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IEDUCATION COMMITTEE.
FIFTH SEASON OF UNIVER-
SITY LECTURES. SYLLABUS
OF SIX LECTURES ON THE
NEEDS OF POPULAR EDUCATION IN
THE UNITED STATES VIEWED IN THE
LIGHT OF ITS TRIUMPHS AND FAIL-
URES.

TWENTIETH CENTURY CLUB, Boston.
EDUCATION COMMITTEE,
FIFTH SEASON OF UNIVERSITY LECTURES
19 O1-19 O2.
SYLLABUS
OF A
COURSE OF SIX LECTURES
ON
The Needs of Popular Education in the United States
Viewed in the Light of its Triumps and Failures,
BOSTON :
J. P. SHULTs, PRINTER, 105 SUMMER STREET.
1901.
A. B
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SYLLABUS OF LECTURES.
LECTURE I.
SURVEY OF ConDITION OF AMERICAN EDUCATION. Some
Account of ITs SUCCESSES AND FAILUREs.
BY DR. CHARLES W. ELIOT,
PRESIDENT OF HARWARD UNIVERSITY.
As a nation we have experienced, along with much success, failure
of various sorts in our efforts to educate the whole people. It was a
stupendous undertaking, and the difficulties have increased with every
generation. Our forefathers expected miracles of prompt enlighten-
ment ; and we are disappointed that diffused education has not
defended us against vices, disorders, crime, insanity, and follies.
But it is not in national education alone that we have suffered disap-
pointments. We have learnt by experience that under the voluntary
system a large portion of the population never goes into a church.
We expected good government to flow from universal suffrage as
naturally as the brook flows from its wooded water-shed ; but uni-
versal suffrage often produces bad government. The Abolitionists
of 1860 and the Republicans of 1865 thought that the negro could
take care of himself if only he ceased to be a slave; but the nation
still has a fearful negro problem on its hands. Free institutions
have not produced in three generations better public service in all
respects than other institutions, although they are more educative
than any other.
Education has been struggling with a huge and novel problem.
We are trying to prepare all American boys and girls for a life of
unprecedented freedom.
Again, American schools and colleges have a task without prece-
dent, because of the extraordinarily varied nature of the families to
which their pupils belong.
Further, our schools and colleges have been trying to prepare
their pupils for a subsequent life out in a world, which has been
shifting and changing with an unprecedented rapidity.
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The transfer of the great majority of the population from the
country to the city has had a profound effect on schools. The recent
natural history study from specimens indoors, the manual training
given in carpentry, forging, filing, and turning, the garden plots and
roof gardens, are all sincere efforts to replace for urban children the
lost training of eye and hand which country life supplied.
Some substantial gains of American schools and colleges during the
past thirty years.- First, the kindergarten. The best effect of the
kindergarten is produced by its insistence on invariable gentleness,
on interesting little children, and on avoiding long periods of atten-
tion to one subject. Schools and colleges have learnt much from
kindergartens about the importance of dealing with the individual
child rather than with large groups of children.
In the selection of the studies of the first eight school years out
the twelve there has been substantial improvement. There are more
observation studies in the programme; less Arithmetic, and a little
more Geometry; less Spelling and Grammar, and more Literature ;
wiser teaching of Geography as a natural history subject, and a
better teaching of History. The urgent need of the first eight
grades is greater attention to the individual.
The programmes of secondary schools have also been improved.
Fewer subjects are now required of the individual pupil than
formerly, though more subjects are taught in the schools. The
postponement of the forking of the ways in all secondary schools,
and the gradual introduction of the elective system into such schools
are both valuable improvements.
The education of teachers on the average has greatly improved.
It has been a great gain to require for admission to the normal
schools the previous accomplishment of a high School course of study.
The examination for admission to a city school system is better than
it used to be, and positions are filled to a much greater extent than
formerly by sensible competitive methods based on proved merit.
Another encouraging feature is the steady approach toward an
adequate pension system.
There has been an increasing employment of educational experts
in the supervising and executive functions of urban school systems.
The former method of entrusting executive functions to small sub-
committees of a large school committee is passing away, and we may
reasonably hope that that method will soon be extinct.
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A remarkable increase has taken place within the past fifteen
years in the proportion of American children who attend secondary
schools; and it would be difficult to imagine a greater educational
gain for the whole country.
Success in the higher education of the country.— The greatest
success of the last thirty years is the complete adoption of the
elective system in a few institutions, and its partial and progressive
introduction in almost all; and the standard of attainment for pro-
fessors has been very much raised. In no department of education
has greater improvement been made during the past generation than
in professional education.
Other developments of the past thirty years have had influence
along the whole line from the primary school through the university.
The first is the higher education of children of all ages. Lives of
strenuous activity and earnest service justify the higher education
either for men or women.
With characteristic American intensity athletic sports have been
greatly exaggerated ; yet incalculable good has resulted from them.
Men and women who are to be devoted to the intellectual life espe-
cially need a sound physical training in youth and an inextinguish-
able liking for out-of-door exercise.
In our country education is the one agency for promoting intelli-
gence and righteousness which has unquestionably gained power in
the United States during the last half century. The efficiency of
legislatures, and the respect in which they are held, have unques-
tionably declined. The courts are as a whole less efficient and less
respected today than they were a generation or two generations ago.
Reverence for law is not maintained at its old level. The Church
and its ministers cannot be said to have risen in public estimation
since the Cival War. Legislature, court, and church seem to be
passing through some organic transition which temporarily impairs
their power; but schools and colleges in the United States, while
changing and developing rapidly, have suffered no impairment of
vigor or influence. -
There must be some sure-working practical tests of the efficiency
of popular education. Can they be stated ? Concerning an educated
individual, we may fairly ask, Can he see straight? Can he recog-
the fact? Next, Can he draw a just inference from established
facts * Thirdly, Has he self-control? Do his passions run away with
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him P Do untoward events daunt him 2 These are fair tests of his
mental and moral capacity. One other test we may fairly apply to
an educated individual: Does he continue to grow in power and in
wisdom throughout his life 2 These tests are difficult of application
to a nation. The success with which the American people get their
livelihood shows that there is much soundness in their mental train-
ing. Millions of them must be able to observe accurately and to
infer justly. Whenever the American people through the reasoning
power of millions gets over a delusion, it sheds light on the efficiency
of its own education. Do their passions run away with the people?
They did not after the Civil War on either side, the forbearance of
the Confederates being as remarkable as that of the Unionists.
They did not at the close of the fighting with the poor Spaniards in
Cuba. Do untoward events daunt the people 2 No. As a rule,
our population bears calamities with constancy and calmness.
Can we apply to the education of the nation the fruitional test
which we do finally apply to the education of an individual? As
the national life grows broad and rich, does the national soul or
spirit grow with it? Does mental and spiritual progress keep pace
with material? In regard to the mental powers of the population,
whenever new machines have required more intelligent men behind
them, the nation has invariably supplied the needed men on demand.
The people rise to their higher work. It has grown to its expanding
and novel industries, arts, and commerce; and has clearly done its
daily work better than competing nations. The effective morality
of a nation can be approximately estimated by the efforts it makes
at moral reform, consciously or unconsciously. Somehow slavery is
gone, and intemperance has been checked and made disgraceful.
The results are evidence of the moral forces which produced them.
In the whole history of sculpture can anyone point to a more inform-
ing, inspiring, and touching military monument than the Shaw
monument on Boston Common 2 The use made of riches is another
test of the moral condition and standards of a people. Now the
stream of gifts from private persons to schools, colleges, universi-
ties, libraries, art galleries, museums, and laboratories in the United
States flows in a volume which has never been approached in the
history of the world. We may press on together towards our
national goal — the perfecting of individual citizenship in a Christian
democracy.
LECTURE II.
THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM.
BY DR. WILLIAM DEWITT HYDE,
PRESIDENT OF BOW DOIN COLLEGE.
The ends of education are three : to earn a living; to support the
institutions of society; and to enjoy life.
This threefold standard requires of the elementary school first of
all the health of the children as the condition of usefulness, service-
ableness, and enjoyment. It calls for power of hand and eye to
appreciate and make beautiful objects. Manual training, drawing,
and the kindergarten restricted to its proper place in the years
below six or seven are the approved means to this end.
Reading should teach the reading habit. Arithmetic should be
restricted to the limits of probable utility for the average person,
and the time saved be given to the elements of algebra and geometry,
and the development of mathematical principles and power. Geogra-
phy should start with actual observation of phenomena, and prepare
for real or imaginary travel. History should grow out of myth and
biography into the story of national life. Science should be training
in observation, reasoning, and the satisfaction of aroused curiosity.
A foreign language should teach the principles of all grammar.
Promotion should be frequent and irregular, with encouragement
and opportunity to bright scholars to skip the lower grades. Exam-
ination should test memory on a few definitely prescribed essentials.
The discipline of the school should be ethical ; assuming right
intentions, appealing to reason and good will.
The new curriculum and the new discipline for elementary
schools is at length theoretically accepted. The difficulty is to get
the teachers. The new curriculum and the new spirit requires the
teacher in both knowledge and character to be years in advance of
the pupil. The valedictorian of a woman's college will find oppor-
tunity to apply the substance of all her intellectual and spiritual
training in the elementary public school.
The public school as it is today is vastly better than the elongated,
private kindergartens which cater to the children of the rich. Unless
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imperative considerations prevent, the public school is the place
where every American boy and girl ought to be trained.
The problem of the high school is today mainly one of organiza-
tion. It is simply a continuation of the elementary school subjects,
but by intensive and scientific, instead of general and descriptive,
methods. Science must be taught by the laboratory instead of the
text-book; history by many books rather than one; literature by
reading the masterpieces instead of a manual about them ; language
with a view to power.
Classical, commercial, and industrial high schools as separate
institutions are undemocratic. The best organization is in a single
course, with a basis of requirement for all in subjects like English,
algebra, and American history and government; and the rest open
to choice under guidance. Graduation should depend on a specified
number of completed studies, and may come at the end of four, five,
or six years.
Hitherto the colleges have worked great injury to the high schools
by the narrowness of their requirements. Henceforth the colleges
should connect with all substantial high school courses, and stimulate
them all to a high level of efficiency by uniform examinations in all
accepted subjects. The certificate system, already proving itself a
partial failure, will result in utter disaster if extended to these newer
subjects. A joint examination board for New England, together
with a return to the practice of admission by examination, is a cry-
ing educational need of New England today.
The argument that the high school should not be supported by the
many because it is attended by the few is utterly false and fallacious.
The indirect benefits of the high school in improving the quality of
the teaching in the elementary schools, lifting the standard of busi-
ness efficiency, public service, and general intelligence, are incalcu-
lable.
For a boy or girl with a good home, and parents who think it
worth while to give them a reasonable amount of attention and com-
panionship at this critical stage, the public high school is infinitely
better than the average private, money-making boarding school.
The public high school is the unique American contribution to edu-
cation. When emancipated from narrow college domination in the
substance, yet inspired by college examinations in the quality of its
courses, wisely adapted to the various needs of its pupils, generously
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supported by taxpayers who believe the best teaching none too good
for their children, the high schools are destined to play a leading
part in making America the land of intelligent workmen, loyal
citizens, and happy people.
State universities are the logical completion of a public school
system. In pioneer conditions of both East and West they have
done splendid service. They have a great future. *
That these institutions are good and useful is self-evident. Are
they the best, and will they or ought they ultimately to overshadow
the endowed college and university ? Twenty years ago the example
of Germany would have been sufficient to settle the question in
favor of the state university. But we are at length growing a bit
tired of the German's peculiar ideal of scholarship with its zeal to
heap up new acquisitions of knowledge regardless of relative worth,
or attractiveness of form, or any practical or aesthetic use. We are
making new demands of our teachers. The doctor's hood is good.
The knowledge and technical skill which it is supposed to signify is
still essential. But we ask other questions. Was he a leader
among his fellows in college 2 Does he understand undergraduates ?
Is he genial and winning in manner * Has he keenness and humor 2
Has he tact to get his ends accomplished without clashing with
young men's instincts of freedom and independence 2 Does he so
live in his subject that the meaning and worth of it overflow into all
that he says and does 2 Is he in good health, a man among man 2
Can he live on his salary 2 Does he stand well with the authorities
in his own department, and will he add reputation to his institution ?
Not more than two or three men in the fifty candidates for every
college vacancy can get an average of A or B plus on all these and
kindred questions which have to be asked. The endowed institutions
on the whole are more likely to insist on personal considerations
than the more democratically administered state institutions, and are
more likely to hold such men by adequate salaries and freedom in
method and amount of work.
The besetting sin of higher education is the tendency to resort to
devices which get something out of everybody. It is easier to put
grammar and philology into everybody, than literary taste and
appreciation into a few. These temptations beset us all ; but the
state institution is rather more sorely tempted to yield to them.
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A university can never create a genius out of one into whom God
has not already breathed the breath of artistic life. But it ought to
discover special talent, and at least not stifle and repress its expres-
sion. The elective system, common to all institutions, is the greatest
step in that direction which mere organization can take. Other
steps are equally important. Teachers selected for a great combi-
nation of qualities, generously paid, left comparatively free to
accomplish results in their own way, and esteemed for the quality of
their influence ; concentration in single departments of resources out
of all proportion to those of other departments in the same institu-
tion, so that students will select the institution in large measure
with reference to the department and the men they desire ; curricula
so arranged that the choicest courses, which give intimate com-
panionship with the greatest teachers, shall be the prize, not of pro-
longed residence in the graduate school alone, but of exceptional
excellence in the promising undergraduate, thus saving to the cause
of pure scholarship the best men among the undergraduates and
rescuing the profession of teaching from the inferior men who will
be left to monopolize it unless the best men can be more personally
and vitally reached at an earlier stage in their course : — these are
steps on which the future of higher education depends; and these
are rather more likely to be taken in endowed than in state institu-
tions.
LECTURE III.
SUPPLEMENTARY EDUCATIONAL AGENCIES.
BY DR. GEORGE HARRIS,
PRESIDENT OF AMEHERST COLLEGE.
Educational agencies other than the public school might be regarded
as complementary rather than supplementary. The relative import-
ance of other kinds and methods of education need not be measured.
There certainly is no competition between the school and the home,
between the school and the state, the church, the library, the news-
paper. Some of the agencies which cover the whole of life may and
should make a beginning at School.
The object of education is more than training for a lucrative pur-
suit, more than making good citizens, for pursuits and citizenship are
means to higher ends. The principal object of life is enjoyment, that
is, the fulness, beauty, nobility of life. A man may find enjoyment in
his savings, his wealth, but a true man should enjoy himself, and not
merely the thing he has wrought which is external to himself. True
enjoyment or fulness and completeness, is in the satisfaction of those
powers and tastes which can be satisfied only from the open sources.
Acquaintance with the best literature, with art, with great and good
characters, with the truths, ideals, and duties of religion is essential
to the enjoyment or fulness of life.
There are several specific agencies which supplement or continue
the education of the school. First and greatest is reading. Ability to
read is given in the schools. There are few illiterate people in this
country, and nearly all who can read learned to read in school. The
love of reading should be created. This is done by reading or hear-
ing interesting fiction, biography, travels, history, poetry, the news-
paper. In every school-building there should be a reading-room
with a library of interesting books. If the schools create a love of
reading, education is supplemented by supplying the people with
books, magazines, and newspapers. This is best done by libraries.
With libraries to use, go correspondence courses, lecture courses,
university extension work.
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Next to reading, which has to do with the human world, comes
knowledge and appreciation of the natural world. This is promoted
by life in the country, by parks near cities and large towns, by study
of flowers and plants in school, by stories of ranch life, of ascent of
mountains, of voyages and perils of the sea.
At one remove from the human and the natural world, yet beauti-
fying and idealizing them, is Art. The artistic instinct is universal.
Greek art and medieval religious art have had a profound educating
influence. Photography is almost as beneficent an invention as
printing. There should be well chosen photographs in every school-
room, and the story should be told, the historical setting given, the
master made known. The public library is an excellent place for
pictures. A tenth of the income of a library may wisely be expended
on good photographs and books on art.
Music is a refining and educating agency. One who learns to
sing or play well gains appreciation of great musical creations.
Choral societies should be formed in every city and village.
The Drama is an educator. It is always a teacher of morality:
the good man must be vindicated and the villian punished in plays
which otherwise are wholly unmeritorious. It is a pity there are so
many inane plays, but enough good plays are acted to make the
theatre a valuable educational agency.
Besides the agencies which pertain chiefly to the education, enjoy-
ment and culture of the individual there are high ends for the attain-
Inent of which individuals combine and in the attainment of which
they are educated.
The State is men organized for certain objects, to have specific
things done, which can be best done if done at all only in co-operation.
Democracy has come to stay, and progress must proceed by the in-
telligence and honesty of the people. The affairs of a town, debated
in shops, on the corners, at home and in the town meeting engage
every citizen in the study of the common good. Municipal govern-
ment, or misgovernment educates the people of a city. The recent
campaign in New York shows a hundred thousand voters intelli-
gent as to the needs of the city, honest, uncorrupted. It was an
object lesson to the whole country and is prophetic of the over-
throw of municipal misrule everywhere. A national election is
an education in economics one year, in finance another year, in the
uplifting of an inferior race another year, in the rights and interests
of neighboring and distant islands another year. The school has
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a relation to intelligent citizenship. Young people should have
patriotism inculcated, and should be taught the principles of govern-
ment, the history of the country, the issues of politics. The press is
an educational agency in respect to the State. The independent
press is growing, and nearly all newspapers exert a steady influ-
ence in favor of wisdom and righteousness. The unanimity of the
press of New York City in the recent election is the most significant
feature of the campaign. Many of our ablest men sit in editors'
chairs, exerting an impersonal but mighty educational influence.
The Church in America reaches more than three-fourths of the
people. It is said that the authority of the church is not what it
used to be ; that the clergy have fallen rather than risen in general
estimation. It is true that people do not attend church as regularly
and numerously as in some former times and that they bow to no
human authority. But authority is not always influence. Preach-
ing is more an educating influence than it ever was. The gospel of
the kingdom of God on earth is now preached. Stress is not laid
wholly on the future salvation of the individual, but men are called
out of selfishness, out of spiritual selfishness, to service of their
fellowmen. Preaching is ethical not dogmatic. Worship is digni-
fying and refining in prayers that are reverent and sympathetic, and in
hymns which are the possession of all churches and all ages. The
English Bible, which is the best literature in the language, is read in
the hearing of all and the people become familiar with its truth
expressed in noble diction. The church keeps school on Sunday.
The Bible is not as familiar as when it was read, studied and much
of it committed to memory in the home. The rising generation is
not saturated with scripture as the fathers were. Since the school
and the home lay on the church the task of teaching the Bible, the
church has great educational work to do.
The Home. Civilization and progress rest upon the intelligence,
purity and affection of the home. To maintain a true home, to be
charged with the nurture and education of children, to engage as
father, mother, child, brother, sister, in services of mutual helpful-
ness, is to bear a large part in social regeneration.
There is a marked tendency to degeneration in the modern family.
The actual sign of it is frequency of divorce. The city is unfavorable
to domestic life, by the demands of society and business at the upper
end, by tenement life, work of women and children in factories and
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shops, frequent change of abode at the lower end. A direct work
to be done is in respect to laws of marriage and divorce. There
will probably be increasing strength to the reaction against easy
divorce, and a nearer uniformity in the laws of the several States.
Indirectly whatever improves the condition of laborers, gives more
permanence to residence, provides more comfortable dwellings,
better education, healthful and innocent amusements, promotes the
welfare of the family. The exercise of hospitality is educative. No
greater educational and social service can be rendered than the service
possible to those who have homes. Home and school are comple-
mental for they re-enforce each other.
The school should not take more than five hours a day five days
a week. It should be an educational crime to require or allow children
under fifteen years of age to take their books home. What is a
child's life for if not for enjoyment, society, home and out of doors 2
We have traversed in a cursory way, various fields which hold the
treasures that enrich human life. The State, the Church, the Home
are frame works within which are the woven fabrics of intellectual,
aesthetic, moral and religious patterns of enjoyment, beauty and per-
fection. Books, nature, art, music, the tragedy and comedy of life,
patriotism, worship, faith and hope and love give the satisfactions
and enjoyments of life, the myriad supply for the myriad-sided man.
Nobody enjoys them all, nobody is deprived of all. Every one can
minister to another in the translation of some one or several of these
rich attainments of mind and heart.
LECTURE IV.
THE PLACE of INDUSTRIAL AND TECHNICAL TRAINING IN
POPULAR FDUCATION.
BY DR. HENRY S. PRITCHETT,
PRESIDENT OF THE MA88. IN8TITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY.
The higher forms of industrial and technical training are receiv-
ing more attention in America than any other part of our educa-
tional processes. In the last forty years the number of technical
schools and universities giving instruction in such subjects has grown
enormously. Meanwhile, all these advantages are confined to the
relatively few who are to be trained as leaders in the industrial
army. It is worth while, therefore, to ask what is being done, and
what can be done for those who are in training for positions as super-
intendents, foremen and skilled workmen in our great industries.
“The Place of Industrial and Technical Training in Popular
Education,” — the very wording of the subject assumes that there
is a distinction between education and training, and that the latter is
a factor in the former. Education in the broader sense is a bring-
ing of the soul into broader contact with all other souls. Most
human lives confront additionally the problem of earning a livelihood.
This can best be done, under existing conditions, by expertness in
some one direction. Education intended to give such expertness we
call training. It is a part of the proper work of the school.
Even after two thousand years of discussion a difficulty besetting
all serious enquirers is the question what to teach in order to edu-
cate. Still, on the whole, these two aims, the broader education
and the training for expertness, have resulted in two general theories.
The first upholds a broad and liberal education ; the second
recommends the narrow path of professional expertness. Corre-
sponding to these theories we have two sorts of institutions, one
attempting to give education with little or no training, and the
other training with little or no education.
The vital problem before American colleges today is how to
combine these two aims. In dealing with popular education this
question confronts us as a practical problem. There are sixteen
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million persons in the United States between the ages of fifteen and
twenty-four. For twelve millions the opportunity of the regular day
school has gone by. Can a rational and feasible plan be devised
by which this large majority may have opportunity to increase their
efficiency by training in schools such as they can find time to
attend ?
Fifteen years ago the city of Berlin undertook the solution of this
problem. In addition to the work of the city day schools a system
of commercial and industrial education was planned for those who,
while earning a living, are ambitious for further improvement.
These schools are, in general, free, and are held in the evenings and
on Sunday mornings from nine to twelve. They may be divided
into two classes : continuation schools (Fortbildungsschulen) and
trade schools (Fachschulen). The Fortbildungsschulen are in four
groups. The first is the evening commercial schools, of which there
are four, teaching German, French, English, mercautile arithmetic,
book-keeping, drawing, mathematics, physics, stenography and type-
writing. The second group includes twelve for boys and thirteen
for girls. The purpose of the boys' schools is to offer those in a
practical calling such advanced studies as may “aid in their calling
and strengthen their morals"; that of the girls’ schools is “to im-
prove their general education, to Bupply mental stimulus, for fixing
serious views of life; to cherish the inclination and the skill for
suitable woman's work.” Both the boys and the girls are taught
German, French, English, arithmetic, drawing, book-keeping, stenog-
raphy and type-writing, and, to some extent, history, geography and
commerce. The boys are given additional mathematics, elementary
sciences and drawing. The girls have instruction in certain house-
hold arts, and in commercial correspondence. The third group of
continuation schools is the mercantile Schools, while the fourth is
for the blind and the deaf.
The second class of evening schools, the Fachschulen or trade
schools, are intended to make up for the lack of formative power in
shops due to changed customs and wages, and to the great subdivi-
sion of labor. These are very varied in character. Among those
supported by the city are textile schools, for merchants, journeymen,
apprentices and embroiderers; two artisan schools, with courses in
cabinet-making, painting, modeling, and metal work; the school of
architecture for workmen and master builders; the City Trades-hall
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*r
for machine builders and the like ; a school of joinery ; and some
twenty-one special trade schools.
It is worth while to compare with these results the opportunities
of a similar kind open to a clerk or journeyman in Boston. The
evening high schools and the free evening drawing schools serve the
same class of pupils as attend the first and second groups of continua-
tion schools just described, and are similar in the range of subjects
taught. There is no city school in Boston corresponding to the
monotechnic schools of Berlin. The ambitious Boston workman
who seeks improvement in his own craft by any other training than
that afforded him by his employer will find but limited facilities, and
these maintained solely by private means. The Y. M. C. A., and
the Y. M. C. U., the North End Union, the South End Union, the
Massachusetts Charitable Mechanics' Association, the North Bennett
Street Industrial School, the Wells Memorial Institute, the Womans’
Educational and Industrial Union,-- these represent the opportuni-
ties for formal instruction in the arts and crafts for working men and
women in this city.
Another means of instruction has been recently opened to the
ambitious wage-earner in the correspondence schools. The number
enrolled in correspondence schools exceeds considerably the total
enrollment of all the colleges and technical schools of the United
States. The large majority are in search of elementary technical
training. This completes the list of facilities open to working people
for higher training.
The contrast between these two cities should prove instructive.
In Berlin they have dealt with the problem as a whole. Their
system is at once comprehensive, elastic, and representative of the
whole people. It is worth our study as a comprehensive and sys-
tematic effort to do what we are doing in Boston in a desultory way.
The reasons commonly given by those who believe that we should
adopt the German system are too narrowly utilitarian. Though
good industrial schools are undoubtedly necessary to industrial
supremacy, what is even more important is that the introduction of
such schools would make our system of popular education really
popular. Eighty per cent of all children are withdrawn from school
on the completion of the preparatory school course. The schooling
acquired by longer stay is felt to be of no benefit in the trade or
commercial career looked forward to. Further, the introduction of
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commercial and industrial training into our school system will help
to maintain the dignity of labor. Finally, such schools would be
valuable, in a democratic community, as a means of holding together
the whole body of citizens by a common thread of interest.
It is fair to ask, in view of all this, what change should be made
in our public school system to make it minister to the whole people.
Undoubtedly no sweeping change should be made, for our system
of education is still in an experimental stage. Thus far we have
found out that one school cannot teach every subject; that there is
such a thing as too much teaching, and such a thing as teaching too
much ; that there are no specifics in education ; and that every
branch of human knowledge has a value for some soul, if one only
knew how and when and to whom to teach it.
The things to be taught a given class of pupils will depend, then,
in some degree, on the environment and the life-purpose of the
pupils. What they shall be is a question of individual human judg-
ment. We struggle with this question in dealing with the larger
problem of what our public school system should be, and how it
should be conducted. For its solution we need to consult not only
the intellectually able and sincere, but those whose convictions
represent the convictions and the aspirations of our entire citizen-
ship. In a system devised by such men technical schools adapted to
the needs of those whom they are intended to serve will assuredly
find a place.
LECTURE W.
THE PLACE AND FUNCTION OF SCIENCE IN PopUI.AR EDUCATION.
BY DR, IRA REMSEN,
PRESIDENT OF THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY.
The attempt will be made to give answers to four questions.
1. What are science studies as distinguished from other studies?
2. What ought science studies to accomplish *
3. How far do science studies accomplish what they are intended
to accomplish *
4. How can science courses be improved 2
1. What are science studies as distinguished from other studies 2
Science studies are, or ought to be, distinguished from all other
kinds of study by the fact that they bring the pupil into direct contact
with the things or phenomena he is studying. He is called upon to
use his own eyes and his own mind. There is a direct connection
between statements he may make and facts that he himself knows
to be true as a result of his own experience. In their first stages,
in their simplest forms, this should be the most prominent feature of
science studies. Any course of study that depends largely upon what
a lecturer may say or upon what he may read in a book can never
be a science course, no matter what the subject, no matter how good
the lecturer or how good the book. The essential feature of direct-
ness is lacking. So also the emphasizing of the theories of a science,
no matter how important those theories may be or how well they
may be established, should not play an important part in a science
course in its early stages. So far as this fact may be lost sight of
the course is not scientific. It is not scientific, for example, to
present and discuss the atomic theory in an elementary course in
chemistry, or the electro-magnetic theory of light in an elementary
course in physics or the nebular hypothesis in the early part of any
course. The pupil must learn how knowledge is acquired by direct
study. This lesson must be impressed upon his mind before he can
profitably take up the profound thoughts to which scientific investi-
gators have gradually been lead — thoughts which are based upon
an immense accumulation of facts learned by the process of direct
contact.
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It is obvious that however valuable other kinds of study may be
(and nobody denies their value), they lack this feature of direct
contact with the things or the phenomena studied.
Take language studies for example. Plainly in these emphasis
is necessarily laid upon words singly and in combination. The
danger in this is that the pupil will come to magnify the importance
of words as such, and to look upon the ability to use words skilfully
as an end in itself. The glib talker, the shallow and voluminous
writer are not unknown, and to some extent they are encouraged in
our schools and colleges.
Again take mathematics. Perhaps no subject is better adapted
to the development of the purely logical faculty. But it lacks
the feature of direct contact, and an exclusive course in mathematics
would tend to magnify the importance of symbols and purely mental
processes. The pupil cannot clearly see where the body of knowl-
edge he is dealing with comes from, and he is obliged to accept the
statements of his teachers or his book as final. He does not acquire
his knowledge at first hand.
In history the sources of information are still farther removed
from the observation of the pupil. He has to learn statements
about matters that even the writer of the book he is studying has
obtained from other books.
2. What ought science studies to accomplish Ż
It is generally said that the object of science studies should be to
develop the powers of observation. That is true, but it is far from
being the whole truth. There are other, perhaps better, ways of de-
veloping this power than by pursuing elementary courses in science.
Life on a farm or life out of doors in many ways tends in this
direction. The savage probably has the keenest powers of observa-
tion possessed by any members of the human race. He gets his
knowledge and his power, not by studying books, but by direct contact
with the things around him ; that is, by the scientific method.
Science courses should teach more than the power to observe. They
should teach how to draw conclusions. They show.ld lead to a scien-
tific state of mind. By this is meant a state of mind that enables
the possessor of it to take the most direct, the simplest, course in
dealing with any problem that may be submitted to him ; that
enables him to see through the mere talker, through shams, and to
go back to the facts and draw his conclusions from them; that en-
21
ables him to discriminate between what is known and what is
imagined.
2. How far do science studies accomplish what they are intended to
accomplish 3
This is a very difficult question to answer. Probably the average
course in science has comparatively little effect in the way of putting
the pupil in a scientific state of mind. Still, if this kind of study is
right in principle, and in regard to this there can probably be no
doubt, the pupil ought to have at least a taste of it. Some pupils
will, of course, be much more benefited than others. Some will be
inspired by this kind of work. No one can be harmed by it. If the
courses were what they ought to be, all the pupils ought to be,
and probably would be, benefited by them. The ideal course would
be one in which the pupil should make daily observations and should
spend a certain amount of time in reflecting upon what he has
observed, and then from time to time he should be led to see the
connection between his own observations and some of the important
generalizations that have been reached, which taken together form
the ground work of the sciences.
Now, all this cannot be accomplished by turning the pupil loose
in the laboratory and letting him experiment without supervision.
The questioning teacher is necessary in order that good results may
be reached. The teacher has a splendid opportunity. Questions in
regard to work done in the laboratory are of much more value than
questions on matters studied from books or heard in lectures. If
this kind of work should be carried on faithfully for a sufficient
length of time, and the mind of the pupil be not clogged by other
things, he should be, and would be, benefited by it. We have,
however, no means of judging what the results would be,
for such ideal courses are practically unknown. At present, in most
places, science courses play a very minor part. What the effect
would be of increasing the amount of time devoted to these courses
no one can tell. I believe that they are coming into greater and
greater prominence as time passes, and I believe that this is to to the
advantage of the pupils.
4. How can science courses be improved 2
Some ways by which these courses can be improved in general
have been pointed out already. What is most needed is that the
courses should be made more scientific. Everything that is labeled
22
Scientific is not necessarily scientific. Indeed, some of the most
unscientific courses I have ever known have been called scientific.
Studying chemistry by listening to a lecturer and seeing him do
things or by reading a book may be scientific as far as it goes, but
is more likely to be most unscientific. Even experimenting in a
laboratory is not necessarily scientific. Imperfect observations of com-
plex phenomena, and the writing of statements, supposed to be
based upon what has been seen, but really drawn largely from the
printed laboratory guide — these processes are not scientific, and
they cannot lead to good results. They are more likely to do harm
than good, as they involve waste of time and give false impressions
in regard to scientific methods.
The proper guidance of science courses demands the constant
attention of the teacher; and, further, the teacher must have a full
appreciation of what is meant by the scientific method. Such teach-
ers are rare, whether in school, or college, or university. Undoubt-
edly the teachers of languages and mathematics are, in general,
better fitted for their work than the teachers of science. It seems
to me that what is needed in our science courses is greater simplicity.
The simpler phenomena should be studied so that the pupils mind
may be able to cope with the things he sees. And so, too, the
thoughts presented to him should be simple. He should really
understand what he is doing and what he is talking about. If he
shows a tendency to use words or symbols without being able to
explain what they mean, he should be corrected, just as if the course
were one in language or in mathematics.
In regard to the laboratory work which must be made the basis of
science courses, more care should be given by the teacher to secure
good work. The pupil should be compelled to avoid slovenliness. A
bad piece of apparatus is as bad as a bad piece of grammar or a bad
mathematical demonstration. And then, in telling the story of his
work whether orally or in writing, the pupil should be held respon-
sible for faults in language as well as in observation. Accuracy is
an important feature of scientific work, and this the pupil should be
led to feel.
LECTURE WI.
CoMPARIson of AMERICAN AND FOREIGN SYSTEMs of PopULAR
EDUCATION.
BY DR. G. STANLEY HALL,
PHESIDENT OF CLARK UNIVERSITY.
This country has always profited greatly from Europe in educa-
tion. Harvard and the old New England College was English ; the
University of Virginia and the New York system of Regents was
French : the Johns Hopkins and the higher post-graduate movement,
which started here, was German. Many European professors have
had eminent careers here. Barnard and his great journal were
essentially importers of information from abroad, while Horace
Mann found a new light. We claim Comenius, Pestalozzi, Rous-
seau, Froebel and Herbart as our own. We read or teach Quick,
Fitch, Compayré, Paulsen and Landon. Many books like those of
Prince and Seeley describing primary, and Bolton and Russell de-
scribing secondary education in Europe, have had a wholesome
influence.
There is much abroad that we do not want, and perhaps no less
that we want, but cannot incorporate in our national system. We
do not want the early separation of the sexes; the fees in public
schools; state religions; the system of privileges or rewards of
office; the low salaries; the high degree of centralization and the
absence of local control; a Minister of Education with a seat in the
cabinet and the lower house of Congress, who is a court of final
appeal, controls appointments from the university down, and deter-
mines courses and text-books. We cannot have the stimulus of
remitting a year of military service for those who pass examinations
on the first year or two of the high school course. Few of our
teachers wish to reside with their families in the schoolhouses, with
heat and light provided by the state. The school board of Boston
and other cities would not resign most of their power, including
appointments, text-books, courses, etc., to the State Board of Educa-
tion. We do not want the dormitory system of the lycée; the high
mental pressure and absence of physical exercise of the gymnasium;
the fagging system or the uniforms of the English schools. We
24
would not import the German Commers or Mensur; and there is a
subtle, national influence that is indigenous and cannot be transferred
from one land to another.
Most of this lecture is devoted to lessons which we can learn from
Europe. Some of these are the following : —
1. A local committee or Worstand for every school, a scheme that
might be helpful in some communities here. -
2. Professional training for all teachers instead of the small per-
centage found in this country.
3. Arrest of the progressive feminization of primary and high
schools in the proportion of both teachers and pupils.
4. The requirements of at least a complete college education for
all high school teachers, and of university training in upper classes.
5. More professional courses in colleges and universities for those
intending to teach. -
6. The abolition of lesson setting and recitation as now practiced
and more instruction by the teacher, with fewer text-books, possible
only when teachers are more educated.
7. The emancipation of the high schools, which in number and in
attendance have more than doubled in ten years, from the excessive
dominance of college entrance requiremsnts. In Massachusetts, e.g.,
where 13,000 children enter the high schools each year and less than
1000 of them proceed to college, we need a new association to
develop the interests of the high school as the people's college.
Entrance examinations are almost unknown in Europe, and are
diminishing in the West, where college and university receive all the
best graduates with no further test than the school diploma. Easy
in and hard out is the coming rule for college and university, where
entrance is made easier and a degree harder.
8. Modifications in the teaching of English, physics, Latin, algebra,
and natural science are called for, also an earlier separation between
those who are to go to college and those who are not.