badly. It may be, for example, that certain
types of mind, perhaps certain grades of intellectual ability,
acquire vital and enduring comprehensions of principles
from the study of a few vivid cases or examples; whilst
other types of mind can build them only laboriously from
wide ranges of concrete experience. It may be that under
some conditions of “learning interest” or “will to learn,”
where, perhaps, emotions are heavily involved, or instinctive
learning appealed to, or authority brings pressure to bear,
a very few experiences or cases will suffice to give effective
mastery of principles, whereas under other conditions num-
berless instances may result in only verbal and largely
unusable mastery.
In view of the well-known futility of much contemporary
teaching of grammar, social science, natural science, mathe-
matics, and fine art, where important goals are the early
mastery of principles, teachers of the civic subjects would
be well advised if they would develop, as freely as circum-
stances permit, inductive methods of approach, involving
abundant use of case instances and concrete problems.
ADAPTATIONS OF OBJECTIVES TO GROUPS OF LEARNERS
As stated above, the large determining objectives of civic,
as of other forms of education, must be sought in the firs
instance from a study of social needs, especially as these
manifest themselves among adults. But these objectives
cannot be made the bases of school programs until they
shall have been selected and adapted to the educational
possibilities of various levels or other groupings of learners.
OBJECTIVES OF CIVIC EDUCATION 143
Some phases of civic education can probably be well begun
in the kindergarten, whilst others are appropriate only in
the later grades of the liberal arts college. The junior high
school offers excellent opportunities for some kinds of civic
training, whilst bright pupils from 16 to 18 years of age
ought to prove readily responsive to methods of “problem
solving” in economic and other similar fields. Very probably
we shall find that it is quite futile to try to impart certain
kinds of civic knowledge to children of sub-average intelli-
gence between the ages of 12 and 15, whereas for those
of relatively high intelligence much can be done in guiding
insight into fairly complex problems. On the basis of present
experience it seems fairly probable:
a. That in children of ages 4 to 9 can be developed many
varieties and substantial depths of civic appreciation and
idealism by means of festivals, patriotic songs, flag saluting,
lives of noteworthy men, women, and even children, stories
of adventure, etc. Properly devised commemorative festi-
vals, readings, music, excursions, all being of the develop-
mental class of objectives, can be made to render excellent
service.
b. That very concrete forms of community civics — ex-
perience getting and interpreting — can be profitably studied
by children from 9 to 12 years of age. During these years
processes of developing civic appreciations and ideals can
be further developed. -
c. That the years from 12 to 15 seem especially valuable
for the varieties of activity developed under scouting.
Probably they are very suitable, too, for the production
of civic idealism, through reading of the materials of history
and study of simple concrete problems of economics, espe-
cially those having visible projections into their environment.
These are the years of the junior high school. The
tendency in this school, it can hardly be doubted, will be
144 CIVIC EDUCATION
in the direction of increasing flexibility, and adaptation of
studies to different grades of ability and prospects. It will
certainly prove possible at this level to provide certain
fairly complex units of study in economics, political and
other civic problems for pupils of super-average intelligence;
whilst for pupils of sub-average intelligence somewhat similar
purposes may have to be realized through concrete “experi-
ence giving” — via the project method.
EINDS OF OBJECTIVES OF CIVIC EDUCATION
For many purposes it will prove advantageous to divide
the objectives of civic education into two fundamental
classes: (a) the developmental and (b) the projective, or the
“beta-alpha” classification used in educational sociology.
During their school lives children are steadily growing
into civic appreciations, knowledge, habits, ideals. Schools
can recognize, and in a measure guide, retard, accelerate,
or otherwise modify these growth processes according to
desire. They can provide new nurtural materials for such
growth through story, reading, school-initiated activity,
school controls. Under many of the objectives suggested
later in this book it must be remembered that children
will achieve some kinds of valuable results whether the
School takes part or not.
For example, all growing youths learn from their environ-
ment to admire heroic personages (heroic by the standards
of whatever social influences the learners are subject to),
to “believe in ’’ certain public policies, to distrust certain
social agencies, to hope for certain types of social action,
etc. In many cases these appreciations, attitudes, beliefs,
forms of knowledge, and the like will be “small-group cen-
tered,” unpatriotic, tribal, or otherwise wrong. The function
of the school, therefore, is to substitute sound (and, in
some instances, corrective) means of social development.
OBJECTIVES OF CIVIC EDUCATION 145
Some of these developmental objectives therefore may be
of this character: -
a. Wholesome forms of “hero-appreciation.”
b. Wholesome appreciations of our social accomplish-
ments, such as (1) liberty, (2) abolition of slavery, (3) trial
by jury, (4) peace, and (5) republican institutions.
c. Wholesome appreciations of founders, men who have
contributed to the building of our present structures such
as (1) pioneers, (2) warriors, (3) inventors, and (4) reformers.
CHAPTER NINE
EDUCATION FOR DEMOCRACY
AMERICAN government has from its colonial beginnings
rested increasingly on bases of politically democratic aspira-
tions and ideals. A large proportion of Americans have
consciously sought to conserve and even to extend the social
democracy arising spontaneously from the primitive con-
ditions of frontier settlement. At least some forms of reli-
gious democracy have also been deliberately fostered. There
finally arises keen interest in so-called industrial democracy.
A sound system of civic education will, in America,
naturally aim to promote the aspirations and practices of
political democracy. A good system of social education will
also do what is practicable under present stages of social
evolution to prepare the young to contribute to, and par-
ticipate in, the various other forms of democracy.
Theories. Of the making of books on democracy there
has been no end. Many phases of the subject are still
philosophically and sociologically obscure. To the practical
man it appears that not a few of the ideals of democracy
are hopelessly at variance with the realities of mundane life.
Hence no matter how complete any system of social educa-
tion may be, there will remain numberless problems of
democracy which are still so speculative that only the few
keenest minds can hope to attack them profitably.
For educational purposes, therefore, it is necessary that
the conditions, faiths, facts, and uncertainties regarding
democracy be given detailed analysis and arranged in some
rough order of authoritative approval and acceptance. If
substantial agreement of those who must finally dictate
educational policies can be had as to certain general prin-
ciples, then these can in proper season be made the basis
of the selection of concrete objectives of instruction. The
146
EDUCATION FOR DEMOCRACY . I47
following sociological analysis is submitted as such a basis
for proposed specific courses of instruction, training, and
practice of social education in so far as that bears on the
increase and conservation of democracy.
SOCIOLOGICAL CONDITIONS OF DEMOCRACY
Differences among men. By some standards of compari-
son the members of genus homo are very much alike and
by other standards they differ much among themselves.
No two normal human beings differ so much in bodily
structure from each other in their maturity as each does
from a horse or an eagle. The differences between a Bantu
and an Englishman as regards speech powers are less great
than the differences between each and an ape or a buffalo.
The poorest normal Digger Indian has mental powers,
aesthetic appreciations, and a stock of customs which bring
him much closer to the professional engineer than the
possessions of the chimpanzee bring him to the Digger.
When, therefore, we discuss human inequalities or differ-
ences it is important to remember that these, while of very
great momentousness by human standards, are of less
weight by ordinary biological standards of measurement.
Varieties in homogeneity. Among the members compos-
ing any social group we find many resemblances and many
differences. Certain groups are deliberately formed of
persons very much alike in some respects — football teams,
political parties, worshiping groups. In others certain
elements of heterogeneity are a necessary condition — the
family, an industrial corporation, a village.
But in all natural groups numerous and often great in-
equalities are found. Some of these — due to age, sex, hered-
itary qualities, habitat — are said to derive from natural
conditions; whilst others are traceable principally to human
agencies.
148 CIVIC EDUCATION
a. The young usually possess physical, mental, and social
powers inferior to the mature. Normally, therefore, the
young are subordinate, and liable to possible abuse, ex-
ploitation, suppression. The very aged, also, become inferior
to the middle-aged in physical, mental, and other powers.
b. Women are natively inferior to men of the same ages,
during mature years, in physical strength, mobility, and the
mental qualities associated with aggression against animals
and hostile men. Women probably surpass men in social
qualities of sympathy, aesthetic response, and ready sub-
ordination to minute routine work. Cultures intimately
rooted in conditions of war and hunting give aggressive
men endless opportunities to subjugate, oppress, overwork,
and repress women, which disabilities are only slowly re-
moved, as such cultures shake off war influences.
NATURE’s LIMITATIONS
c. The earth's surface only in portions offers optimum
material environment for means of development. Climates
can be too cold or too warm, too dry or too humid,
too variable or too uniform to give maximum development
of the individual, even apart from conditions of dietetic
nurture or shelter. The frigid zones, the lowlands of the
torrid zone, the deserts, the regions of heavy persistent
rainfall, a Siberia where barometric variability is slight —
these seem to develop man poorly, as contrasted with those
sections of the temperate zones where cold and heat, not
extreme, rapidly alternate, and where dry days and humid
days rapidly succeed each other. In lesser degree, topo-
graphical conditions seem to affect development. It has,
for example, long been believed that, under primitive con-
ditions, mountain, seashore, and desert folk are more rugged,
enduring, and mobile than plainsmen. (But these conclu-
sions need further examination of occupational concomi-
EDUCATION FOR DEMOCRACY 149
tants.) Of more importance to modern social development
(of large numbers and of differentiated occupations) is the
fact that natural resources of food and tools are distributed
very unevenly. Only four regions seem to possess the com-
bined stores of coal and iron necessary for modern war
or industrial development. Only limited areas can now
produce on the gigantic scales required by civilized society
wheat, meat, cotton, rubber, oil, copper, rice, sisal.
Historically, peoples of favored regions have been able,
by virtue of superior qualities of their individual members,
superior numbers, or superior organization, to dominate
(with resulting extermination, enslavement, and oppression
– economic, political, religious, cultural) peoples of adverse
environment. Some of the profounder problems of democ-
racy today involve correction of these oppressions.
d. Racial differences. Probably many generations of
natural and eugenic selection under differing environments
produce finally inherent or racial superiorities and inferiori-
ties which no cultural agencies can now offset. It is certain
that Chinese and Japanese are of less stature than Western
Europeans and that the skull size of certain tropical groups
is small. . It may or may not be true that Ainus, Dravidians,
Maoris, Diggers, and Bushmen represent inferior stocks
when contrasted with Manchus, Sikhs, Sioux, Kaffirs. Many
thinkers believe that Goth, Teuton, and Norman represent
a Nordic race superior in most essentials to the Negro or
American Indian races. But the harmonizing of the apparent
inequalities of these racial groups certainly presents prac-
tical problems for future world-statesmanship.
e. Family variabilities. Within every family persons of
the same apparent heredity are born with widely varying
qualities — brothers differ as respects physical size, strength,
mental abilities, aesthetic appreciations, social plasticities,
dominance of sensual instincts, etc. Similarly, within com-
150 CIVIC EDUCATION
munities of substantially similar stocks, individuals appear
of all grades of native superiority and inferiority. Army
and other intelligence tests seem confirmatory of this con-
clusion.
f. A neighborhood group often shows a condition under
which superior heredity tends to repeat in the same family
group, and especially when favored by selective mating,
thus giving local (as against conquering) aristocracies. The
aggrandizing tendencies of these lead to need of social re-
straints in the interest of the weaker.
g. Variations in factors of social heredity — stored wealth,
possession of strategic vocations, superior education — tend
similarly, even apart from advantages of native heredity,
to accumulate and be transmitted in certain family, caste,
or other local groups, thus again eventually necessitating
collective interference in interests of social justice.
h. Such collective correction becomes especially necessary
when variations in respect to native or social inheritance
tend to crystallize into institutional forms — hereditary
rulers, priesthoods, crafts, landowners, traders; or, in effect,
to become monopolies of certain kinds of learning, culture,
sumptuary right, economic direction, etc.
WHAT IS OLIGARCHY?
The numberless inequalities among human beings have
always given rise to certain opposed tendencies which will
here be contrasted as the “oligarchic.” and the “democratic.”
“To him that has shall be given; while from him that
has not shall be taken away even that which he has,” is
the text of oligarchy, as it is often, indeed, that of nature,
where not offset by coöperative or other socially protective
instincts. Social groups have advanced and enlarged partly
by curbing, training, organizing, governing, and working
individuals or subordinated groups of individuals. That
EDUCATION FOR DEMOCRACY 15]
inclusive collective group now called “the state” claims, of
course, very extensive rights here, justified partly on the
ground that it has the sanction of the majority, the “safety
of the republic being the supreme law.” Any tendency in
group activity to give to the mature, the strong, the learned,
the highly ranked, the masculine (or feminine), the wealth-
holding, or the naturally able, large powers of control,
direction, sumptuary advantage, and the like can be regarded
as oligarchic (without, of course, now raising the question
as to whether in the long run the kinds and degrees of
superordination thus established are good or evil). Simi-
larly any tendency to subordinate an individual or a subject
group because of inferiorities of strength, intelligence, co-
operativeness, productivity, and the like will be called
oligarchic. In a strictly social sense, the term can best be
restricted to man-made conditions, accentuating or prolong-
ing inequalities deriving from natural causes.
what Is DEMOCRACY?
The term “democracy” is used to include all tendencies
on the part of man to compensate for the inequalities im-
posed by nature as well as, of course, the correction of
those due to human action. Within any group systematic
effort can be made through individuals or collective action
to assist, liberate, upbuild, and exalt inferior or subordinated
individuals or sub-groups. In recent decades it has come
to be strongly held as a faith that “more democracy” is
not only a social “good” for individuals, but a necessary
means to “larger group efficiency” — that is, “in the long
run.” -
We can assume that the “greatest good of the greatest
number” is the final justification of democracy, and deter-
mines its desirable limits, subject, possibly, to corrections:
(a) from certain Christian tenets that each human soul
&
152 CIVIC EDUCATION
is infinitely precious and that earthly inequalities are wholly
negligible as against heaven-destined perfections; and (b)
certain philosophic tenets that the “individual” is primarily
an “end” in himself rather than a “means” to society
or to the collective good of many other individuals.
Oligarchy and democracy have been designated “social
tendencies.” But the “values” of these tendencies, now
held in part as instincts and partly as faiths, must ultimately
be determined from whatever scientific sources shall give
us standards of other social values. All social groups require
something of oligarchy – and they can easily get too much;
and they all require something of democracy — and perhaps
of it also they can get too much. In their present stages
of evolution most societies move steadily toward certain
kinds of democracy — at least, democracy in certain func-
tions — and perhaps they move away from it as respects
others. They can best be understood from the analysis of
specific social situations.
The struggle between group and individual is, of course,
ancient and inherent. It is always possible for the indi-
vidual — child, soldier, employee – to foster his own in-
terests at the expense of the group – at least what he for
the moment conceives to be his interests of pleasure, survival,
liberty, wealth. The selfish member of the family, the
grasping partner, the shirking employee, the craven soldier,
the venal voter, the idler, and the monopolist are always
doing this.
On the other hand it is no less common for the group
unduly to coerce, overwork, mentally cramp, suppress, or
otherwise subjugate the individual. Families, clans, churches,
armies, autocracies, labor unions, industrial organizations,
and even the state have done this repeatedly. Especially
have they done it through oligarchical agencies or mob
control, to children, women, conquered peoples, aliens, the
EDUCATION FOR DEMOCRACY 153
unintelligent, the unorganized, the poor, the unaggressive,
and the like.
SOCIAL REPRESSIONS
Undemocratic repression of individuals handicapped by
natural inferiorities may, under primitive or simple social
conditions, be somewhat offset by:
a. Instinctive and custom-bred sympathies of parents and
other elders for youngers, leading to protection, education,
encouragement of individual development.
b. Filial and community sympathies with aged, sick, and
otherwise incapacitated.
c. Women’s abilities to win affection, to enlist chivalry,
and sometimes to inspire fear, from men, especially in
domestic and vocational fields in which man does not habit-
ually operate. -
d. “Protected harbor” occupations, evolved by subdi-
vision of labor, into which individuals of inferior gifts fit
quite comfortably.
e. The conjoining of leadership of the strong with fol-
lowership of the weak in bands, companies, gangs, and
unions, thus insuring, especially to the weak, the maximum
of possible opportunity for self-realization.
f. Defensive unions developed by the inferior, in which
numbers and organization produce offensive powers sufficient
to insure some independence.
g. The retreat of the weak to environments — mountain,
island, desert, slum — where competition with the strong
is less pressing.
Collective social efficiency. But, in advanced stages of
social evolution, possibilities of exploitation of weak indi-
viduals, weak groups, or weak stocks become great; while
needs of “large group” social efficiency, as well as altruistic
pursuit of “ideals of justice,” progressively increase demands
for removal of “man-imposed” repressions of the weak, as
154 CIVIC EDUCATION
well as reasonable mitigation of nature-imposed inferiorities.
To these ends are addressed: (a) concerted efforts of self-
protecting organizations of the oppressed; (b) efforts of
philanthropic bodies (including religious and voluntary
political) on behalf of others than themselves (and perhaps
using education, political action, and force); and eventually
(c) the efforts of the state itself, led thereto by its persuaded
rulers or ruling majority. A thousand hard-won achieve-
ments, contemporary “movements,” and slowly crystallizing
social ideals of this character may all be generalized as
“modern” democracy. Some examples are: -
a. Parental interests and unorganized social sympathies
with childhood do not always suffice to insure the “fair
start in life” which democratic idealism aspires to. The
orphan, the child born out of wedlock, the child prematurely
forced to work away from home, and the child deprived of
opportunities for education or religious communion — these
have first claimed concerted effort, which now manifests
itself in scores of specific demands and collective movements.
Present problems include: legitimation of the “illegitimate”;
proper rearing of orphans; proper limits to “child labor.”
legislation; state protection of motherhood; vocational
guidance and training; health Supervision; eugenic super-
vision of rights of parenthood, etc.
b. The “disabilities of women” incorporated into law,
religious custom, and subdivision of economic labor have
been in process of gradual removal for centuries, but the
end is not yet. Current movements for franchise; for voca-
tional “equality”; for equal control, within the family
group, of property, offspring, place of habitation, and rights
of worship; and for other forms of “independence,” are of
poignant interest, partly because in some cases essential
social foundations may be in process of being undermined
faster than new supports are building.
EDUCATION FOR DEMOCRACY 155
c. Wested inequalities of various kinds have been measur-
ably corrected by modern movements for political democ-
racy, originating in revolts of “guild” cities, “protesting”
religious denominations, seceding colonies, and unenfran-
chised majorities. Achievements can betraced in: impairment
of hereditary nobilities; spread of constitutional govern-
ment; government through elected representatives; exten-
sion of suffrage; equalization of taxation; protection of
freedom of speech and press; development of public educa-
tion; and numberless modifications of these in abolition of
slavery, freedom of migration, secrecy of voting, etc.
Problems appear as to: alien citizenship; procuring gov-
ernmental “efficiency” under the “many bosses” of demo-
cratic control; dangers of “mass” control by those of in-
ferior political experience, knowledge, or, possibly, potential
abilities – negro caste, Soviet of manual laborers, warrens
of city, a special religious group; how to “educate” indi-
viduals for social efficiency.
Aspirations for more political democracy within modern
nations are now chiefly confined to unenfranchised adults,
repressed racial groups (negroes, “submerged nationalities”),
repressed geographic groups (cities wanting home rule,
Rhode Island's opposition to Constitution), and victims of
political machinery, “bosses,” or bureaucracies.
SOCIAL DEMOCRACY
d. Under “social democracy” we can include aspirations,
programs, and achievements for correction or mitigation
of disabilities, due to nature or social art, on consumption,
intermarriage, Sociability, culture, migration, worship, etc.
Formerly, as outcomes of totemic, religious, caste, and
the other restrictions of social control, many restraints
were imposed on consumption, and especially on decoration.
Some food taboos are yet imposed by churches, and dress
156 CIVIC EDUCATION
of sexes is still forcibly differentiated. But where political
democracy prevails other sumptuary restraints on the in-
dividual have dwindled to conventional forms (coats for
men, decorative uniform for soldiers, etc.).
Intermarriage of white and black castes is now legally
prohibited in many states. Strong conventionalities restrain
freedom of marriage between individuals of unlike economic,
ancestral, or religious connections. But freedom of divorce
operates to give relative independence to women, with
balance of harm probably for children.
Exclusive groups. In fellowship, convivial and some cul-
tural groups making of sociability a large purpose, a maxi-
mum of democracy tends to prevail within groups “elected”
to be homogeneous; accompanied by markedly exclusive,
“undemocratic” attitudes toward the “non-elect.” Note
examples in cliques, gangs, “sets,” social clubs, fraternities,
“secret societies,” grades of hotels, Pullman cars, residence
districts, occupational levels, cultural levels. But commer-
cialization of amusements (photo-drama, restaurant, dance
hall, excursion, resorts, etc.) and transportation (street cars,
local trains, and local ships having no “classes”) as well
as public provision of social facilities — streets, parks, public
lectures, public libraries, museums — all weaken or remove
barriers to “democratic” association.
But free association or sociability is now governed largely
by sumptuary and other caste-like cleavages. “Sets” or
“classes” restrict to those able to dress, maintain, recreate,
and educate themselves on similar planes. Manners, con-
ventions, mutual interests, thus become stratified in society,
each plane relatively insulated from those above and below.
Of only somewhat less vitality in preventing “sociability”
democracy are racial, religious, and occupational distinctions.
Formerly “culture classes” held apart, especially the
“erudite” and the unlettered. Latin and Greek were once
EDUCATION FOR DEMOCRACY I57
3.
prized because they denoted “gentle rearing.” Now these
distinctions tend to disappear as modern education becomes
general, but similar distinctions attach to “club” groupings
for sociability purposes. -
Formerly collective action greatly impeded freedom of
migration and residence. Surviving restrictions rest largely
on grounds of political expediency, and are directed chiefly
against immigration, property holding, and trade (cf. immi-
gration of Hindus to Canada, Australia, South Africa; of
Chinese, Japanese, polygamists, and avowed anarchists to
the United States; of low-class English labor to Canada,
etc.).
Formerly religions were variously exclusive. Some held
no salvation for women, low castes, peoples not chosen by
God. But the world faiths have been strongly propagan-
distic, inclusive, and even destructive of undemocratic barriers
resting on other grounds (primitive Christianity, Quakerism,
Unitarianism, Roman Catholicism). Caste (blacks vs.
whites) affects some churches in America; while economic
differences are alleged to debar the “poor” from others.
Except in the case of color barriers to free intermarriage,
existing limitations on “social democracy” seem to inhere
more fundamentally in economic differentiations (productive
powers, possessions, consuming powers, standards of living)
than in race, religion, or ancestral family, since economic
equalization, after a period of adjustment, seems to remove
barriers more certainly than other changes. Probably this
& © "
affects contemporary interest in “industrial democracy.”
INDUSTRIAL DEMOCRACY
e. Under the term “industrial democracy” should be
considered many of the most vital aspirations of the present
age. These are probably inevitable effects of recent rapid
economic developments, transformations of productive
I58 CIVIC EDUCATION
processes, multiplications of populations, rising standards
of living, curtailment of natural resources, etc.
Native inequalities of productive ability – due to age,
sex, physical strength and dexterity, endurance, mental
powers, self-control, avid appetites — combine everywhere
with socially produced inequalities —- birth in poor regions
and of poor parents or in poor times, acquired ill-health,
deprivation of suitable education, accidental entrance upon
a badly developed or declining economic “lead” — to give
numberless and very wide economic inequalities between
regional classes, classes derived from different economic
levels, and classes affected by different stages or types of
economic evolution; and still wider inequalities among indi-
viduals. Political democracy, general education, and free-
dom of migration tend to mitigate these inequalities, but
probably not to the same extent that these influences gener-
ally raise standards of living, which are always the torturing
provocatives of economic demand. Communism (of owner-
ship and for consumption) becomes one end of economic
democracy (an end realized in the family, the pioneering
company or industrial crew, and many primitive religious
communities, but with no enduring examples among com-
plex, advanced peoples). Copartnership, profit-and-loss
sharing, guild control, state operation (with no “profits”),
and coöperative exchange, are current experiments toward
other kinds of economic democracy.
STRIVINGS FOR MORE DEMOCRACY
Efforts to realize ideals of democracy as factors in social
efficiency give rise to many problems of conflicting social
forces. Where life is primitive, scattered, unorganized, there
are few problems of democracy, since (a) man collectively
has few means of removing nature-imposed disabilities on
the individual, and (b) collectively he has had reason to
EDUCATION FOR DEMOCRACY 1.59
impose only a few of his own that are not essential to small
group survival.
But as men multiply, organize, and expand the social
inheritance, their powers of helping various kinds and classes
of individuals to fuller lives, in spite of natural limitations,
increase; and the possibilities of more carefully adjusting
the yokes of social control and economic control, and of so
increasing justice as to preserve the social effectiveness of
the individual, and at the same time give him the maximum
of individual freedom, always exist. For Great Britain,
France, and America the most pressing current problems
seem to be those of democratizing all those social agencies
in which elaborateness of mechanism oppresses, or seems
to oppress, the individual or sub-group.
Evolution of democracy. Everywhere the radicals strive
for more democracy of some variety (sometimes organizing
their strivings in very undemocratic ways) and in propaganda
they ignore or depreciate social achievements under methods
they would correct or supplant. Everywhere the conserva-
tives strive against hasty or far-reaching action, fearing to
lose in revolution, present gains — fearing especially, of
course, on behalf of themselves and those nearest them.
The mills of the gods meantime grind on and nature ulti-
mately gives the final verdict. Note some of the problems:
a. Political democracy, having achieved general suffrage
and removed disability to office holding, finds endless diffi-
culties in the complexities of the problems it faces. Officials
will not act as majority superficially think they should,
hence corrections sought in recall, initiative and referendum,
Soviet (economic class) representation, simplification of
constitutional amendment, the short ballot, etc. Hence
popular opposition to appointment of officials to indefinite
tenure, and other conditions provocative of bureaucracy.
b. Freedom of access of women to all wage-earning
160 CIVIC EDUCATION
employments has been won, but ultimate effects of this
on normal family life still constitute problems.
c. Production organized on corporation basis creates
extensive regimentation of workers. Initiative lies chiefly
with those factors who own, or can command, capital
wherewith to procure means of production — land, mines,
patents, machines, raw materials, franchises, technical
knowledge. In corporation production — best exemplified in
railroads, factories, banks, steamships, mines, some tropical
farming — areas of individual initiative are lessened for
rank and file, and intensified for specialists, as is military
initiative for soldiers and officers in the army camp. Hence
eventually collective dissatisfaction, unionization for self-
protection, and emergence of vague but insistent demands
for “industrial democracy.” Can a large army be demo-
cratic and efficient? Can the crew effectively dictate or
share in determining the course of a steamer? To what
extent can workers determine policies of a large factory?
Who shall take the initiative in development, e.g., in plan-
ning new railways or opening new mines? (But note impor-
tance of distinctions between powers to discover courses of
action, and capacities to discriminate among courses de-
vised by specialists, as basis for democratic control.)
EDUCATION AS A MEANS TO DEMOCRACY
The foregoing analysis of the essential factors and prob-
lems of democracy suggests that some of these may be
now made the objectives of specialized forms of social edu-
cation. With respect to others, the educator may have
to wait for the social economist to discover valid orienta-
tions and concrete objectives for collective action.
The most obvious and insistent fact in the recent evolution
of democracy has been the exaltation of the individual —
with emphasis, naturally, first on those whose natural or
EDUCATION FOR DEMOCRACY 161
man-made disabilities were pronounced. Religious propa-
ganda — Christianity with its high valuation of the indi-
vidual soul, irrespective of externals, as well as Buddhism
and Confucianism; political revolution — for liberty, for
equality, for fraternity, for socialism, for the breakdown of
caste and rank; philanthropy with its yearnings for the
handicapped, the imprisoned, the neglected; and social
reform silently striving for a thousand mitigations of adverse
conditions — these have nearly all championed the weak
individual against the strong.
The next most obvious fact is the struggle for democracy
as among groups — from families, vocational and sump-
tuary groupings, to nationalities, castes, and races. The
“self-determination” of small nations is an aspiration
paralleled by similar aspirations among manual workers,
tillers of the soil, unmarried women workers, school students,
rural dwellers, colored races, and the mentally inferior.
Many of the problems of “equalization” raised by these
must remain for some time in the limbo of “sociological
faiths.” -
Any process of exalting men, either individually or in
relatively homogeneous groups, soon reaches the point
where the similar or equal rights of others (contemporary
or of the future) are about to be infringed. Exactly when
and where this point is, or can be, reached remains often
obscure in the present state of social science. Hence endless
strife on the part of given individuals to claim more from
their small groups than these think right, of small groups
to claim more from their large groups than the latter believe
just or expedient. Hence also constant demands on the part
of individuals and small groups for their “rights” and
insistence on the part of more inclusive groups on “duties”
of individuals and small groups.
For purposes of democracy under complex conditions of
162 CIVIC EDUCATION
civilization it may safely be assumed that man's instinctive
equipment is seriously inadequate and that his deficiencies
must be overcome by education which may have to be
at times strenuous. The social instincts are in the main
products of “small group” needs; and in so far as they
tend to be broadly “altruistic” or “humanitarian,” they
are easily overcome by self-regarding or “small group re-
garding” instincts or acquired attitudes.
It must always be recognized that in the case of democ-
racy, as of all other comprehensive social aspirations (for
Christianity, liberty, peace, diffused economic well-being),
numberless chasms between ideals and attainable ends will
be discovered because of failure to take into account facts
of nature that may be immutable. And nature, as thus
interpreted, certainly includes the “original” nature of man
as that may differently exist among: children and adults;
the natively strong and the natively weak as respects muscle,
brain, combative disposition, sympathy, or economic need;
black and white; Bushman and Kaffir; Saxon and Indian.
EDUCATION FOR DIEMOCRACY
How far and toward what specific objectives can civic
or other forms of school education be directed toward the
realization of the probably sound aspirations of contemporary
democracy? Approval can be given certainly to:
a. All that civic education which assures acceptance in
concrete form of the obligations of all of us to “respect
the rights of others” as these are defined by law or majority
public opinion at any time."
* Probably we must hold in a democracy that “the majority is most
nearly right.” But, practically, the word “majority” needs to be given
something other than a purely numerical meaning. “One with God is a
majority.” In actual social practice at any given time and in spite of
suffrage laws and all other devices to insure “one man, one vote,” men do
not weigh equally in determining civic action. The intelligent man, if
EDUCATION FOR DEMOCRACY 163
b. All those forms of general or vocational education
which, without imposing excessive burdens of taxation on
others, increase the strength, confidence, ambitions, culture,
useful standards of living, vocational competency, and
several varieties of coöperative abilities of the naturally
or socially handicapped.
c. All those forms of liberal and vocational education
which increase in the naturally and socially advantaged
(the gifted and environmentally favored) appreciations of,
and aspirations to render, altruistic social service."
d. Obviously the optimum resultants of oligarchic and
democratic operation for school class groups and the school
group as a whole can be discovered and utilized, partly
politically active, may outweigh hundreds of unintelligent mature men.
The decisions reached by majorities or the courses of action apparently
determined by them, are in reality initiated and dictated by a few who are,
for whatever reasons, far-sighted and disposed to take trouble.
* There remains, then, the Strong Man from whom the results of our
dissection cannot be hidden. It is this that troubles those of little faith.
I hear them say:
“But the Strong Man at whose expense you widen your realm of order
and justice! How if this man — thanks to your revelations — breaks the
net in which society would enclose him and stands forth free! What then?”
To this would I reply:
The end is not yet. The last word is not said. The Strong Man who
has come to regard social control as the scheme of the many weak to bind
down the few strong may be brought to see it in its true light as the safe-
guarding of a venerable corporation, protector not alone of the labors of
living men for themselves but also of the labors of bygone men for coming
generations, guardian not merely of the dearest possessions of innumerable
persons, but likewise of the spiritual property of the human race — of the
inventions and discoveries, the arts and the sciences, the secrets of healing,
and the works of delight, which he himself is free to enter into and enjoy.
When thus to the issue between him and the living men who ask him
to concede to them no more than they concede to him, there is joined the
issue between him and the dead men who have endowed him with the
fruits of their toil on the sole condition of passing them on intact to pos-
terity, the ancient spirit of fair play — the “I AM” that was before all
codes and controls and will be when they are gone — will make itself heard
in the heart of the Strong Man.
And its verdict will not be adverse to the claims of society.
E. A. Ross, Social Control
I64 CIVIC EDUCATION
as examples, partly as sources of elementary appreciations,
ideals, and insights.
DEMOCRATIC EDUCATION
The degree to which education is democratic in its ad-
ministration can be measured against these principles:
a. The public control and support of education in a
society whose dominant aspirations are for certain kinds of
democracy operate to prevent such control by undemocratic
or “class” minorities. The freeing of the pupil or his parents
from financial burdens operates still further in the same
direction. Where higher or special schools must be restricted
to a few, the selection of these on the basis of open com-
petition based on merit only is democratic. Hence the free
tuition of America’s high and elementary schools, free text-
books, free transportation from distant points to central
schools, as well as the system of admitting to war academies,
normal schools, and universities on the basis of merit only,
are measures of democratic education.
b. Cost-free opportunities for learning are, however,
insufficient to overcome the handicaps of the very poor.
Hence public provision of free food, free clothes, and free
residence (e.g., as made possible by maintenance scholar-
ships, free lunches, etc.) is often proposed in order to in-
crease the democracy of education. Normal schools in Great
Britain and war service academies in America provide free
maintenance. But other handicaps remain. Some children,
upward of 15 years of age, are expected to aid in the support
of dependent parents. To insure complete equality of edu-
cational opportunity to these it would be necessary to relieve
them of their filial burdens.
c. The democracy of public education can furthermore
be measured by the extent to which it prevents segregation
or promotes association or fraternization. Segregation or
EDUCATION FOR DEMOCRACY 165
exclusiveness is often desired by parents having high stand-
ards as a means of preventing the lowering of manners,
morals, cultures, speech, sociability ideals, religious ideals,
and the like of their children. In many American states
racial segregation is demanded by public opinion — of
negroes, of Japanese, of Indians.
PART THREE
PROBLEMS OF OBJECTIVES, COURSES, AND
RESEARCH IN CIVIC EDUCATION
CHAPTER TEN
MEANS AND METHODS OF CIVIC EDUCATION
CIVIC education, being but one division of social educa-
tion, partakes necessarily of the means and methods that
have become more or less historic in the larger field. Em-
phasis has previously been laid on the fact that whereas
extra-school agencies have always been responsible for the
major part of both moral and religious education, school
agencies tend to become increasingly responsible for civic
education proper.
The means and the methods of any form of education,
if its pedagogy is at all well developed, should probably
have separate treatment. Unfortunately this separation is
neither very practicable nor profitable in a field that is
still so formative as is civic education. Each type of method
of civic education now being given experimental trial in
schools is very closely tied up with the specific means adapted
to its application. Only in the cases of American history
and didactic civics have the means, in the shape of texts
and various other adjuncts, become sufficiently standardized
to permit of independent consideration apart from the
methods employed in using them. In the various other
divisions of civic education now in process of development —
such as self-directed school discipline, service projects, de-
velopmental readings, scouting, and social problems — at-
tempts to force clear-cut distinctions between means and
methods would only result in confusion. Emphasis must
again be given to the fact that nearly all the processes
of purposive civic education are still very experimental and
undeveloped, largely owing to absence of clear-cut objec-
tives based on analysis of the civic shortages of the men
and women who compose our societies.
169
170 CIVIC EDUCATION
PRELIMINARY ANAILYSES
1. The historic means of social education employed by
various school and non-school agencies have been almost
numberless. Among them may be distinguished:
a. Those means designed to form in early years specific
habits, attitudes, sentiments, and the like by authoritarian
control of the growth of the feelings or so-called emotions.
Parental, religious, political, military, and other kinds of
authority have always been busy kindling in the spirits of
youth very specific kinds of fears, hates, loves, ambitions,
conscious scruples, sense of what is honorable, and the like.
These in time crystallize into the enduring mental and
moral attitudes which constitute good or bad social char-
acter.
b. Parallel with these have been the practices on the
part of authoritarian agencies of controlling the formation
of ideas, interpretations, and understandings through such
specific devices as precept, belief, dogma, and creed. The
products of these educational processes also crystallize into
fairly fixed elements of social character.
c. Those controls and activities which provide, in the
environment of the learner, very prolonged attractive activi-
ties along approved social lines – coöperations, sociable
associations, property acquisition, personal aggrandizement,
and the like to such an extent as practically to absorb
growth energy and to exclude effects of agencies of con-
flicting character. Everywhere is now recognized the potency
in moral, civic, or religious development of the maintenance
about the plastic individual of an approved social environ-
ment accompanied by the silent, invisible exclusion of
opportunities for disapproved social activities.
d. Those activities which are designed to promote, during
the early years, enduring personal ideals or approved goals
of social behavior. To these ends are designed the historic
MEANS AND METHODS OF CIVIC EDUCATION 171
means of hero worship, ancestor exaltation, appeals trans-
mitted through deities, songs and stories about the great
and good, biographical readings, stimulus of poetry, drama,
and other art, and the urgings of leaders and seers.
e. Those means which, used through direct instruction
and with only moderate appeal to the feelings, aim to
give knowledge of, and insight into, the structures and
functions of social groups and the events that give these
significance. Under this head would be included the great
bulk of realistic history study, analysis of governmental
structures and functions, studies of social institutions, and
the various other social sciences that have developed in
recent years, such as community civics, civil government,
economics, sociology, and the like.
f. Those agencies designed to create relatively artificial
environments and activities for the purpose of giving ele-
mental experience, knowledge, and ideals toward certain
of the less “natural” forms of social action. Well-known
examples of these are the training methods of medieval
knighthood, the “extra-home” apprenticeship of medieval
guilds, the residence education of English boarding schools,
together with a variety of modern devices such as scouting,
boys' clubs, school self-government, summer camps, school-
ships, and the like.
g. Those which single out for the conscious service of
“young citizens” activities normally exercised by adults
in either an amateur or a vocational capacity. These include
projects in policing, guiding of visitors, enforcement of
various forms of law and ordinance, street cleaning, road
building, reduction of fire hazards, improvement of sanita-
tion, and other service projects of similar nature.
h. Of somewhat similar purport are those dramatic
projects in which learners dramatize various past or present
social functions for the sake of the resulting appreciations,
172 CIVIC EDUCATION
understandings, or ideals. Among these are to be included
the dramatization of voting, naturalization, exploration,
defense, judicial processes, enforcement of law, legislation,
discharge of executive offices, and many others of similar
nature.
i. Those methods which single out for extensive analytical
study, and perhaps tentative determination of approved
lines of conduct, problems which either are now, or have
been in the past, of acute concern to adults. Since these
are still social problems — that is, they involve undetermined
issues of fact or interpretation — they usually present con-
troversial features either of principle, or of the application
of accepted principles. It is obvious that methods of civic
education based upon a study of problems are almost com-
pletely opposed to methods of authoritarian control. Various
approaches to these problems are obviously possible accord-
ing as the more specific or broader social interests of the
individual learner are used as a basis of motive. The naïve
and primitive method is to approach through the formula,
“Is it to my interest that ?” or the other, “Is it to
the interest of my family, my party, or other small group
that ?” Sound social education employs larger formulae
such as, “Is it well for the nation that ?” Or “Is it
well for humanity that ?” The more ethical approach
would be, “Is it right that ?” or “Is it just that ?”
The strictly religious approach would be through the formula
“Is it the will of God that 2 ”
CONSTRUCTION OF COURSES
2. Construction of courses or programs of moral and of
civic education through schools involves adaptations of one
or more of the above methods. Concrete and positive ap-
proaches to study of the application of these methods can
only be based on analytical studies of the needs of known
MEANS AND METHODS OF CIVIC EDUCATION 173
case groups of learners as these may be served by particular
methods. Since we possess as yet few objective criteria for
the determination of social values, substantial programs can
ordinarily be made only by obtaining the consensus of
opinion of well-informed jurors or critics representing differ-
ent points of view. Even at the present time it would be
highly desirable to obtain from a jury including a social
psychologist, a practical social worker, an educator, a parent,
a minister of religion, and perhaps an employer, tentative
findings with reference to problems like these:
a. What is the desirable and probably effective place
today of authoritarian formation and control of either feeling
attitudes or fixed beliefs with such age groups as these:
ages 2 to 6; 6 to 10; 10 to 14; 14 to 18; 18 to 30; 30 to 50?
These groups might be separately considered as to persons
of inferior, average, or superior intelligence. Furthermore,
the social relationships toward which education by authori-
tarian control is practicable could be further differentiated
as to economic, religious, political, domestic, and martial.
It might, for example, be the consensus of well-informed
Opinion that only in the earlier stages should authoritarian
control be expected to dominate political convictions, whereas
at all stages such control might be expected to dominate
in sex and martial relations. It is obvious that our un-
willingness to have those of our beliefs and attitudes that
rest heavily on feeling discussed or “reasoned” about is
one good evidence of their authoritarian origins.
b. Does contemporary experience suggest that biogra-
phies, sermons, ancestor exaltation, and other means cus-
tomarily designed to inspire ideals are largely effective only
with the more imaginative minority of our youths between
the ages of 6 and 10? Would similar considerations apply
to age groups between 15 and 18? -
c. Is it probable that amateur participation on the part
174 CIVIC EDUCATION
of adolescents in realistically meeting civic requirements is
successful almost wholly in proportion to the employment
of gifted and magnetic leadership? Or does evidence indicate
that some of these means can be made educationally profit-
able with only average leadership? Separate consideration
should here be given to such service activities as scouting,
relief of distress, school self-government, Qrganized enter-
tainment, junior Red Cross activities in war time, coöpera-
tive village cleaning, and others.
d. Is it educationally practicable or desirable that youths
from 15 to 18 years of age should in public schools debate
and otherwise study such controversial subjects as these:
“Is ‘private property’ (in any one of its many varieties)
a social good?” “Are there varieties of private property
that should be abolished?” “Are negroes equal to whites
in intelligence?” “Is it right that in an area where negroes
are in a large majority they should be forcibly deprived
of suffrage?” “Does the Constitution of the United States
contain a number of archaic provisions?” “Should the
United States impose obligatory and universal military
service?” “Is it right for a man, complying strictly with
the law, to buy for as little as he can and to sell for as much
as he can?” “Are these policies ‘right’: freedom of practice
of vivisection in medical education, capital punishment,
freedom to obtain divorce on grounds now permitted in
most states, prohibition of intermarriage of blacks and whites,
exclusion of Orientals, governmental censorship of plays?”
e. Is it probable that the extended study of the details of
American history as ordinarily taught enlightens the prospec-
tive citizen as to right courses of civic action in later years?
EFFECTS OF SCHOOL ENVIRONMENT
3. Contributions toward civic education have in greater
or less degree always been made by historic school procedures
MEANS AND METHODS OF CIVIC EDUCATION 175
as well as the influence of extra-school agencies. Inventive
teachers can readily find a number of special problems in
civic education like the following which will abundantly
repay study:
a. Endeavor to analyze the permanently socializing effects
of several kinds of school discipline, ranging from autocratic
to democratic self-government. Give separate consideration
to each sex and at various age levels such as 4 to 6, 6 to 10,
10 to 14, and 14 to 18. Perhaps further social analysis
would be worth while, as, for example, between urban and
rural children, between children of low and children of
high, intelligence ratings, and between classes from different
types of environment.
b. Trace the establishment of purposes, standards, social
values, and general ideals through the personal attitudes
and interpretations of life reflected by teachers. Common
experience attaches much value to the example and personal
influence of teachers on the appreciations and ideals of the
young. Analytical study here could well afford to consider
particular results, in such fields as manners, specific con-
ventions, life-career ideals, political attitudes, and philan-
thropic aspirations.
c. Study of the creation, expansion, or modification of
attitudes and ideals through school-controlled activities in
studies and in voluntary group performances. It is widely
believed that such studies as history, literature, and music
can be utilized, and are under some circumstances actually
now utilized, for the formation of various specific social
ideals or attitudes. Similar results are believed to flow
largely from good activities of a more or less voluntary
nature through clubs, athletics, fraternities, and the like.
To have value, studies here should as far as possible differ-
entiate particular qualities, such as respect for law, humane
treatment of animals, ambition for financial success, desire
176 CIVIC EDUCATION
for leadership, aspirations for right forms of coöperation,
and the like.
d. Study of the social effects on character and behavior
due to intellectual enlightenment as to political and other
social functions attained through the study of civics, current
history, and other didactic means. There still exists much
doubt as to how far intellectual enlightenment contributes
to social behavior where impelling motives are not aroused.
This entire subject needs elucidation. One phase of it is
perhaps especially important at present; namely, that
which has to do with the interpretation of civic and other
social action in terms of the self-interest or local group
interest of the individual himself. It is well known that
study of history is constantly being used as a means of
furthering the ends of those promoting nationalistic aspira-
tions, party solidarity, and religious adherence.
e. What are the effects of realistic participation project
activities? Many of these were made functional during the
war, and their effects upon civic behavior ought to be in
part now discernible. Similar studies are needed of the
effects of dramatic activities, including festivals and com-
memorations, which have been so widely used in recent
years. Studies here should also be carefully differentiated
according to age levels and possibly other bases of analysis.
f. To what extent have schools been successful in recent
years in stimulating the formation of, and entering into
coöperation with, extra-school activities — in Scouting,
boys’ clubs, social centers, sports, vacation activities, library
reading, special summer reading, discriminating use of the
photo drama, and the like? No one can doubt that these
activities make important contributions to moral and civic
education. To some extent their quality and scope can be
effected through and by school agencies. But the means
and effects of such coöperations should be surveyed and
MEANS AND METHODS OF CIVIC EDUCATION 177
evaluated if we are to have other than faiths as foundations
of programs. -
g. There is also needed analytical study of the effects
of teaching current social problems to prospective voters.
In a few schools the study of ethics has brought learners
into close grips with various moral and other social problems,
and the effects of the methods employed are now in need
of analysis and evaluation.
SOURCES IN SOCIAL PRACTICES OF ADULTS
4. The social standards governing educational objectives
in civic education are to be derived primarily from a study
of the adult society in which the learner now abides and
toward more complete and responsible functioning in which
he is now being trained. The following are among the con-
siderations that would affect means and methods of in-
struction:
a. In its more essential features, civic education must aim
at producing in the learner enduring habits and convictions
toward, those social ends as to which a majority of adults
are in substantial agreement. It is sometimes urged that
civic education should, in all areas where some uncertainty
prevails, aim to produce appreciations of the “right” social
values even though approved perhaps as yet only by a
minority. Most proposals to this end are futile and any
definite procedure to carry them out would necessarily be
frustrated by majority opinion. It must be remembered
that democracy invariably means, in practice, government
by majorities, and the execution of educational policies
from this point of view is simply one function of government.
But in all fields where parties divide, where debatable
issues appear, it could well be a function of disinterested
teaching to lead learners into an analysis of the various
contentions involved. Only very high-grade instruction can
178 - CIVIC EDUCATION
avoid giving the appearance of making proselytes or of
leaning to the one rather than the other side in partisan
issues. In the strongest American colleges much progress
has recently been made in having students study various
aspects of controversial matters. With more competent
leadership we shall certainly be able to follow their example
in secondary schools.
b. The various feeling attitudes — beliefs, faiths, senti-
ments, prejudices, admirations, aspirations, and the like —
are much more largely formed under the influence of domi-
nant personalities on the one hand, and group opinion of
approved associates, on the other, than through direct in-
struction. Among these dominant personalities strong and
approved teachers can play a part, but extravagant expect-
ancies as to teachers’ influence should not be cherished,
since there are many factors that lead to intellectual and
moral dominance of the young other than school education,
and the position and the benevolent intentions of teachers.
c. Intellectual analysis of some social problems seems to
be easily procurable from adolescents, provided these prob-
lems embody those issues of right and wrong that, because
of their environment or prominent social instincts, make
realistic appeal to the sympathies and imaginations of
youths of this age. In favorable environments problems like
these can easily command sustained attention, emergetic
analysis, and strongly partisan debate: Is it right or wrong
that poor men should be required to pay taxes; that striking
motormen should stop car service; that men should be con-
scripted as soldiers against their will; that any one man
should have an income of $1,000,000 a year? These and
hundreds of others like them can be easily introduced into
any area of civic and moral education. Whether experience
will show that good educational results follow the kinds
of analysis of behavior and ethical principles involved is
MEANS AND METHODS OF CIVIC EDUCATION 179
still an open question. Where prepossessions have not
been strongly formed in the learner through consideration
of his personal interests or the interests of his relatives or
other associates, the intellectual approaches to these prob-
lems, as they may be fostered by wise teachers, can easily
be made to produce abiding convictions, sentiments, and
even ideals which will endure when in later life appeals
to self-interest or to small group interests develop. On the
other hand, especially under poor teaching, partisanship may
be made more intense, and certain weapons of discussion
may be acquired which will render the individual more,
rather than less, formidable as a defender of wrong ideals
or practices.
d. It is doubtful, in the light of experience, if students
in general, in adolescent years, will find effective interests
in studying the anatomy or structure of governmental
machinery or that of other social mechanisms related to
political or other big group action, such as party organiza-
tion, means of propaganda, evaluation of policies, etc.
GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF METHOD
5. General principles of method applicable in other fields
of education may be expected to apply in civic education.
The following are important considerations:
a. With a few exceptions, moral and civic development
and training require that we proceed from the concrete
to the abstract, from the particular to the general, from
the near to the remote, from the immediately significant to
the ultimately significant, no less than in other fields of
education. Exceptions are found in certain areas where
powerful, even though diffused, instincts may be kindled,
or even profoundly inflamed, by a single act, suggestion,
or other stimulus (within areas of such “instinct masses”
as those of parental affection, fear of social disapproval,
I80 CIVIC EDUCATION
fear of non-visible deities, sex modesty, defense of kinship
group, property holding, racial or unlike group antagonisms,
etc.).
b. That in the fields of moral and civic education the
fallacies of “formal discipline” are just as common, and
just now far more influential, than in what we characterize
as “intellectual” education. We still talk of teaching loyalty,
forgetting that there are many species of loyalty, sometimes
in deadly opposition to each other. We talk as though
it were possible by some simple and even single-pointed
process to teach such very composite and heterogeneous
virtues as “honesty,” “regard for public property,” “co-
operation,” “service giving,” etc.
But we are still not clear as to how far aspirations, appre-
ciations, and ideals — involving large feeling qualities — may
not be generalized by a few concrete cases, even where
understandings and habits of action are limited. Here we
need more examination of Professor Bagley’s contention as
to the “spread” of ideals.
In former times when the principle of moral authority
dominated nearly all forms of moral and civic training,
comparatively simple methods of educational procedure were
practicable and effective. These included: appeals to fear
through corporal punishment, threat of hell fire, and ostra-
cism; appeals to faith and beliefs, through concrete dogmas,
precepts, laws, divine injunctions, and kingly pronounce-
ments; officers’ commands; use of specific disciplines, un-
questionably submitted to, as in armies, seminaries, courts,
shops, schools, churches, families; and general taboos against
inquisitive questioning or beginnings of the scientific atti-
tude where issues of importance (or so believed by those
exerting authority) were involved.
But only in very limited areas of modern civilized life,
where persons over 10 or 12 years of age are concerned,
MEANS AND METHODS OF CIVIC EDUCATION 181
are completely authoritarian methods of education practi.
cable, even if they are desirable. The social environment
of the adolescent is too full of counter-suggestion against
authority, for one thing. The scientific spirit among the
competent adults of the time finds its derivatives (often
counterfeits, but none the less “current” and widely ac-
cepted as “legal tender” on that account) among the mob,
the slave, even the “gang fellow” of 12. These take pride
in questioning authority, arguing about fundamentals, and
insisting that they “must be shown.” -
Educators must decide in what social areas, if any, methods
based on principles of direct authority are still valid. We
agree that they still hold with very young children as last
resort; with soldiers in time of national need; and in courts
and prisons for those who have forfeited certain rights of
free action. Where else? -
Probably we are right in preserving methods based on the
principle of authority in certain matters of sex relationship;
in reference to murder and other overt invasions of personal
security; and in reference to direct and consciously predatory
invasions of property rights. But beyond these? Here
sociologists, humanitarians, and educators are under obliga-
tion to get together.
The boy scout movement has, for certain types of moral,
ideal, and habitual practice, probably the most effective
pedagogy now available in social education. Its combination
of concrete practices (in preparation for promotions, appeals
to manly ideals of action, history of scouting), inculcation
of general standards in very definite form (scout law), and
use of virile leadership (patrol leaders, captains) produce
a wonderfully efficient machinery of moral and civic educa-
tion for certain areas of population and types of social
behavior. But the mistake must not be made of assuming
that scouting can be effective for all classes; or in producing
182 • CIVIC EDUCATION
more than a limited number of civic virtues; or in being
capable of proper development or maintenance otherwise
than under devoted, voluntary, unpaid adult leadership.
Subject to these considerations, Scouting pedagogy has
much to teach us as to concrete means and methods of
civic education, when once we shall have defined a series
of specific objectives. -
For some purposes we can also procure valuable sugges-
tions as to means and methods from: military education;
summer camps for boys; young people's church societies;
juvenile courts and their attendant reform and parole sys-
tems; boys’ clubs in cities; boys’ farm clubs; self-governing
schools, including self-directed sports; vocational schools, etc.
SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES
6. Specific objectives must be defined before we can expect
to develop adequate means and methods of realizing them.
As heretofore shown, the entire field of civic education is still
very much underdeveloped as regards specific objectives.
Any analysis of specific objectives will almost inevitably
be, first of all, qualitative — that which has heretofore been
designated as “analysis into strands.” Without quantitative
analysis, however, added to qualitative, it will be impractica-
ble to develop satisfactory school programs. We must know
not only what kind of social virtue we desire to produce
through a specific process but the extent of it or the degree
of its intensiveness that we consider desirable and practicable,
taking account as well of the educability of the individual
as of the needs of society.
It has been shown before that one of the most economical
as well as scientific methods of determining what should
be held as the most important specific objectives of civic
education involves ascertaining as accurately as practicable
the probable civic deficiencies at age 25–40 of those who
MEANS AND METHODS OF CIVIC EDUCATION 183
are now boys and girls of 14–16. What, for example, would
three experts in social science agree on as the probable
expected deficiencies at ages 25–40 of the morally best one
fourth of 100 boys and girls 14–16 now in high school, as to:
a. Respect for rights of neighbors of equal social level
to life (against murder)?
b. Respect for rights of distant and (supposedly) inferior
strangers to life (murder of Mexicans, Indians, coal miners,
“Dagos,” etc.)?
c. Respect for rights of strong neighbors to property
where “taking” would have to be undisguised — burglary,
stealing, robbery, etc.?
d. Same, where “taking” could be disguised, as sales of
bad mining stocks, fraud, etc.?
e. Same as (c) where neighbors are weak physically or
otherwise — widows, orphans, men of inferior understanding?
f. Respect for rights of property of despised strangers,
where predatory arts may be concealed from one’s asso-
ciates (the “smokeless” sin of E. A. Ross)?
g. Hundreds of others could be supplied.
What may be expected in the above respects of the morally
least good one fourth of the class? the other fourths?
Analysis of the kinds suggested above will probably show
that as respects establishing certain virtues — abstaining
from murder of neighbors, and many others — the school
need put forth little effort. By-education of family, com-
munity life, and church has sufficed. But as respects many
other – and often less tangible — virtues the school must
take large responsibility.
For example, in time of national danger we all constitute
ourselves social agencies toward inspiring and giving focal
objectives to “large group” patriotism; but in times of
peace these agencies are quiescent, hence the school should
now be most active in creating the aspirations and focusing
184 CIVIC EDUCATION
the intentions and actual or potential performances that
will function as approved patriotism, either internal in
times of peace, or external in time of foreign aggression.
CIVIC PROGNOSIS
7. Civic prognosis will eventually constitute a basic
means of determining specific objectives not only for civic
but for other forms of education. Without the specific
instruction and training we propose to give, the children
of today would develop into men and women with fairly
predictable qualities of civic character, due to the operation
of various social forces. Through “prognosis” of this sort
it should be practicable to define the most evident “civic
shortages” or defects toward the prevention or lessening of
which specific school effort should first of all be directed.
The “case group” method of approach, together with
analytical inquiries, can again be illustrated:
a. Case Group A. Boys graduating from American high
schools, in urban or suburban communities, possess in large
measure the following common characteristics: they are
above the average of the population of their own age in
native abilities and in cultural effects of environment; they
are good “mixers” and are ambitious; they have a consider-
able number of very definite social appreciations (valuations)
and social conventions (of their set); their moral behavior
is fairly good and their expressed moral ideals fairly low,
as judged by adults of 35–50 years of age; they have good
health; they work well in pursuit of ends which appeal to
them as “worth while”; and they have little respect for
authority on its own account.
What will probably be the good and the bad civic qualities
respectively in the total citizenship of these youths when
they are from 30 to 50 years of age, judging from social
experience, as respects:
MEANS AND METHODS OF CIVIC EDUCATION 185
(a) Conformity to laws in general, whether helpful or
adverse to their personal interests (respect for laws as
such)?
(b) Conformity to laws which may seem to affect their
personal interests adversely, including tax-paying?
(c) Helpful or indifferent attitude toward invasion of
rights of persons or groups outside their spheres of acquaint-
anceship and with different interests and traditions?
(d) Systematic “complaisant” sharing in activities of
political parties and easy conformity to “party” standards
even when these tend toward group selfishness?
(e) Systematic sharing in “party” activities, accom-
panied by persistent disposition to enlarge and improve
party objectives and standards?
(f) Disposition toward independent or “nonconformist”
individual action on political issues and with small regard
for coöperation with others either (1) in revolt, or (2) in
constructive action?
(g) Disposition toward action independent of older par-
ties, accompanied by ambitions to lead in forming new
groups, or starting new “movements”?
(h) Regard for “property rights” of distant and “infe-
rior” persons? -
(i) Self-sacrificing participation in primaries, informal
censuses, voting, and “follow-up” scrutiny of work of
public officials?
(j) Volunteering service in time of war?
(k) Competency in the appreciative valuation of public
works — roads, schools, health service?
(Many other specific attitudes can be predicted.)
b. Other case groups can readily be analyzed: for exam-
ple: Case Group B — boys two or more grades retarded at age
14, and probably destined to leave school soon; Case Group C
— girls intellectually able, remaining in high school until 16,
186 CIVIC EDUCATION
but forced then by family circumstances, or induced by
strong desires for independent income, to become wage
€a.TIleTS.
c. Two contrasted groups, A and B, in schools of a city
of 100,000, may be studied through the same approaches:
Group A consists of 1000 boys aged 14 to 15, of good
native abilities, prosperous families, good home environ-
ment, successful school records. Will probably go through
high school, then into general or vocational college or into
“business.” -
Group B consists of 1000 boys aged 14 to 15, leaving
elementary school on “working papers” when attendance
laws permit. They have average or low intellectual abilities
as shown in school studies. Many are retarded. Nearly
all will enter juvenile employments without vocational train-
ing and will advance to adult employment via road of
“pick-up” vocational education.
Using your personal experience as a basis, submit opinions
on the following points as to expected citizenship of above
groups at 30–50:
(a) Will Group A or Group B yield the larger number
of “good” citizens in the absolute sense — that is, quite
without reference to respective opportunities, etc.?
(b) Will Group A or Group B yield more good citizens
as these might be judged by respective abilities, opportuni-
ties, and the like? (The parable of the talents should be
applied. Should we expect of each group civic “fruit”
according to potential powers?) -
(c) Will Group A or Group B give the greater number
of legislators; labor leaders; business leaders; writers and
publicists; educators; “reformers”; “agitators”?
(d) Will Group A or Group B give the greater number
of convicts (crimes of violence); convicts (defaulters, forgers,
, etc.); “profiteers” or unscrupulous monopolists; vagrants;
MEANS AND METHODS OF CIVIC EDUCATION 187
drug addicts and drunkards; unscrupulous strikers in labor
troubles?
(e) Will Group A or Group B give the greater number
of good “conforming” citizens, anxious to obey all laws,
unwilling to find fault, protest, or threaten to revolt?
(f) Which group will furnish the greater number of
persons who in time of great national danger will say: “My
country — may she be ever right; but, right or wrong, my
country!”
(g) Which group will be so tenacious of their conceptions
of right that they will try to block social action to argue
or promote their particular ends?
(h) Which group will give the greater number who “will
have nothing to lose even if the government fails or the
nation is conquered”?
(i) Which group will provide more of those who would
“rather be different than right”?
(j) In so far as good citizenship is probably due to school
education, what will have been the most important sources in
specific studies and disciplines for the two groups, respectively?
(k) In so far as good citizenship is due to reading after
age 20, what will have been the principal sources for the
two groups, respectively?
(l) In so far as good citizenship is due to affiliations
with purposive social groups (political, economic, religious,
cultural), what will have been the principal sources for the
two groups?
MEANS AND METHODS CLASSIFIED
1. The means and methods of civic education now em-
ployed by schools can profitably be classified into seven
principal divisions:
a. Discipline, including both the oligarchic and demo-
cratic types. -
188 CIVIC EDUCATION
. History studies. -
Didactic civics, economics, and other social sciences.
Social service projects.
Dramatic projects.
Developmental readings.
Social science problems. .
Distinction of alpha and beta objectives in, or within,
each of these fields is important especially from the stand-
point of most effective method. The chief considerations
to be noted here are:
a. Much of the formal, purposive discipline of school-
room, school building, and school grounds may properly
be regarded as important for projective rather than develop-
mental ends. It is part of a system of positive training
based upon concretely projected standards.
The self-discipline of any school group in sports, cliques,
and other naturalistic social manifestations can better be
regarded as developmental. Under this head might well be
included the more democratic forms of school self-govern-
ment and other coöperative activities inspired rather than
enforced through school authorities.
School self-government in some of its most effective forms
can well be included under the head of developmental
projects rather than discipline, since its educational value
comes to surpass in importance its immediate utility as a
means of maintaining order.
b. History studies as now carried on in our schools mani-
festly contribute to the ends both of cultural and of social
education. Unfortunately no satisfactory distinctions in
materials or methods have yet been made to correspond to
these diversities of aim.
History studies should also be clearly differentiated into
their projective and developmental phases if choice of means
and methods is to be worth while. Obviously, in any field
i
MEANS AND METHODS OF CIVIC EDUCATION 189
of history studied, there are some facts of dates, characters,
events, and general findings that should be so studied and
incorporated into memory that in later years recall will
be easy and fairly complete comprehension will be persistent.
On the other hand, there is much historical material —
pictures, fiction, poetry, song, biographies, numberless nar-
ratives, and the like, that may prove very interesting and
“nurtural” as reading but which need not necessarily con-
tribute to what are here called the projective objectives
of civic education.
The application of the project method in civic education,
utilizing contemporary problems interpreted in part through
historical antecedents and parallels, properly belongs under
the project method. In some cases the ends held in view
in this work should be of a definitely projective character.
The materials of contemporary current history should be
regarded as rather of a developmental than a projective
character.
c. “Didactic method” as the phrase is here used is
intended to designate those methods of instruction based
upon direct “telling” or other forthright conveyance of
knowledge. Nearly all well-known textbooks in geography,
history, hygiene, economics, and civil government use almost
exclusively the didactic method. They state in very much
condensed language and by means of positive affirmation
what the student is expected to “learn.” Sometimes these
didactic presentations are colored or flavored by means of
pictures, anecdotes, illustrative descriptions, and even a few
questions; but all these are usually incidental to the more
formal method.
By way of contrast it should be remembered that arith-
metic, drawing, industrial arts, and music are taught in the
main by other than didactic methods as here defined; and
that a large part of recent progress in the teaching of science
I90 CIVIC EDUCATION
and English language has been directly away from that
method. The “project method” now favored in the lower
grades is, obviously, a very great departure from the didactic.
All studies employing didactic methods are here assumed
to be based upon well-defined projective objectives.
d. A project is here understood to involve two primary
qualities: (1) It is a discrete job — that is, a separate or
detached enterprise or undertaking — in which the primary
purposes in the mind of the learner might simply be the
obtaining of desirable experience or the performance of
desirable activities. (2) As a by-product at least, if not as
a conscious purpose, the teacher has in mind the contribu-
tions to specific ends of education of the experience thus
obtained.
Ordinarily most service projects should be classified as
developmental. Many examples of these can be had from
scouting, school-initiated relief work, and the like. Projec-
tive ends to be served are rarely clearly defined. They
contribute to the development of rich and vital experience
which in some composite way is assumed to be valuable
in adult life, but the specific contributions of which cannot
be defined. -
e. Dramatic projects. Even more true is this of dramatic
projects, a large variety of which have in recent years been
introduced into the earlier grades and some of which may
be well adapted to higher grades.
f. Developmental readings, including stories told by the
teacher, constitute a category designed to include all reading
stimulated primarily for the purpose of giving civic ideals,
appreciations, or insights. Here belong hero tales, biogra-
phies, stories of nations, graphic readings, accounts of other
peoples, and, for older pupils, descriptions of coöperative
enterprises for rural dwellers, of clean city movements, of
campaigns to rid towns of bosses. Here also belongs the
MEANS AND METHODS OF CIVIC EDUCATION 191
wealth of modern fiction dealing with recent or contemporary
“battles” for good government. Obviously, all the objec-
tives here controlling are developmental. -
g. Social science problems are here designed to include a
wide range of civic problems adapted to the various age
groups. These are expected to be based upon environmental
experience as far as practicable, but nevertheless in many
cases they will involve problems that will actually be en-
countered for practical solution only in the adult life of the
citizen. Many of these problems are now no less economic
than political in the sense that they rest on economic foun-
dations but require political solutions. In selection and
treatment these problems should be determined by the
considerations that characterize projective objectives.
SCHOOL DISCIPLINE AS A MEANS OF CIVIC EDUCATION
“Small group” social contacts and activities fill the
waking hours of children in their early years. For purposes
of security, nurture, rest, and consolation any child’s life
is centripetal to the household; but for purposes of many
kinds of experience, adventure, play, sociability with equals,
and education it is largely centrifugal as regards the home.
The home is an intensive agency of socialization, but its
influence weakens as age and mobility make possible or
necessary wider ranges of flight for the young. Other agen-
cies then impose their respective varieties of social control—
the “neighborhood,” the street or countryside “gang,” the
police power, the church, and the school.
Each of these agencies exerts its own forms of discipline,
all of which are definitely socializing, sometimes on a “small
group” basis (often antisocial to “large group” interests,
be it noted) and some of which contribute qualities of
adult civism. But because these agencies seldom consciously
address themselves to the task of preparing youth for adult
192 CIVIC EDUCATION
citizenship, numberless improvements in their processes are
possible where it is found practicable to subordinate, even
slightly, immediate ends of control to more remote and more
specifically civic ones. Gang coöperation can under some
conditions be expanded into scouting; school control can
become self-government; church clubs can be induced to
undertake service projects; police oversight can work into
educative parole and probation; and even the home can
coöperate through various redirections of its controls and
suggestions.
The home is practically the sole agency of social education
of normally circumstanced children up to 4 years of age.
Nearly all of the child’s time is spent under its immediate
control. Its direct influence also extends to such extra-home
contacts as children of this age make with neighbors. Most
of the appreciations, knowledge, and habits thus formed
are moral rather than civic. Improvements of home social
control are usually to be accomplished through advances
in the education of potential mothers, partly as one ob-
jective of civic education for parenthood (still a shadowy
ideal), and partly by definite training of the young woman
for the vocation of homemaking (an ideal now rapidly
taking shape under experimental efforts of many institu-
tions).
From 4 to 6 the social development of most children not
attending school is not qualitatively unlike that of the two
earlier years, except that the matter of adjustments to play
groups becomes more complicated and in turn educative —
for good or for bad.
The school introduces new factors, however. This agency
insures social groupings of considerable size, with the at-
tendant needs of complex disciplinary control. It has long
been a part of the theory of kindergarten education that
a variety of social appreciations, attitudes, and even ideals
MEANS AND METHODS OF CIVIC EDUCATION 193
could be instilled at this time that will be of functional
value throughout life. These theories still need careful
psychological examination. Their various implications, often
expressed in aspirational writings, may be largely lacking
in validity. In higher schools the maintenance of school
order has usually been conceived as a means to educative
ends — rather than as itself an educative means.
Certain specific socializing functions of the kindergarten,
as well as sometimes of other schools, are easily recognized
where children from homes in socially low-grade environ-
ment are given from 400 to 1000 hours per year of whole-
Some surroundings in kindergarten or higher school groups.
Lonely children in “one child” families whose standards
preclude free street association also obtain needed com-
panionship in the “select” kindergarten.
It is readily obvious that the bringing together of from
half a dozen to some hundreds of children or youths of
ages 6 to 18 for purposes of education necessitates at once
the creation of special machinery of social control. What
are the essential characteristics of this control? And what
are its possible “carry-over” products toward adult citizen-
ship? These are two important questions of social education.
At present we can only say that the characteristics and
controls of school life have not yet been satisfactorily ama-
lyzed and described from the sociological viewpoint. It is
evident, of course, that school groupings are relatively arti-
ficial when tested by the “natural” social instincts; that
children are forced into them by will of parents, teachers,
and other representatives of “large group” interests; and
that the first habitual — even instinctive — appeals are to
submissiveness, fear, and love of approval or distinction as
motives, and utilizing penalties and rewards, rules and
dogmas.
The maintenance of certain well-defined types of order,
194 CIVIC EDUCATION
and the enforcement of certain kinds of coöperation, are
in schools as in other social groups to be regarded primarily
as means to the realization of the larger ends for which schools
exist. The scope and character of these means, therefore, will
usually be governed by very pragmatic considerations.
The class is the primary social group in lower schools (or
combination of classes occupying a single room). It is in
the schoolroom that work must principally be done; that
harmony must be maintained among individualities, however
indisposed to conform; and that certain types of coöperation
must be assured.
Obviously the rural single-room school group presents
the greatest heterogeneity. Here are commonly found the
most knotty problems of school government. Here very
complex interests and attainments must be harmonized if
work is to proceed and joint living five or six hours per
day be made tolerable. In the urban multiple-room school
any given room-group is, relatively, fairly homogeneous as
regards age, attainments, and dominant interests.
In multiple-room schools for younger pupils there often
exist other sub-groupings–cliques or gangs for special
(childish) purposes, and “the school” group as a whole.
But needs for controls here are variable, since school
organization and spirit are vague and often functionless
except in a crisis or when the “school community” is
brought to consciousness.
In schools for older pupils the room-group may become
less important and influential from the standpoint of group
consciousness, need of exacting controls, and common rules.
Departmentalizing of work accentuates some problems and
lessens difficulties with others. In large schools “cross
cutting” social groups — clique interests, athletics, and the
like — are apt to come into prominence.
Conformity is the keynote of good “school citizenship.”
MEANS AND METHODS OF CIVIC EDUCATION 195
First and primarily — according to oligarchic standards now
usually prevailing — the approved pupil exhibits various
specific forms of the conformist virtues. The nonconformist
virtues have little place. A large proportion of these ap-
proved virtues are concrete and standardized, since the areas
of action invisible to authorities are few, as contrasted with
the social areas in which the home, church, workshop, com-
munity, and state operate. The ends to be achieved by the
school (at the time or for the proximate future) are so
determinate that clearly defined forms of discipline (to
procure needed conformities) are easily practicable.
Diagnosis of the socializing values of school discipline
requires further analysis than we yet possess. The difficulties
of control and social adjustment arise because: (1) the
child comes from the home often highly individualized in
his attitudes; (2) for the first time, generally, he is required
to adjust himself to long periods of routine employment,
requiring silence, cramping of body, and other restraints,
for which nature and previous experience have given him
little preparation; and (3) the very conditions of “school
government” readily give rise to “instinctive gang” opposi-
tion to the oligarchic control of teacher and other authorities.
Democratization of school government has been an aspira-
tion and ideal of all progressive schools for several decades.
The resulting tendencies in practice are: (1) diminished dis-
position on the part of teachers and other authorities to
Secure control by appeal to fear, use of corporal punishment,
arbitrary rules and commands, etc.; (2) increased disposition
to inform children as to rationale of control; (3) greater
reliance upon establishment of right ideals of conformities,
and, occasionally, of corrective nonconformities; and (4)
occasional use (and frequent approval) of devices whereby
children may participate in some of the controls required
for the effective functioning of school social groups.
196 CIVIC EDUCATION
Let us assume that, owing to effective school administra-
tion, the school social groups in which a given youth has
membership during the ten years of his life from 6 to 16
are perfectly functioning groups as measured by standards
generally approved during recent years. During his par-
ticipation in these groups he has done the required work
acceptably, and has not been disorderly, untruthful, obsti-
nate, dishonest, rebellious, sulky, idle, dissolute, improvi-
dent, envious, profane. In doing “school work,” getting
school education, he has been a “good citizen.” In what
ways and to what degrees, as a consequence, has he probably
been thereby made fit for adult citizenship in other com-
munity and state groups?
These problems are of utmost importance to educators.
Even acceptable analyses of them are not yet available.
Nearly all accessible discussions of them seem to be confused
by various forms of fallacious reasoning — and especially
that which follows the principle, post hoc ergo propter hoc.
Civic selection by schools. It is, of course, probable
that in so far as there exist relatively strong instinctive
tendencies to yield to authority, to seek approval of superiors
rather than equals, to be easily governed by fear of penalty,
to be without “small group” initiative, etc., then, of course,
the possessors of these relatively strong instincts will be
“good” subjects under school controls. Similarly, in so far
as home controls produce dispositions of conformity to rule
of elders, of submission to authority, of fear of penalties,
etc., the school merely selects, but does not produce, social-
ized individuals.
Obviously it is necessary to study these problems from
the standpoint of various types of social qualities that may
be “transferred” to adult life. Here our psychological
difficulties are great. We may safely assume that some
aspirations and ideals established in and for school social
MEANS AND METHODS OF CIVIC EDUCATION 197
life are largely capable of transfer, whilst specific habits and
knowledge may be transferred but slightly.
Pressing this line of inquiry farther, we might agree
with what is undoubtedly a widespread belief today among
progressive educators, that if there were two schools of
absolutely equal effectiveness as regards maintenance of
social control as a means of achieving stated formal work,
but the first of which (School A) utilized a highly oligarchic
discipline, whilst the second (School B) utilized a relatively
democratic discipline, the second would give better results
as preparation for citizenship in a liberal republic.
It is possible that concrete analysis of specific qualities
might help. Take, for example, the much-used word “obedi-
ence.” It embraces the central virtues of the pupil under
oligarchic control. But there are, even in school life, several
kinds of obedience. In practice we know that a given
learner may be very obedient to one teacher and not to
another. He may render proud and grateful submission to
the athletic coach or the school principal, but refuse even
decent conformity to a harassed laboratory assistant.
In adult life he is expected to obey the laws, his employer,
the traffic policemen, and the executive committee of the
club. Do the forms of obedience or disobedience here mani-
fested link up in any direct order with those manifested
in schooldays? Or is it here again a case of “to them that
have shall be given, and from them that have not shall
be taken away even that which they have”?
The positive values of school discipline as means toward
adult civic education are therefore as yet but slightly known.
The efficacy of these methods must be tested largely in
terms of their present functioning in contributing to orderly
school life and work. Further social analysis may show us
certain specific respects in which a direct connection can
be traced to adult practices, especially perhaps in the fields
198 CIVIC EDUCATION
of general habituation (production of attitudes) and ideals.
It is very probable that the respect for women teachers
enforced in lower grades carries forward into adult life in
the shape of a series of reactions as specific as the tipping
of the hat or the polite address of “Yes, ma'am.” It is
very probable, too, that from the constant insistence of
teachers on approved social behavior insensibly evolve ideals
appropriate for the adult citizen, especially in situations
involving no acute conflict with his personal interests.
The prevalent distrust of excessively oligarchic school
control may very probably be traced to imperfectly defined
convictions that the specific forced obedience thus made
habitual cannot in the great majority of cases prove of any
functional value in meeting the demands made upon citizens
in adult life in a democracy like ours.
HISTORY STUDIES
The “history” studies that have gividually, been, incor-
porated into the curricula of secondary and elementary
schools will, for the purposes here under consideration, be
grouped under two heads, developmental and projective —
for convenience designated here beta and alpha objectives.
Under the beta head are included the myths, stories,
biographies, narratives, poems, novels, and pictures that
lie outside of systematically told history. Under the alpha
head will be included all those systematic presentations,
usually on a chronological basis, that make up the hundreds
— perhaps thousands – of textbooks adapted to Grades 6
to 12 in the public schools. -
History materials of the beta type are now widely used
in the lower grades. They merge with literature, current
events, music, and graphic art. To an increasing extent
they are made to “appeal” to the interests of learners.
From these sources are supposed to be derived appreciations,
MEANS AND METHODS OF CIVIC EDUCATION 199
ideals, and perhaps a small amount of useful knowledge.
In many cases pupils develop permanent interests in reading,
as results of their school introduction to lives of noteworthy
men, stories of adventure, heroic poetry, historical novels,
and, now, historical moving pictures. In recent years
materials of the beta order have been widely recommended
to supplement regular course studies in Grades 6 to 12
and even in college.
The alpha types of history are best defined by reference
to existing textbooks and also by questions set by external
examining boards such as the Regents of the State of New
York and the College Entrance Examination Board. For
many years the American book market has afforded in
large variety three very distinctive types of history texts:
(a) very simple books on American history expressly pre-
pared for children below the seventh grade; (b) very com-
pact, though compendious texts, especially designed for
Grades 7 and 8; and (c) comprehensive texts in world history,
ancient history, medieval and modern history, English and
American history, etc., designed especially for high schools.
All of these possess certain common characteristics: (a)
They present the subject largely in its chronological order,
except that often the history of one area is developed through
a considerable period before the history of a corresponding
period for a different area is taken up. (b) They give space
chiefly to the events that have seemed of most importance
to subsequent generations (chiefly political events), and
largely without relation to the significance of these events
for contemporary or expected social conditions. (c) The
presentation is almost invariably formal and didactic — truly
a record of events as they happened, accompanied sometimes
by running threads of generalization and interpretation ex-
pressive of the views of the textbook writer or of the his-
torians whom he follows.
200 CIVIC EDUCATION
Standardized examination questions also show certain
fairly uniform characteristics: (a) They test learners pri-
marily as to memorization. (b) When they do require gener-
alizations or interpretations, it will be found that the most
acceptable are again the expression of memorized contents.
(c) The questions rarely call for facts of remembrance, or
for conclusions based upon reflection, that have potent
relationship to contemporary or prospective social problems.
History in the lower grades is now usually taught by
what are here later called the methods of “developmental
readings.” But in upper grades and high schools little
progress has yet been made away from the highly didactic
methods long characteristic of the subject, except where an
uncommonly resourceful teacher, having available a quan-
tity of library, source, and other “laboratory” materials,
is disposed and able to set students at the work of learning
in ways somewhat resembling those employed by the original
writers of history itself. For the majority of higher grade
pupils “learning” history means the memorizing of textual
statement, and uncritical acceptance of textual data and
generalization.
The same methods still prevail largely also in the other
social sciences, as is indicated elsewhere. All the well-known
texts in civil government consist chiefly of condensed de-
scriptions of the structures and functions of political or
other large social mechanisms, supplemented by some formal
exhortations to prospective citizens as to their obligations
and opportunities through civic participation. These didac-
tic texts in history and other subjects vary considerably
in the vividness and simplicity of their topics, in the extent
to which they include or exclude topics relevant to con-
temporary civic performance, and as respects concrete
“setting and dressing.” But even at their best they are
not, and cannot be, “readable,” in the sense used when we
MEANS AND METHODS OF CIVIC EDUCATION 20.1
speak of “readable” books of travel, biography, or fiction.
They leave the student little to find out for himself; they
set him no tasks except the dreary one of “comprehending”
and “committing” formal and condensed statements of the
text.
“Didactic methods” of presentation are, of course, of very
great service to learning. Every cyclopedia, dictionary,
atlas, scientific treatise, and historical work of reference is
obviously made effective largely by the adequacy of the
didactic form upon which its assemblage and organization
of material is based. The ordinary textbooks in civil govern-
ment or in American history used in our schools would be
very serviceable as books of reference for learners seeking
specific information to supply needs developed through
other contacts or “project-like” activities. But in the study
of history, as of other subjects, the best current educational
ideals are clearly opposed to mere verbal memorization, to
the “teaching” of facts only, and to the mental storage
of data unrelated to present-day life — to historic didactic
methods, in short. Various special committees on the
teaching of history have in recent years expressed aspirations
and formulated courses far transcending ordinary “text-
book” history in purposes and methods. A few gifted and
favorably circumstanced teachers succeed in lifting the
subject much above memorization levels, even though the
best of them seem only slightly to succeed in making the
subject “function” in current life — whatever that may
Iſlea, Il.
Memorized history. But it is submitted that the history
studied by probably 98 per cent of the pupils from 12 to
18 years of age in this and other countries consists in reality
of very little more than a memorized mastery of salient
facts and generalizations, usually quite without conscious
reference to the social issues soon to be vital to the young
202 CIVIC EDUCATION
citizen. It may be doubtful whether conditions can be
otherwise, in view of the principles which seem to control
in the organization of history as a “science.”
Is it desirable or practicable to define a series of “pro-
jective” objectives for the history studies of elementary and
secondary school? “Projective” objectives, it will be remem-
bered, are those involving attainments of forms of knowledge
and powers of execution that are expected to remain tangibly
and genuinely functional in adult years.
In most of the recent literature on the teaching of history
it appears that these are stated as aspirations rather than
actualities, and in philosophical rather than sociological,
terms. These hoped-for objectives seem to be about equally
divided between the cultural and the social, as the terms
are used in this book. But we are given very few specific
evidences of the contributions of these harder historical
studies to civic appreciation and power — although it is
always implicitly assumed, if not sometimes openly asserted,
that citizens can “only judge (and therefore control) the
future by the past.”
Results of American history study. It is submitted that
critical examination of the results of history teaching would
justify these statements:
a. American history as studied by the average pupil in
Northern states who does not reach the high school, leaves
as residuums of knowledge and appreciation for adult years
a few definite conceptions as to: (a) historic personages—
Columbus, Washington, Lee, etc.; (b) certain critical dates
and eras – 1492, 1620, the Revolution, etc.; (c) social
valuations — the treachery of most Indians, the wickedness
of the English in 1776 and their lack of sympathy in 1864,
the odiousness of slavery, etc.; and (d) some broad facts of
social evolution — dominance of the English in colonization,
the westward movement, growth of republican institutions,etc.
MEANS AND METHODS OF CIVIC EDUCATION 203
Some of these are important, if not indispensable, factors
in cultural education for 20th-century Americans; but the
number of such appreciations and units of knowledge needed
for general culture (that is, as “integrating” knowledge or
appreciation) is probably not large, and these are certainly
attained very wastefully through present methods which
involve memorization of thousands of facts.
b. American history study has very slight, if any, bearing
on the adult civic behavior of students of average intellectual
abilities and interests. It probably does not affect: political
party membership; prevailing attitudes toward general
problems such as immigration or treatment of the Indians;
attitudes toward English, Mexicans, Chinese, or Canadians,
or corporation production; or insight into right solutions of
problems of protective tariffs, government control of general
utilities, negro suffrage, international relations, etc. When
the time comes for the average citizen to act in situations
related to any of the above — that is, to influence others, to
vote, to approve of policies proposed by others – he does so
with very slight or negligible reference to what he has
learned from history. (This may not always mean that
those specialists who influence him — political leaders,
editors, legislators — are similarly unaffected by their
school or post-school studies of history.)
c. American history studies, for a minority of gifted youth
whose school studies in general simply open the doors to
regions which they will largely explore by themselves,
may be introductory to important fields of culture and social
appreciation and thus make important indirect contributions
to adult civic behavior, especially under conditions where
initiative and leadership are required.
In other words, when, in adult life, a man of superior
intelligence and intellectual enterprise is confronted by social
problems he naturally turns to past experience for guidance.
204 * CIVIC EDUCATION
Probably almost never does he find that guidance in what he
has previously actually learned of American or other history.
But the historic situations of which he has remembrance, the
methods of locating historic facts and authorities with which
he has become acquainted, as well as his cultural interests in
particular fields, all unite in giving him confidence that he
can in some historic situation find help toward solving his
present problems. History as now taught seems only occa-
sionally to train him directly in these powers. Neither does
it give him any reliable criteria as to the service historical
knowledge can offer in solving present problems.
d. The history studies of the high school make still fewer
and less important contributions to the total of adult civic
behavior than does American history as studied in the upper
grades. Exceptions to this conclusion apply only in the case
of that very small number of high school students who
eventually become publicists or governmental agents.
e. But these studies do leave cultural residuums of
importance, notwithstanding the large amount of straw that
students are now obliged to winnow for the sake of the wheat.
Projective objectives. What might well be the “pro-
jective” or alpha objectives of history studies? The follow-
ing considerations are submitted as a basis for discussion:
a. Salient history. Beginning perhaps in the third or
fourth grade, and held as a requirement for all up to age
14, and thereafter as an elective, should be units of salient
history, spirally progressive from grade to grade, and de-
signed primarily to minister to certain structural foundations
of cultural objectives. This salient history should be de-
signed to insure fairly accurate knowledge of a small number
of dates, personages, and significant circumstances connected
with momentous events, turning points, and tendencies in
history. Such knowledge should give essential intellectual
frameworks comparable to those now sought in the science
MEANS AND METHODS OF CIVIC EDUCATION 205
subjects and arithmetic. In fourth and fifth grades such
mastery might profitably be limited to a half-dozen critical
points in American history. At the end of the eighth grade
it certainly should not have included more than one twen-
tieth of the details which now congest the typical elementary
school textbook. Throughout the high school period the
four successive units of this projective history study should
not have included more than 3 to 5 per cent of the number-
less dates, personages, battles, and hurryings to and fro
charted in any of the ordinary volumes of “Ancient” and
“Medieval and Modern” histories. The units of history
study thus contemplated should not require more than 5 to
8 per cent of the total school time available.
b. History-based problems. Beginning probably in the
seventh grade and continuing as electives in all grades above
should be a series of “short unit” courses on those social-
science problems of demonstrable importance to contem-
porary or not distant future American citizenship, which
rest tangibly on historic foundations comprehensible by the
learner. These should be “hard” or alpha type subjects,
designed primarily to produce, in relation to the particular
areas of social thought and action involved, the clear-think-
ing, judicious citizen, conscious on the one hand of the
complexity of the problems involved, and of the partial
character of the solutions thus far reached, and on the other
of the necessity of acting, as occasions arise, in the light
of the best knowledge available.
These problems will be chosen first on the basis of relevancy
to the political, economic, or other social issues of the day;
second, because of their suitability for consideration by
learners of the age and grade under consideration; and third,
because of the extent to which they utilize and even re-
illumine history. It may prove expedient to group these
problems in Grades 7 and 8 under community civics and
206 CIVIC EDUCATION
local government studies; in the ninth grade, as political
science or civil government; in the tenth as economics; and
in the eleventh and twelfth as sociology. But probably this
will not be necessary — it may, in fact, prove undesirable.
(It is, of course, assumed that other offerings of social prob-
lems will be made in which the “historical foundations” will
be unimportant or inaccessible to ordinary students.)
When we once detach ourselves from the prepossessions
engendered by too close adherence to academic classifications,
it becomes obvious that in connection with each of such live
topics as immigration, relief of poverty, collective bargaining,
the borrowing of capital, the extension of the suffrage, and
scores of others, there are some vital problems that may well
be studied attentively by eighth-grade pupils (certainly they
are no more difficult than much of the arithmetic we seek
at that time to have mastered); whilst others may well have
to be postponed to later grades in schools or even in college.
Other groups of problems, such as government ownership
of general utilities, colonial policies, international relations,
negro suffrage, tariffs, alien ownership of land, and the like
may not supply any problems suitable for grades below
the ninth and tenth wherein are now utilized the highly
complex and abstract problems of algebra and plane
geometry.
Now it is in the study of problems like these that history
can really be brought into the genuine service of civic
education. Learners will here be concerned (very much as
will be the case in mature life) only with those times, hap-
penings, and conditions in history which give him light on
the problems that he then has in hand. To the proper sources
of information they will, of course, in each case be guided by
special bibliographies, indexes, and the teacher — and
perhaps by other means yet to be evolved. The salient history
that has thus far been learned should serve also, like the
MEANS AND METHODS OF CIVIC EDUCATION 207
framework of a house, the skeleton of the body, or the
essential principles of science, to guide and organize the
learner's searchings for details. -
As suggested above, not all of the social-science problems
to be studied will have important historic aspects — which
discovery may yet serve to rescue us from present delusions
as to the large part knowledge of the past should play in
decisions involving only the present and future! But many
of them will. We can readily imagine a class in a seventh
grade confronted by any vital municipal-service problem such
as those involved in urban transportation. Such problems
would be approached by such questions as these:
A. Transportation problems of our city.
a. Is our city, as regards transportation facilities, a very
good place to live in? Is it so for prosperous people? for
very poor people? for negroes of refined tastes? for recent
immigrants?
b. In what ways and to what extent are the transportation
facilities of our city very good? fair? poor? very bad? More
particularly, what about the streets? street cars? bridges?
c. Are the terminal and harbor facilities of our city good
or bad? Particularize as to passenger facilities; export
freight facilities; import freight facilities. -
B. Other present-day cities (comparative studies).
a. What seem to be the transportation problems of
Philadelphia, New Orleans, London?
Now the study of these problems will readily throw the
student back upon many important lines of history. For
example:
C. Our city in former times.
a. What were the historic conditions which led to the
founding of the city here?
b. Why are the older streets so narrow?
c. Was this ever a walled city? What are some of the
208 CIVIC EDUCATION
peculiarities of cities once walled like London and Nurem-
berg? Why the term “Wall Street” in New York?
d. For sake of appreciations (hardly for practical appli-
cation) read stories of Babylon, Tyre, Athens, Rome,
Edinburgh.
SOCIAL SCIENCES BY DID ACTIC PRESENTATION
As indicated above, the words “didactic method” as used
here are intended to designate those methods of instruction
based upon direct “telling” or other forthright conveyance
of knowledge.
Current textbooks. Nearly all contemporary textbooks
in social-science subjects designed for learners from 12 to
18 years of age are based upon what is here called the didac-
tic method. Such texts are in the main descriptive of facts
of social structures and functions, contemporary or historical.
These are selected with reference to assumed civic needs
and by current pedagogical standards. Supplemental prob-
lems and topics for special study are usually incidental and
unsatisfactory. Attempts are sometimes made in the text
to “connect” with the social environmental experiences of
learners, but these attempts seem usually to be futile, partly
because of the fact that the text commonly must be written
equally for East and for West, for city and for country, for
pupils of high, and for those of low, intelligence. Most of
these books seriously violate accepted pedagogic principles
as to the inductive methods of approach, and fail to utilize
propensities of students toward self-activity. Very probably
effective pedagogy in civic subjects will require that what
are here called didactic methods of civic education shall
be reduced to a minimum and that other methods be em-
ployed as fast as they are developed.
Didactic methods are, usually, the first to be developed in
any new field of instruction or training. The leader, specialist,
MEANS AND METHODS OF CIVIC EDUCATION 209
or teacher has by one means or another attained to some
kind of mastery of his subject. Naturally he tends to organize
his knowledge of data or procedures in the most “logical”
and compact fashion practicable. Seeking to convey his
possessions to others, to instruct them, he tends inevitably
to begin with the definitions, formulae, compact descriptions,
and logical structures of data into generalizations that he
has finally developed for his own use.
Many of the vices of didactic methods are, of course, now
well understood by educators. They know well enough in
theory that, far from being a “natural” method, it is a most
unnatural one, since a large part of the knowledge intended
to be conveyed is quite unassimilable by learners too im-
mature or otherwise unready for the materials presented
in the highly concentrated forms customary in this method.
Varieties of ability. A large amount of contemporary
civic education for pupils upward of 12 years of age proceeds
on the implicit assumption that all learners are “born equal” —
in abilities and prospective opportunities, that is. That fal-
lacy is no less glaring and serious than was the one sometimes
formerly arising from naïve interpretations of the doctrine
of the Declaration of Independence that “all men are born
equal.” The undoubted fact is that between the ages of
12 and 18 pupils vary as much in their competency to study
courses in civic education effectively as they vary in abilities
to study music, mathematics, drawing, or shop work.
Courses cannot, of course, be made for each individual;
but it is certainly practicable in large schools to organize
courses for two or three different intelligence levels, espe-
cially since it will probably be found that in many cases
the abilities thus differentiated will to a very considerable
extent be paralleled by closely correlated civic appreciations,
vital experiences, and potentialities. For practical purposes
a distinctive group, sub-average in ability and probably
210 CIVIC EDUCATION
destined to leave school at not more than 16 years of age,
might well be recognized among those above 12 years of age.
Because of their disproportionately large political influence
to be exerted later in democratic citizenship as compared
with their abilities, special attention might well be given
to their civic training. Very different kinds of education
should be given also to that conspicuous minority of super-
average abilities who will probably finish high school.
As long as we are obliged to depend upon “didactic”
methods, the best that can be done is to simplify texts,
eliminating the relatively less essential. Many of the most
popular of texts now used are veritable cyclopedias of civic
data and principles, which, like compendious texts in history,
would be valuable as books of reference. But the aspirations
apparently cherished in some quarters that any considerable
numbers of pupils will, in the first place, really “master”
these encyclopedic volumes of material, or that, in the second
place, any such partial or complete mastery will work
significant changes in behavior are probably far wide of
realities.
PROJECT METHODS
In the organization of the “means” of education — the
studies, lectures, “tellings,” discussions, experiments, exer-
cises, assigned readings, memorizings, reports, activities,
problems, trials, tests, examinations, etc., through which we
achieve our desired ends — insufficient attention was formerly
given to the production of effective “teaching units” of the
kind that would be especially significant to the learner. The
“question and answer” unit — as seen at its best in the
catechism — was the smallest unit ever devised. It was in
part definitely pedagogical and in part definitely logical. It
was eminently suited to an age in which authority was the
source of all knowledge for the learner, and verbal memori-
MEANS AND METHODS OF CIVIC EDUCATION 211
zation the chief means of fixing in the minds of each new
generation the dogmas and other authoritative teachings of
the older generation. This unit had also the peculiar ad-
vantage of being very easily handled by unskilled and
uninformed teachers.
The “lesson” unit has always been in part a pedagogical
unit — that is, based upon the powers and weaknesses of
learners — rather than a logical unit — that is, based upon
the inherent characteristics of subject-matter. It has prob-
ably never been a true pedagogical unit — that is, taking
account of all the characteristics to be found in the child
as active learner. It might be called a unit based roughly
upon the capacity of the learner to sustain attention, to
endure application, or to give working time. It is, in other
words, a convenient task, a sort of day’s work, so far as a
particular kind of activity was concerned. It is often an
arbitrarily sliced-off portion of subject-matter, and com-
monly represents frequently no logical division of that
subject-matter at all — resembling, therefore, as a unit, a
stated length of board or cloth or a slice of bread rather
than a tree trunk, a garment, a biscuit, or other more organic
unit.
The “topic” which in many studies succeeded the lesson
as the teaching unit of chief importance was especially
characterized by its logical relation to some larger unit or
“whole” of subject-matter, while at the same time it was
endeavored in it to take account of the possible focusing
of interests and the intellectual “spanning powers” of young
learners. In many respects it was therefore an advance
on units previously developed. It lent itself especially well
to teaching in which some reasoning, inference, and com-
parison on the part of the learner was sought in lieu of
the verbal memorizing which had formerly prevailed.
A few years ago educators began using the word “project”
212 CIVIC EDUCATION
to describe a unit of educative work in which the most
prominent feature was some form of positive and concrete
achievement having vital significance to the relatively
“natural” learning instincts of young people. The baking of
a loaf of bread, the making of a shirtwaist, the raising of a
bushel of corn, the making of a table, the installation of an
electric-bell outfit — all these, when undertaken by learners,
and when so handled as to result in large acquisitions of new
knowledge and other experience products, were called
projects. Projects of this kind might be individual or
coöperative. They might be executed in an ordinary lesson
period, or they might claim the efforts of the learner for one
or more hours per day for several weeks.
Projects. The following were the primary characteristics
of projects as thus conceived: (a) the undertaking always
possessed a certain unity; (b) the learner himself clearly
conceived and valued the practical ends or outcomes to be
attained (even though these might be quite different from
the objectives intended and realized by teachers), and it was
always expected that these outcomes were full of interest to
him, luring him on, as to definite goals to be won; (c) the
standards of achievement were clearly objective — so much
so that the learner and his fellows could, in large part, render
valuable decisions as to the worth — in an amateur or in a
commercial sense — of the product; and (d) the undertaking
was of such a nature that the learner, in achieving his desired
ends, would necessarily have to apply much of his previous
knowledge and experience – perhaps heretofore not con-
sciously held as usable in this way (e.g., art, science, mathe-
matics, special tool skills) — and probably would have to
acquire also some new knowledges and skills.
As in many other forms of learning, the objectives held in
view by learner and teacher were often unlike. What the
learner imagined as an end the teacher conceived often as a
MEANS AND METHODS OF CIVIC EDUCATION 213
means to some remoter and probably more important
educational end.
In the early stages of the development of certain forms of
agricultural and industrial vocational education, a number
of educators favored the project as the chief pedagogic unit
of organization. In a sense any concrete job undertaken in a
vocational school where the realization of valuable results in
the shape of “products” constitutes an important end, might
be called a “project”; but to be an “educational project”
such a job (e.g., turning a spindle, electric wiring for a bell,
growing a half-acre of potatoes, taking commercial charge of
three cows for a year, cooking family breakfasts for a month,
making ten salable shirtwaists, coöperatively building and
selling a cottage, etc.) must be of such a nature as to offer
large opportunity not only for the acquisition of new skill
and experience in practical manipulation, but also for
application of old, and learning of new, “related knowledge”
– from art, science, mathematics, administration, hygiene,
social science, etc.
Recently it would seem that the conception of “project,”
especially as applied in the “project method,” has been
greatly widened. We hear of projects in music, history,
mathematics, and literature, where a tangible “product” of
an objective, external character certainly reduces to the
vanishing point, and the so-called project becomes merely
an “enterprise” in learning under another name, with perhaps
slightly less of autocratic imposition of task, and slightly
greater inducement of self-activity (often very artificially
inspired or stimulated, however) than in the historic topics,
problems, lessons, and other tasks.
Properly restricted, the term “project method” is very
Serviceable, since it well designates a kind of method, appli-
cable indeed only under some conditions, to some materials,
and for some learning purposes, but in these connections a
214 CIVIC EDUCATION
method of utmost value. This is clearly the situation in civic
education. Only a small part of the objectives of civic
education can, probably, be achieved through the project
method. But as far as it is applicable, it is clearly a very
useful method, productive of very realistic experiences and
accompanying appreciations, insights, ideals, and, perhaps,
habits. -
Types of projects. In civic education three unlike types
of projects can now be distinguished: (a) Social (or civic)
service projects; (b) dramatic projects; and (c) survey projects.
The term “service project” is here restricted to those
individual or collective activities which are positively valuable
to some social group or member thereof, other than the
doer. Projects merely of “conformity” or obedience to law
should probably be excluded, however. Among true social-
service projects now more or less familiar to educators are
the following:
a. The pupils of a school undertake improvements either
for the obvious benefit of the pupils themselves — as where
a playground is cleared, running tracks or playing grounds
developed, or apparatus made; or else for the school in its
community aspects — as where the building is painted, the
grounds fenced, or repairs made.
b. A class of pupils or portion thereof undertake consola-
tion or relief work — reading to bed-bound old people or
children, providing a Christmas dinner and gifts for a widow
(or other destitute woman) and children.
c. “Clean town” enterprises of various sorts.
d. Gardening, fruit canning and drying, stock raising, etc.,
in time of food scarcity.
e. Red Cross projects in providing bandages, clothing, and
the like. -
f. Guiding old people, sightseers, and the like in times of
conventions (Boy Scouts).
MEANS AND METHODS OF CIVIC EDUCATION 215
g. A number of pupils undertake to report illegal condi-
tions, fire hazards, exposed food in markets, neglected
garbage, broken railings, etc.
Service projects, for the areas of experience which they
affect, are educative in ways and to degrees not possible
through other means and methods. Unfortunately, they can
be devised, apparently, for but few departments of civic
experience, and they are usually very expensive of time and
teaching skill in execution. They are especially difficult to
provide in large cities where so large a part of public-utilities
service is necessarily on a paid specialist basis. In remote
rural communities boys of appropriate ages could well be
organized to repair storm-washed roads, watch for strayed
animals, trap vermin, clear roadsides of weeds, be ready to
combat fires, help distressed families, and aid in providing
festivals, advertising public meetings, promoting regional
enterprises, and the like. But in cities these functions fall
under paid service, and volunteer labor is commonly more of
a hindrance than a help.
Valuable projects utilizing “civic watchfulness” as a
basis have been in a few cases suggested for cities – such
as reporting fire menaces, littered lots, and uncared-for
streets. In cities especially the worthy citizen, as co-
employer of the numerous paid servants of the municipality,
should be always vigilant to see that the prescribed duties
of these are properly discharged. It is not difficult to or-
ganize boys, instructed as to the duties of policemen, street
sweepers, garbage carriers, and the like so that they will
become keen critics of those functionaries. Neither is it
difficult to train them in watchfulness over the compliance
of private individuals with ordinances relative to freeing
sidewalks from obstructions, keeping exposed foods properly
protected, freeing sidewalks from ice and snow, and the
like.
&
216 CIVIC EDUCATION
But such “civic” activities on the part of juveniles must
be very carefully safeguarded if mere meddlesomeness and a
spirit of captious criticism are to be avoided. It is probably
a safe rule that the teacher should always be the intermediary
between the boys and the authorities to whom first sugges-
tions, and finally criticisms, are to be made. Supervision of
the work of public or private servants is something not to be
lightly undertaken. Certainly it should involve, from the
outset, appreciation and careful understanding of the positive
aspects of that work— what the workers are doing now,
perhaps with ill-defined tasks, poor tools, and hampering
conditions.
Service projects are not, of course, to be regarded as ends
in themselves. They are primarily educational means to
certain types of civic appreciation, understanding, ideal, and
perhaps occasionally habit; but the effective use of these
projects requires not only that their objectives shall be defined
in the minds of teachers with some detail, but also that
skillful work shall be done in interpreting or translating the
project so as to insure its full functioning.
Dramatic projects seem to have a very large field, but
their permanent educational values, except for young chil-
dren, recent immigrants, and other minds readily stimulated
or inspired by symbolic appeal, are still questionable. The
method of the drama or pageant may, however, have excep-
tional values in times of great emotional tension — in the
early stages of war, in a great relief movement, etc.
Public schools now give many good examples of projects
for earlier grades — commemorations, historic dramatiza-
tions, reproduced festivals, mock elections, naturalization,
jury duty, Small pageants, etc. .
For upper grades and high schools it seems probable that
the method fails unless planned and directed by persons of
large dramatic powers. Perhaps the method, even at best,
MEANS AND METHODS OF CIVIC EDUCATION 217
is ill adapted to the sophistication of well-informed
adolescents." º
“Survey” projects seem to have large possibilities. In
general science and community civics, much good work is
now done through visits to local institutions, inspections,
etc. To give these the essential characteristics of survey
projects it is only necessary that learners be held responsible
for carefully prepared reports, interpretations, and the like.
At all periods in school life it should prove possible, if time
and facilities are available, to utilize visits, observations, and
interpretations of social institutions as means of civic
education. Community civics has already familiarized us
with these means and methods as related to local govern-
mental and some other social agencies.
The local fire department, street repair, water supply, gas
supply, passenger transportation, public education, garbage
disposal, policing and some other functions can be very
clearly comprehended from visits in urban or semi-urban
conditions. The discernment of these functions is more
difficult in a rural environment where they are either absent,
vaguely held by citizens (as policing and fire protection), or
are located in distant places such as county courthouses.
Concrete economics of production of raw materials, elabo-
ration of raw materials, transportation, merchandising,
banking, inspection, and the like can also be taught in many
environments in such a way as to lead at least to important
appreciations if not to useful forms of insights. ->
School excursions are difficult to organize, and entail
large responsibilities on teachers. Nevertheless, with proper
utilization of student leaders, careful programing, and the
* In the attempt to dramatize the problems of government brief plays
or masques may be very useful. The following references are helpful:
Payne, F. Ursula, Plays and Pageants of Citizenship; Tucker and Ryan,
Historical Plays of Colonial Days; Mackaye, Percy, The New Citizenship.
218 CIVIC EDUCATION
like, these ought to prove of very great value in all grades
from the first to the twelfth as inspection or survey projects.
It should be clear that cultural objectives may more often
control any work of this character than civic objectives. In
fact, it is of utmost importance that such civic objectives as
are held should be very clearly defined and means and
methods carefully adapted to their realization; otherwise no
permanent interpretations or evaluations follow.
DEVELOPMENTAL READINGS
The term “developmental readings” will be used here to
include: (a) all general reading done by learners when
motivated by curiosity or active interest in the content itself
or in the direct use of the content for discussion or debate;
(b) reading to learners by teachers for the sake of conveying
information or of interesting them in further reading; and
(c) informative or inspirational lectures for the same purpose,
where no systematic note taking or subsequent study of the
content of the lecture is required.
Developmental readings are, obviously, one of the com-
monest methods of self-education among adults, usually
ranking next in importance to oral intercourse, and, so far
as civic knowledge is concerned, often far outweighing oral
intercourse in importance. Such reading among adults
closely corresponds to the beta types of activities in schools.
Most of it is to satisfy present interest or need. There
is little conscious reference to remote goals. Not much of
such reading is done in a spirit that could be called thorough.
We often condemn it as superficial; but the superficial
apprehensions obtained seem usually to represent reasonable
resultants between available time and needed attainments.
The method is certainly largely justified by the fact that
our best-trained and most competent men and women
everywhere use it, often for hours daily, outside of strenuous
MEANS AND METHODS OF CIVIC EDUCATION 219
periods devoted to productive work, in connection with
intellectual recreation, personal culture, and self-advance-
ment in civic insight. Witness the large amount of magazine,
newspaper, and other “current literature” reading done by
educated men everywhere.
To be effective, developmental readings should have
holding power both in content and in method of presentation.
All writing that has to stand the test of popular approval has
clearly to meet these two conditions. The content must be
timely, pertinent, and significant to the reader according to
his powers, apperceptive interests, and the external stimuli
by which he is affected. Methods of presentation rise, in the
best products, to the levels of fine arts — the literary arts,
standards in which, as far as juvenile readers are concerned,
are yet obscure. -
Prescription. Nothing is usually gained by attempts to
prescribe developmental reading for youths. As among
adults, each must, subject to suggestion, exercise his own
powers of choice, must respond in his own way to stimulation.
School or teacher can make materials available, provide
suggestive leads, and impose a general requirement as to
disposal of time. In a class or conference group formed to
promote developmental readings, probably the most effica-
cious procedure would be to present to the group at the
beginning of a term, or preferably quarter, a series of topics,
many more than the available time permits to be taken up,
including, where convenient, topics centering in particular
books. Let the group note, first, its provisional choice of
topics, then their order. For each topic a varied and ex-
tensive list of readings should be available, from which
members of the class could choose.
Probably the only compulsions desirable for this type of
work are these:
a. Each student will be required to take a minimum
220 CIVIC EDUCATION
number of beta units each year in some field offered by the
school — say 30 out of a total minimum normal requirement
of 72 alpha and beta units for three quarters (180 days, 8
hours daily, a unit being 60 school hours).
b. The teacher should have the right to exclude from a
conference group any learner who does not conform to
essential standards of behavior and coöperative effort in
conferences.
Topics for reading in civic education should be selected
first because they are of contemporary interest and second
because each contributes something to the idealisms, appre-
ciations, and insights valuable to a citizen. (Completeness
can never be attained. Hence, as in our own daily reading,
some discursiveness must be tolerated, and diversity among
individuals encouraged.) Among fruitful topics to be con-
sidered where reading matter is available for Grades 8 to 11
might well be many like the following:
Men influential in business leadership The disappearance of the frontier
during last half century The banking service
Immigration, old and new Mail order stores
Poverty in America and other Mexico and the United States
countries Coöperation of farmers
Various opinions about wars The story of cement and concrete
The settlement of public lands The story of steel
Recent history of agriculture The story of meat packing
Present-day commerce of the United King Cotton
States Trade unionism in America
The negroes of America Our forests
Oriental immigration American water power
City vs. countryside The story of coal mining
The automobile — its rise and Socialism
influence State universities
Newspapers — their history and Story of oil
their use - The Department of Agriculture
The rise of great cities
Art agencies. The enormous vogue of the photo-drama
as well as of photographic and other illustrations in maga-
MEANS AND METHODS OF CIVIC EDUCATION 22I
zines suggests the probability that these may be made to
serve increasingly important functions in civic education
analogous to those of the readings referred to above. Paint-
ing and the photo-drama obviously can be made to effect
marked changes in feelings as well as in understanding.
Illustration often moves the feelings as well as conveys
information of a factual character.
It is well known to all students of social sciences that music
has played a large part in the history of the race in kindling
social appreciations and ideals and in effecting the feeling
states that largely condition behavior. Concrete examples of
this can be found in the music designed to promote religious
attitudes, patriotic attitudes and behavior, specific forms of
economic coöperation, and also the socialization of large
grOups.
But the extensive use in the future of the emotional appeals
of music for purposes of civic education or to produce civic
behavior seems very problematical. Possibly in time of
national danger peoples will hereafter, as in the past, speedily
resort to music as means of patriotic appeal to unaccustomed
forms of coöperative endeavor. Apart from this there seem
to be few assurances that the needs or objectives of the larger
forms of social conduct can be explicitly promoted by music.
Nevertheless, the entire field requires examination by some
one who is a competent student both in the field of community
music and in the field of social behavior.
It is claimed by some, for example, that “community
music” may act as a solvent of industrial differences in such
a way as to prepare the soil for specific forms of useful co-
operation. Possibly this may be so where the local population
is composed of very heterogeneous elements. But it seems
questionable whether similar results will follow easily in the
community composed largely of persons of the same speech,
habits of living, and economic interests. Here it may be that
222 CIVIC EDUCATION
sophistication and long acquaintance will preclude the
practicability of any easy smoothing over of deep-seated
differences.
“PROBLEM” METHODS
Future studies of the psychology of learning will probably
establish the very great importance of the “problem method”
in several of the subjects taught in the upper grades and high
schools. The method has long been employed to a degree in
mathematics and physics, where, however, its usefulness has
been seriously diminished through the general use of fictitious
rather than realistic problems. Recent advances in the teach-
ing of these subjects center, indeed, in attempts to substitute
“problems from life” for the imaginary and often bizarre
problems heretofore invented for purposes of illustration or
exercise.
The social-science subjects are now, as before stated, taught
in the main by “didactic” methods. But the actual applica-
tion of social-science knowledge in governmental and other
“large group” policies by citizens commonly involves the
solution of “problems” no less than do practical applications
of mathematics and the natural sciences. The problem
method should, therefore, prove no less superior in civic
education than in the other fields where it is now developing.
Current enthusiasms for the “project method” have led
undiscriminating writers so to distend the meaning of the
word “project” as to include all kinds of realistic problems.
But this misuse of terminology can hardly last. The problem
method is not the project method, and each has its distinctive
field. Useful distinctions can be observed everywhere in life.
Many citizens undertake, from time to time, what are truly
“civic projects” — from the formation of a new party to
driving out a political boss, from effecting a reform in voting
to the passage of a new statute. But many times more
MEANS AND METHODS OF CIVIC EDUCATION 223
numerous are the “problems” every conscientious voter has
to solve at election and other times in deciding which of two
or more alternative courses he should take in registering his
vote or influencing others.
The validity or usefulness of the problem method in
civic education rests on these grounds:
(a) That every individual beyond the age of infancy pos-
sesses in fact a rich social experience as a result of environ-
mental contacts; (b) that most of the interpretations and eval-
uations of these experiences are now made by the individual on
the basis of personal impulse and social imitation; (c) that in
ordinary social life, even where such interpretations and
evaluations tend to become rational, they nevertheless long
remain heavily biased by dogmas, creeds, and doctrinaire
formulae because of partisan suggestions; and (d) that it is
in a measure practicable for schools to help the student inter-
pret and evaluate such social experience rationally, and
increasingly in accordance with scientific standards.
Problem methods therefore presuppose the organization of
so much of the learner's social experience as will enable him
to appreciate the existence of problems, followed by the
directed analysis of these by means of a series of questions
designed to promote evaluations and also to bring out
provisional interpretations that might seem more or less
contradictory. It is assumed that with the aid of the teacher
progress can easily be made toward some correct evaluations
in so far as the state of present knowledge permits these to be
reached. Since in many cases no final and permanently valid
interpretations are as yet possible, the desirable objectives
of this method of instruction may well include some deliberate
fostering of attitudes of suspended judgment, as well as
convictions on the part of learners that unsuspected causal
factors are involved in the problems. These may be illustrated
by examples.
224 CIVIC EDUCATION
Let it be assumed that as means we possess for the use of
the pupil an analysis like that given below, each question
being followed by blank spaces in which the learner would
write provisional answers as far as his experience would then
permit. These could then be assembled and discussed in
conference and corrections made, in so far as concerted
judgment could then be had. Where uncertain elements still
remain these could be characterized as unsettled problems,
some of which obviously may have to remain unsettled for
the individual throughout his lifetime. Let it be assumed
that we are dealing with ninth-grade pupils in a “social
problems” course in a typical urban manual working-class
environment.
A. Problems of Poverty
1. Each member of the class will draw upon his experience
until he finds a typical case that can be characterized as a
“poor family” as to which the following questions can be
answered: -
a. In what ways and to what extent does the poverty of
this family seem to have been due to catastrophe – fire,
death, robbery, severe illness, fraud, or war?
b. To what extent and in what ways does the poverty of
the family seem to have been due to low earning power on
the part of the man, owing to accidental causes over which
he has had little control – sickness, lack of employment,
financial depression, and the like?
c. To what extent does the poverty seem to arise from
lack of earning power due to the fact that the man is of
inferior natural ability, intelligence, or other qualities?
d. To what extent does the poverty seem to be due to
inferior earning power because the man had not learned a
trade or lacks some necessary adjunct to success such as
thrift or ability to market his product?
MEANS AND METHODS OF CIVIC EDUCATION 225
e. To what extent does the poverty seem to be due to
the large size of the family, to their extravagant habits, or to
their failure in ordinary thrift?
f. In summary, show to what extent the poverty of
the family seems to be due to causes that could be called
“natural” and quite apart from the individuals themselves.
g. Similar summary of a series of analyses involving
causes of poverty found in individuals themselves — idleness,
intemperance, instability, irascibility, etc.
h. Similar summary of causes that are essentially moral
in the family itself.
i. Similar summary of causes for which society as a
whole or some large groups therein seem responsible.
2. Large parts of India are very densely populated. It is
said that little progress has yet been made in agriculture by
modern methods. These regions are subject to occasional
drought. On the whole the population is regarded as
being very poor. Answer these questions as well as practi-
cable:
a. What are the causes of the poverty of these people
that must be ascribed to natural limitations in their environ-
ment?
b. What are the causes of their poverty due to their own
large numbers? -
c. What are the causes of their poverty due to their
backwardness in agricultural methods?
d. What are the causes of their poverty due probably to
misgovernment?
e. What will probably be the best means of preventing
famines and extreme poverty in the future?
3. In what ways does it appear that the poverty of persons
of low natural ability can be prevented in the future by:
(a) better general education; (b) better vocational education:
(c) better training in thrift?
226 CIVIC EDUCATION
4. In what ways does it seem that the poverty of Ameri-
cams can be diminished in the future by: (a) the progress of
science and invention; (b) families of smaller average size;
(c) improved agriculture; (d) more and better railroads;
(e) more savings-banks deposits; (f) more foreign trade?
5. What are some of the effects on conditions of poverty
that may be expected to come from: (a) increased immigra-
tion; (b) heavier taxation; (c) destruction of forests; (d) the
crowding of peoples into cities; (e) poor government; (f) war?
6. What seems to be the relation of poverty to the
accumulation of very large fortunes, when such fortunes, as
well as a large part of the interest thereon, are kept con-
stantly invested rather than spent?
B. Other Sources of Problems
Adapted to this same group of learners could readily be
devised problems centering about such topics as these:
Colonial government, collective or state management of
public utilities, the organization of labor, functions of
representatives in republican government, private ownership
of property, child labor, over-production, coöperation of
farmers, treatment of crime, taxation, public ownership of
forests, territorial supervision of production, large fortunes,
free education, rural mail service, relief of the poor, and
literally hundreds of others.
C. Economic Problems
1. Assume tenth-grade, second-year high school class,
electing a course in Economic Problems. The course would
be organized about these principles: *
a. Economic problems constitute a large part of the civic
problems of present and future.
b. Many economic problems, like many problems in
MEANS AND METHODS OF CIVIC EDUCATION 227
mathematics and physics, are far too difficult for the mental
powers and experience of high school students.
c. Some economic problems, like some problems in
mathematics and physics, are well within the mental powers
and easily acquired experience of high school pupils, even of
ninth and tenth grades.
d. Those problems only should be selected for study which
are related to, and are interpretative of, problems about which
serious issues and divisions of opinion now exist or are likely
to exist.
e. Where problems now divide men of substantially equal
intelligence and social good will into opposed parties, the
school must carefully refrain from taking sides, confining its
efforts as far as practicable, without arousing intense antago-
nisms, to setting forth the contentions of both sides.
The approach to these problems should be made first by
considering, quite apart from learners’ capacities, those
problems that are now acute. Then, by processes of elimina-
tion, find specific problems or phases of problems adapted
to the capacities of learners.
2. The following are some of the topics in economics from
which may readily be drawn problems suited to tenth grades:
Private property Power production Foreign trade
Insurance Coöperation Public utilities
Taxation Factory system Monopoly
Public property Credit Population
Capital War Immigration
Raw resources Competition Minimum wage
Collective consump- Middlemen laws
tion Corporations Women in indus-
Wages Trade unionism try
Rent Gold Vocational educa-
Hand production Tariffs tion
3. When those problems have been selected that are in
part at least within the comprehension of the group or level
228 CIVIC EDUCATION
of learners under consideration, their debatable aspects or
issues should be brought into relief. The more abstract
designation of the areas to be considered might well be
reserved for teachers only. Sound pedagogy would usually
involve: (a) bringing to the attention of pupils at the outset
those problems coming nearest to their home or community
experience; (b) assembly of facts of general knowledge;
(c) assembly of principles upon which a large proportion of
well-informed men are substantially agreed; (d) approach
to the critical issues. As an example take “wages as payment
for labor.” -
The teacher is aware that there are many problems in the
economics of wages as to which there exists no agreement
even among experts. These can be raised where necessary
and their various aspects discussed. Abstract principles will
be kept in reserve until needed in connection with concrete
issues.
Problems of social justice which acutely concern or in-
terest most learners will probably include many like the
following (the phrase “Is it right” is conveniently assumed
to derive from accepted standards of “social justice”):
a. Is it right that unskilled workers should receive lower
wages than skilled workers?
b. Is it right that a woman should take less wages for
certain work than a man with a family would require for
the same work?
c. Is it right that wages should be paid, not at a fixed rate
per day, but in proportion to work done?
d. Is it right that a man with a large family should receive
only the same wages as a single man?
e. Is it right that brain workers should be paid more than
hand workers?
f. Is it right that a minimum wage should be fixed by law
so that no one would be allowed to work for less?
MEANS AND METHODS OF CIVIC EDUCATION 229
g—m. (Many others.)
4. The problems being before the pupils, no final judg-
ments should be sought until miscellaneous experience
possessed by the class is assembled, interpreted, and trans-
lated. Such questions as the following would help in this
process: .
a. What kinds of occupations of which you know do not
pay in wages (homemakers, farmers, small shopkeepers)?
b. Are there any essential differences between salaries
and wages? between day’s wages and piece-work wages?
c. Are doctors’ fees practically the same as wages?
waiters’ tips?
d. Do not most of the men in any city now work for wages?
e. What kinds of men and women workers now receive
the highest wages, salaries, or fees?
f. What kinds the lowest?
D. Social Problems
It will often happen that better results can be had by
organizing courses around “social problems” rather than
economic problems alone, since it is now apparent that
elements are often involved which are not strictly economic.
The following are topics that suggest a variety of such
possible problems:
The rights of labor
Model milk supplies
The rights of men accused of crime
The rights of the public to pure food
The care of homeless children
Mothers’ pensions and the home
Enforcement of compulsory school attendance
Coöperation of business men in city government
The purposeful restriction of immigration
What kinds of equality are essential in business organiza-
tion
30 CIVIC EDUCATION
Government by party
Problems of limiting private property
The localization of manufacturing industries
Freedom of contract
Governmental supervision of marriage
Social control of domestic relations
The family as an earning unit
Causes of divorce
Effect of broken homes on juvenile delinquency
Courts of domestic relations
Problems of primaries
The short ballot
Proportional representation
Corrupt election practices
The spoils system -
Advantages and disadvantages of direct legislation
The use of the recall
Freedom of speech and thought
Rights to bear arms
Rights of negroes
Rights and liberties of employees
Problems of jury trial
Problems of prison labor
Prison reform
Methods of taxation
Standards of city government
Selection and training of city administrators
City planning -
Progress of good housing
Improvement of water fronts
City water supply
Public baths and swimming
Street construction
County unit of administration
Appointment and tenure of judges
Uniform legislation
The amendment of the constitution
Method of national legislation
Administrative centralization in national government
Education and care of defectives
Public sanitation
MEANS AND METHODS OF CIVIC EDUCATION 231
Disposal of waste
Prohibition of liquor traffic
Problems of child labor
Women in industry
Industrial accidents
Problems of unemployment
Governmental regulation of business
National aid in road construction
Public control of railways
Changing values of money
Agricultural credit
Improvement of river commerce
Postal savings banks
National aid in dealing with agricultural pests
The Public Weather Bureau Service
Water conservation
Conservation of waterpower
Negotiations of treaties
Promotion in the army
National defense
E. Problems of Specific Aim
Americans 14–16 years of age are just at the beginnings
of conscious citizenship — that is, of conscious membership
in social groups larger than the family and neighborhood.
There are still many civic problems with which they can
have no responsible concern until they are much older; but
there are many others that they can begin to consider now,
because of the concreteness of their “appreciative” experi-
ence, as reached through local social contacts.
Is the young citizen naturally interested in ethical ques-
tions, especially when they touch, but do not blend with, his
own conduct? For example, which of the following questions
might well serve as “key approaches” to important ethical
problems for these learners?
Kinds of problems. Should pupils be asked to consider
pros and cons of problems like the following, in response
232 CIVIC EDUCATION
to fundamental questions? The approach may be made
through the general formula, “Is it right that”:
Men should be hanged for crimes?
Boys under 16 should be sent to jail for what the law calls
felonies?
A man should have an income of a million dollars a year?
Majorities should settle matters and coerce minorities?
Men should use streets who have not paid anything
toward making them?
Incomes should be taxed?
Blind people should be compelled to earn their own livings?
A man’s property should be forcibly taken by a railroad
line, he being compensated therefor?
Men without licenses should be prevented from practicing
medicine?
Sale of liquor should be prohibited?
Immigration of Chinese should be prevented?
Poor people should pay no taxes?
Interest should be charged for loans?
Landlords should charge whatever rent they can get?
Textbooks should be supplied to pupils free?
Mails should be censored in war time?
Movies should be censored? -
Small groups of men should own large factories or mines?
It should be so difficult to amend the Constitution?
Religious denominations should be allowed to maintain
their own schools?
Drunken men should be arrested and put in jail or fined?
Conscientious objectors should be sent to jail in war time?
A man should be compelled to pay school taxes when he
has no children to educate?
Children of poor parents should have to leave school at 14?
People who cannot pay rent should be evicted?
A man should refuse to belong to any political party if he
desires?
A man should elect to change to another party after some
years in the first party? -
A man should vote against the nominee of his party?
A man should refuse to be a soldier because he does not
believe in war?
MEANS AND METHODS OF CIVIC EDUCATION 233
A man should live on an inheritance, doing no other work
than looking after investments?
A rich man should hold a public job?
A man should hold a lot vacant in a city for rising
values?
A city should require uniform fares on street cars for long
and for short distances?
An employer should be free to dismiss workers when he
thinks he can get better ones? •
A grocer should charge what he can get when food is
scarce?
Rich people should use flowers lavishly at entertain-
ments?
Rich people should keep many servants in war times? in
peace times?
A man should refuse to obey what he thinks is a bad law?
A pupil should refuse to tell on a classmate who has done
wrong?
Men in chronically poor health should not marry?
Men should refuse to read newspapers?
A farmer unable to look fully after a big farm should leave
half of it permanently idle?
A man with a small income and four small children should
refuse to support his dependent father? aunt? cousin’
Negroes should be compelled to ride in separate cars from
whites?
The skilled workers in a trade should limit the number of
persons who may be permitted to learn that trade?
A man should refuse to employ a physician for his very sick
child because he does not believe in the use of medicine
to heal the sick?
A representative in Congress or a legislature should vote
as he thinks his constituents want him to vote, although
in his judgment that way is wrong?
A representative in Congress or a legislature should vote
according to his own convictions even when he thinks his
constituents want him to vote the other way?
A government should aid the business men of the country
in competing with the business men of another country?
A country should impose heavy protective tariffs on the
products of another country?
234 CIVIC EDUCATION
F. The “Case Problem” Method
The “case problem” method involves bringing to the
attention of pupils one or more social cases or realistic situa-
tions from which naturally grow problems analogous to those
found in political life. These cases may well be hypothetical
but should correspond closely to actual conditions, as do
“cases” in law schools. For example:
Hypothetical (or realistic) Case. In a certain state are about
5000 square miles of hilly and mountainous country which
were once covered with dense forest. In early days much of
this land was given as grants by colonial or state governments
to individuals or corporations who began cutting wood and
lumber on it. Lumbering proceeded later at a rapid rate
until the old forests had disappeared. When such a forest is
cleared and no fires follow, shrubbery springs up and within
twenty or more years a new growth of trees can be cut off.
However, the present owners of the land plant no trees, and
when they are lumbering they cannot afford (so they think)
to clear up the waste products as they take away the logs,
in such a way that fires can be prevented. For two or three
years following such fires the rains and melting snows sluice
much of the soft soil, including the rich “humus,” down into
the streams, where it is lost forever. This washing away of
the soil fills up some lower river channels and causes floods,
but the greatest damage is the depletion of the mountain
lands for future generations.
1. Readings can be suggested, showing the history of
similar situations in China, Palestine, California; of the
tree-planting experiences of France, Germany, Southern
California; and as to present governmental policies in New
England, the Appalachians, the Western Forest Reserves,
etc.
2. Specific problems, in part of applying such knowledge as
the pupils now possess to the disentanglement of some of
MEANS AND METHODS OF CIVIC EDUCATION 235
the questions involved, and in part of “working out” par-
ticular difficulties, could then be provided. For example:
a. Is it right that the owners of this land should be free to
do as they will with it?
b. Should the state or nation compel them to adopt
expensive methods of lumbering or replanting without giving
compensation?
c. Is the state justified in buying such land under rights of
“eminent domain’?
d. Scores of other useful questions could be devised.
It should be noted that in the main this is the method
now used by conscientious and self-informing citizens in
arriving at final decisions as to sound policies.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Courses of STUDY FOR CIVIC EDUCATION
& 3 3
For administrative purposes the “means and methods
of any systematized form of instruction or training are con-
veniently organized into subjects and courses. In the
general field of civic, as in physical, education it is to be
expected that terminology will remain flexible, perhaps often
indeterminate, for some years, owing to uncertainties as to
valid objectives.
Subjects. It is, of course, correct to designate as “sub-
jects,” American history, civics, and economics. But
“courses” in these adapted to particular ends of civic edu-
cation, and again adapted to the varying maturities, abilities,
and environments of pupils, will require carefully descriptive
designations if they are to serve a useful purpose.
But the term “subject” applies very inadequately to
certain other obviously valuable means of civic education.
Scouting, civic readings, dramatic projects, case problem
economies, and social problems will have to be offered as
“courses” unless some more acceptable term can be found.
In this chapter the word “course” will therefore be freely
used to designate a portion of a subject or a somewhat
systematized grouping of activities in a field that is only by
courtesy to be called a subject. Many of the courses referred
to will be of the “short unit” variety — that is, they may
extend only four, six, or eight weeks, instead of over a half-
year or year as has often been customary in the past.
In the light of present experience the following inferences
are submitted as to courses in civic education that might well
be provided, in Some cases on an experimental basis, in
progressive schools during the next few years. These in-
ferences are necessarily still tentative. They seem to the
writer the logical outcome of the findings in previous chapters
236
COURSES OF STUDY FOR CIVIC EDUCATION 237
as to the needs, conditions, and methods of civic education.
Nevertheless, it is certain that only well-planned and carefully
executed experimentation can finally give us effective courses.
It is assumed that in the first six grades no “departmental”
or specialized teaching service is provided. In Grades 7 to
12, on the other hand, it is expected that all phases of or-
ganized social education in a given school will be concentrated
in the hands of one or two departmental teachers.
FIRST SIX GRADES
1. For children from 6 to 9 years of age, let us assume
a school day of six hours (to include one or two hours'
Supervised physical play). Of this time 20 per cent might
well be given to social education. Some of the possible
objectives of social education for these grades will be achieved
through large correlations with games, discipline, general
reading, and possible practical-arts projects, language studies,
and the like. The 20 per cent time allotment given indicates
the “weight” to be attached to objectives of purposive
Social education, even where these are realized through
correlations with other studies. Short courses in the follow-
ing are recommended:
a. Dramatized projects — festivals, masques, etc. — of
kinds now well developed in all progressive schools. With
these may be included training in flag salutes, and patriotic
singing. The literature of primary education now abounds in
Serviceable examples.
b. A very few genuine service projects are practicable for
these ages. Those practicable will center largely in main-
tenance of school order and cleanliness, but may include a few
connecting with homes, and, rarely, for relief or commemora-
tion service to community (as suggested by Red Cross
activities). The ideals of moral, rather than of civic, educa-
tion should probably control.
238 CIVIC EDUCATION
c. Developmental talks and readings, ranging from in-
spirational tales of heroes and signal events, to attractively
given talks on law observance, clean town, good citizenship,
patriotism, and the like.
d. Community civics, through exploratory and inter-
pretive contacts with accessible agencies of public or other
general service in the neighborhood — including agencies of
government (post office, street or highway, policing, water
supply, fire protection) and private general utilities (stores,
street cars, lighting, newspapers, etc.). Even in the lower
grades much of value can be accomplished through practi-
cable short units, if methods appropriate to developmental
education are adhered to.
e. Salient or framework history. For these grades, definite
memorization of central facts (with appreciations of “halo.”
situations) as to perhaps ten or twenty salient dates, names,
and events in American history, together with a smaller
number of those in world history, should be the goals of one
or more “short unit” courses each year – requiring perhaps
not more than ten to twenty hours. Methods of study should
include the use of very simple chronological lines, charts, or
other graphic devices of kinds that need not be greatly
modified throughout grades, but which can be indefinitely
extended and proliferated.
2. For age levels 9 to I2, let the “long school day.”
be also presupposed, as well as the allocation of about 20 per
cent of time to civic education.
a. Dramatic projects utilizing elections, commemorations,
simple pageants, naturalization, patriotic devotion, all of
broader scope than those suggested for earlier grades.
b. Service or participation projects may well include here
beginnings of purposive school government for short periods,
closing exercises of coöperative nature, group organization
of games, and possibly, under some circumstances, “clean
COURSES OF STUDY FOR CIVIC EDUCATION 239
town projects,” simple relief projects for poor at holiday
time, Red Cross participations, and others.
c. Exploratory projects, visits to local concrete agencies of
government (fire protection, police headquarters, street
repair, docks, street cleaning, etc.), and also visits to agencies
of large-scale production including transportation and
exchange — factories, cold-storage plants, street-car trans-
portation, shipping, department-store merchandising, etc.
d. Readings. Periodic readings by teachers and of assign-
ments by pupils, about founders, significant events, con-
temporary enterprises, with beginnings of critical and
friendly evaluation of governmental agencies, public utilities,
and other social mechanisms affecting the local general
welfare.
e. Social-science problems. These must await development
of printed matter to guide teachers. Sources are to be found
in problems of trade, relief, street cleaning, etc., as they may
be found accessible to learners of this age.
f. Salient or framework history — key dates, events, and
a few broad historical findings to be made matters of memori-
zation.
SECOND SIX GRADES
3. The really great opportunities for the development of
genuine civic education in American public schools are to be
found between the age levels of 12 and 18. It is now agreed
that here departmental or specialized teaching service can
and will be provided where necessary. At these levels it is
increasingly practicable to differentiate pupils into groups,
where their best educational interests require it. The educa-
tional success of scouting and club work are evidences of the
vitality of the motives that have been appealed to by these
agencies. All boys and girls under 14 are now required to
attend school full time in all but a very few backward states.
In states representing far more than half the population,
240 CIVIC EDUCATION
part-time attendance is obligatory to 16, whilst in most
communities from 30 to 70 per cent of children from 14 to 16
voluntarily attend school full time.
Since we are only in the early stages of the purposive
development of civic education for young people, in the first
place from 12 to 14 years of age, and next from 14 to 16 and
beyond, it is legitimate, in proposing courses that must be
as yet essentially experimental in character, to assume the
availability of optimum conditions for their first trial flights.
For the courses proposed below, therefore, we assume the
existence, in an educationally progressive city, of a central
junior high school in which are found: -
a. Fifteen hundred pupils, including all pupils of seventh
and eighth grade rank in the district, as well as all pupils
over 12 years of age who have not reached seventh grade.
b. A vice-principal or department head in charge of all
kinds and phases of education intended to be primarily civic
in its purposes and outcomes.
c. Teachers reasonably well equipped to give instruction
in the various social-science subjects; and the same or others
prepared to direct, lead, or train in project and other activities
expected to function toward civic powers and appreciations.
d. Needed equipment of library reading materials, rooms
for debating, facilities for scouting, and the like.
e. A school day of eight hours, including not less than two
hours for physical sports and two other hours for “develop-
mental” studies or activities of an intellectual or social
nature. To this add the availability of Saturdays and even
holidays, from time to time, for scouting and for service
projects.
f. School programs sufficiently flexible to permit not only
the differentiation of pupils on basis of intelligence, if desired,
but also the reconsolidation of these groups for readings,
scouting, and projects where differences of intelligence may
COURSES OF STUDY FOR, CIVIC EDUCATION 24.I.
be less important than similarities of ideal, social condition,
or strong interests.
This large junior high school will, in its 1500 pupils,
represent of course a wide diversity of abilities, environ-
ments, and prospects. Some will combine high ability with
prosperous home conditions; whilst at the opposite extreme
some will combine inferior abilities with adverse home
influences. A certain number will be the products of high-
grade homes, but handicapped in themselves by low native
powers; at the other pole will be found some from very poor
homes, but endowed with superior abilities.
The shrewd eye of prophecy can also detect broad differ-
ences of future prospects already casting their shadows before
among these 1500. From two groups, and only two groups
of those mentioned above, are likely to come the future
professional men and women as well as the bulk of political
and other “large group” leaders. A large proportion are
destined to be “just average” American citizens — well
meaning, indeed, but never very well informed, intensely
partisan, or idealistic. From 60 to 80 per cent of these
pupils will have no school education after 16 years of age.
Guiding principles. Under the conditions assumed, and
with such knowledge as we can now assemble, what courses
should be provided? What, if any, should be prescribed in
substance or content for all alike? What, if any, prescribed
by title for all, but with varying content for different ability
or interest levels? The following guiding principles are sub-
mitted for further criticism:
a. Assuming that in the two years or grades of the junior
high school there are roundly available about 3000 hours for
all forms of school education, there is arbitrarily reserved
20 per cent of this or 600 hours for all forms of civic education;
and every pupil will be required to give that amount of
time to this field.
242 CIVIC EDUCATION
b. The offerings of civic education shall be of several kinds,
each clearly differentiated as to purpose, means, and methods,
and each organized on some convenient “short unit” basis
hereafter to be determined experimentally. For present
purposes it will be assumed that 60 hours will be the measure
of a “short unit” course (the equivalent of one hour daily
for sixty school days or twelve weeks, which is one third of
a 180-day school year or one “quarter” of the “four quarter”
school year which will eventually prevail). But it must not
be assumed that a sixty-hour course will invariably consist of
sixty one-hour sessions distributed through sixty successive
school days. A scouting course of sixty hours might consist
of fifteen four-hour meetings on fifteen designated Saturdays.
Project work and readings will in any event require much
greater flexibility of arrangement than “framework history”
and civil-government subjects.
c. Offerings for civic education shall be divided into two
categories, (1) developmental and (2) projective. Each pupil
must during his two years take not less than three short
courses of each type, and he may not take more than six
courses of the developmental type unless his general scholar-
ship is “superior” – on a grading of excellent, superior,
modal, inferior, bad; or A (to include 10 per cent of all
pupils under normal conditions), B (20 per cent), C (40
per cent), D (20 per cent), and E (10 per cent).
d. The following shall be the projective offerings:
(1) Salient or framework American history A
(elective by all pupils); 30 hours each year.
(2) Salient American history B (an advanced “hard”
course recommended for pupils of superior
abilities who expect to remain several years in
school); 60 hours, eighth grade.
(3) Civil government or formal civics, 60 hours,
either year.
COURSES OF STUDY FOR CIVIC EDUCATION 243
(4)
(5)
(6)
(7)
Social problems, adapted to seventh-grade
pupils of less than average abilities; 60 hours.
Social problems, adapted to seventh-grade
pupils of more than average abilities; 60 hours.
Politico-economic problems of contemporary
importance but studied with conscious reference
to historical origins and parallels, 60 hours
(recommended for abler pupils in eighth grade).
Political or civic problems of contemporary
interest (recommended for less able pupils in
eighth grade).
e. The following shall be the “developmental” offerings:
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
(6)
(7)
(8)
Sixty hours of “service projects,” to be varied
from year to year, and to include, when condi-
tions are favorable, maintenance of school self-
government under specified conditions.
Sixty hours of scouting.
Sixty hours of developmental readings in fields
of contemporary civic problems.
Sixty hours of developmental readings in fields
of history related to contemporary civic prob-
lems.
Sixty hours of debating and civic dramatization.
An advanced course in economic readings, open
to gifted pupils.
A reading course in world political history, open
to pupils of talent.
A current-events course in politics for pupils of
less than average abilities.
4. The purposes and procedures suggested for the above
courses may for the present suffice to suggest proposals for
higher grades. “Problem” courses will, of course, become
more important and more difficult in higher grades. “Reading
courses” will certainly become more comprehensive and
244 * CIVIC EDUCATION
serious. Project methods may prove less, rather than more,
available as the “scouting” age is past, and it is hard to see
much of a future for dramatic projects between the ages of 15
and 18. “Projective” courses in economics, civics, and even
sociology are clearly practicable provided they are not over-
loaded with formal and needless detail — provided, that is,
that in the minds of learners they actually do function as
“framework” courses.
CHAPTER TWELVE
PROBLEMS OF RESEARCH
MUCH research may be expected in the near future looking
to the determination of society’s needs for civic education,
the best specific objectives of such education, and its most
effective means and methods.
The appended suggestions grow directly out of the dis-
cussions contained in the preceding pages. They are designed
in part to indicate the scope and variety of the problems
involved.
Present possibilities of research in the field of civic educa-
tion include: (a) study of general and specific needs of civic
education, school and non-school; (b) appraisal of the present
contributions of non-school agencies; (c) appraisal of contri-
butions of civic by-education in schools through discipline,
readings, sports, etc.; (d) critical examination of American
and other history studies as means of civic education;
(e) critical evaluation of “civics,” “community civics,”
economics, and other similar didactic materials as means of
civic education; (f) appraisal of other means now employed
in schools primarily toward civic education, including social-
service projects, dramatic projects, pageants, school self-
government, civic readings, etc.; (g) proposed restatement of
objectives; and (h) proposed new or reorganized means and
methods.
THE “CASE GROUP’’ METHOD
But research along these lines, involving such complex
social composites as the citizenry of a nation, province
(American state), or urban or rural municipality, is practically
beyond resources now available. Such undertakings would
be analogous to chemical analysis of a shovelful of earth,
biological analysis of an armful of plants, or economic
'945
246 CIVIC EDUCATION
analysis of the population and activities of a city — all of
which were impracticable in the early stages of these sciences.
Partition or segregation of social phenomena is, therefore,
necessary for research in civic education. Two kinds might
be employed. (a) Individual cases — a man, a woman, a
child — might be studied, their civic virtues diagnosed and
evaluated, and proposed means and methods of correcting
defects in present or potentially similar cases might be de-
vised. (b) Since, however, civic behavior, though springing
from individuals, usually operates and becomes significant
through groups of resembling individuals, probably a more
profitable approach can be found in the study of the prevail-
ing qualities of fairly homogeneous case groups. -
A case group is here taken to mean a group, class, level,
or other aggregation of individuals all of whom possess one
or more defined qualities of resemblance. For purposes of
case-group study any qualities may be taken — Sex, age,
race, color, vocation, wealth, intelligence, habitat, education,
religion, taste, etc. For example: Case Group D. Skilled
mechanics (male) earning not less than $1500 or more than
$2500 annually at 25–40 years of age, of at least one genera-
tion American ancestry, working in the automobile indus-
tries of Michigan. Case Group E. Negro women, age 30-50,
working at least 200 days per year as field hands in Alabama,
averaging third-grade schooling. Case Group F. Men, college
graduates, 35–60 years of age, in commercial vocations.
Case Group G. Boys, 17–19 years of age, left school at 14,
average sixth-grade schooling, employed from 2 to 5 years
at good wages in juvenile vocations. Case Group H. Girls,
"super-average intelligence, ages 12–14, now in seventh school
grade; very good home environment; will probably go
through high school and at least one year in college; about
half will marry before 30, remainder will seek promotion
in professional or commercial work.
PROBLEMS OF RESEARCH 247
The segregation of case groups of adults permits analysis
and evaluation of civic qualities now found, from which
may be derived findings as to desirable specific school ob-
jectives of civic education for next generation. For example,
making allowance for some variants, how will Groups D and
F above compare as regards: prevailing patriotism; interest
in economical and efficient expenditure of public funds by
governmental agencies; devotion to public education; Sup-
port of forest conservation; promotion of social “destruc-
tionism”; political party activity? -
What will be the prevailing “virtues of conformity” of
Case Group FP What do they know about the tariff legisla-
tion, recall of officials, town planning, the League of Nations,
the promotion of better public schools? By what standards
should we say that these negresses are “prevailingly good
citizens”? “bad citizens”? Under different educational con-
ditions how should the civic potentialities of their children
be expected to differ from the present civic qualities of
Case Group HP
Are the members of Case Group G now citizens? When
and how will they probably become members of political
parties? What are their present prominent civic virtues?
civic vices? Into what sub-groups could they probably be
divided on the basis of civic behavior?
Sharp distinctions must here be made between the needs
of research and the needs of school administration. The
results of case group study may not be immediately applica-
ble in framing courses or other means of civic education.
Certainly this will be the situation in schools of highly
composite character — as are usually junior and senior high
Schools in medium-sized or small cities, and sometimes in
large cities. -
Nevertheless, it is doubtful if any better method can be
found to carry us beyond present deductive, a priori proce-
248 CIVIC EDUCATION
dures in framing courses in civic education, or toward
scientific determination of objectives. No one can prove
that present practices – based chiefly upon history studies
and didactic civics — are effective as sources of civic ideals or
insights, except for a small minority of the more imaginative
students.
Here again we can profitably apply analogies from the
natural sciences. Researches in chemistry, electricity,
agriculture, bridge-building, etc., are first executed on a
laboratory scale and free from the complicating conditions
of commercial application, until details are settled; then
commercial applications can profitably be studied by means
specialized for that purpose. The teacher who asks at the
outset, “But how could I use that in my school?” is like the
impatient child uprooting the seed at the end of a week “to
see if it is growing.”
NEEDS OF CIVIC EDUCATION
What are contemporary needs of civic education? Socio-
logical research is readily practicable here, even for teachers
and others who can give only moderate time to it, provided
standards are not too exacting and students are willing to
accept “common sense” formulations of social values.
Examples:
(a) The war gave concrete tests of various functions of
national patriotism — for young men, voluntary enlistment;
for mothers, willingness to let their sons serve; for business
leaders, dollar-a-day service; for unionized laborers, willing-
ness to forgo strikes; for recent immigrants, unalloyed
devotion to land of adoption, etc.
What harmful defects of the patriotism which should, in
war time, normally be expected of the group, class, or level,
were prevailingly shown by: illiterate men, 40–60, Kentucky;
Polish coal miners, 20–30, Pennsylvania; wives of owning
PROBLEMS OF RESEARCH 249
farmers of German extraction, Iowa and Missouri; negro
workingmen, 30–60, literate and fairly prosperous in North-
ern cities? other groups? Thus can be ascertained needs of
one type of civic education. It should be remembered that
we are constantly making such valuations now, as contribut-
ing to public opinion. The proposed studies contemplate
simply greater precision and less passion.
(b) Recent legislation prohibiting manufacture or sale of
alcoholic beverages encounters much opposition and tempts
many to lawbreaking. Do the lawless come from some
distinguishable social groups more than from others? from
owning farmers? high-school boys? educated women with
children? recent immigrant Italian manual laborers? public-
school teachers (men)? miscellaneous unskilled laborers of
American ancestry? Thus ascertain needs of a second type
of civic education. -
(c) The successful performance of political functions on the
part of the citizen requires a certain amount of uncompen-
sated service — from two hours required for voting to one
hundred or more given to committee work, attending meet-
ings, even helping in campaigns. Subject to limitations in
their opportunities, how do the following groups compare as
respects the amount of such service they prevailingly give:
men high-school teachers; physicians; women homemakers of
at least high-school education, and family incomes of $6000
or more per year; lay leaders in Methodist churches; young
women clerks in department stores? Age levels and perhaps
racial origins could profitably be employed as bases of further
partition of these groups.
This method is capable of indefinite extension, ana-
lyzing the behavior of any civic group in respect to any
specific civic virtue. To the objections that it is difficult,
and not fully conclusive, it must be replied in the first place
that any other method seems still more difficult and uncertain,
250 CIVIC EDUCATION
if it is to be scientific. What the “easy generalizers” do is
to pass judgments upon unspecified or unbounded groups.
“Americans are dollar chasers.” “High-school pupils have
no respect for law.” “Negroes are lawless.” “The Irish-
Americans were not patriotic in the late war.” “We are not
a united people.” Such are the currency of superficial
thinkers and proponents of special aspirations.
Needs. What are some of the needs for more or better
forms of civic education which can properly be met by the
schools? Civic education is, obviously, largely a matter of
extra-school agencies — home, political parties, labor unions,
newspapers, etc. But some things the schools — elementary,
high, collegiate — can do better than other agencies — such
as giving perspective in American history, disentangling
economic and other social problems, perhaps inspiring ideals.
Here also many problems of research can be proposed.
(a) What are defects of civic ideals now characteristic of
Rocky Mountain farmers against which the best schools now
know how to forearm the rising generation? Same for
prosperous business men, graduates of high schools? Same
for women school teachers? -
(b) Wherein does the “good citizenship” of adult Jewish
immigrants now aged 30–60, who entered the country under
12 years of age, fall short because of incomplete or distorted
knowledge of American history? or of the correlation of
American history with that of their parent land? From this
deduce: conclusions as to kinds of “special” history study
desirable for children of specific classes of immigrants.
The foregoing inquiries apply to what might be called the
historic “civic virtues” — those that contributed to the good
citizenship of 1776, 1812, 1861, as well as that of today. But
inquiries should also be made as to the “new” virtues
required by our altered “large group” social conditions. It
is commonplace that our municipal organizations, our inter-
PROBLEMS OF RESEARCH 251
national connections, our internal economic interdependence,
and many other of our public or quasi-public relationships
have become increasingly complex in geometrical ratio, since
1870. Presumably these impose new strains on citizenship
and new demands on civic education.
But here we are in terribly complex fields of sociological
investigation in which the busy teacher is about as helpless
as he would be in Amazonian wilds. We may here have to
wait on the political scientist.
EXTRA-SCHOOL CIVIC EDUCATION
Another profitable field for civic-education research that
ought to prove congenial to many teachers is the appraisal
of various forms of extra-school education. All about us now
are “good citizens” from 30 to 70 years of age, in the making
of whom schools played a part, small or large, and the home,
street, church, shop, press, and the political party the other
parts. The settlers of the Mississippi Valley from 1800 to
1860, averaging a total of less than 250 days’ schooling, were,
judged by their “fruits,” prevailingly good citizens, with
exceptions. What were sources of their various civic virtues?
Our young men now in business have been educated partly
by the press of the last ten years, as well as by their vocational
superiors. With what results?
Here again the “case group” method of attack, the will to
analyze concrete qualities, and the resolution to avoid vague
and mystical generalizations will carry an investigation
far.
Similar studies are needed of certain indirect contributions
from school life. The discipline of the school, next to that of
the home, is the most persistent “small group” control to
which growing youth is now subject. The school has some of
the characteristics of the state, of which it is a factor. School
control nearly always looks to the future, and rests heavily
252 CIVIC EDUCATION
on law, justice, and rational understanding of social principles
of collective behavior.
School discipline may be considered as of several degrees,
or even forms, as respects autocracy, rationality, self-
determination, democracy, etc. Can analysis of adult case
groups trace connections of civic virtues prevailing in adult
life with habituations, insights, ideals established in school-
life controls?
It is frequently asserted that close connections exist
between adult civic virtues and the virtues promoted through
the voluntary coöperations and competitions of sports,
games, inter-school athletics, etc. Enthusiasms here usually
claim too much. Was Waterloo won on the field of Eton or
did Eton attract those who must win at Waterloo?
What virtues of adult citizens are in a measure traceable
to fraternities? Do these self-active social groups select the
most socialized? Do they socialize the highly individualistic?
What kinds of citizenship in later adult life would their
members represent if fraternity experience had been denied?
American history. More difficult is research to discover
the actual contributions to civic efficiency of American
history as it has been taught. The proponents of this subject
as a means of civic education (its contributions to general
culture belong in a different category) have not yet defined
concrete objectives against which accomplishments could be
tested — or have they? Some enthusiastic teachers mani-
festly use the subject (departing widely from the guidance
of texts which most teachers must follow) as a means of
kindling patriotic ideals. Case-group studies of adults might
give results here. Perhaps civic appreciations and insights
of other kinds come from such study — but the entire
situation is vague as yet.
What of the “literary” materials often correlated with
history — historical novels, patriotic poems, biographies,
PROBLEMS OF RESEARCH 253
tales of adventure? From these may often come ideals,
some vision. Under what conditions? Diagnosis of adult
“civic efficiencies” and disentanglement of source influences
is rendered difficult by the fact that many leaders, men of
vision, influential patriots, stern upholders of law, reformers,
and the like represent exceptional gifts of heredity and
non-school environment. They would probably have been
potent of civic virtues even without the ideals given by
contact with inspiring materials in school, library, and press.
A large part of purposive civics teaching in the past has
been exclusively by the method of “didactic inculcation” —
the study of formal texts composed of logically organized
descriptive matter, with usual recitations, etc. Can any
research now be devised to discover possible functionings
of this didactic civics? The effort would be well worth
while.
Many other means are now supposed to contribute to
civic efficiency. The “functionings” of these should be
critically examined, if that is yet practicable, under case-
group conditions. Among these are:
(a) Civic-service “projects” or activities.
(b) Dramatic activities or projects, including commemora-
tion festivals and pageants.
(c) High-school or college economics.
(d) High-school or college sociology.
(e) School self-government.
(f) General readings on topics of civic interest.
VALUES OF SCHOOL SUBJECTS
It should prove readily practicable for teachers to make
many specific studies of possible expansions or improvements
in means and methods already partially developed, having in
view concrete adaptations. This method has of course
always been followed in some degree by makers of texts and
254 CIVIC EDUCATION
courses. Recent pedagogical advances ought to make the
method more productive, especially when it is based on
previous analysis of case-group requirements. Constructive
studies here should demand: (a) very careful definitions,
including delimitations of expected aims and of scope of
subject-matter; (b) specific adaptations to proposed case
groups; and (c) invention of as many devices as practicable.
The following departments of study or school activity now
provide large possibilities for such inquiries: -
(a) American history, retaining chronological order,
encyclopedic content, and didactic presentation. Proposed
rewritings might be planned so as to confine emphasis, except
for skeleton outline, to subjects probably vital to the civic
behavior, fifteen years hence, of men and women citizens, 30
to 50 years of age, of only elementary school education and
an income under $2000 — the form to be adapted to seventh
and eighth grade pupils of average intelligence, taught by
teachers responsible for all subjects except manual training
and household arts.
(b) Social (or civic) service projects, typified by “clean
town” campaigns, help of sick, coöperation in policing, grad-
ing of school grounds, tree planting, and others where
valuable service to neighborhood results. (1) Not many
valuable projects have yet been discovered. (2) Teachers
have little information as to their difficulty, adaptations to
grades, time required, and ultimate contributions to civic
behavior, or motives thereto. An ingenious social-science
teacher could now assemble a helpful little book in this area.
(3) Neither is adequate information accessible as to adap-
tations of these projects to girls or to boys, to cities or to
villages, to prosperous or to poor environments.
(c) Dramatic projects, including commemoration festivals,
and pageants. Many of these are now available for all grades,
but their actual contributions respectively to civic insight,
PROBLEMS OF RESEARCH 255
appreciation, and ideals are uncertain. Obviously the moving
picture has great possibilities here. It seems now to be
believed that dramatic projects are valuable for learners far
removed from the normal American social inheritance —
recent immigrants, “poor whites,” negroes, products of
poor environments. Are they valuable for superior high-
school or college students?
(d) “Observation and Report” projects, including school-
conducted visits of inspection to places of governmental
service, productive plants, hospitals, etc., are now used, but
their actual or probable functionings are poorly analyzed as
yet. Neither has systematic examination been made of best
means and methods.
(e) School discipline, with self-government as a sub-
species, has obviously been regarded chiefly as a means of
conserving the order needed for school training and instruc-
tion in the “school” subjects. But it is patently a possible
means to certain kinds of civic education also. What — for
the conformist virtues of “small group” life, for correction
of gang or other small group vices? Social psychology would
help here.
“School self-government” in any one of its forms may be
a poor or expensive means of maintaining working order —
but may it not be a very effective and economical means of
civic education? Partly on basis of service projects, and
partly on basis of dramatic projects? If on “project” basis
should it not always be for definite terms — one month,
three months — or for specific areas of action — volunteer
activities, clean and orderly building, lunchroom control, etc.?
(f) Coöperative and competitive sports usually have their
controlling ends in satisfaction of play instincts. Can by-
products important for civic ends be developed? Will such
procedure defeat more important ends of physical develop-
ment?
256 CIVIC EDUCATION
(g) Didactic civics or civil government studies are now
general, and the market supplies a wealth of competing texts.
Are “follow-up” studies of results now practicable? Is it a
good guess that these studies make little abiding impression
on learners of sub-average abilities, and leave valuable
results only with the strongly imaginative and ambitious?
Suggestive studies of adult groups should here be practi-
cable; also of students two or four years after taking courses,
to discover ideals or insights closely related to civic behavior.
Civic texts vary greatly. They seldom state their objec-
tives, however. Sometimes they claim much for their
“problems,” “topics,” even “projects.” Are these claims
fulfilled in practice? Teachers with clearly defined and
documented hypotheses as to the desirable and practicable
objectives of civic education could evaluate these texts
comparatively in terms of objectives held by the teacher.
Such studies would be valuable only in proportion to the
soundness of the investigator's theories of educational
objectives, obviously.
(h) The questions of (g) also apply to didactic economics,
sociology, and social science, as junior or senior high-school
subjects. These subjects, as usually taught, seem of doubtful
validity in civic education, except again for a rare type
of student. Obviously, as in civics, the possible content of
knowledge for these courses is endlessly rich. Is poverty of
resulting interest due chiefly to faulty adaptation of materials
and languages of presentation to powers of learners? or to
poor methods of teaching, especially as implied in “didactic
method”? or to poorly equipped teachers? May it not be
that the entire method basis is a wrong one for this type of
subject-matter or for proposed objectives? .
(i) What of the possibilities of expanded and consistently
followed “problems” method courses for Grades 7 to 12
in this type of educational field — that is, where systematized
PROBLEMS OF RESEARCH 257
knowledge as well as a rich background of personal experience
is available on part of learners?
(j) What of the possibilities of fully developed “readings
and conference” methods in this field? $uccessful examples
of “problem” or “readings” methods are so few that parallel
examples are hardly yet available. But close analytical study
of certain objectives, and of the adaptation of these methods
to serving them, seem to promise rich results.
(k) “Community civics” as based partly on a flexible
“reading” text and partly on observational access to, and
partial interpretations of, local situations, has apparently
proved functional for Grades 4 to 7. Is it a good method
beyond? Will it serve “large group” objectives? -
(l) The time is ripe for careful study of results in adult
civic behavior of scouting and some other organized forms of
extra-school civic education.
(m) For the well-equipped sociological student certain
other studies of extra-school education are practicable. (1)
Take twenty men, 30 to 40 years of age, who now rank
manifestly as “good” citizens in their respective spheres.
Study their social growth and experiences since leaving
school, having in mind especially their current reading,
political-party associations, participation in voting and other
civic activities, including vocational group membership. In
what respects and to what extent can their present “good”
citizenship be ascribed to their self-education and to their
education from group contacts subsequent to school life?
Do most political leaders get their special equipments of
knowledge, habit, and ideal at this time?
(2) Take the names of twenty boys who left school at
14 years of age twenty years ago. Diagnose their present
civic behavior. Endeavor to ascertain what varieties and
degrees of the ideals, appreciations, attitudes, and under-
standings affecting that behavior have derived from the
258 CIVIC EDUCATION
reading done since leaving school, as a consequence of the
reading habits and powers assured by the school.
Means and methods. Another no less promising field of
study for busy teachers consists in the close analytic study
of possible adaptations of the means and methods suggested
above (or others) to carefully diagnosed case groups of
learners. It is not, of course, certain that we can always
isolate for purposes of administering curricula, school groups
as clearly defined as our case groups — and possibly we
should not desire to do so if we could, for social reasons
that need not be discussed here. Nevertheless, such specific
studies are now absolutely essential to bring us to close
grips with concrete problems of educational values. Is there
any other way open?
The following are illustrations of this method of inquiry:
(a) A certain large urban junior high school of 1200 pupils
in seventh and eighth grades contains one hundred boys
entering seventh grades (pupils’ Case Group MB) to whom
the following description and prognosis apply with substantial
precision:
(1) They are the sons of moderately skilled artisan
workers of American ancestry whose work is not very
regular, who have meager savings, do not own their resi-
dences, and are quite migratory. At present these fathers
work in large factories. Mothers do not work for wages.
Parents represent an average of only about sixth-grade
education. They are ambitious for the education of their
children, but willing to help only the brightest through high
school. The fathers belong to unions, are frequently on
“strike,” and have only passing interests in ordinary politics
— some of them being, indeed, pretty cynical as to existing
government. Parents are law-abiding, some good church
members.
(2) These hundred boys represent pupils testing at less
PROBLEMS OF RESEARCH 259
than average intelligence for their ages, 12 to 15. Their
homes are small and dingy, and sanitary conditions —
smoke, cleanliness, flies, drainage — of their part of city poor.
Parks are inadequate, the streets being chief playgrounds.
These boys have all passed sixth grade, but, being of sub-
average intelligence, often of migratory families, and having
thus far been schooled in crowded classes taught by half-
competent teachers, they have lost interest in school. Thus
far they have had little direct civic education. Their school
behavior is fair, they have shared in commemorative fes-
tivals, and have a fair appreciation of the salient facts and
personages of American history. They are not vicious, though
easily stimulated to rowdyism. They are healthy in a crude
way, and strongly disposed to rough physical sports for which
their environment gives scant opportunity. They are anxious
to go to work — animated in part perhaps by the craving
of their bodies for physical activity, in part by the desire to
do manly things, but chiefly to earn the money for which
they experience strong needs. They expect to enter juvenile
vocations — after 14, when compulsory school attendance
ends — and have only faintest conceptions of possibilities
or desirability of training for vocations.
(3) Prognosis. The boys here considered will leave school
at 14 or 16 years of age and will go to no high school or
vocational school. From ten to twenty years later they will
almost certainly be wage earners in the semi-skilled factory
pursuits or in the skilled trades. From age 24 on they will
have families and will experience a hard struggle to support
these. Their civic outlook on life, unless the schools can
modify it, will be like that of their fathers — largely in-
different, but at times furiously inclined to believe that law
and government favor other than wage-takers in the processes
of production. As a rule the magnitude and complexity of
political conditions will baffle their attempts to be individu-
260 CIVIC EDUCATION
ally of significance in political action — hence they will vote
as partisan supporters or opponents of men and measures
having sources far from their own ranks. But, due to environ-
ment and home training, they will not incline to lawlessness.
(4) Assumptions. These boys, leaving school at 14 to 16,
will have finished the eighth grade. In seventh and eighth
grades are departmental teachers in charge of all phases of
direct civic education, for which 20 per cent of school time
(seven hours daily for 180 days per year to cover school and
home work) is available. (This 20 per cent includes all
history, but excludes school government and physical sports.)
Flexibility of curriculum permits extensive adaptations of
courses (30 to 360 hours in length) to particular groups.
Students are given choice of several civic subjects, but all are
required to devote to this general department 20 per cent of
their school time.
Having in view these conditions, prepare a series of courses
specifically adapted to the needs and possibilities of these
learners, drawing on any and all kinds of civic subjects.
Describe the specific aims, extent, content, method, and
necessary administrative conditions of each course in detail.
Suggest possible experimental studies to procure light on
unsettled questions.
(b) In best modern high schools considerable election
of subjects is permitted. In such schools will be found in
each entering class a substantial number of girls to whom the
following descriptions and prognoses apply with fair accuracy
(Case Group PN): (1) These girls are all above the average
of girls of their age in intelligence — many being very bright.
They come from well-kept prosperous homes where sump-
tuary standards are high and tend to be extravagant.
(2) They have done well in elementary schools, but their
present civic outlook is almost wholly that of their homes and
“class” environment, little affected by church, school, or
PROBLEMS OF RESEARCH 261
general readings. They are conventional, devoted to fashion,
have easily awakened but unstable sympathies, and no
great respect for teachers. General health is fair.
(3) Prognosis. Most of them will go through high school
and spend at least two years in a liberal arts college. All
will plan to “work” — in a profession, or something “nice,”
but only one third of them will finally settle into teaching,
social work, or commerce. About one half will marry.
Nearly all from 30 to 60 will have time and means to be
influential in their communities, especially in churches or
clubs. Most of them will, toward middle life, become
increasingly interested in civic affairs.
(4) Assumptions. The high school can recommend courses
in civic education during four years of high school — history,
civics, economics, social-science problems, as well as some
“service” projects and civic readings — up to one fourth
of the total time — about 6000 hours for school and home
work. -
Problems for investigation. What kinds of courses would
you make available for these potential leaders? What aims
should control, content and method be provided, and admin-
istrative conditions be met?
(c) Similar problems for analytical study can easily be
devised in the effort to adapt to the case groups given below,
the various contributions of school discipline, didactic civics,
American history, service projects, dramatic projects, civic
readings, and the rest:
(1) Boys and girls, ages 4–6, from poor urban environment.
(2) Boys and girls, 6–9, from good rural environment, not
permitting school consolidation.
(3) Boys and girls, 9–12, poor urban environment, only
very exceptional ones probably going through high school.
(4) Boys, 12–15, in junior high school, from manual-
laboring class environment; alien ancestry; above average
262 CIVIC EDUCATION
mentally; will probably go half or all way through high
school at much sacrifice to parents; may begin earning in
manual-laboring class work, but at 30–50 may be expected
to be leaders in industry or politics.
(5) Boys and girls now in high school in prosperous suburb.
Of good ability, but low civic interests. Are as much in-
terested in gambling, and “beating” the prohibition law, as
in dances and athletics. Have little interest in studies, but
keenly afraid of “not passing.” Will inherit money from
recently grown rich parents, but family traditions of civic
morality are low.
(6) Other case groups can readily be defined by experi-
enced teachers. - -
RELATED PROBLEMS
Other problems of research of a more general and intricate
nature are beginning to appear. For example:
(a) Under what circumstances – of age, economic or
racial condition, intelligence, social habitat, etc. — are social
groups likely to be influenced in their civic ideals, aspirations,
and insight by particular adaptations of the fine arts of
aesthetic or emotional appeal — music, painting, drama,
fiction, the photodrama, etc.? It is unquestionably true that
the fine arts have played an important part in social control
in former times. It is possible that because of the increasingly
rationalistic spirit of our times such methods of appeal are no
longer efficacious. But conclusions drawn without close study
of the effects of particular arts — or phases of each — on
particular ages, social conditions, etc., are obviously without'
validity.
(b) What are the powers of social comprehension probably
capable of being developed in men and women of only
average or sub-average intelligence — that is, specific powers
of so comprehending the involved economic, political and
PROBLEMS OF RESEARCH 263
other social problems of society, which will enable each
individually to reach conclusions sufficiently valid to guide
the civic action necessary to insure at least the moderate
security of society?
Two opposed theories may be considered. (a) Every
person is capable of being educated to such a degree of com-
prehension, at least of essential principles, that, in a democ-
racy, he can be trusted to make his own decisions and to
act on them. (b) A large proportion of the civic problems of
today are no more comprehensible by persons of average
intelligence than are problems of medicine, bridge-building,
naval strategy, or corporation finance. Hence for the safety
of democracy the average citizen must be taught above all
else, as respects these problems, to do what he does in
medicine — wisely select an expert and then implicitly
follow his directions.
Much preliminary light on this problem can be had even
now by studying the inter-connections of particular civic
problems — tariff, reserve banks, court of international
relations, silver legal tender, forced incorporation of trade
unions, pasturage in forest reserves, public control of rail-
roads — with the intelligence equipment of stated case
groups — college men in business; women school teachers,
aged 20–30; skilled miners, aged 40–60; clubwomen, etc.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
FREEDOM OF TEACHING SoCIAL SCIENCES
THERE is every reason to expect that we shall soon build
up a body of special social-science teachers in and for our
secondary schools. Unlike contemporary teachers of history
— some of whose work they may indeed have to take over —
these social-science teachers may be expected to become
increasingly conscious of the civic objectives of their work.
Society — or at least those members in it whose opinions
finally determine these matters — will increasingly judge the
results of the work of these teachers, not in terms of so much
knowledge acquired or examinations passed, but rather by
the civic character and achievements of the men and women
whom their pupils become.
It is already evident that these social-science teachers, in
proportion as they modernize and vitalize their instruction,
will be constantly skirting the fringes, if not actually invading
the twilight zones, of disputed issues. They will constantly
be tempted to challenge or to uphold creeds and opinions
held by sects, parties, and propagandists. If they are
allowed no freedom whatever to enter into areas of dis-
agreement their hands as teachers will be tied. But if they
are given complete liberty to follow the dictates of their own
judgments, and especially feelings, they can easily become
disruptive agencies of a disastrous kind. By what principles
should society be guided in controlling them, and by what
principles should those of these teachers be guided who most
fully cherish genuine liberty — that is, the liberties of others
no less than of themselves?
PROBLEMS OF FREEDOM IN TEACHING THE SOCIAL SCIENCES
The issues upon which men of the Occidental nations now
divide are chiefly social. Our ancestors fought long and
264
FREEDOM OF TEACHING SOCIAL SCIENCES 265
bitterly over religious differences; but with us these are no
longer seriously divisivé or vital. But our emotions are
strongly aroused over questions of the “rightness” of private
property, the “value” of the monogamous family, the justice
of the “open shop,” the actual meaning of freedom of speech,
and the free admission of immigrants. Life tenure for ap-
pointed justices, profit-taking as the reward of enterprise,
birth control, public supervision of private schools, state
control of railways, the “coöpting” of wage workers in
industrial enterprise, conservation of game, prohibition of
the sale of liquor, the sterilization of criminals, the legal
protection of seamen, are but samples of the hundreds of
issues upon which whole camps are now almost ready to go
to war. They represent problems that are of the most vital
significance to contemporary citizenship and civilization.
Social-science teachers. The coming social-science teach-
ers in our high schools will necessarily be well informed
on most of these problems. They will have studied the
underlying facts of history, racial psychology, production
and distribution of wealth, and methods of government.
Being human, they will have their own opinions; and these
will be strong and often clearly defined just because these
teachers are specialists in their fields. Being human, and
often still young in spirit and strong in enthusiasm, they
will desire to teach to the full the truth as they see it.
What shall be, from the standpoint of the higher social
expediency, their rights and privileges here? What restric-
tions shall society — through its proper representatives —
impose upon them, having duly in mind not only immediate
peace and harmony, but that remoter evolution toward just
and life-giving policies which society must finally desire?
. The subject is not without its history. Probably at all
times, priests, prophets, educators, statesmen, writers, and
publicists have been persecuted for teaching that which
266 CIVIC EDUCATION
they strongly believed to be the true and the right. Some
college teachers of the natural sciences have, during the last
century, chosen to break upon the rocks of opposition,
rather than yield what they believed to be their academic
rights to teach geology or biology as they interpreted these
subjects. Teachers of history in school and college have
often been viewed with suspicion. But more fresh in our
minds are the difficulties of college teachers of the social
sciences. As said before, the most divisive issues of the
present are found here. Business men have not hesitated
to charge that many of our college professors of economics
are, or were until recently, “blank” socialists. The leaders of the
manual workers, on the other hand, affect to believe that most
of these men are paid to teach as “the interests” think best.
But much of this history seems inconclusive for the matters
here considered. Perhaps college teachers of the social
sciences still find it no less so. It seems probable that some
recent apparent invasions of freedom of teaching have been
directed rather at extreme tactlessness of manner or hopeless
misinterpretations of social values. It is probable that some
college teachers have kept silent on grave issues from desire
to avoid trouble. But it is no less probable that many have
refrained from wearing their intellectual hearts on their
sleeves, not because of fear, but because of unwillingness
heavily to capitalize what must in the very nature of the
case have been interpretations and opinions of only par-
tially assured validity. They have suspended individual
private judgments somewhat at least out of respect to the
collective judgments of parties.
Debatable issues. It is fundamentally important to
recognize that contentious issues in the realm of the social
sciences arise largely over interpretations of social values or
worths. Only seldom are questions of fact, as the term is
properly used in the natural sciences, in history, and in legal
FREEDOM OF TEACHING SOCIAL SCIENCES 267
cases, involved. One faction holds that “it is better” (or
more democratic; more just; more in accordance with nature,
with divine law, or with the spirit of liberty) for the closed
shop to prevail, for railroads to be publicly managed, for
cities to have home rule, for immigration to be free, for the
burdens of public education to be widely diffused, for the
Japanese to be restrained from holding real estate, for
collateral inheritances to be taxed 100 per cent, for operatives
to share in the management of plants, for observance of the
Sabbath to be enforced by law, and the like. The opposed
faction holds that society will suffer rather than benefit
from such procedure.
Probably no one can now, or perhaps ever, prove con-
clusively that in the long run the abolition of slavery, or the
liquor traffic, or of monopolistic trade combinations has been
a “good thing” for society; or that freely permitted vivi-
section, private property in land, manhood suffrage, immi-
gration of non-English-speaking aliens, or business censorship
of moving pictures gives a net balance of good to the world.
Religious divisions have of course likewise always hinged on
questions of relative worth which might never be determined
with scientific finality. Battles are waged between faiths,
and victory goes to the strongest, often without finally
settling questions of ultimate worth. But the instincts and
deep-rooted habits of men are enmeshed with these faiths;
and the strongly emotional qualities of the soul – loves,
hates, jealousies, pugnacities, hopes, fears, longings — are
easily enlisted in support or opposition. The progress of the
years, the oncoming of new generations, the competition of
social values, the cross-fertilizations of ideas and beliefs, all
give rise to new conceptions of social worths and debase the old.
The old order changeth, yielding place to new,
And God fulfills Himself in many ways,
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.
268 CIVIC EDUCATION
We all hope that the light of science will simplify many of
these problems and perhaps lift them above the smoke of
embattled passions and vested interests. But we must re-
member that we have no final criteria as yet of social values —
the things that make society, or mankind, or men, or even
life, most worth while; hence we have as yet no scientific
standards whereon to build the ultimate interpretations of
social science. For all practical purposes, of course, we
Americans are sufficiently convinced that polygamy, con-
stitutional monarchy, state-supported church, ancestor
worship, imprisonment of debtors, state supervision of
private schools, primogeniture, segregation of vice, censorship
of plays, and early toil of children are “bad” things. On
the more generally accepted of these “faith” values the course
of the social-science teacher is clear.
whAT IS MEANT BY “TEACHING”?
The social-science teacher cannot avoid responsibility for
the teaching of social “values,” including those characterized
by such words as right and wrong, just and unjust, honorable
and dishonorable, moral and immoral, patriotic, humane,
tolerant, honest, Christian, temperate, reverent, and the like.
But what, exactly, do we mean by the word “teach” in
this connection? Surely something very different from what
we mean when we say to “teach” handwriting, geography,
Latin, algebra, or a trade. The schools are often urged to
teach children to “be honest,” to be patriotic, to “hate war,”
to have “right” ideals. How are these things to be done?
Only partly by teaching cold facts, and only slightly perhaps
by strictly “training” processes. Obviously the teacher must
seek to effect “feeling” attitudes. He must communicate by
various devices his own admirations, dislikes, warm faiths,
ingrained “moral principles.” Successful teaching of social
values necessarily means that the teacher shall be an advo-
FREEDOM OF TEACHING SOCIAL SCIENCES 269
cate, a pleader, perhaps a partisan. He can be impersonal
in teaching reading, musical notation, and the facts of history;
but can he be impersonal in “teaching” truthfulness, fair
play, courageousness? X-
Data versus judgments. College teachers often intend
to teach the “facts” in controversial matters, leaving
students to make their individual interpretations and social
evaluations of these facts. Many teachers, doubtless, have
attempted this in the study of the Lutheran Reformation, the
American Civil War, the League of Nations, franchises for
waterpower, the Biblical “days of creation,” immigration,
the liquor traffic, and scores of other situations where
personal prepossessions on the part of students or “social
group” prepossessions on the part of sections of the public
are soon encountered. Certainly this process is justifiable
whenever it is practicable; and it is clearly practicable and
necessary in the case of mature students possessed of a truly
scientific temper – perhaps a very small minority at all
times. -
But is it at all practicable with students of secondary school
age? Is it at all practicable at any age with the great majority
of minds that are baffled by intricate problems, and which
refuse to bear “the agonies of suspended judgment”? In
some of the private affairs of life the immature and the
mediocre minds are not called upon to share in the making
of momentous decisions in areas of “social values.” But in
democratic politics, democratic religious systems, perhaps
soon in democratized industry, the reverse is true.
The world of practical men has nearly always proceeded
promptly to cut the Gordian knots of social values. Men of
action have always formed parties about their beliefs. They
have sought to lure or even to compel others to accept their
views. They have developed advocates, used propaganda,
and employed numberless forms of persecution. Age-long
270 CIVIC EDUCATION
hates, vast social cleavages, and bitter wars have been some
of the fruits, but not necessarily all. The positive side of the
ledger, if competently studied, might show steady advances
toward truth, coöperation, freedom, progress, life more
abundant.
To “teach” various social values means inevitably to
“advocate” them, to seek to shape appreciations, ideals,
sentiments, attitudes of learners toward them. The teacher
whose panoply of these values is well secured will necessarily
be an advocate, a propagandist, a person believed by the
supporting part of his public to be of “sound” principles.
He can and will preserve the judicial attitude up to the point
where his supporters begin to question his sincerity, his
earnestness (in making converts, that is), his devotion to the
public good. :
REALISTIC CASES
The very principle of freedom of teaching is itself one of
the contemporary issues about which men tend to divide
with much passion. Its discussion in the abstract may not
occasion much divisive feeling; but numberless concrete cases
show how readily enthusiastic proponents and resentful
opponents may be summoned forth. Some of these cases may
be used as inductive approaches to the formulation of certain
proposed working principles.
Given a social-science teacher in a public high school — a
well-educated man or woman of unexceptionable private
character whose “personal influence” with students is very
strong. His pupils are prone to feel that whatever he stands
for is “right.” -
Case I. This teacher in the course of his work exhibits
himself as an enthusiastic believer in and supporter of the
doctrines and institutions noted below. A minority of the
citizens in the community, including some of the parents
FREEDOM OF TEACHING SOCIAL SCIENCES 271
of the pupils, are convinced he is wrong, but the large ma-
jority is clearly with him. Wherever occasion arises in his
classes, or where he can create an occasion, he stands strongly
for: s
(a) The Monroe Doctrine, in spite of the dissent of certain
South Americans in his neighborhood.
(b) Iegal prohibition of polygamy, in spite of the strong
sentiment of certain Mohammedans in the locality.
(c) Appointment (rather than election) and life tenure of
Supreme Court justices, in spite of the quiet but bitter
opposition of a local radical party. -
(d) Private ownership and direction of railways, in spite
of a growing minority sentiment for public ownership.
(e) Capital punishment where now legalized, in spite of a
strong attitude of protest from some very good Christians.
(f) Complete non-participation of the state in Church
support, in spite of strong feeling in favor of such policy of
some English immigrants. -
(g) Military preparedness, in spite of the emphatic pro-
tests of a minority that such preparedness simply invites
what they regard as the “wickedness of war.”
Case II. This social-science teacher finds himself with
Small minorities on certain issues that he regards as vital.
For example: -
(a) He has come to believe that vivisection is wrong
morally, and unproductive of scientific good. .
(b) He feels keenly that it is not right for the United States
to exclude Orientals from free immigration.
(c) He has come reluctantly to believe that general
suffrage is an unmitigated evil; he strongly believes that it
should at least be restricted to persons educated at the mini-
mum to the extent of the ordinary eighth school grade.
(d) He is firmly of the opinion that the good of society
requires the enforced humane segregation (in effect imprison-
272 CIVIC EDUCATION
ment, but without suggestion of punishment) of all adults
of only “moron” intelligence, though the majority of his
patrons regard his proposals with horror.
(e) He has become convinced that the American policies
which provoked, supported, and dictated final conditions of
peace in the Mexican War, and which resulted in the acquisi-
tion of the Southwest, were indefensibly selfish, predatory,
and unjust. Most of his local patrons hold opposite views.
Case III. Regarding a number of issues of contemporary
politics and social economy he finds himself in party groups
that either are now moderate majorities or hope to be in
majority control soon. For example:
(a) He is strongly in favor of such legislative enactments
as will exclude mild alcoholic beverages from the operation
of the constitutional amendment designed to prohibit
manufacture and trade in intoxicating beverages.
(b) He is very much opposed to our entering any League of
Nations that will obligate us to share in the use of force in
settling international relationships abroad.
(c) He is ardently in favor of strict national censorship
of moving pictures.
(d) He desires that representation of the Southern states
in Congress be reduced to the actual proportions stipulated
by the Constitution.
(e) He wants heavy import duties levied as protection to
all American industries, whilst admitting that higher prices
to consumers must result. -
The teacher here under consideration has classes in
“social science” problems in seventh and ninth grades; in
community civics in the eighth; in economics in the tenth; in
sociology in the eleventh; and in American history (“taught
primarily from the standpoint of making civic leaders”) in
the twelfth. His enthusiasm for study of current issues has
infected his pupils. They eagerly bring into the arena of
FREEDOM OF TEACHING SOCIAL SCIENCES 273
class discussion contemporary issues. Proponents on each
side eagerly solicit his opinions.
But among parents and other laymen are many opponents
of his views. These resent his influence over his pupils. They
charge him with being a propagandist. They say he has no
right to intrude into debated issues, that as a government
servant he may not “take sides” where political policies are
now or may soon be involved.
SOCIAL-SCIENCE TEACHIERS
We have every reason to believe that social-science teachers
will in the future exhibit at least three distinguishable types
which may be designated (a) the servile, (b) the willful, and
(c) the balanced. These types can also readily be distinguished
among preachers, publicists, politicians, and other leaders
whose essential characteristics they share.
(a) Servile social-science teachers, under normal Ameri-
can conditions, will probably be a minority, the size of
which will depend upon the means of selection and training
employed, their social standing and compensations, and the
social pressures upon them for conformity and partisanship.
Perhaps some forms of extreme servility are inherent, whilst
others are easily produced by unfavorable social environ-
ment acting on timid natures. e
Servile teachers in social science have little will, and less
secure knowledge, of their own. They are eager to teach
whatever is approved by the “powers above.” They are
supporters of tradition for its own sake. They will always
carefully avoid being thought to favor any type of “under-
dog” or discredited cause. They delight to stand with the
powerful, whether these be powerful in numbers or in other
kind of influence. They care little for freedom in teaching
as a principle, but will often be very unhappy when con-
trolling powers change. They are excessively willing to
274 CIVIC EDUCATION
compromise, not from conviction, but from fear or love
of ease.
(b) Willful teachers of social science belong at the other
extreme. These tend to value their own opinions above
those of any, or all, of their fellows. They are possessed of
strong impulses, and often of strong sympathies for the
weak or oppressed and for minority causes. They tend
instinctively to favor the underdog, sometimes perhaps less
out of sympathy for the underdog than from envy, jealousy,
or perhaps innate hostility to the power and success dis-
played by “upperdogs.”
Willful teachers, being naturally partisans and of strong
impulses, easily promote the antagonism of majority or
conservative groups and of course, above all, of those indi-
viduals or groups having vested interests in a stable social
order. Zealots and fanatics readily spring from the class of
these willful ones, as also at times a Socrates, Luther,
Savonarola, or Garrison. Often they are too sincere or in-
capable of deception to become genuine demagogues, for
whom they are sometimes mistaken. They believe in revolt,
perhaps sometimes as an end rather than a means. They are
disposed freely to question the honesty and good intentions
of those opposed to them. They are stiff-necked and loath to
make the compromises essential to democratic “fairness.”
(c) “Balanced” teachers. Between these two extremes
is the type here denominated “balanced.” Balanced teachers
have their own strong opinions, but they also have great
respect for the opinions of others. They dislike to teach
or act on impulse, but neither will they subject themselves
easily to the opinions or wills of others. As teachers they
feel a heavy responsibility in dissenting from the established
verdicts of history or the conclusions of groups of substantial
thinkers in any field. Nevertheless they will, in these mat-
ters, be finally guided by the evidence rather than by partisan
FREEDOM OF TEACHING SOCIAL SCIENCES 275
contentions or their own prepossessions. They know that
majorities are sometimes wrong, but never so wrong as some
minorities. They know that tradition is sometimes wrong,
but never so wrong as some innovations. They know that
prosperous men are sometimes dishonest, but never so dis-
honest as some of the unprosperous. They know that the
intelligent and influential are sometimes predatory or para-
sitic, but never so predatory or parasitic as some of the
unintelligent and uninfluential.
GUIDING PEINCIPLES
Confronted by the conditions of modern social-science
teaching in secondary schools, what will be society’s problems
in connection with the two extreme types, respectively?
1. Teachers of the servile type will, of course, “play safe.”
They will, where practicable, dodge controverted issues
altogether. They will dwell heavily on matters that have
long lain outside the borderlands of the contentious. They
will speak learnedly in truisms, being especially fond of
general and abstract phrasings.
Servile teachers in the social sciences will do little immedi-
ate harm. They will also do little permanent good, except
in so far as the opinions and powers to which they are subject
prove to be socially sound and right. Since the citizenship
of the future must increasingly be dynamic rather than static
in its attitudes and understandings, teachers of this type
will prove of diminishing usefulness. School systems which
have heretofore cherished them may find it necessary to
resort to drastic means to force them out; though most
commonly they will be allowed peacefully to grow old and
to retire on pensions.
The willful type, on the other hand, will be impatient of
the established order and will prefer to dwell upon debatable
matters. They will find it difficult, if not impossible, to keep
276 CIVIC EDUCATION
out of their teaching the spirit of propaganda. Their reform-
ing zeal usually grows by what it feeds on, unless checked by
violence. Teachers of the willful type in the social-science
subjects of secondary school grade will frequently be regarded
as dangerous because of the immaturity and impressionable
character of their pupils. In times of excessive social insta-
bility they may do serious harm. Their presence imposes
serious burdens and embarrassments on democratic school
administration because all attempts to remove or even to curb
them arouse violent outcries and resistance on the part of
partisan radical groups permitted in democracies to be always
vociferous and threatening. Their tenure of posts of public
responsibility will seldom be secure. Many of them will
finally give themselves to the service of partisan groups
where they may render themselves very useful to society as
social ferments, critics, or discoverers. .
2. “Guiding principles” for social-science teachers will,
perhaps, be of little use for the two extreme types discussed
above. Hence these principles will be considered from the
standpoint of the “balanced” or intermediate type. It is
submitted that, having regard to the needs, possibilities,
and conditions of social-science teaching in public secondary
schools and particularly where controversial issues are in-
volved, these will, as experience ripens and the best will
of society defines itself through public opinion, find them-
selves increasingly abiding by these principles:
(a) The social-science teacher in his capacity as public
servant has no rights of teaching that which seems good or
true to him, quite irrespective of the collective opinions or
valuations of the society, or largely controlling majority
thereof, which he serves. He has here heavy obligations as
agent or employee of the public either to meet its demands or
to withdraw from its service. If his conscience and judgment
convince him that he is right, then his correct course is to
FREEDOM OF TEACHING SOCIAL SCIENCES 277
detach himself from the service of the state and to undertake
propaganda in his private capacity.
(b) Twilight zones. Until the social sciences, including
their necessary factors of social or ethical valuations, shall
have evolved far beyond their present stage, a very con-
siderable twilight zone can and should exist in every
teacher's mind between those conclusions and hypotheses as
to fact and valuation which are to him so assured that he
can confidently and properly impart them in public school
classes, and those other tentative findings, surmises, and
speculations which engross his thinking but which he is not
ready to make a part of his teaching. A conscientious and
scientific man may thus be tentatively holding, in a state
of suspended judgment appropriate for further study, private
opinions quite at variance to those approved formulations
which he is teaching. (This situation obviously may impose
a severe strain upon a teacher's honesty and faithfulness.)
(c) In areas of social thought and action where unsettled
issues, especially of social valuation, so divide men into camps
that large numbers of able-minded and well-disposed thinkers
are found on each side, the teacher dealing with these issues
in his classes will freely accept a very heavy burden of
responsibility if he desires to introduce his own opinions. He
will readily recognize his heavy obligations to show dis-
passionateness, a judicial attitude, and full acquaintance
with the contentions of each party. He will be loath to
impute improper motives to either side, and will suppress his
own partisan impulses and emotional preferences.
3. The final principles which should guide the social-
science teacher in claiming and using freedom are deducible
from certain central principles in democratic government.
They are suggested by the words “compromise,” “tolera-
tion,” and “fair play.” They are further suggested by the
aphorisms that “under democratic conditions each man
278 CIVIC EDUCATION
should have liberty to do all things except to destroy liberty
(usually that of his fellows)” and that “the liberty of any
man ends where the equal liberty of his neighbor begins.”
It is clear, of course, to every student of social science that
a democratic social order is impossible if individuals and
parties are not willing constantly to practice compromise.
Minority groups must incessantly yield to the will of the
majority, submit to the laws, take defeat gracefully, abide
by the decision of the umpire. But in a stable social order
majorities must also constantly practice toleration and other
kinds of compromise. Herein, one may well claim, have lain
the special glories, anciently of Roman, and in recent centuries
of Anglo-Saxon, government of selves and others.
But there are limits to the compromises called for by
democracy at its best. Compromises as respects behavior,
but not ideals or convictions, are chiefly demanded. In
modern political and other social groups, while conformity in
overt act is constantly required, the more democratic leaders
tend to approve and prize in their opponents tenacity of
conviction or moral principle. Only among badly socialized
peoples are minorities persecuted for their beliefs. Fully
socialized groups tolerate to the utmost differences of opinion,
whilst sternly suppressing those differences in behavior that
would produce the kinds of social discord coming under the
words “immorality,” “disorder,” “lawlessness,” “anarchy,”
“treason,” or “sacrilege.”
The social-science teacher may often be of minority
groups. In these connections he is entitled to hold such
opinions as he sees fit. But teaching is his field of social
behavior. Here, in his public capacity, he must conform to
the will of the majority and, so far as overt act or influence
is concerned, uphold the social order under such democratic
auspices as now represent the democratically expressed will
of the majority,
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
SAMPLE STUDIES
THE following studies were made by students in a Prac-
ticum (Ed. 491–2) in Teachers College, Columbia University,
during the college year 1919–20. They are reproduced here,
partly because they are very suggestive for any persons who
may be seeking to construct courses, but also because they
illustrate very vividly the value of the “case group” method
of approach to the study of various practical problems of
civic education.
The class referred to contained the following members, not
all of whom, however, contributed to the studies below:
Rose A. Carrigan, Chai Hsuan Chuang, Maude E. Drake,
A. N. French, Florence K. Griswold, Roy W. Hatch, Grace D.
Hicks, Annie L. McCary, Marcus L. Mohler, Clyde B. Moore,
J. V. L. Morris, J. F. Page, Charles C. Peters, Abby Roys,
Charles R. Small, Mordecai Soltes, Paul F. Voelker.
I. (C. B. M.) PROPOSED COURSES IN CIVIC EDUCATION
FOR CASE GROUP “OwnING FARMERs”
1. Group or class. Sons (12–14 years of age) of farmers owning
and operating their own farms in the North Central states. (Con-
ditions listed below are based on observation, census, and education
reports.)
2. Diagnosis. These boys come from the substantial type of
families that make up the backbone of rural life. Extremes either in
wealth or in conditions approaching poverty practically never exist.
These boys are above average in native qualities — physical,
intellectual, and moral. They are well nourished, share in home
and farm tasks, and are trained to give attention to the work of the
farm. Schooling is not rated as being of very high importance and
social experiences are largely restricted to the immediate neighbor-
hood. Their school teachers are poorly trained and the schools are
largely the one-room type, poorly equipped, poorly organized, and
inadequately supervised. Means of contact with outside world are
279
280 CIVIC EDUCATION
very meager, newspapers and magazines being limited largely to
local village paper and farm journals. Few books are in the home,
and library facilities are practically nil. Amusements and recreation
are limited to occasional neighborhood dances, parties, and church
socials. Little attention is paid to dress — in short, the traditional
rural attitude toward the “city dude” may reduce the sense of
neatness and cleanliness to a low degree. Religious interests are
simple and church services informal. Few opportunities for “same
age groupings” outside the school, whole families joining in various
kinds of social intercourse.
Dominant characteristics. Physically healthy, interested in farm
development, expect to become farmers; little interest in school; do
not plan to take high school or college course; retiring and bashful
when associating with girls of own age; interested in politics having
direct vocational relations; appreciations of dress, care of body,
and manners, low.
3. Prognosis, general. These boys will probably follow farming
as their vocation, inheriting land or receiving family assistance in
purchasing farms. (A few of a superior type will obtain good
education and enter professional or commercial fields in cities.)
Those remaining will tend to remain static, taking a skeptical atti-
tude toward any new theories relating to farming. By thirty-five
they will have married and settled down to farm routine, following
the traditions of the neighborhood, exercising thrift and working
hard. They will give little time to politics and their major interests
will be grouped about their vocational life.
4. Prognosis, civic. Given no education greatly differing from
that now customary, most of these boys will become “good conform-
ing” citizens. They will hold “respectability” almost as a religious
virtue and will exhibit a “conformity” to accepted rural standards
that is very persistent. *:
In the kinds of civic abilities that have to do with the economic
aspects of rural life a few of these men will achieve rather superior
ability. They will assume leadership and in a few instances will
compete successfully with political leaders from other callings. A
few will serve in state legislatures or county boards, or in county
offices of one kind or another. Their training or education, however,
will be too meager for achieving unusual tasks. A very high per cent
will have vague feelings of political and social needs and will be
inclined to follow those farmers who possess the initiative and
leadership to attempt reform. They will be slow to assert themselves,
SAMPLE STUDIES 281
however, tending to give vent to their feelings through grumbling
rather than through study and action. Their greatest handicap will
be largely due to the limited training and information possible
through existing schools and other educative agencies. Owing to
isolation and limited social intercourse by-education will not be of
a very serviceable type for political and social life.
5. Civic deficiencies. Prominent civic deficiencies of this class at
ages 30–60 will be: (a) Lack of adequate scientific knowledge of
economic, political, and other social phenomena to guide in right
determination of political policies for both associate and federate
groups. (b) Lack of effective sympathetic appreciation of conditions
and aspirations of other economic classes, even though relationships
are quite direct. (c) Lack of understanding of effective methods
for achieving desired political changes or reforms through present
civic organizations. (d) Lack of training in simpler processes for
group expression of needs and desires.
6. Proposed specific objectives of schooling.
a. To furnish sufficient knowledge of purposes, forms, and
functions of government and closely related factors which will
enlarge certainsocialappreciations and aid in establishing ideals.
b. To furnish training in analyzing economic and social
factors that relate both directly and indirectly to the welfare
of rural life.
c. To furnish instruction as to available means for pro-
ducing political or economic changes and to furnish so far as
possible both vicarious and direct training therein.
7. Factors conditioning or defining problems of method.
a. Teachers. The teachers are as a rule young women
(18–22), who have completed the elementary school course
and in many instances have graduated from high schools.
Their professional training is very meager, only a small per
cent attending normal schools. Many are inexperienced.
(Those of successful experience and fair training seek positions
in village or city schools.) They come from the towns for the
most part; relatively few girls from the farms go to high school
or seek preparation for teaching in rural schools. Salaries
are poor, teachers working for “pin money” prior to marriage;
tenure of office short and supervision inadequate; teaching
generally poor.
2
8
2
CIVIC EDUCATION
8.
b. The school. One-room school typical; buildings poorly
planned; grounds and out-buildings ill kept; equipment
meager; supply of books, apparatus, and materials for instruc-
tion very limited. Little or no opportunity for exchange or
“pooling” of materials between the schools as in towns or
cities. Appropriations inadequate; taxes to the legal limit
much rarer in country than in town or city; many patrons
look upon “book learning” and “schooling” as of minor im-
portance; attitude prevails, “This school was good enough for
me, it is good enough for my children.” Teachers and school
policies so changing that schools are weak as community
centers. Libraries and museums too distant to use. Textbooks
adapted to use of city schools rather than country; are too
“thin,” presupposing much supplementary material which
rural teacher is incompetent to obtain; “thick” informational
texts adapted to rural life are much needed.
Problems of method.
It is assumed that approximately 10 per cent of the school time
for two years will be given over to “civic education” and that it
will have to do with both social and political relationships of associate
groups and largely political relationships of federate groups.
9.
a. Problem: Shall we assume that a core of subject matter
having a continuity and unity may be so reinforced with
concrete examples and materials as to give it a psychological
approach?
b. Problem: Are boys of this age susceptible to “didactic”
means of presentation of materials if they are conveniently
arranged and attractively put in text?
c. Problem: Can projects of participation and dramatiza-
tion grow out of such a course possessing unity and direction?
d. Problem: Can boys of this age be trained through exer-
cises directed by the school which will give a group of habits
which will function in the exercise of good citizenship?
e. Problem: Will a series of compact epitomes, descriptions,
or statements of important civic topics stimulate further
study and thought which may eventually find expression in
projects and investigations?
Proposed methods.
a. The organization of materials in a text sufficiently
“thick” to permit of much concrete, typical matter. The text
SAMPLE STUDIES 283
would consist of three parts: (1) materials organized and
arranged as a course of instruction; (2) a series of epitomes
of important citizenship topics not arranged in any sequence,
but calculated to supplement, and enrich, material in (1) and
to suggest problems on projects beyond the text; (3) a series
of topics suggesting training for the establishment of certain
habits and skills closely related to “civic education.”
b. This first section (1) would define, explain, and illustrate
the purposes, functions, and forms of government as shown
in the community, county, state, and national and international
relationships. It would include such topics as: maintenance
of a community; stimulation of coöperation; survey of oppor-
tunities for coöperation; responsibilities of the individual in
maintaining the best possible health, being vocationally com-
petent, securing best possible education, maintaining high
plane of moral or religious life, and accepting responsibility of
contributing one’s best in labor and wealth for society’s welfare;
critical study of needs of community and state; observation
of customs, laws and regulations; proper attitudes toward
fellow citizens; support of desirable community organizations
and share in community activities; organizations or institu-
tions affecting civic welfare, such as the family, the school,
the church, the press, and the political party; means of com-
munication; coördinating facts and factors such as “every
individual a socius,” country life and city life complemen-
tary, conservation, governmental control, immigration, equal
suffrage, and Americanization.
c. The series of epitomes (2) would give short authentic ac-
counts in simple language of such topics as: socialism; free
trade; the Monroe Doctrine; government ownership of rail-
roads; the budget system; department of agriculture; fran-
chise; child labor; anarchy; civil service; spoils system;
Bolshevism; exploitation; government bonds; Federal Reserve
banks; colonial possessions, etc. The mere reading of these
would give information, but their primary purpose would be
to acquaint the pupil sufficiently with a topic to stimulate him
to further thinking or study.
d. The third series (3) would give a brief description of the
habit or skill to be attained, with its purpose, importance, and
value clearly defined. These paragraphs would be couched in
simple, straightforward English at the boys’ level, much as
284 CIVIC EDUCATION
the scouting information is given. The information would be
quickly grasped so that training in this section would be
stressed rather than instruction. The following topics would
be typical: rising at the singing of the national anthem;
saluting the flag; cleanliness in using public utensils and
conveniences; careful handling of books, school furniture, and
public property; use of courteous tone of voice; skill in simple
parliamentary procedure; meeting strangers properly; organiz-
ing a movement for community welfare; evaluating newspaper
material; use of bureaus and bulletins; critical reading of crop
reports; committee membership; committee chairmanship, etc.
e. The series (c) should furnish stimuli for debates and
reports which in turn would furnish opportunities for training
in habits and skills as listed in (d), while the exercises growing
out of both (c) and (d) would run concomitantly with (b),
supplementing, enriching, motivating, and making provision
for individual differences and varying proportions of time and
changing personnel.
II. (A. L. McC.) PROPOSED COURSES FOR GIRLs
OF POOR ENVIRONMENT
1. Case group. Girls in Grades 7 and 8 — either of the 8–4 or
the 6–3–3 system—in public schools of average American cities of the
North Atlantic states. These girls are 12–14 years of age and will
leave school at the end of Grade 8 (or 9 under the 6–3–3 plan).
2. Diagnosis. These girls are from rather poor homes. Their
parents are without more than an elementary schooling and some
even have had no more than a fifth-grade education. Their homes
are not well supplied with books or magazines. Amusement for
these children has been confined almost exclusively to moving-
picture shows. Practically all of them go to Sunday school, either
Protestant or Catholic.
The interest-curve in school is declining. Adolescence is develop-
ing. Interests of childhood are being cast into the discard. They
are becoming interested in boys, many of them having “fellows.”
There is a greater play of individuality and a tendency away from
implicit obedience and from rules arbitrarily imposed. The world
of adults is becoming interesting to them. They are very critical
and observant.
The schools are usually well organized. The supervision is fair.
SAMPLE STUDIES 285
The teachers are not the youngest and latest additions to the corps
— they have usually worked up from the lower grades.
3. Prognosis, general. These girls will go into manual vocations,
the industries, trades, and the minor positions in the business and
commercial world. That is, they will be bundle wrappers, cash
girls, stock girls, errand girls, and with proper working papers they
may secure apprentice positions in factories as operators, etc. By
the time they are 16–18 they will be found in the better-grade jobs
of the group into which they have fallen — Saleswomen, cashiers,
operators. Some of them who have superior ability may have
clerical positions. Domestic service will be scrupulously avoided.
By 25–30 the vast majority will be married. Marriage will take
them out of the wage-earning group, in the main. Consequently
their major interests will center around their domestic life. They
may be interested in politics, but not in a constructive way.
4. Prognosis, civic. Most of them will be fairly “good” conform-
ing citizens. They will attempt to adhere to their standards of
honesty and decency. They will be settled into a more or less drab
existence. Their single-track minds, due to an exceedingly limited
horizon, will be fruitful soil, however, for clever agitation based
upon their economic and social needs. Practically none of those who
marry will be leaders. Among those who remain single only those
who are of strong personality will be leaders, and that leadership
will be confined to their own social or industrial group, i.e., trade-
union leaders, etc.
On the side of civic initiative, they will follow rather than lead.
Many will vote as their husbands wish — the women themselves not
wishing to differ from their husbands, or not sufficiently interested
to care about the issues at stake. Where public service is responsive
to employment by voters, these will merely grumble at deficiencies,
accepting them as a “necessary evil.”
5. Civic deficiencies. Prominent civic deficiencies of this class will
be: (a) lack of appreciation of conditions with which they are not
in actual contact; (b) lack of constructive, intelligent interest in
civic activities; (c) lack of adequate knowledge of economic and
other social phenomena to furnish an intelligent basis for deter-
mining political alignment; (d) lack of understanding of effective
methods of employing public servants – exercise of the suffrage;
(e) lack of training in the simpler processes for group expression of
needs and desires; (f) tendency, when stirred by certain types of
agitators, to consider needs and wishes of their group paramount.
286 CIVIC EDUCATION
6. Proposed specific objectives.
I. To enlarge Social appreciations and widen social sym-
pathies.
II. To furnish elementary knowledge of the forms, functions,
and purposes of government to aid in establishing correct
ideals of the relationship which the city, state, nation,
and citizen sustain to one another.
III. To “stamp in” the habit of reading the opinions of
experts on vital issues and to stamp in the habit of
attending public lectures where those topics will be
discussed.
IV. To show the value of community coöperation.
7. Problems of method.
Time limitations: one lesson a week varying in length from
40 to 50 min. -
I. Form in which to present material to girls who probably
do not care much about reading? Will the use of supple-
mentary and reference materials simply intensify the
dislike for reading and leave a “bad taste,” or will it
carry over into life after the school period?
II. Which is the better form for the classroom textbook
material, the narrative or the topical outline form?
III. Can participation projects be successfully used?
8. Proposed methods.
a. The organization of materials in a text for pupils with
accompanying manual for teachers. The same text and manual
for both grades — Part I for Grade 7 and Part II for Grade 8.
b. Presentation of topics by teacher in problem form
demanding investigation by pupils.
c. Use of the socialized recitation. Three- and four-minute
speeches on various topics by members of the class.
d. Use of illustrative activities to “stamp in” facts learned
by class and home assignments.
e. Correlation with other subjects as far as practicable.
f. Development of many topics with the aid of reference
books, pamphlets.
9. Proposed scope of courses for Grade 7.
In this grade, where civics is for the first time made a separate
and distinct study, there will be problems of the local community,
SAMPLE STUDIES 287
e.g., the way in which the city is governed, its people, the benefits
which its citizens receive at its hands, the duty of the citizens to
the city. The last-named topic, the duty of the citizens to the
community, is probably the most important one, as under it will be
grouped: responsibilities of the individuals in conserving their
health and safeguarding the health of the community; the duty of
securing as good an education as possible both in the schools and
through outside agencies; the responsibility for maintaining a high
moral standard; proper attitude toward constituted authority;
observation of approved customs and laws.
Activities. A list of topics for short reports in connection with
the classroom work is supplemented by a list of activities for the
entire group. The following list is typical: -
Write and illustrate a booklet, “Laws Every Child Should Know.”
Organize the class into the various boards of the city and drama-
tize their functions: board of health, street-cleaning department,
police and fire departments, etc.
Form a class organization to help in the upkeep of the school,
following the plan of the city’s government.
Construct a bulletin board of CITIZENSHIP — one half for clippings
from the local newspapers illustrating good citizenship, the other
half illustrating poor citizenship.
Chart with labels and pictures showing Food Law Regulations.
Grade 8 continues the duties of the citizen in wider range, to
the state and nation. This involves elementary knowledge of the
forms and functions of state laws and regulations as well as some of
the federal functions with which these children must be familiar.
The topics for this section of the grade are such as: relationship of
the city to the state; relative importance to the nation; responsibility
of the individuals for maintaining the city and state's standing;
the part which the citizens of the city play in formulating the
policies of the state and nation.
In this grade is to be begun the definite attempt to widen social
appreciations and sympathies. Consequently, the city's population
is analyzed to determine the foreign elements therein. This leads to
a study of the immigrant problem and allied questions, aspirations
of immigrant groups, their contributions to America, formation
of sympathetic attitude toward them; also labor problems as these
affect the community — child labor, women in industry, factory
legislation in many of its aspects, hours of labor, workingmen's
compensation, protection of machinery, Sanitation, etc.
288 CIVIC EDUCATION
In order to get across the above program, it will be necessary to
use many outside references, magazines, periodicals, elementary
books on social problems. A large bibliography for both teachers
and pupils will be appended to each group.
Activities. Topics for short individual investigations, debates, and
discussions supplemented by activities for the group:
Show by posters the occupational openings for boys and girls
graduating from eighth grades.
In some of the class organizations devote some time to the definite
study of parliamentary law, committee chairmanship, committee
membership.
Develop a “Melting Pot” pageant in which the children from the
various racial groups may take part, dressed in their “native”
costume and with some activity showing their contribution to
America.
Make an Americanization chart showing what America offers the
immigrant and what the immigrant offers America.
Chart showing industrial groups in the city.
Chart showing living quarters for racial groups.
Pictures showing good working conditions in factories.
III. (A. R.) PROPOSED CourtsB IN CITIZENSHIP
FOR A NINTH GRADE
Case group. Boys 14 or 15 years of age of rather superior mental
ability living in Western towns of population from 8,000 to 20,000.
Diagnosis. Pupils in the majority of cases are from American
homes, varying widely in financial and social standing and in home
influence. Their social life is broadening rapidly through entertain-
ments of various sorts and increased association with those of
opposite sex. They show keen interest in the world of adults and
find satisfaction in sharing some of its activities. Mental abilities
vary from that barely able to do high school work to that which is
decidedly above the average. Some attend school only because
of social custom and not because of interest or ability. In religious
matters they reflect home influence and community tendencies.
The latter vary from a general interest throughout the town to a
decided lack of it. -
They are all limited in outlook upon life, particularly if the
community is isolated. If care has been given to this phase of train-
ing in the earlier grades, considerable modification will be found.
SAMPLE STUDIES 289
In general, they are inclined to consider local customs satisfactory,
if personal inconvenience is absent. There is much class and racial
prejudice and a tendency to ignore the rights and welfare of others,
particularly those outside their personal acquaintance.
They may still be appealed to through “activities,” but not by
direct moralizing unless it comes from one of their own class.
Prognosis. Those of the better grades of ability will usually go
to college, and many of them will not return because of better voca-
tional opportunity elsewhere and for other reasons. Those who do
return will enter such vocations as law, medicine, ranching, business,
or teaching.
Of those who do not finish high school, or do finish but do not
enter college, many will go elsewhere for vocational reasons or
because the family moves away. A minority will remain in the
same community during adult life. They will enter business or the
skilled trades. In these they will work industriously and will accept
current standards.
A few will become leaders in the professions, business and civic
affairs, or trade organizations. The majority will accept routine
conditions more or less calmly. The reading of most of them will
be limited to rather a narrow range of daily papers, magazines, and
books. Opinions will be taken from discussions heard or from party
or class decisions and will be adhered to doggedly. In this and other
matters they will show high degrees of coöperation and loyalty
within their own groups. They will fear the influence of other
classes and of foreigners.
Prognosis, civic. If there is a continuation of the educational and
community tendencies of the past, there will be much indifference
to civic matters except during the heat of political campaigns or at
times when the policies of public officers have produced results they
do not like. They will be superior conforming citizens according to
present standards, but will be too preoccupied with their personal
affairs to show much initiative or reasoning ability in public matters.
For those who desire leadership there will be fewer obstacles than
would be found in other sections because of the sparseness of
population. Therefore an inferior quality of leadership will be
CODOl DúOIl. -
Civic deficiencies. (a) A tendency to think in terms of material
welfare to the exclusion of other interests. (b) A lack of appreciation
and understanding of other classes and nations. (c) A lack of
knowledge of economic and sociological principles and facts with
290 CIVIC EDUCATION
consequent hasty and ill-balanced decisions. (d) A lack of under-
standing of effective means of collective action in civic matters.
Specific objectives. (a) To show the social nature of the environ-
ment and the place of the individual in it. (b) To develop a broader
sympathy with other peoples and classes and a spirit of toleration
for the beliefs and opinions of others. (c) To give a knowledge of
the form and functions of civic agencies. (d) To develop a recogni-
tion of civic responsibility and a response to it by appropriate action.
Factors conditioning the problem of civic instruction. (a) Teachers.
The teachers are well trained in the traditional subjects, but do not
understand how to handle the new materials and methods. They
often desire to limit civic instruction to the formal aspects of govern-
ment and deny the civic value of recent additions to curricula. They
do not understand the importance of “social activities” of pupils.
The results from this condition will be instruction as barren as
under the old régime or failure and disgust on the part of all con-
cerned. Hence the need of teacher-training in the subject. A small
minority are already interested and wish to learn more.
(b) Materials. Many small places are lacking in adequate
library facilities and have very limited social and industrial condi-
tions.
Problems of method. (a) Is it possible to vitalize the more abstract
topics which it is necessary to teach? What means will accomplish
this if it is possible?
(b) Will a dramatization of a civic function give an adequate
understanding of it?
(c) Of how much value is observation of civic activities to pupils
of this age?
(d) When civic activities are participated in by the pupils, what
means of recognition of results may be used without incurring
bad effects?
Proposed methods. (a) The statement of lesson themes as prob-
lems to be solved rather than in outline form.
(b) Adoption of the method proposed in (U. S. Bureau of Educa-
tion) Bulletin No. 23, 1915, each topic consisting of three divisions:
the approach, investigation of agencies, and consideration of
personal responsibility. The first will be developed from the expe-
rience of the class and “will develop a realization of the importance
of the topic and a right social attitude toward it.” The investigation
of agencies will be accomplished by the combined efforts of the class
directed to personal investigation and observation and the con-
SAMPLE STUDIES 291
sultation of reference books and magazines. The last part must be
developed by means suited to the topic, involving in many cases
action of Some sort. -
Library facilities for this particular work must be developed in
both the school and the public libraries.
(c) Many activities will be carried on independently of the infor-
mational work. The problem is to organize and motivate a widely
varied program of participation in the real work of the school.
IV. (M. S.) PROPOSED PROGRAM OF EDUCATION FOR CITIZENSHIP
FOR CHILDREN OF RUSSIAN-JEWISH IMMIGRANTs (ESPECIALLY
AGES 12–14)
I. Case group. Children (ages 12–14) of Russian-Jewish immi-
grants; found mainly in large cities in upper classes of elementary,
as well as in the junior high schools. (All groups represented, from
the point of view of economic status — poor, middle class, profes-
sional, wealthy — laborers, peddlers, storekeepers, manufacturers,
etc.) (Diagnosis of equipment, conditions, etc., based to some extent
on reading, reports, etc., but mainly on direct, personal observation
and first-hand experience.)
II. Diagnosis of characteristics and equipment (adults included).
Idealistic; thirst for knowledge, education; respect for learning; keen
Sense of social justice; the family as an institution has a strong hold;
parental responsibility highly developed; good standard of living —
careful economic utilization; permanent settlers; progressive,
independent attitude in politics; loyalty to people and faith; make
adequate provision for poor and unfortunates of their race; per-
severant, though they adapt themselves easily and readily to new
conditions and circumstances — learn language, acquire customs
rapidly; send children to public rather than parochial schools;
English language used in sermons at synagogues and at Hebrew
Schools; while anxious to harmonize old mode of life with American
conditions, yet they do not permit these to encroach on the essential
character of their religious traditions; sober; superior mental vigor;
passionate love for liberty; possess ancient culture and heritage.
Other characteristics. Occasional over-development of mind at
expense of body; keen intellectualism often leads an element within
them toward impatience at slow progress; extremely radical; many
years of isolation and segregation give rise to irritability and
superSensitivity; little interest in physical sports (looked upon as
pagan in olden times); frank and open-minded approach in intel-
292 CIVIC EDUCATION
lectual matters, especially debatable questions — in fact, too
exacting and outspoken according to present standards; have accu-
mulated valuable experience, emotional touch and points of view.
Children above average intellectually — attain high records and
distinction in work at schools, genuine interest — but are average
or below, physically; those of poorer class are frequently under-
nourished; work their way through school, supporting themselves
and sometimes even contributing toward the support of the family
— especially where the latter is large — by selling newspapers or
running errands after school hours, and working during vacations;
anxious for high educational opportunities; conditions at home
very unfavorable for purpose of study — live in few, overcrowded
rooms in tenements; make frequent use of library; second generation
affected mentally, morally, and physically by American environment.
Poorer live in congested areas — moving away, however, to better
sections as soon as financial circumstances permit; fathers occupied
with task of earning a living, as a result of which little time and
attention are given to the training of the children; parental control
and oversight weak, because of conflict, economic strife, and chaos
in social life, resulting from the transition from the old to the new
environment, from the old to the new mode of life.
III. Prognosis, general. Normally the children will fall into at
least three main groups, according to economic conditions at home;
and these may be further subdivided in accordance with the state of
Jewish culture at home.
Group A. Those whose fathers are poor (laborers, pushcart
peddlers, etc.), and who find it difficult to earn a livelihood and to
live up to Jewish customs, ceremonies, and traditions in the new
environment. Time and energy devoted mainly to meeting material
needs of families. Parental control and oversight weak, in the case
of the children of this group, coming from homes of low Jewish
cultural state; children grow to look down with contempt upon
things Jewish, the customs and beliefs of their parents included, due
mainly to lack of opportunity to familiarize themselves properly
with the history and traditions of their people; they worship
“baseball averages” and all forms of physical sports as ends in
themselves. With some exceptions they will, as a rule, “pick up.”
any convenient jobs; unsteady; comparative lack of ambition; a
few will become apprentices to plumbers, electricians, etc., and
learn trades; many will accept routine work and enter lower types
of civil service, etc.
SAMPLE STUDIES 293
On the other hand those coming from poor families, economically,
but of high state of Jewish culture, will be sympathetic toward
Jewish life and will contribute toward its perpetuation. They will
be anxious to obtain higher education, and to free themselves from
the economic strain of living from hand to mouth.
They will learn trades, become traveling salesmen, enter civil
service, accept routine work grudgingly, open small shops, while the
more ambitious and perseverant will enter professions (by working
their way through college or professional School, or by studying at
night after working hours). Girls will become clerical workers,
operators, poorer type of bookkeepers, Stenographers, saleswomen,
while the more ambitious will take advantage of opportunities for
higher education by attending preparatory or evening high schools.
Group B. Those whose fathers are prosperous, conservative
business men, manufacturers, etc. — upper middle class. Little
concerned regarding economic strife and financial condition of
lower class; known as the “all right” groups; their main occupation,
with noted exceptions, is that of earning and spending money. Sons
will, as a rule, be admitted into partnership in fathers’ business,
after going through private school, high School, or college; some enter
professions, especially law and medicine; and many become of the
property-owning class, bankers, brokers, etc. Girls will become
expert stenographers and bookkeepers, go through high school,
attend college, or more usually remain at home and marry.
Tendencies on part of a large element in this group are to ignore
things Jewish; to consider themselves better Americanized than
their poorer brethren; to have distorted notions of the true meaning
of Americanism; frequently to interpret it as requiring the ignoring
or denial of the fact that they are Jews, a negative conception; to
imitate acts of the rich of other groups, with crude, superficial values
of American life; not interested in furthering cause of members of
their race or in things Jewish in general. -
Group C. Those whose fathers are small business men, tradesmen,
foremen in shops, etc., and who, in general, have succeeded in attain-
ing an economic foothold — lower middle class. Marked parental
influence and control — afford children every opportunity for higher
education, if they will but take advantage of it – will go through
high school, college, or professional school.
Children will join small business and help to build it up; enter
professions, civil service, become traveling salesmen, real estate and
insurance brokers and operators, etc. Liberal in general but con-
294 CIVIC EDUCATION
servative in things Jewish — anxious to conserve Jewish values, but
insist on Americanizing form and spirit of Jewish customs and
ceremonies. Girls become stenographers, saleswomen, forewomen;
attend high school, training school for teachers or college.
IV. Prognosis, civic. Group A. Keenly aware of economic strife
and strain of members of group, are politically progressive, anxious
for reform, for change, frequently taking the initiative and occupying
leadership in reform movements; very democratic and idealistic.
Group B. Are concerned in politics mainly from the point of view
of class interest; superior conforming citizens, as a rule; conservative
politically — will aid in good government, shun radicalism, etc.
“Patronizing” attitude in Americanization and other work with
less fortunate economic and social classes.
Group C. Are independent and progressive in politics — tolerant
— do not vote as a class — interested in furthering cause of good
government — participate in practical politics. While those coming
from homes of a rich Jewish cultural state are frequently indifferent
toward the Jewish question, they show cosmopolitan tendencies —
enter settlement work, assume leadership in, and give hearty support
to, liberal-progressive movements tending toward the alleviation of
suffering from poverty and other unfavorable conditions.
All groups take part in all political parties – do not vote with
any single party as a group. Those of Group A, however, have
strong leaning toward reform parties, except those low culturally,
who permit themselves to be misled by demagogues and yellow
journals. Group B naturally lean toward the conservative; Group C
toward particular individuals who satisfy them as desirable office-
holders who have the public interest at heart, regardless of the party
with which they may be affiliated – “vote for the man.”
It should be emphasized that, contrary to popular belief, there
are, with few individual exceptions, no radicals among the second
generation. The radical type is recruited mainly from the young
Russian intellectuals, who are compelled to go to work in sweat-
shops in order to earn a livelihood, and in whose heart there naturally
develops a hatred toward that order of things (as they put it) in
which a few have too much and many too little. The American-born
do not tend to be radical. They will be found in large numbers in
the ranks of the liberal-progressives and conservatives.
W. Civic deficiencies (generally true more or less of practically all
these groups and classes in American life). (I) Insufficient interest
in the welfare of other groups — mere cold, distant sympathy,
SAMPLE STUDIES 295
especially for less fortunate economic, social, and racial groups.
(2) Narrow, provincial attitude in matters of public concern —
unreadiness to supplement smaller group interest to welfare of
larger, all-embracing group. (3) Tendency to accept unchallenged,
and to base judgment and thinking on, biased opinions of certain
individuals (especially demagogues who present one-sided view of
the case). Disinclination to formulate judgment on basis of clear,
scientific knowledge, especially when that points to a result dia-
metrically opposed to the popular one which the individual holds
at that time, and at which he will arrive only after considerable
reading, study, and thought. (4) Inadequate knowledge and train-
ing in the use of the ballot to the end that honest, loyal officials
be selected and proper legislation be enacted. -
Civic deficiencies. Specifically referable to immigrant groups in
general and to the Russian-Jewish groups in particular. (1) Errome-
ous, superficial motions of Americanism which they have succeeded
in picking up “on the street” – tendency to imitate the outer,
cruder values in American life. (2) Chasm created between immigrant
parents and their children — latter despise what is holy to their
parents. This situation sometimes leads to antagonism and mis-
understanding of American life on the part of the parents, and a
disrespectful “I know it all” attitude on the part of the children
— resulting in the disruption of and tragedies in family life, as well
as in the weakening of parental control.
VI. Proposed specific objectives of civic education.
I believe that the public school, the environment, and other forces
are already affecting the second generation to such a great extent
that special training in citizenship beyond that given all boys and
girls of their age seems unnecessary. I would recommend, therefore,
that the specific objectives in the education for citizenship of Rus-
sian-Jewish children, ages 12–14, be those given below which are
applicable to all groups, whatsoever and wherever they may be,
with special allowance for the training set aside for the particular
economic or social group within which they happen to fall and with
emphasis in the case of all children of immigrants, native as well
as foreign-born, particularly the Russian-Jewish, on the specific
objectives which are listed below under VI, B.
A. Generally applicable to practically all groups. (1) To develop
proper sympathetic attitude toward, and community of under-
standing between, the groups in our democracy, to make the contact
296 CIVIC EDUCATION
between them a source of strength and blessing instead of contention
and scorn. (2) To acquaint them with the value of citizenship —
the civic responsibilities and obligations as well as privileges; to
instruct them in the essentials of democratic living and to develop
loyalty toward the ideals of our democracy; to acquaint them with
the underlying principles, nature, and form of our government,
the evils of bossism, corruption, the use of the ballot, etc. (3) To
train them to subordinate the smaller group interests and loyalties
to those of the larger group; to get them to think in terms of the
community, to consider matters mainly from the point of view of
the greatest public good.
B. Specifically applicable to immigrant groups in general and the
Russian-Jewish in particular. (1) To aid in “bridging the gap.”
between immigrant parents and their children who have been born
in the United States or brought up in this environment, and thereby
help in bringing about better mutual understanding and stronger
parental influence and control, which is to act as a steadying force.
This might be accomplished by:
(a) Correcting superficial notions of Americanism, which have
taken root, and reinforcing knowledge of American ideals. (b)
Widening children’s horizon and enlarging their group consciousness,
giving it new interpretations, etc. (c) Developing reverence, respect,
and loyalty to traditions of ancestors.
(2) To furnish them with the knowledge of the contributions
which their group has made or is making toward the material and
spiritual development of American life, particularly toward Ameri-
can culture and ideals. (3) To assist and to point out the need for
their making their contribution as a group toward the development
of American culture, by capitalizing and taking advantage of the
treasures of racial inheritance and culture brought to our shores
in abundance by their parents, and other members of their group;
to develop respect for learning and ancient cultures.
VII. Problems of method. A. Limiting factors and conditions.
We are limited in this work by the following factors, none of which
in my estimation is in any way insurmountable, if we but decide
earnestly to take immediate steps toward its elimination. (1)
Teachers: (a) ill prepared for this new task; not imbued at the
present time with the right attitude—prejudiced and unsympathetic
toward immigrant groups, etc., misled just as the rest of us have
been, in our thinking; (b) lack of teacher's manual and supple-
mentary material to guide and assist the teacher in her work.
SAMPLE STUDIES 297
(2) Lack of tradition behind such direct systematically organized
teaching — it is an innovation in school work. (3) Lack of informa-
tion regarding contributions of the immigrant groups toward
American life, properly assembled and organized in book form —
not easily available — not approached in the past from this point
of view — especially books appropriate for use by children. (4)
Must depend mainly upon the results obtained indirectly through
extra-curricular activities. B. Defects of present system. (1) Teach-
ing English in evening schools unsuccessful, because of voluntary
attendance, and uncertainty of their continuation on account of
lack of funds. (2) Naturalization a farce – candidates merely re-
quired to answer certain questions regarding the form of our gov-
ernment; frequently cannot read or speak English and become easy
prey for demagogues and unscrupulous politicians. (3) Need for
Americans’ “Americanizing” themselves : (a) Stop putting poli-
tics above country, honesty, etc. (b) Degenerating effect on the
immigrants when they find persons high in office putting petty
political and selfish interests above those of the land and humanity.
(4) Patronizing attitude in work with foreign-born — get natives
and foreigners to mingle freely, not in a condescending manner.
(5) Need for federal government launching national movement for
Americanization, based on soundest advice to be received by calling
into consultation experts on this question of all groups and nation-
alities represented in our population. (Such an important task
should not be left to voluntary organizations, among whom there
may be found some who utilize the cloak of Americanization for an
entirely different, sinister motive.)
VIII. Means and methods. In general, no distinction should be
made between children of immigrant parents and those of natives.
They should be merged and receive the same fundamental course of
training in citizenship regardless of ancestry. Whatever work is
done with the children of groups should supplement the work of
the regular course in history and civics. The problem to my mind
is a twofold one, involving the education of natives as well as of
foreigners. The former will have to learn to give up the peculiar
notions and erroneous impressions that they have regarding immi-
grants in general and Russian-Jewish immigrants in particular.
They will have to learn to discern between the facts and exaggerated
accounts in newspapers spread broadcast, in which the foreigner is
often selected as the scapegoat, target; for by focusing attention on
some questionable act of an immigrant, the mind of the public is
298 CIVIC EDUCATION
in that way distracted from the conditions which prevail and which
require clear scientific study and radical remedy. Often the errone-
ous notions regarding Russian-Jewish immigrants are the result
of the work of demagogues, “professional patriots,” and anti-
Semites who play on the low prejudices of the ignorant, and who
give wide publicity to the delinquent acts of immigrants or their
children, emphasizing their extraction. (Example: Noisy agitators
among Russian Jews in very small minority — less than 1% of
Russian-Jewish population — through one-sided, exaggerated ac-
counts practically all Russian-Jewish immigrants are immediately
accused as and labeled “Bolsheviki,” “Socialists,” or whatever
unpopular name happens to be in vogue at the time.) Minimize
favorable comments.
As far as the children of Russian-Jewish immigrants are concerned,
the supplementary course in citizenship which they receive would
fall into two parts:
A. That given as part of the regular school work.
B. Results accomplished indirectly through eatra-curricular
activities. Under A (regular school work) I would include the
following: (1) Different types of supplementary courses in history
and civics to be offered in elementary as well as in junior high
schools, adapted to the needs of particular groups (just as special
courses in English planned to meet the specific needs of particular
students (enunciation, pronunciation, accent, etc.] ought to be
arranged after the group or class as a whole have obtained a funda-
mental knowledge of the essential elements of the language). (2)
Provision to be made in the history and civics courses for oppor-
tunities to learn of the contributions to American life made by
immigrants and American citizens of Russian-Jewish ancestry in
the past, as well as contemporary history of contributions of old
and recent immigrant groups. (a) In general, in each school part
of the periods in history and civics would be devoted to telling in
story form of the contributions of the ancestors of the predominating
element of the population in the neighborhood toward American
life. (b) Mere didactic presentations will not prove effective. We
must try to tap vital motives, otherwise it will not get beneath the
skin. Therefore, the use of carefully prepared supplementary
reference material and books, beautifully illustrated, is desirable.
(c) I would urge the preparation of special supplementary reading
books in American history dealing with “Jewish Heroes in American
History,” etc., appropriate for children of different ages and grades.
SAMPLE STUDIES 299
Naturally, the language in which the books of the lower grades are
written should be simple — style conversational, avoiding long
paragraphs – and profusely illustrated. (3) In addition the
following means ought to be utilized: (a) visits to model institutions
supported by immigrant groups — observation reports (Hebrew
Immigrant Aid Society, Mount Sinai Hospital, United Hebrew
Charities, etc.); show achievements of Jews in the field of philan-
thropy, toward the care of the sick and poor of their group, in
which they are worthy of emulation. (b) Study, discussion, and
debates in the case of children in the upper elementary and junior
high school classes of specific groups, their achievements and
possibilities, not excluding their limitations. (The ordinary reading
matter and dramatic participation are not applicable, of course, to
the children between the ages of 15 and 18. With them, debate, ex-
position, informal discussion must be used. The conference method
must be utilized, taking care not to do any moralizing, but to carry
the discussion on a third-party basis.) Raise debatable issues, as
“Should immigration be restricted, regulated, or admitted freely as
was the case before the war?” “What are the advantages and
disadvantages of each plan?” “What are the good and bad effects
of immigration?” (“All bad citizenship due to lack of suspended
judgment” – hunger for finality, dogmatism — may have to leave
some questions unanswered — suspended judgment.) (c) Com-
parison between the reasons which impelled the Separatists and
other denominations in England and other countries to seek refuge
in America – religious persecution and intolerance, etc. — and
the main reasons which attract the Russian Jews to America (reli-
gious freedom, equality of opportunity, etc.)
(The Americanization of the newly arrived children between the
ages of 6 and 10 is easily accomplished at school. Special classes
should be provided for those who arrive between the ages of 10
and 14 to afford them an opportunity to acquire the language more
quickly, with the least possible loss of time.)
Eactra-curricular activities. (1) Dramatic participation will prove
successful with the younger children, especially if organized as
extra-curricular activity around the stories of the heroes, etc. (a)
Have plays prepared on the basis of the stories of achievements
in the past of members of group — clustering round holiday cele-
bration. Example: Utilize Washington’s Birthday for bringing out
concrete examples of Jews in Revolutionary War. (Solomon, Col.
Isaac Franks (1759–1822) Aide-de-Camp to George Washington,
300 CIVIC EDUCATION
Col. David S. Franks, etc.) (b) Dramatization, after reading and
discussion — write outline of scenes — call for volunteers to take
parts indicated — let them go through the pantomime; make
dialogues short — no lengthy speeches.
(2) Inter-racial pageants, tableaux vivants. Utilize these to
better advantage, at holiday and school celebrations, the 12–14-
year-olds participating. (Example: In the case of Thanksgiving,trace
Jewish origin of the holiday — Feast of the Harvest. Tabernacles.)
(3) Current events. Arrange for series of charts or bulletins,
among which may be one for events which concern the school
district or neighborhood, one for the city and state, one for the
country, and one or two for outside countries. (a) Have each
bulletin labeled properly. (b) Post interesting pictures and accounts
of important events. (c) Call upon the pupils to furnish material.
(d) The teacher should exhibit a personal interest in this matter
herself. (e) Once a week the teacher should use a few minutes in
showing and explaining the pictures and in reading accounts which
are to be posted. (f) Have scrapbooks containing clippings telling
of valiant deeds of members of the group — hero worship. Very
effective with children.
(4) The work of the teacher. The teacher should take advantage
of every opportunity to bring out that America welcomes every
spiritual influence, every cultural urge and ancient experience, that
America is made richer and more fruitful by the gifts and services
of many nationalities; she should help the children to learn how
much each race has brought from its past in other lands, and how
much each has contributed and can contribute here; she should
awaken a certain amount of pride and ambition in the children to
live up to the traditions and hopes of their ancestors and should
endeavor to promote sympathy and understanding between different
groups in the American community. We might have some school
assemblies organized around this idea, each group or class in the
school contributing its share toward the program, in which the
outstanding virtues of each group would be emphasized.
IX. As far as the question of the application of the above means
and methods to different age levels is concerned, some supplemen-
tary program based on the regularly prescribed history and civics
courses in each class might be worked out; for example:
(1) For Grades 4a to 6b we might add several lessons in story
form telling of the manner in which Jews aided Columbus in dis-
covery of America, or of the Jews who participated in the American
SAMPLE STUDIES 301
wars (Revolutionary, Mexican, Civil, Spanish, down to our day).
The majority of the extra-curricular activities might be utilized
advantageously in these grades.
(2) For Grades 7a to 8a we might add several lessons on the
economic and social contributions which Jews have made to Ameri-
can life. (Example: Predominating factor in building up garment
and clothing industries; genius for business, commercial enterprise
and organization, etc., permanent settlers, not “birds of passage”;
zeal for learning; leaders in art and science, etc.) Visits to model
American-Jewish institutions involving observations, reports, etc.,
might also be feasible for children in these grades.
(3) For Grades 8b to 9b the discussion of debatable issues regard-
ing immigration, the evaluation of the social and economic contribu-
tions of the various groups, the question of the relationship between
groups, etc., might be taken up to develop a constructive point of
view and a fine attitude of tolerance toward this problem.
In conclusion, I wish to reëmphasize my conviction that each
immigrant group ought to be encouraged by all far-sighted Ameri-
cans, and ought to be afforded every opportunity to preserve its
own culture. American culture at the present time is vague, un-
definable, in the process of formulation. Each group ought to be
expected to make a distinct contribution, growing out of its own
life, toward the creation of distinct American culture. The children
of any particular group should be encouraged by the school to take
advantage of any supplementary education given by that group.
It should adjust its schedule to make it possible for them to attend
such courses.
We ought to take advantage of every opportunity to educate our
immigrants as well as our natives up to the ideal American point of
view. Who is to be expected to lead in this if not the teacher? Let us
study this problem carefully so that our conclusions may not be based
on prejudice, but on thorough and sympathetic understanding.
W. (C. C. P.) PROPOSED CourtsFS OF STUDY FOR 9TH AND 10TH
GRADES FOR A TYPE GROUP
Case I. “One hundred girls from rich families, large homes,
expect to go to college, but only for social reasons as now felt;
average to excellent mentality, nervous physically and often
overwrought by Social excitement; are extravagant, luxurious, and
unconsciously selfish; have never worked physically, and do not
seriously expect ever to do ‘hard work’ of any kind, but the least
302 CIVIC EDUCATION
selfish talk vaguely about ‘social work’ and the ‘new professions for
women’; their civic ideals are half ‘parlor-socialistic,’ half reaction-
ary, strongly feminist, and anti-domestic; they have given much time
to music, but with no deep interest; are inveterate readers of light
fiction; ideals of English speech are low, and of manners ‘up-to-date.’
Sixty per cent will marry, 25–30; remainder will remain celibate
with moderate inherited income.”
Objectives. Among the objectives the school should aim at in the
case of this group are the following:
1. To give these girls more of the “hard” attitude toward life
than their environment is able to produce in them. That is, the
work spirit.
2. To develop sympathy with, and an understanding of, certain
Social classes from which the conditions of their bringing up have
excluded them.
3. To put them in touch with the activities and institutions
about them (including the political), so that they may think, talk,
and act intelligently in reference to them, and may understand
others when they so talk; also as a background for the future
systematic study of economics and sociology. This is necessary
because these girls have been shielded at home from much direct
contact with these matters, except as they have picked up a little
in a scattered way from modern novels.
4. To give them, at the gateway of their entrance into a new
realm of studies, a broad survey of a considerable portion of the
field of organized knowledge, partly as a means of orientation in the
specialized studies beyond, and partly as their only touch with
certain fields which they cannot study further but which they
should not entirely miss. (This latter is cultural.)
5. To improve their oral and written expression.
6. To supply a basis for self-guidance in certain critical phases
of personal conduct, particularly those having to do with sex and
courtship.
7. To foster such normal development (of tastes, of physique, of
recreational abilities) through spontaneous activities as naturally
go with life at this stage. (Beta activities.)
GENERAL STATEMENT ON MEANS OF REALIZING SOME
OF THE ABOVE OBJECTIVES
1. The work spirit. Perhaps the most difficult end the school can
undertake to realize with this type group is that of inculcating in
SAMPLE STUDIES 303
its members the “hard,” or work, spirit. The whole atmosphere of
their home, and of their out-of-School environment, is against it.
The parents may even go so far as actively to oppose it. They will
admit the desirability of the spirit of work for people in general, but
will smile at ambitions on the part of their own daughters to work,
or even aggressively deny her opportunities to do so. But perhaps
the school can accomplish something toward realizing the aim of a
“hard” attitude. -
(a) It seems likely that the effort will need to begin on the side
of action rather than instruction. Apart from practice theory will
become mere sentimentalism. The girls may be encouraged to
undertake strenuous physical exertion projects, particularly group
hikes. These should be long and trying, and all complaining should
be taboo. The teacher should herself lead in them. Similarly
basketball or gymnasium projects could be employed, but always
in the “hard” spirit. So, too, good use could probably be made of
home projects, as making up the beds for a certain period, washing
the dishes, sweeping the floors, sewing for charity, etc. These should
be supervised in school, should be competitive, and should be
sustained by pressure from the class under the inspiration and
guidance of the teacher. If it would help any, school credit should
be given for them.
(b) Along with this practice in “hard” activities should go a
persistent effort to develop “hard” ideals. All of the teachers
should be on the lookout for any natural opportunities to make such
thrusts as will add odium to the “soft” attitude or attractiveness
to the “hard” one. This incidental teaching should probably be
supplemented by systematic instruction in the social-science classes.
Here a natural opportunity can readily be found for showing the
place of the attitude that every one should produce at least as much
as he consumes. Also an opportunity can easily be created, in
connection with the study of what makes life most worth while
(perhaps as part of a social-science course), for showing the value
of work in organizing personality and as a factor in happiness. A
study of the Influence of Women in Modern Life (part of Social
Science), based on reading and discussion of the lives of women
“heroes” and of magazine stories of women who insisted upon
making their own way in spite of the wealth of their parents, should
add to the “hard” spirit.
2. Acquaintance with working classes and the working world. Of
course this cannot be largely achieved in the little time that can
304 CIVIC EDUCATION
be given to it in the school between the ages of 14 and 16. Yet a
start can be made that should serve as a basis of future reading
and study (particularly college economics and sociology), and as
the inception of a habit of thinking of classes outside of one’s own.
To the above end there may be conducted a study of vocations
(not undertaken for the purpose of vocational guidance but rather
for that of appreciation). It should include a consideration of the
importance of the vocations studied in modern society, certain
general economic features about the vocation and its workers,
visits to establishments where the vocation is being plied, and
published “confessions” of men engaged in it, the last giving its
bright as well as its dark side. In addition to the visits to the
factories and other working places, more prolonged visits might be
made to the manual-training schools, where the girls could get
acquainted with the technical names of the tools and processes used.
Each girl should be required to write up an account of her field
study, using in it the proper technical names of tools and processes.
3. Study of the community — its activities, its institutions, its
excellences and defects compared with other communities. This can
Serve as a basis for intelligently reading newspapers, listening to
talks, or participating in conversations on community matters. It
also affords a necessary basis for the understanding of sociology and
economics taken up later in the school career. For the sake of
orientation in future study of the community it might include,
besides the practice and content discussion, a discussion of such
Questions as “Why people should study their community,” “How
to go about studying a community,” “The courtesies due in such
studies.” (This would need to lie in cold storage for some ten
years, but might do good in prompting later community study.)
4. Orientation. These girls will be required later to take spe-
cialized courses in science and in mathematics. Experience shows
that many, if not most, persons go through compulsory mathe-
matics and science without getting any real sense of the “exterior
relationships” of these subjects. They get no genuine appreciation
of the place of mathematics in life, or even of the subject itself.
They only master, with such thoroughness as they must, its technical
details. And the same thing is true of science. I am convinced
that the best way to give perspective to the details in which the
pupils will later be immersed is to precede the specialized courses by
a general orienting course. In the case of mathematics such a course
would undertake to show by illustrations what is the spirit of
SAMPLE STUDIES 305
geometrical proof, what algebra can do, what trigonometry is about
and what can be done with it, even what are the nature and possi-
bilities of calculus. It would show what mathematics has meant
in history, what achievements today are dependent upon it, and
the spirit in which the mathematician has worked and is now
working. The course in General Science would have a somewhat
similar character. (Neither general science nor combined mathe-
matics as now taught has quite the above character.)
Not only would such courses give perspective in the later specialized
studies, but they would also afford our girls a little instruction in a
field they would otherwise miss entirely. Under the present scheme
few persons, even among those who go to college, get training in all
phases of science and mathematics. They are usually required to
take something in each field, but they ordinarily satisfy the require-
ment by working only in a few spots (as by taking chemistry as
the representative of the physical sciences). But it is important
(for cultural reasons) that no one should be entirely ignorant of any
large phase of human interest and activity, and the general course,
early in one’s career, makes it possible to get at least a slight
acquaintance with the areas that otherwise he would entirely miss.
5. Ea:pression. It requires no courage to urge the inclusion of
this, as it has an established place in practically every course of
study. But we want it to take such form here as will enable us to
overcome the particular expressional deficiencies of our group.
6. Eugenics. In the case of our type group certain fortunate
taboos will quite certainly be built up at home. The girls will be
well chaperoned and not so likely to allow illegitimate liberties as
are girls of a lower social class. But these taboos will seldom be
rationally grounded and so will be in constant danger of breaking
down. Particularly do our girls need to take a more rational attitude
toward controlling love, and toward choosing a mate, than the
home alone is likely to develop. They need some instruction in the
principles of heredity, in matters related to sex, and in respect to
proper conduct toward the opposite sex. For the present the home
ordinarily reserves to itself the last two, especially the last, but
seldom does anything with the first. Ultimately these will probably
be regarded as residual functions of the school. Of course much
of this instruction belongs later in the girl’s school life, but girls of
sixteen are already in the sentimental age and experience has
shown many an unfortunate eventuality for want of the right kind
of guidance.
306 CIVIC EDUCATION
7. Developmental activities. Our type group will have many more
opportunities for developmental activity at home than have less
fortunate classes. Yet the social element that is possible in the
school more largely than at home makes it desirable that the school
provide opportunity for elective courses of the Beta type. As long,
too, as the school undertakes to control such a large portion of the
girl’s time as it now does, the Beta activities that every normal
person needs should be included within that time, not crowded
outside of it by a full day of Alpha activities, but there is no objec-
tion to allowing these activities to go on in the home (e.g., vocal
music) provided they are given school credit and allowed to count
on school time. -
OUTLINE OF COURSE OF STUDY
9TH GRADE
Alpha Subjects
General mathematics .
General science
Social science & © e º & # * * * *
English language (oral and written comp.)
Home projects and physical training .
Beta Subjects
English literature . . . . . . . . .
Practical arts, music appreciation, etc.
Free play, chaperoned parties, etc. .
10TH GRADE
Alpha Subjects
Applied biology
Social science # * * * * *
English (oral and written comp.)
General mathematics (cont.)
Beta Subjects
English literature . . . . . . .
Art appreciation, music appreciation, practical arts, etc.
Free play, chaperoned parties, etc. .
Criticism of theater-plays, current events, etc.
. 3 year hours
. 3 year hours
. 5 year hours
. 3 year hours
. 2 year hours
. 3 year hours
. 2 year hours
sm-m-mº.
. 2 year hours
. 5 year hours
3 year hours
. 2 year hours
. 3 year hours
4 year hours
ºs-
Social science is to include a survey of vocations and labor con-
ditions and problems; study of the activities and institutions of the
SAMPLE STUDIES 307
community; women in modern life (based largely on “woman hero”
stories and emphasizing “hard” elements); what the state does for
us and what we owe in turn to the state; what our country stands
for; the main elements in the program of present-day “radical”
political reformers; the attitude one should take toward forward
movements; relations of citizens to law enforcement; cursory dis-
cussion of what we can do to prevent our government from being
corrupted; our part in conserving and increasing the social wealth
(as keeping down fires, avoiding waste in food and clothing, dis-
pensing as largely as possible with the personal services of others;
every man a worker; luxury); personal and community health;
explanation of some of our present-day Social and political insti-
tutions and customs in terms of how they came about — as many
of the last as time will permit. (This is the only history work called
for here. Biographical history has preceded and the systematic
study of history may come later. In connection with this last
group of topics problems of personal conduct can be brought in,
centering about the institutions and customs to which they relate.)
Literature. Reading of magazine stories in class with criticism
of them; also a few novels. Start with present tastes and try to
lead up gradually toward better. But do not force development.
There is plenty of school time ahead. Too much forcing will alienate
the girls from the kind of reading into which we wish to initiate
them, instead of attracting them to it; besides, our subject will
cease to be a Beta one if we force it.
Applied biology. The laws of heredity studied first in plant and
animal applications, then transferred to man; transmissible physical
and mental defects; application of this to avoiding certain types of
mates; the control of love; behavior in relation to the opposite sex;
sex hygiene. If long on time here and short in Social Science, the
entire discussion of the conservation of personal and community
health could be put here. (Applied biology is scarcely an appro-
priate name for such course, but one dare not, at this time, name
it what it is, and “Applied Biology” seems to be a good camouflage
for it.)
VI. (R. A. C.) A PLAN FOR COMMUNICATING THE SPIRIT of
AMERICA TO THE FOREIGN-BoFN PUPIL (AGES 12–14)
I. Group conditions. Boys aged twelve to fourteen, born in
Southern Italy, now living in crowded foreign quarter of a large
eastern American city. Having had a year’s instruction here in a
308 CIVIC EDUCATION
public school, they are able to speak the English language well
enough to make known their wants, and to understand simple
English when it is spoken to them.
II. Diagnosis. These boys belong to poor families, the large
majority of which have come from the country districts of southern
Italy, not from the slums of the cities. Their parents for the most
part have been small farmers or hired laborers who worked upon
the soil, though, because of long distances from centers, they have
been accustomed through necessity to perform many odd jobs such
as “building a stone wall, shoeing a horse, mending a plow, cobbling
a shoe, making a passable broom out of a handful of bushes, trim-
ming a haystack in an artistic manner,” etc. About one family in
every hundred has come from an Italian city; there the male
parents have been for the most part skilled artisans, stone cutters,
sculptors, barbers, or waiters. The farmers have never had an
inch of ground of their own, but all have come through the offices
of the inspectors in both Italy and America with clean bills of health.
Though poor, ignorant, and often extremely narrow, they are
enterprising, plucky, temperate, patient in a remarkable degree,
highly industrious, and thrifty. They have come to this country
to improve their economic conditions, because to them America
has meant “The Land of Opportunity,” as it has to so many of the
rest of us.
Dominant characteristics of the pupils. They are physically
healthy, intensely interested in increasing their power to use the
English language, usually with a view to making, as soon as possible,
small earnings outside of school hours, and of leaving school as
Soon as the law will allow. They heartily dislike remaining in school
after school hours, as that interferes with work required of them
by their parents, who, up to this period, incline to strict enforcement
of obedience, the father being absolute head of the household. They
stand aloof from members of the school who know either less or
more English than they do themselves and are disinclined to
associate with girls of their own age, who are not relatives, as such
association is not allowed by their parents — but are greatly
influenced by women teachers whom they like. They show the
innate politeness which springs from kindness of heart; evince
strong loves and hates that last; have affectionate ways of showing
appreciation of kindnesses from others; are much given to attending
religious services where they are most likely to receive material
benefits in the form of presents, sometimes going to two or three
SAMPLE STUDIES 309
different denominational churches in succession on a great holiday.
They are careless, often dirty in their dress and person, and show
marked disposition to oppose taking of baths, especially in winter;
are unhygienic in behavior, particularly in such matters as habits
of expectorating, casting banana peels and other refuse in the yards
or leaving them in their desks, bringing heavy deposits of mud into
the classroom on their shoes, etc. Their emotional natures are easily
touched; their love of art and music is deep-seated and real; and
they show a medium degree of brightness; several, however, are
exceptionally dull, while here and there is found budding genius.
Except as regards the improvement of their English, they incline
to take things very comfortably and to expend little effort. Truancy
is beginning to appear in some individuals and there is a fairly
confirmed habit of remaining at home frequently to assist mother
in times of sickness, or to care for smaller children when the mother
is obliged to leave the house. They have small opportunity to
study at home in quiet because of large families and the presence of
Several boarders; this crowded condition (many persons living in a
few small rooms) postpones their retiring until late at night, which
causes them to be tardy frequently at school and sometimes sleepy
during school hours. Already they show signs of pride in their
English, and shame at their parents’ inability to speak the language,
often, also, at their peasant’s costume. They respond readily to
praise and to suitable, appealing rewards for effort and achievement.
III. Prognosis, general. If these boys receive no more effective
education or guidance than those of the same class who have pre-
ceded them, a large proportion of them will enter the ranks of
unskilled labor, a few of the brightest will pick up a trade, many
will be found in factories, an almost negligible portion will drift
back to the country on to the soil or into the quarries, a few will
enter business, still another few will find an honored place in the
professions and the arts. This group, as others, contains leaders
as well as followers. Their friends will be largely within their own
group, and their friendships will be close and intimate. Their
families will be large, and they will support them without asking
aid. While not in any large number patrons of public libraries,
they will frequently be seen at good concerts, especially when some
one of their own race is announced as the artist, and will often
spend a Sunday afternoon at the art museum, where Sunday after
Sunday they will be found in remarkably large numbers. They
will be generous patrons of charities which appeal to them; while
310 CIVIC EDUCATION
not so frugal as their parents, they will, on the whole, be simple in
their living, except on days of great feasts and on occasions of
family rejoicing, when they will expend large sums on food and
floral decorations. These people will all belong to labor unions or
other fraternities. Not more than the usual proportion of a com-
munity where earnings are small will become lawbreakers and
find their way to jail.
IV. Prognosis, civic. The civics of the traditional kind taught
in our schools will affect these pupils not at all. On reaching adult
age they will be easily led by a boss of the American type, or worse
still, by one of their own number who possesses the quality of
leadership but no adequate knowledge. They will interpret America
in terms of their own personal experiences with individuals with
whom they happen to come in direct contact, with individuals who
steal from them, mete out injustices to them, keep their wage as
low as possible, ridicule them and treat them contemptuously —
these are the policeman who takes bananas from their father's
pushcart and does not pay for them, the tactless social visitor who
seems to them to enter their homes through curiosity and to inter-
fere in their family affairs, judges and jurymen who practice upon
them injustices and extortions, native Americans who think them-
selves too good to associate in friendly relationship with them.
Their interpretation of America will be a guess from these concrete
experiences; and their resulting attitude will be one of suspicion
toward America and antagonism to her institutions. Probably
about 15 per cent will become voters — most of these will give their
vote merely because some one asks them for it. They will learn
sufficiently to sense what they themselves have missed in education
to make an effort to give to their children a better education than
they had. Probably 90 per cent will marry within their own group
and through music and story-telling will perpetuate their own
hopes, aspirations, and attitudes. Only a negligible number will
leave the United States permanently. They will not read with
enough ease to enjoy reading, therefore will not improve their
education, or increase their knowledge, or make more reliable
their judgments to any extent through a habit of reading the daily
news or current magazines. They will tend therefore to perpetuate
their prejudices in their children.
W. Civic deficiencies specifically stated. Prominent civic deficien-
cies of this group at ages 30–60 will be: (a) Failure to realize that
America is for their children as for other children of this land and
SAMPLE STUDIES 311
that they must put all they have into efforts for the welfare of the
country and the welfare of their children who are to be of the
country and benefit from it. (b) Failure to comprehend the value
of community service and coöperation for a group cause of civic
nature. (c) Failure to understand the personal returns that accrue
from hygienic living. (d) Failure to recognize the extent of personal
responsibility in the use of the ballot, and the choice of a leader.
(e) Lack of standards by which to judge good leaders. (f) Failure
to understand that American institutions and American laws exist
Solely for the good of the American people.
VI. Proposed specific objectives. (a) To develop an appreciation
of the personal equations in American institutions, laws, customs,
aspirations, ideals — “How does this bring good to me and to my
children?”
(b) To develop the will, the necessary knowledge, and the requisite
power to serve the community in which they live, and to coöperate
with zeal in a group cause even when it is opposed to a purely per-
Sonal interest.
(c) To produce habits of hygienic living.
(d) To stimulate the will and judgment in choosing leaders
possessing qualities of fitness for their work.
(e) To arouse a sense of responsibility of the individual as a
member of the group.
VII. Problems of method. (a) Reading is as yet accomplished
with labor; is it likely that textbook material will secure any
functioning results? (b) Since they are still strangers in the neigh-
borhood, is it likely that direct appeals to altruistic tendencies will
count? (c) Will the traditional morning talk accomplish anything?
(d) In the absence of American experiences of a normal type, is
not the first need that of personal contact with impelling forces *
(e) What shall be the character of these experiences? (f) In what
type of school will appropriate experiences be most readily given and
most effectively function? -
VIII. Proposed methods. (a) On the basis of the belief that good
citizenship is a phase of living common to girls and boys as well as
to adults, that habits and aptitudes of good civic living grow with
appropriate experiences within small groups, and that they begin to
grow just as soon as the individual begins to feel himself a responsible
member of a social group, whatever his age, it is proposed to accom-
plish group situations for these boys in which they will work toward
the civic objectives proposed under VI. The time allowance will
312 CIVIC EDUCATION
be one hour each day. It is felt that this is not excessive, since the
school’s greatest responsibility to these boys lies in its obligation to
integrate them into American life, as only in the success of this
process can America profit by their presence here and can they
here enjoy their birthright of the pursuit of happiness.
(b) Proposed program in civics.
Projects centering around school welfare and community
welfare.
A. Junior Civic League (or some other title chosen by the
boys). Committees self-appointed. Possibilities Sug-
gested below:
An Advisory Council, a Good Citi-
Zenship Committee, Board of
Health, Public Works Department,
Library Department, Entertainment
Committee.
Method and matter should lead to
knowledge of related governmental
agencies, to names of present offi-
cials, and methods of selecting and
financing, also ways the individual
can use the knowledge helpfully.
B. Junior Aids (or some other title chosen by the boys).
A slogan of some kind – “We live in the schoolroom
five hours a day; why not
make it a pleasant place in
which to stay?”
Committees self-appointed — Suggested possibilities:
Decoration — of a more or less permanent character:
Subdivisions: shelf, plant, loam, picture.
Special Holiday Staff. Hallowe'en, Armistice Day, Thanksgiv-
ing, Christmas, Easter Season, Valentine's Day, Washington's
Birthday, Arbor Day, etc. (Additions and omissions according
to interest and locality.)
Aua'iliary Committees. Thrift or waste, exhibit, bulletin board
and filing, correspondence, bureau of information (this in
connection with traveling or locally established art or other
exhibits of group interest, moving-picture helps, names and
addresses of persons, films, companies, or bureaus likely to
have materials or information useful in civic connections;
this activity may well be extended into community service to
the foreign families newly arrived).
SAMPLE STUDIES 313
Drives connected with community or national activities.
Campaigns" connected with community or national
activities.
Literature, biographies, stories, poems — all simple but
stirring.
Drama — capable of making a very strong appeal to this
grOup.
Music — capable of making a very strong appeal to
this group.
:
º
For this group civics could be made the core about which could
be built much of the work in the three R's, in the cultural subjects,
and also in the hand work which it is hoped would be provided for
these boys.
VII. (M. E. D.) PROGRAM FOR A CASE GROUP OF BOYS FROM
HIGH-GRADE ENVIRONMENT
1. Case group. Boys about 14 years of age in 8th grade of a
training school of a normal college in a Western city of about
30,000 population.
2. Diagnosis. These boys are the sons of professional and av-
erage well-to-do business men. Socially their parents belong to the
so-called “middle class.” Intellectually they are rather superior.
The boys will range from the average to the superior class mentally.
They have been rather carefully reared and have been taught to
conform in the usual way. They have had the influence of and
access to the advantages offered by the normal school, the library
of the Y. M. C. A., etc. While the school is directly supervised by
the normal school, it is essentially “free,” wherein it is necessary
for the boys to assume initiative and responsibility. These boys
accept school as a matter of course, some requiring urging by parents
and teachers, others absorbed. They will probably continue through
the high school and many will go to normal school and college.
Physically, they are healthy. Many excel in athletic sports. They
are fairly well satisfied with the life they lead. There are already
indications of “smugness.” They are ambitious personally and for
* Illustrations of possible campaigns:
Clean-up Week; -
Drink More Milk;
See a Dentist;
Join the Oculists’ Glasses Club; etc.
314 CIVIC EDUCATION
own group. They take an active part in public questions, elections,
etc.
3. Prognosis, general. These boys will become professional men
(some will be teachers, due to the influence of the normal school),
commercial or business men. Few of them will engage in farming
or the trades. They will represent the average well-to-do citizen.
Some of them will be leaders in their chosen profession. They will
be members of the leading clubs, and will take part in the activities
of the city. There will be coöperation and loyalty within their own
group.
4. Prognosis, civic. They will become law-abiding, conforming
citizens, with a tendency to ignore any group of a different political
or social faith. Many of them will be leaders of the recognized order,
socially and politically. Others will be absorbed in self-promotion.
5. Civic deficiencies. Lack of understanding of and sympathy
with the so-called inferior groups; lack of adequate Sociological
background; lack of ability to coöperate with all classes; lack of
ability to meet exigencies, such as strikes, etc.
6. Proposed objectives. Civics will emerge from the curriculum
as a specific study in the 8th grade. (a) To lay a foundation for
later civic study. (b) To aid the group to meet present civic situa-
tions, working knowledge of data. (c) To create a motive for
participation in community life. (d) To develop a degree of coöpera-
tion, initiative, and responsibility. (e) To develop “Social thought,
feeling, and action.”
7. Proposed methods. (a) Use the problem-project method. (b)
First-hand investigation. (c) Supplementation — books, magazines,
etc. (d) Participation in school and in community when feasible.
(e) Dramatization. (f) “Socialized” procedure.
8. Proposed content. (a) Health – personal and public.
(a1) Work of the home — school —
community.
(a2) Pure foods — water, milk, etc.
How obtained, distribution, legis-
lation.
(a8) Disposal of waste.
(b) Social agencies, laws.
(c) Civic beauty, laws.
(d) Transportation and communication.
(e) Survey of the communities’ industries
– informational.
SAMPLE STUDIES 315
9. Activities. W
Debates, speeches, pageants, dramas (original), score cards,
charts, maps, participation. -
VIII. (R. W. H.) PROPOSED PROGRAM FOR SELECTED GROUP
Boys 16–18 years of age in high schools of cities of 100,000 to
300,000 in North Atlantic states.
Case group. These boys are a sifted group, able to stay in School,
coming from well-to-do but not wealthy homes for the most part;
do not expect to go to college. Many racial stocks are represented.
They have little enthusiasm for school work, are infected with the
“get by’’ attitude, and give little thought as to their future life
work. On the whole a clean and wholesome type, since most of
the undesirables have been sifted out; greatly interested in athletics;
like to join fraternities and clubs; prefer men teachers; dislike
preachments, and “soft” penalties. They enjoy open discussion,
particularly of a political nature, and will reason more clearly and
to the point than girls in these matters.
Will become for the great part good conforming citizens; will
join a political party and remain regular; will be skillfully manipu-
lated by party bosses; are sectional in their political views; will hold
minor offices in their home city; build up a small business of their
own or become managers or salesmen for large business firms. In
general, a solid upper-grade middle class.
Main objectives. Training that will produce: (1) a healthful
citizen, (2) a “vocational” citizen, (3) an educated citizen, (4) a
participating citizen. (Nos. 1 and 2, although highly important in
any well-rounded scheme for citizenship training, are not under
discussion in this paper.)
Specific civic objectives for “the educated citizen” should include:
(1) A body of general information: knowledge of (a) his own
country and its institutions, (b) other countries and their
institutions.
(2) An interest in and comprehensive understanding of the social
problems of his own time.
(3) An open-minded attitude toward controversial subjects.
(4) A proper evaluation of his own responsibilities for his group
relationships: (a) home, (b) associate, (c) federate.
(5) A recognition of the value of his civic inheritance.
316 CIVIC EDUCATION
“The participating citizen” should have training which will give
him:
(1) The incentive to give time and thought and, if need be,
participation in public affairs.
(2) An understanding of the way to go about it to obtain authentic
information on public questions.
(3) The ability to evaluate correctly qualities of leadership in
public servants.
Methodology. Toward making the “educated citizen” are recom-
mended courses in (1) Modern History; (2) American History and
Government; (3) Problems in American Democracy.
(1) Modern History: Introductory statement. As a teacher of
history for many years I have come to feel with increasing force
that history is not doing for our pupils what the Committee of
Seven said history should do. For instance, in that report (1899)
under the caption of “Training for Citizenship” we note the follow-
ing as objectives of history: “History cultivates the judgment by
leading the pupil to see the relation between cause and effect:”
“the power to gather information and to use it;” “training in the
handling of books;” “historical mindedness;” “developing the
scientific habit of thought;” etc. It is my contention that these
objectives, splendid in themselves in training citizens, are not
realized from the study of history as generally taught in our high
schools today. Dr. Tuell in Study of Nations writes: “History in
the schools has recently been put on the defensive, challenged as a
failure in its civic functions. Its established theory crumbles for
lack of definite social purpose.”
Problem. Let us set as our objectives the citizenship concomitants
Set forth by the Committee of Seven as listed above, and take our
method from Dewey: “The true starting point of history is always
Some present-day situation.” If this general method is followed,
the class will not have the customary chart and guide in the form of
a chronologically arranged text. The special method employed is
the problem-project with its essential four steps, “purposing, plan-
ning, execution, judgment.” The field to be covered is from 1650
to the present. The class is democratically organized with chairman,
Secretary, and activities’ committees, a large chronological chart is
drawn up, reference shelves reserved in the school library, one of
the Current Event Publications for each member of the class, and
a civic notebook kept.
Type of projects. (1) The Industrial Revolution and how it
SAMPLE STUDIES 317
affects us today. (2) How did France become a republic? (3) What
are the causes underlying the unrest in Russia? (4) Why is Japan
one of the five leading nations? (5) What were the causes of the
World War? (6) Why is Poland demanding her “ancient rights
and privileges”? (7) What power does the King of England
actually possess today? (8) How did Italy become something more
than “a geographical expression”? (9) What is the significance of
the title of “The Fatherland” in German history? (10) What is
the League of Nations? etc., etc.
Many such pertinent questions as these, bearing directly upon the
Social, political, and economic phases of modern life, rise naturally
to the lips of pupils awake to present-day conditions. It is one of
the chief duties of the teacher to stimulate these interests and then
guide them intelligently. The instructor should have so charted
his course in advance that at the end of the year's work the class
would have “covered essentials,” although in no page-by-page
fashion. The fact content, in my mind, will be as great under this
method, more ready for use, and better retained in memory. Sum-
maries or “irreducible minimums” should be built up at the end of
each project, mimeographed, and each member should have a copy.
There is little that is new in this particular approach. Dr. Snedden
Several years ago pointed out the distinction between the “assimila-
tion” and the “cold storage” methods in history teaching. The
objectives desired are secured. The pupils get the ability to gather
the information necessary to solve the particular problem on hand;
while the classroom discussions and debates develop “light, not
heat,” independent judgment, and historical mindedness.
(2) American History and Government and (3) The Problems
of American Democracy. Introductory statement:
In the course in American History and Government the stress
should come on the nationalistic period. A rapid review of the dis-
covery and colonial period, while half of the time usually allotted to
the Revolutionary period might well be devoted to a study of its
causes. For the constitutional period Dr. Butler has suggested:
“We have not recently done any effective or widespread work in
teaching the fundamental principles of American government. We
have taught . . . the mechanics of government and some of the
practices of citizenship, but the underlying theories we have passed
by as self-evident.” The problem here is how to get over to these
young citizens these “fundamental theories and principles,” so
they will come to have a proper evaluation of their political inheri-
3.18 CIVIC EDUCATION
tance. Method: Thorndike in Education: “The educational value
of finding the causes of what is, and the causes of these causes, is
very much superior to the spurious reasoning which comes from
explaining a record already known.” Work this theory out in some
vital present-day situation, e.g., the Eighteenth Amendment. What
are the constitutional rights claimed to be invaded? Let these be
listed for purposes of class discussion and study.
(1) The right of a state to determine this issue for itself. (2) The
right of the government to take over and destroy private property
without compensation. (3) The right of a general state referendum
to overrule legislative action. (4) The claim that it was not legally
adopted: (a) due to the absence of many overseas voters; (b) due to a
general willingness to sacrifice one’s rights temporarily during war-
time; (c) due to a technical illegality in the wording of the amend-
ment, etc. Take these up for discussion separately, consult author-
ities, publications, and have each one defend his position. A formal
debate might close the general discussion. This is typical of the
“Problems in Democracy” for the senior year. This course should
make use of all that has gone before. Government, like history, will
be called in only when needed for purposes of problem solution.
Our high schools can no longer play the ostrich policy on the contro-
versial questions which will be met with this Twelfth year. All
teachers and pupils should be seekers after truth, working in the
spirit of Franklin’s plea for harmony at the Constitutional Con-
vention: “It is light, not heat, gentlemen, that the country demands
of us.”
These “Problems” can be arranged and presented by the teacher
according to the character of the class, the amount of available
material, and the immediate interest of the topic. Suggestions:
Political problems. (1) Types of city government. (2) The League
of Nations. (3) The “grandfather clauses.” (4) Compulsory mili-
tary training. (5) The D. and R. economic problems: (a) Con-
servation of natural resources; (b) Government paper money; (c)
Capital vs. labor; (d) The tariff; (e) Government ownership.
Social problems. (1) Immigration; (2) The negro question; (3)
Marriage and divorce; (4) Socialism; (5) Women in industry. Well-
nigh indispensable adjuncts to this course are: (a) a debating society
or congress; (b) a current events club; (c) a clipping book or filing
cabinet; (d) coöperation with the local librarian; (e) the socialized
recitation; (f) a teacher trained to handle the project method. Ac-
cording to Parker it will take four years in service adequately to
SAMPLE STUDIES 319
train a teacher to handle this method. At the close of a discussion
of any one of these problems it would be well to have a formal
debate. Thereby those particularly interested can go farther afield,
consult many authorities, prepare a brief, and learn to think and
talk to the point.
Here is the place for the “thin” textbook. One small book could
contain the basic material for one of these main problems or a
related group of problems. This material should present both sides
of the question, and quote extensively from authorities. Some of
the fundamental principles of economic theory should be set forth:
e.g., the laws governing supply and demand; the theory of Malthus;
Gresham's Law. At the close of this “thin” text, debatable resolu-
tions bearing on the problem could be presented, and possibly the
main heads of a brief, with a few good references on both sides of
the question.
During this as well as the previous year the class should have train-
ing in evaluating the news, distinguishing between fact and opinion,
and comparing and balancing authorities. They should learn how to
handle the Dewey decimal system and the Readers’ Guide. It would
be greatly to their advantage to know a little psychology — enough,
at least, to show them how habits are formed, with definite applica-
tion in their individual cases, in learning how to study, or how to
break a bad habit and form a good one.
The participating citizen: “The citizenship muscles of the future
American man, and even more woman, must be exercised.” The
best hope we have of the kind of citizens these boys are going to be-
come is the kind of citizens they prove themselves to be in their daily
contacts at School and in the community. To be sure, the pulls
and strains of later years may overcome all previous training. Two
things we can do: First, subject the boys to as many of these vital
situations in School as we can devise. The school should organize
in as democratic manner as possible on the basis of meeting its own
needs, and not on any artificial basis. Pupils should participate in
the organization and direction of school activities, both athletic
and social. Election of officers for these positions should be con-
ducted in a dignified and parliamentary manner. There are many
ways of getting this type of participation within the school, but
more important and far more difficult is the second; namely, partici-
pation that takes the boy out into the community, doing those worth-
while things which the city recognizes as being distinctly valuable.
During the war there were many splendid illustrations of this; e.g.,
320 CIVIC EDUCATION
Boys’ Working Reserve. This was the finest type of citizenship
training, as their civic ideals eventuated into worth-while activity.
“Action is the only foundation of virtue,” says Aristotle. We need
to devise ways and means of getting boys of this age group interested
and engaged in such community activities. Two helpful publica-
tions: (1) The Junior Citizen, published by the Chamber of Com-
merce, Lincoln, Nebraska, is an account of the activities and
community projects of the Junior Civic and Industrial League. The
significant fact is that the Chamber of Commerce of Lincoln is
working with the school leagues, a very hopeful sign. (2) A Course
of Study in Civics — stressing particularly participation, issued by
the State Normal School, San José, California. Conclusion: “One
founder is worth a thousand reformers” (Horace Mann).
IX. (J. W. L. M.) PROPOSED PROGRAM OF CIVIC EDUCATION FOR
APPRENTICE SCHOOLS IN THE MANUFACTURING CRAFTS AND IN
RAILROAD SHOPS
I. Considerations upon which recommendations are based:
1. Type of student.
Boys, age group 16 to 18, or first two years of apprentice-
ship; high percentage of native parentage; above the average
Schooling (usually 8th grade or better); a group selected by
the management of the employing industry for apparently
superior industrial intelligence and physique and by reject-
ing undesirables after a probationary period of several
months; applicants willing to forgo the somewhat better
financial returns of ordinary casual adolescent employment
to stick to one employer for a period of three to five years,
and to utilize part of their own free time in study or supple-
mentary night-school instruction, and who prefer manual
employment to sedentary clerical positions.
2. Adult group aged 25 to 60 whom they may be expected to
replace: industrial foremen and superintendents and the
unionized craftsmen; a considerable percentage apprentice-
trained; frequently relatives of the boys; show a tendency to
migrate in employment during a period after completing
apprenticeship; apparently prefer stable employment in
mature years; under favorable conditions home owners and
family men; patriotic and until recently conservative in
their political opinions; at present apparently show a ten-
dency more radical, as evidenced by such movements as
SAMPLE STUDIES 321
the “Plumb plan” and by agitation for industrial democ-
racy, with some support for employee coöperative enter-
prises.
II. Type of instructor recommended.
One neutral as to capital-labor controversies, such as an
educator who has been a student of economics, sociology,
and psychology, acceptable both to the industry’s manage-
ment and the employees’ organizations, who has the good
will of the apprentices, of the type of the supervisor of
apprentices usually found in these plants. In some cases
perhaps to be supplied by the industrial Y. M. C. A.
III. Courses recommended.
Courts.F. A
1. Discussion of conditions and opportunities of apprenticeship.
a. The organization of the shop instruction and of the supplemen-
tary studies and their utility.
b. Opportunities of the apprentices as evidenced by present
positions of former graduates.
2. Industrial relationships.
a. Necessity for shop discipline.
b. Relationships to fellow apprentices and other employees.
3. Civic responsibilities.
a. Frank discussion of current public questions, such as at this
moment — prohibition, the acceptance of the League of Nations
by the United States, deportation of communistic aliens, exclu-
sion of Socialists from the state assembly.
b. The party system and local participation.
c. Discussion of present office holders as to their fitness for their
positions in federal, state, and local government.
d. Local problems such as traction facilities and education, with
fiscal limitations.
4. Trade unionism.
a. History and organization.
b. Strikes, when justified and likely to be successful. Costs to
labor, industry, and the public. Means for avoidance.
c. Relation to production efficiency. Weekly and daily hour
Schedules. Piece work. Bonuses and profit sharing.
d. Craft pride.
322
CIVIC EDUCATION
11.
Thrift.
a. Saving, banking, building and loan associations. Life insurance,
safe investments.
b. Home ownership.
Courts E B
. Health.
a. Temperance, athletic clubs.
b. Hygiene, cleanliness, and occupational diseases in industry
concerned.
c. Sex continence.
Accident prevention and alleviation.
a. Investigation of summary of accidents in the plant, with dis-
cussion of means of prevention. Workmen’s compensation law.
b. First-aid treatment. -
Employees’ coöperative enterprises.
a. Discussion of any such in operation either in plant concerned or
where known to boys. Sources of saving in distribution cost.
Probable limitations.
Corporation organization.
a. The plant's table of organization.
b. Personality of officials, and duties.
c. Teamwork and company loyalty.
Industrial history.
a. The industrial revolution.
b. Causes for present limited scope of apprenticeship.
c. Citation of attempts at communistic enterprise.
d. Discussion of state socialism, syndicalism, and industrial
democracy. The limiting economic and psychological factors.
Problems of social betterment.
a. Americanization of aliens.
b. Education.
X. (C. H. C.) PROBLEMs of PROGRAM OF SPECIAL CIVIC EDUCATION
FOR A CHINESE GROUP
1. Group. Boys in junior and senior classes of a special high
school in China, which prepares them to come over to the United
States for higher education. It is located in the outskirts of Peking
(about four miles from the city). -
SAMPLE STUDIES 323
2. Diagnosis. These boys come from prosperous families, which
usually are not in Peking. They are admitted to the school by com-
petitive examinations held in different parts of the country, and so
they are a highly selected group. They are boys with ambition and
vision, and have had substantial preparation, either in the middle
school of the same institution, or in some other good institution.
They have been guarded by considerable parental oversight and
given special attention by teachers. During their schooling they
are living in dormitories, seldom go home except in the summer
vacations, and have little chance to associate with the opposite sex.
They are well nourished by the controlled diet of the school. Their
teachers are well trained and well paid. The facilities and equip-
ment in the school are the best in the country. The school
also has a large library and gymnasium, under the supervision of
experts.
Dominant characteristics: physically healthy, interested in sports
and games; eager to learn, failure of school work or poor grade
regarded as a shame, keen competition in class work as well as in
extra-curricular activities ; there are no fraternities, but many
clubs and organizations for intellectual purposes or otherwise,
under the supervision of special committees of the faculty; possess
high morale, being strongly conformist; religious instruction only
through private Bible classes and informal; socially, they have
parties often among themselves and with teachers; school atmos-
phere, highly solidified.
3. Prognosis, general. Except a few in the lower quartile, all will
come to the United States for higher education, aided by government
scholarships and, consequently, they are destined to become leaders
in different professions. Owing to their special abilities and training,
they usually enter the junior classes in small colleges first, and when
they finish undergraduate work, they go to large institutions for
postgraduate work. Usually, they stay in this country for five years,
and carry with them Ph.D., M.A., or an engineering degree when
they go back. They will do pioneer work in modernizing China, and
they will be confronted with many difficult situations. Their respon-
sibility is great, but their remuneration is often poor.
4. Prognosis, special. Besides civic education like that given
to pupils in other institutions, they need a special civic education,
which gives them special intelligence to understand the United
States and to represent China, and to become leaders in different
professions in China. They have had usually six or seven years of
324 CIVIC EDUCATION
English, and are taught often by American teachers and use English
textbooks.
Without special civic education, they will be “superior” citizens.
They have often heard of certain American ideals and manners, and
are inspired by them. They are especially interested in “democ-
racy,” and read with much interest biographies of American heroes,
and books about American ideals and manners. They are patriotic,
loyal to the republic, and know their responsibility, but are rebellious
against certain conventions and superstitions.
Most of them will become good writers and speakers. They are
eager to learn to coöperate, interested in politics and national
affairs. They are active and busy.
5. Special civic education needed and its objectives: (a) instruc-
tion in American ideals and ideas, so that they will have a clear
understanding and sympathetic appreciation of them; (b) instruc-
tion in international relationship between the United States and
China for the same purpose as above; (c) training in American cus-
toms and manners, so that they may know how to conduct them-
selves in American Society; (d) training in special virtues, such as
coöperation, initiative, etc., so that they will become good leaders;
(e) instruction in knowledge of social, economic, and political affairs,
so that they will become intelligent leaders; (f) training and instruc-
tion in effective methods for achieving desired political and social
changes or reforms in their country.
6. Special civic education given now: (a) a course in American
history and civics; (b) occasional lectures on American ideals and
customs; (c) encouragement to participate in different activities by
the faculty; (d) a course in economics.
7. Special civic education to be added. Necessary instruction and
training to supplement 6, in order to fulfill 5.
8. Problems of method. (a) Shall we give special civic education
in Alpha or Beta type of study, or both? (b) If it is Alpha, how shall
the material be organized? by didactic presentations? by projects?
by readings and reports? etc. (c) If it is Beta, how should it be done?
by organizing clubs? by illustrating talks? by mock plays? etc.
(d) If both are used, how can they be correlated?
9. Proposed methods. (a) A formal course in international rela-
tionships between the United States and China should be given,
with readings and reports by the students. (b) A formal course
consisting of lectures on American ideals and ideas, manners and
customs, with readings and reports by the students. (c) A formal
SAMPLE STUDIES 325
course in political, social, and economic changes and theories should
be given, with readings and reports by the students. (d) By
correlating courses given now and those to be given, projects
undertaken by students on topics related to 6 should be encouraged.
(e) Mock plays about American customs and manners given by
students with advice from American teachers should be encouraged.
(f) Arrangement should be made with homes of American teachers
and others interested in the college work to invite students to see
their home life. Certain civic skills and habits should be encouraged
and trained; e.g., Roberts' rules in conducting meetings, voting
systems in electing officers, fair play in running for offices, special
responsibility of members of committees for certain tasks, etc.
XI. (P. F. V.) CERTAIN PROBLEMS OF METHOD
In a scheme of objectives of social education which has been
accepted provisionally, the next problem will be to determine how
ideals and attitudes in that education can be taught. The following
principles are submitted:
1. Social education can best be given in a social environment.
Dewey says, “You cannot teach a child to swim unless you take
him to the water.” The gang, the clique, or neighborhood group is
the natural gymnasium in which the qualities of citizenship must
be exercised. These virtues can best be evoked and strengthened
in the environment of the group. Sumner says, “Ethics do not exist
except in a group.” The more closely knit the group organization,
the more powerfully will the group standards be impressed upon
each individual. Lee says, in Play in Education: “The lack of defi-
nite social pressure is the weakest point in our present civilization.
We need for our salvation the compelling influence of a particular
group, with definite standards and stern transmission of them. With
the primitive but definite ideals of barbarian society something very
precious has been lost. We need in some form that compactness
of social structure, capable of receiving and transmitting definite
standards of behavior, without subjection to which the future citizen
is denied the most important element in education.”
2. The second principle is that standards should be built up within
the group and not imposed from without. Only the recognized leaders
of a group are able to modify its standards. A teacher or a policeman
may hold a group in subjection by the sheer strength of his personal-
ity or authority, but until he is accepted by the group as an “insider,”
326 CIVIC EDUCATION
his influence will not extend beyond his authority. It is impossible
for an outsider to break the will of a gang. His efforts are likely to
have the opposite effect. Any individual member of the group who
in a moment of weakness is induced to “tell tales” on the others,
not only loses caste with the organization, but through his very
treason strengthens the other members in their determination to
adhere to the accepted standards.
3. The third principle is that every modification of the standards of
the group and every moral readjustment in the minds of the individuals
composing the group can best be brought about by means of grappling
with vital issues. These issues must be related to the personal
experiences or at least to the interesting vicarious experiences of the
individual members. The most vital issues are those which tend
to grow out of their immediate group life. Dr. Frank McMurry
says that a series of issues which are vital to the student constitutes
a curriculum. Dr. Dewey says that “ideas must be acquired in a
vital way in order to become moving ideas, motive forces in the
guidance of conduct.” The vitalizing element is emotional. It is
related to the needs or interests of the individual in relation to
his group life. When a situation presents itself which demands a
response on the part of all the individual members of the group,
it becomes a vital issue. There will be interplay of minds. Facts
will be brought out and information sought in the adjustment of
the issue. It is evident that under these circumstances the informa-
tion or knowledge that is acquired will find its proper place; namely,
in the service of purpose.
4. The fourth principle is that the positive social virtues can best
be strengthened by means of actual participation. The activities of
the group must be coöperative. The boys must play together and
work together; they must participate not only in the activities of
the small group in which they hold their immediate membership,
but also in many of the activities of the larger community of which
they are a part. During the war our wisest teachers utilized their
golden opportunity to teach citizenship by means of such participa-
tion projects as visiting the sick; war gardening; selling Liberty
Bonds; investing in Savings Stamps; and working for the Red Cross.
Such participation is useful not only because it tends to fix certain
habits of participation, but also because it tends to establish certain
ideals and attitudes. The development of a social conscience, of a
community of interest, the bringing to bear of social pressures, will
require a technique which is difficult to create unless there is social
SAMPLE STUDIES 327
participation. By helping to make the rules of the game, the
individual will learn from experience how agreements are reached
by compromise, and thus come to realize the advantages of coöpera-
tive activity. By being subjected to social pressure he learns to
respond to it. By taking part in the projects of the group he will
learn that he is expected to do his share of the work. By exercising
his conscience on live moral issues he becomes sensitive to the
principles involved. * -
5. The fifth principle is the principle of group motivation. Thorn-
dike says, “Motivation must be strong enough so that the individual
will act and act again and be dissatisfied by other types of action.”
In a group of Boy Scouts the leader constantly aims at Social
motivation. This is done by praising the group as a whole rather
than any individual member of it, by setting up group objectives
to be accomplished rather than individual objectives.
6. The sixth principle is that the small group virtues should be
strengthened and used as a basis for the strengthening of the virtues
that will be useful in the larger group. Each individual must learn to
adjust himself to group life. The first adjustments that he learns
to make are naturally those in the family circle and in the immediate
neighborhood. The later and perhaps more impersonal adjustments
to the larger community are interpreted in the light of his earlier
and more personal adjustments. In the family and neighborhood
group he must learn not to be quarrelsome, he must not tell lies, he
must not commit injury against any member of the group, he must
not be unjust, he must not steal, he must not be untruthful.
7. The seventh principle is that the limits and the conflicts between
the small and the large group relationships must be clearly defined
and situations must be provided for solving problems in which such
conflicts occur. Small group loyalties are a menace to society at
large, unless upon these loyalties there are grafted motives for the
welfare of the larger group.
8. The eighth principle is that the personality of the teacher or
leader is a fundamental factor in the establishment of standards and
traditions. “As is the teacher, so is the school.” The concrete
reality of living personality in daily contact with the child is perhaps
the most effective source of his ideals. There is nothing more con-
tagious than personal example. The virtues and the vices of the
leader tend to be imitated by the members of the group. The
attitudes, tastes, prejudices, and ideals of the leader tend to be
unconsciously absorbed. The sum total of the leader's attitudes.
328 CIVIC EDUCATION
tastes, prejudices, and ideals constitutes his personality. Ideals thus
become “inspiring” when they are exemplified in the life of an
individual, and the influence of such an individual leader is limited
only by the positive or negative emotional reactions on the part
of those who are being led.
9. The ninth principle is the principle of utilizing mottoes, slogans,
shibboleths, taboos, and other words or phrases which will tend to unify
or organize for each individual the standards which he is accepting from
the group. Examples of such mottoes stated in the negative are:
“Don’t be a quitter;” “Don’t be yellow;” “Don’t be a mucker,” “a
squealer,” “a pussy-footer;” “Don’t be a cad.” Other examples
stated positively are: “Be square; ” “Be honest;” “The ‘fair play”
boy;” “The square dealers.”
10. The tenth principle is the law of effect. The best way to build
an inhibitive habit in any individual against an antisocial practice
is to associate the practice with dissatisfaction or annoyance. One
such annoyance may be enough to form a permanent inhibition.
The burnt child dreads the fire. The burning was an annoyance.
The boy who is caught in the act of cheating or stealing and who
finds social pressure and disapproval against such practice, may be
permanently cured the moment he feels the sense of shame. In a
former generation the clergyman tried to arouse his hearers to a
“consciousness of sin.” This is good educational psychology. A
strong feeling of dissatisfaction will set up inhibitive tendencies
that will stand in the way of a reaction when the next temptation
COIO.G.S.
The counterpart of this principle is the law of satisfaction. Dewey
says that “inhibition is not sufficient; instincts and impulses must
be concentrated upon positive ends.” When a boy has done a good
deed, when he has rendered a social service, when he has shown
himself trustworthy in word and act, his right action should be
accompanied by satisfaction. This satisfaction may be the result
of an inner “squaring” of his action with his accepted standards.
Or it may be the result of the approval of his superiors and of his
equals of his right action.
11. The eleventh principle is that ideals and attitudes are general-
izations of specific habits. “Build from specific habits by the induc-
tive method,” says Snedden. “Prejudices and attitudes may grow
out of specific habits,” says Bagley, “as when the habits of Sunday
observance, established in early childhood, become more or less
explicitly formulated as ideals and gradually come to express
SAMPLE STUDIES 329
themselves as prejudices which make the lack of observance a
matter of discomfort and annoyance. . . . From the specific habits
of accuracy developed by mathematics, one comes gradually to
idealize accuracy as a method of procedure that will bring desirable
results in other fields.”
12. The final principle is that ideals are best strengthened through
emotional eacperiences. This is almost a corollary of the law of
effect. No amount of reasoning can move a man to act unless his
feelings are also involved. These feelings may not be violent, they
may not be outwardly manifest, but they are ever present as
satisfiers and annoyers, influencing the selective activities of the
mind. It is, therefore, easy to believe that our ideals are influenced
by means of literature and music and other forms of art which
appeal to the emotions. Our actions are determined by our loves
and hates. The more powerful these emotions, the more effective
are the ideals to which they are attached.
The cumulative effect of emotions when they are interacting in
a crowd is still but little understood. It is a well-known fact,
however, that emotional effects are greatly heightened in the
presence of a multitude. Religious fervor is intensified, a war spirit
is spread when men are congregated in meetings. It is for this
reason that an English writer, Mr. F. H. Hayward, in his Spiritual
Foundations of the Future suggests the wider use of celebrations,
pageants, ceremonies, dramatic representations, and other public
performances as a means of stimulating emotional fervor in an
assembled multitude and joining this fervor with such ideas of
patriotism, religion, and human brotherhood as seem most desirable
to be perpetuated.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
1. For students who care to pursue sociological studies basic to
civic education, valuable bibliographical lists of books and articles
can be found in the following: CLow, F. R., Principles of Educational
Sociology; SMITH, W. R., An Introduction to Educational Sociology;
Harvard University, Guide to Readings in Social Ethics and Allied
Subjects; DEw EY AND TUFTs, Ethics; SADLER, M. E. (editor),
Moral Instruction and Training in Schools.
2. Under date of 1920 the (United States) Bureau of Education
published, as Library Leaflet No. 10, a “List of References on
Education for Citizenship” containing over 200 titles of current
articles and books — articles and pamphlets largely preponderating.
3. Useful articles will frequently be found in files of these peri-
odicals: American Journal of Sociology; Educational Administration
and Supervision; Educational Review; Elementary School Journal;
Historical Outlook; Intermational Journal of Ethics: School and
Society; School Review; Survey.
INDEX
Adult case groups, 33; civic practices,
177.
Aims of education, 11.
American history, 60; in civic educa-
tion, 252.
Art agencies in civic education, 220.
Average teachers, 49.
Bibliographical note, 330.
Boy Scout Movement, 181.
Carrigan, Rose A., recommendations
of, 307.
Case groups, 33; illustrated, 41, 109,
131, 258.
Case group method, explained, 245;
illustrated, 78, 185; uses of, 128.
Case problem method, 234.
Chuang, Chai H., recommendations
of, 322. -
Citizenship, indirect factors in, 30.
Civic education, by environment,
174; courses of study in, 236;
demands for, 7; developmental,
122; in first six grades, 237; in
second six grades, 239; indirect, 8;
in secondary schools, 17; meaning
of, 29; means and methods classi-
fied, 187; means and methods of,
258; methods of, 169; needs of,
248; objectives of, 32; opportuni-
ties for, 65; outside of school, 251;
social need for, 35, 121; specific
objectives in, 182; suggestions for,
55; weighting of, 117.
Civic potentialities, variability of, 34.
Civic problems, 61.
Civic prognosis, 184.
Civic selection by schools, 196.
Civic shortages, 37, 135; determined
by jury, 136.
Collective social efficiency, 153.
Community civics, 238.
Community leadership, 52.
Competition for ascendency, 28.
Coöperation, 2; analyzed, 79.
Courses of instruction, 172.
Criminality, 38.
Cultural education, 91.
Cultural groups, 96.
Debatable issues in civic education,
266.
Democracy, education for, 146; evo-
lution of, 159; sociological condi-
tions of, 147; what is it? 151.
Democratic education, 164.
Democratization of school govern-
ment, 195.
Departmental organization, 45.
Developmental objectives, 144.
Developmental readings, 218.
Didactic method, 189, 201.
Drake, Maude E., recommendations
of, 313.
Dramatic projects, 216, 254.
Economic problems, 226.
Education, aims of, 5; broadly
defined, 85; differentiation of, 6;
for democracy, 160; for utilization,
133; meaning of, 83; objectives of,
1; principal kinds of, 12; qualita-
tive distinctions in, 88.
Educational sociology, meaning of,
74; methods in, 77; research in, 75.
Educative processes, 86.
Efficiency, personal, 20.
Elective studies in high schools, 69.
Evaluation, scientific, 114; social,
112.
Fairchild, Milton, the “Perfect Hu-
man Being,” 101.
Family groups, 94.
Federate social groups, 13, 15.
331
332
INDEX
Fellowship groups, 156.
Freedom of teaching, problems of,
270.
Gifted teachers, 48.
Graded schools, 58. -
Grade teachers in urban schools, 57.
Grades, upper, 57. .”
Hatch, Roy W., recommendations of,
3.15.
Heredity and environment, 83.
High schools, small, 54.
Historic school subjects, 50.
History problems, 205.
History studies, 198; in civic educa-
tion, 67, 188; content of, 200;
results of, 202.
History teachers, 55.
Home, the, in civic education, 192.
Industrial democracy, 157.
Junior high school, 66; civic educa-
tion in, 241.
Jury determination of civic short-
ages, 136.
Leadership, 132.
Limitations in human powers, 148.
McCary, Annie L., recommendations
by, 284.
Main Street, 53.
Method, general principles of, 179.
Modern theories of education, 47.
Moore, Clyde B., recommendations
by, 279.
Moral discipline, 102.
Morris, J. W. L., recommendations
by, 320.
Needs for education, 126.
Neighborhood groups, 95.
Objectives, adapted to all learners,
142; developmental and projective,
242. *
Objectives of civic education, kinds
of, 144; methods of finding, 135.
Objectives of general education, 25;
special classifications, 92.
Oligarchy, 150.
Owning farmers, 138.
Peters, Charles C., recommendations
of, 301.
Physical education, 90.
Political groups, 96.
“Principles” in civics, 141.
Problem methods, 222.
Problem of poverty, 224.
Problems, kinds of, 232; of freedom
of teaching, 264; of social justice,
228; of specific aim, 231.
Projective objectives, 144; in history,
204.
Project methods, 210.
Projects, 212; illustrated, 214; in
civic education, 190.
Racial issues, 149.
Readings in civics, 58.
Relative values in education, 124.
Religious groups, 96.
Research in civic education, 245.
Ross, E. A., quoted, 163.
Roys, Abby, recommendations by,
288.
Rural school teachers, 46.
School citizenship, 193.
School discipline in civic education,
191.
School education evaluated, 87.
School government through civic
education, 68.
School subjects, evaluation of, in
in civic education, 253.
Secondary education, reorganization
of, 17.
INDEX
333
Social betterment, 1; by education, 5.
Social classes, civic shortages in, 139.
Social coercion, 27.
Social conflicts, 73.
Social control, 121.
Social democracy, 155.
Social education, aims of, 13; condi-
tions of, 97; democracy in, 277;
historic means of, 170; kinds of, 14;
meaning of, 94; varieties of, 105.
Social evaluation, 111.
Social groupings, problems of, 107.
Social groups contrasted, 118.
Socialization, 4.
Social life, growing complexity of, 39.
Socially efficient man, the, 22.
Social objectives classified, 89.
Social problems, 229.
Social psychology, problems of, 99.
Social repressions, 153.
Social sciences, didactic, 208; free-
dom of teaching, 264; in colleges,
44.
Social science teachers, 266; servile,
273; willful, 274; balanced, 274.
Social values, teaching of, 269.
Social virtues, 27.
Sociological meaning of education, 83.
Sociology, drama of, 3.
Soltes, Mordecai, recommendations
by, 291.
Specialists as leaders, 132.
Specialist teachers, 19.
Standards of social worth, 26, 115, 119.
Superintendents of schools, respon-
sibilities of, 63.
Survey projects, 217.
Teachers as specialists, 19.
Teachers of civic education, 42.
Vocational education, 90; examples
of, 9.
Vocational groups, 95.
Voelker, Paul F., recommendations
by, 325.

Loyal Citizenship
By Thomas HARRIson REED
Professor of Government, University of California
HIS textbook on citizenship and its problems
for the junior high School acquaints the young
student with the fundamental principles of gov-
ernment, economics, and Sociology underlying all
community life. It teaches him that sound gov-
ernment rests upon the industry and high charac-
ter of its citizenry. It gives him a practical con-
ception of the scope of his future duties. It
purposes to make him a loyal patriot without
encouraging him to be priggish in his enthusiasm
for his country.
The motive of the book is the training of students
for citizenship. To this end it emphasizes the
principles underlying government and society.
It impresses on the student at every step his
ethical and civic responsibilities in relation to his
rights and privileges.
Loyal Citigenship will develop an intelligent atti-
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reasons for his faith and pride in the ideals of
America.
Cloth, a + 333 pages. Illustrated
WORLD BOOK COMPANY
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By Fritz-Konrad Kruger
A careful and, authoritative study of the political institutions
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the subject.
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YONKERS-ON-HUDSON, NEW YORK
2126 PRAIRIE AVENUE, CHICAGO

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